Mars in fiction from red-colored vegetation, and Schiaparelli observed what he took to be linear features on the face of Mars, which he thought might be water channels. Because the Italian for channels is "canali", English translations tended to render the word as "canals", implying artificial construction. Lowell's books on Mars expanded on this notion of Martian canals, and a standard model of Mars as a drying, cooling, dying world was established. It was frequently speculated that ancient Martian civilizations had constructed irrigation works that spanned the planet in an attempt at saving their dying world. This concept spawned a large number of
Terraforming of Mars have risen high enough for seas and rivers to form. The 1993 space trading and combat game "", as well as its sequels "" (1995) and "Elite Dangerous" (2014), feature a terraformed Mars. The 1997 PC Real-time strategy game "Dark Colony" is based on a human-terraformed Mars, featuring a war between the colonizing humans and invading aliens of various life forms, with much use of biological warfare. The aliens try to colonize the terraformed planet for its resources. The 2009 video game "" is set on a partially terraformed Mars, in which human beings are able to walk and breathe