[Ash laughs at that, but it's not a particularly nice laugh.]

That would have made fixing the situation too easy. No, it turns out that the planet they chose lacked protection against what they now call the Mars Rays. Taking everyone back would have saved them all, but it would have also been expensive. It would have meant admitting that they made a mistake during the preparation, too, and the government couldn't accept that.

So the survivors stayed there, and the longer it lasted, the more hateful they became.