BACKING INFORMATION

Originally written in February of 2022.

The story takes place in the year 2112, in a future where magic is a newly-discovered resource that works like code. The past 40-ish years have been described as part of an ongoing renaissance of science, as more and more people are working towards unearthing the complexities and rules of magic to further improve aspects of everyday life.

Before I delve into magic I want to explain the general atmosphere and look of train story. I intentionally stray from making it generic overtech-y sci-fi because that’s extremely out of my palette and I think it’s a trite stage set in general. In CCS, lot of things are the same as modern day, and if I had to equate it to anything I guess I’d compare the light machinery infrastructure to something a la solarpunk. A major in-world thing is the constant ‘dig-up’ of old fashion trends and architectural styles and technology, be it from the 13th century, the 80s, early 2000s, anything goes — it’s kind of just a natural phenomenon that a lot of people go through. It’s actually not that uncommon to see people dressed weird or using old devices, whether authentic or produced to intentionally resemble older stuff.

Magic isn’t so much generic fantasy spellcasting here as much as it is written out equations and runes that can power themselves to loop in effect until ‘shut off’. Most magic translates to artificially altering velocity of objects, preservation, moving objects between short distances, speeding up chemical reactions, etc. Naturally it has some more esoteric use, like altering the shape of flesh, producing holograms, whatever but that’s highly specialised in comparison. Magic can be ‘drawn’ anywhere and hence carved into any object so long as the equation is legitimate — the code itself is what causes the wanted ‘spell’ to occur. However, certain materials are less effective at conducting magic and so, occasionally, cards made of metal or something of the sort will be placed on objects to heighten their effectiveness.

The most major application of magic so far has been to facilitate transport, replacing cars and archaic forms of public transport. It’s not so much instant teleportation since that’s hard with constant floods of people, but things like metros have been magically altered to move at ridiculously high speeds, and are able to traverse the entire world within an interconnected worldwide network.

Magic has also been steadily involved in medicine, proving to be a much safer way to deal with certain surgeries and analysis. Magic has also been used as an ‘injury deflector’ in major public spaces as to heighten safety, whether it’s magic that rapidly heals cuts or scratches, magic that prevents anything from piercing skin, etc.

Tangentially magic has also found success in body mods. Temporary mods like color-changing eyes or body transparency were the first few to garner acclaim, but as studies delved deeper into what magic could do these became even further developed. A notable subset is applicable spells that could effectively turn people into vampires and werewolves, and even more nichely, telepaths. Most of these are applied via tattoos or piercings.

Last major thing I can think to mention, magic can form vacuums of energy and space. The former is how it practically became a new power source overnight, the latter is how it found copious use in storage and the whole concept of making rooms that are bigger on the inside than out to conserve space, whatever you get it. This is relevant to Fornax keep it in mind.

fornax

To go back into transport for a second, messing around with both vehicle velocity and generally magical detection ended in the discovery of alternate ‘dimensions’. And when I say dimensions it’s not like… alternate versions of the current world, I moreso equate it to ‘planets’ as being wholly foreign planes of existence. There is life, albeit on a varying scale of familiarity to the organisms on earth. Many of these dimensions have plants, fewer have animals, and so far, none have carried intelligent extraterrestrial life.

Most dimensions have ‘pockets’ that are found via detection, and to enter them, objects have to match their magical frequency. Often the safest way to do so is to simply propel things forward magically in a hyperpowered machine, or in the case of organisms, pods or small compartments. Often enough pockets are isolated — at most they’ll come in pairs, though that’s rare. Most dimensions have been left untouched, though a few have been explored under temporary settlements. Strangely enough most of them are relatively hospitable to human life.

Eventually a deposit of eight dimensional pockets was discovered deep within a mountain range within southern Europe, inhabiting a decrepit mine. With permission and heavy funding, a group of magical scientists plunged into studying the area and started work on entering the eight pockets, which would eventually be nicknamed the octants. This was the start of Fornax Project I, beginning on the 25th of November, year 2101. By march of the following year, the Fornax group had reached the conclusion that the speed needed to travel to the octants was significantly slower than expected, and a solid journey from the outermost side of the mountains into Fornax would take at least two months. Hence the birth of the train.

The train itself worked as most magically enhanced transport does though peculiarly, it goes through various inter-dimensional wormholes, a route programmed to speed up the journey, as measly as the effort is. This instability is referred to as the Fornax Reality, and it’s effectively the ‘corridor’ to the octants. The train itself is far larger than its compartments seem to imply, hosting various rooms. To sustain the people on it, and without the need for copious amounts of supplies, a new form of magic was developed that could pull any object ranging from food to clothing to books to literally anything within an extremely extensive dimensional database. A similar magic was used to allow passengers to alter their own compartments to any layout they wished. The final addition was a teleportation system that effectively functioned as a horizontal elevator, allowing people to travel between compartments quickly.

The first few tests of the Fornax train were done by the scientists themselves along with some external volunteers and assistants. These were done until late December of 2103, proving the project to be a resounding success. Everyone who’d gone to visit the octants had come back and found the actual atmosphere of the train immensely comfortable. This lead to wide renown and excitement, and by January 2104, it was announced that the Fornax train journey would eventually become open to the public as ‘the vacation of the future’.

Certain renovations were done to the train to make it even more hospitable, and furthermore, parts of the octants were cleared out to make them appear cleaner and easier to walk around in. The entire wormhole aspect was expanded upon and so the journey became slightly shorter. Preparation, alongside an additional final test, was finished by early September. The Fornax Project II officially launched on the 24th of September 2104.

The way the train itself worked meant that stations could be independent of one another and compartments could still ‘meet’ in the midst of the Fornax Reality, provided everyone boarded within a specific regulated timeframe. This provided an avenue for the project going international, initially spreading from Europe to the rest of the world. Passengers were encouraged to talk to one another and form friendships along the journey, which only contributed to improving the public’s perception of magic.

The first Fornax II passengers returned by December. The second wave started immediately after, though surpassed the allotted timeframe for return. A third wave of passengers opened as an overlap of wave 2. By spring of 2106, the Fornax scientists announced a change to the format of the journey, which would surpass the wave format and allow anyone to get on at any time. By now people were starting to express concern over the people who had not returned, and in tandem with the disappearances, found the new announcement suspicious. Interviews were done to try to gauge the behind-the-scenes of the project, and the scientists claimed every passenger wished to remain on the train for its convenience, stationed right outside the octants. They provided data that ensured all passengers were alive, things as direct as heartrate scans and approximate relativity to the Octants.

With this authorities relaxed, but the general public was far more pressed. 2106 up to 2108 were the height of Fornax drama, with theories so engrossed in zeitgeist it was impossible to avoid discussion. Strangely enough a select number of people boarded Fornax knowing of its declining reputation, and now, the major motivation for entering Fornax had become to solve the mystery of the train.

The project faded off into obscure myth somewhat, now mostly regarded as ‘that crazy thing that happened back in 2105’. The only people really attentive to it are people deep into magic tech — over the years even more bizarre details surfaced, from the scientists claiming certain passengers had gone home even though there was no evidence for it, to the belief that all the scans were faked, to rumination over the scientists never really being able to resign even if they were forced to, ethically speaking… briefly, the world turned on the project overnight, and let it fester into notoriety. Certainly, a polarising switch from Fornax’s early prestige.