Bradbury uses a poetic conceit, casting Mars as a shore and the successive arrivals of settlers as waves breaking upon the shore. While their varied pasts are emphasized, they are all Americans, suggesting an exceptionalism which is an undercurrent of colonialism. Other countries long to join the Americans but can only watch the “Roman candles” (115) of the rockets leave them behind. Bradbury’s allusion to the Romans—the self-centered drivers of the imperialist engine—makes the rest of the world’s stance on the American colonization of Mars uncertain.

Bradbury suggests that the rest of the world should have been invited, that “other ideas” (115) should have been brought to Mars, as this would have only strengthened the colonies.