Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed

I just have a couple thoughts on this that I want to jot down.

Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed (downloadable here) is a story by Ray Bradbury. It takes place on Mars while war rages on Earth. A refugee colony does its best to live on the dusty red surface, and only Harry Bittering notices the changes among his companions as the world changes them into people of its own.

My most present thought after reading the text was this fear of accidental assimilation. While trying to live by someone else's (or somewhere else's) terms, it is possible to change behavior, thoughts, principles to adapt to the current situation, aware of it or not. While everyone around Bittering was happy to live day by day slipping into the needs of the planet, Bittering himself desperately tried to hang on to what might keep him human and thereby unique to Mars. He fought being pulled into assimilation until the moment that everyone else was already changed. He relinquished his uniqueness only when it was no longer valuable to his state of mind.

Another thing that came to mind was that Mars was trying to defend itself. In its own way, Mars is a character in the story, using its influence to develop these outsiders and their resources to its own needs. The people are strange and unfamiliar? It works them into something immediately known to it. Their plants may destroy the ecosystems around them? Mars makes them into plants that are suitable for its surface. The planet protects its own, and the only way to survive is to become a part of what it considers its own.