Toonol

 

TOONOL is a red Martian city state located on the eastern border of the Toonolian Marshes.  Hereditary enemies of Phundahl, their aristocracy prides themselves on their intellectual and scientific achievements.  It is a “large city, whose towers, domes and minarets glistened and sparkled in the sun as though plated with shining metals and picked out with precious gems”  (MM VI)

 

“Toonol in no sense is a flying nation, supporting no such enormous fleets of merchant ships and vessels of war as, for example, the twin cities of Helium or the great capital of Ptarth.”  (MM VIII)

 

“The peculiar philosophy of the Toonolians.  They believe no good deed was ever performed except for selfish motive; they have no god and no religion; they believe, as do all educated Barsoomians, that man originally came from the Tree  of Life, but unlike their fellows they do not believe an omnipotent being created the Tree of Life.  They hold that the only sin is failure - - success, however achieved is meritorious; and yet, paradoxically as it may seem, they never break their given word. .. They denied deity, and in the same breath worshipped the fetish of science that they had permitted to obsess of their imaginary gods; and so, with all their vaunted knowledge, they were unintelligent because they were unbalanced.” (MM IX)