The Mars Crater occupies a large portion of the northern hemisphere of Mars, and is believed (by astronomers) to have been caused by the impact of a (small) planet sized object at some point in the distant past. During the terraforming process, a number of great dragons involved in the spaceflight and terraforming programs banded together with the Corporate Court and issued a public announcement that the Mars Crater “has been declared a draconic/corporate protectorate, and is hereby off-limits to all non-sanctioned beings.” Metahumanity had learned by the 2070’s that questioning the will of dragons (and megacorps) leads quickly to trouble, so the announcement was mostly taken in stride, but message boards are still filled with speculation about the reasons (possibly the associated magical phenomena),and it is a popular narrative device in various Mars-based trideo and sim programs. Mars City was built south of the equator and part way around the planet to ensure that expansion in all directions wouldn’t interfere with the forbidden zone. The great dragon/CC alliance does offer permits for some limited harvest of the variety of magical plants that grow solely in the Mars Crater, but these permits are monopolized by AAA megacorps, so public access is essentially non-existent. This has not stopped a large number of enterprising settlements from springing up in the vicinity of the crater to allow for illicit harvest ops. One of the largest of these settlements is the Egyptian exile community of Heliopolis, and it’s governing corp, Colossus.