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Hoygan Stallt and the Out-And-Back
 Image from Tasp | |
| The first few meters of Hoygan Stallt's famous sprint were caught on an external habitat camera. | |
Stallt, a first-generation settler from WestHem Earth and probably impoverished by the Great Downturn, had arrived in Port Robinson only a handful of years before. Lacking any Martian genetic tweaks, he spent some months prior to the stunt secretly training for burst performance and low-pressure environments. On Lavoisier 8, 173 AT, he and an unnamed accomplice 1 overrode the security controls on a maintenance airlock in an edge sector of the Port Robinson hab in which he lived. Wearing only a pair of toughened moccasins, he emerged at a full sprint, aiming for a nearby rock formation (later dubbed the Hoyganraak), with the intent to touch it and return to the airlock. Although he had planned for about 15 seconds of activity, the unaccustomed terrain underfoot and the shock of exposure caused him to move much slower than expected. He was barely able to finish the outward leg of his run before stumbling and collapsing a meter short of the rock. Although there was no direct recording of the moment 2, the legend persists that he was just barely able to touch the base before passing out from hypoxia.
Fortunately for Stallt, his unconscious body was recovered by surface utility drones within three minutes. It remains unclear how they were tipped off--news reports of the time claim that the airlock override was spotted immediately by security, but later sources dispute this and suggest that Stallt or his accomplice most likely had a failsafe procedure ready to call for help. In either case, Stallt was stabilized quickly enough that his injuries 3 were, at worst, moderate, even by Interplanetary Age standards. Upon regaining consciousness several days later, he was placed under arrest and swiftly convicted of tampering, trespassing, disturbance of the peace, and indecent exposure.
While the exact details of his punishment have been lost to time, there are indications that he enjoyed a brief period of fame that may have contributed to some leniency on the part of the local authorities. However, despite a handful of copycats (including at least one that resulted in brain death), the stunt did not become the viral sensation that Stallt seemed to hope it would be. Stallt himself would attempt it only once more, on the 10-year anniversary and with explicit permission and supervision from the authorities; while he succeeded in returning to the airlock before passing out, his excursion was only a handful of meters, and was virtually ignored outside of the Port Robinson media.
The phenomenon was almost totally forgotten until the early First Federation period, when increased stability and prosperity led to a cultural flowering and an assertion of Martian identity. Poring through their history in search of "truly Martian" events, many seized on the out-and-back as a unique expression of the daring and creativity of early settlers. The rediscovery led in short order to a rash of emulators all over the planet. Though still well below the point of survivability for the average neb, the atmospheric pressure was by that time significantly higher; this, along with the better safety and observation systems of the time, ensured that these latter-day excursions were at best harmless fun and at worst a nuisance.
The original Hoyganraak became a (literal) touchstone of Martian culture; within 20 years of the revival, Federation authorities had to place it under a historical preservation ordinance due to the visible erosion it had sustained from the touch of millions of sophonts, many of them attempting the out-and-back themselves. By the end of the First Federation period, with the Martian atmosphere significantly thickened, the practice was only a fond memory, but the children of Mars had taken it with them to systems throughout Federation space. Even long after the end of the Federation itself, the out-and-back still enjoys periodic revivals throughout the Terragen sphere (especially among Martian-derived clades) wherever there is a harsh environment on the other side of an airlock.
Most modern variants for bionts trace their origin to the early 83rd century revival on the Athelan superstructure. In some Athelanian polities it has become a de facto national sport, with many leagues and categories for different environments, clades, and degrees of augmentation. Perhaps the most famous of these leagues are the Extremophile Games, held jointly in the Tohulian multicell of Olo'ls and the neighboring EuArean multicell of Palioxis, in which contestants (often as mixed-clade doubles) cross from one side of the worldhouse boundary to another and back.
Increasingly hostile environments (up to and including the coronae of stars) are host to some cyborg- and vec-centric descendants of the out-and-back. Some sources indicate that the Annual Nude Orbital Reentry Sweepstakes has roots in Dyakonian cultural contact with the Martian diaspora, but the connection is unclear.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] ? Never conclusively identified, but believed to be his common-law spouse Avan McKo.
[2] ? The cam he had mounted on his temple was smashed when his head struck the rocky ground, absorbing the shock and probably saving him from a broken skull
[3] ? Including lacerations, minor bone fractures and a concussion, in addition to normal hypobaric exposure effects such as hypoxia, frostbite and decompression damage.
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Development Notes
Text by Tasp
Initially published on 27 August 2025.
Initially published on 27 August 2025.
