Storyline

This journal covers the story of World Train: the context/time period the roleplay group takes place in along with important events that have lead up to the current situation, and the origins and backstory of the Train.

It is 2048.

So much, and yet so little, has changed in the modern world. On the outside, Earth hasn’t changed much, but the internal cogworks that run humans’ system of living and being have been replaced and tweaked as a reflection of groundbreaking events that have shaken society to its core.

The first of important revelations was the creation of the first teleportation device.

Soon, as this new science was developed, refined, and re-refined countless times so that teleportation devices were installed in all major cities around the world. And by 2037, foreign reverse engineering allowed teleportation devices to be purchased and used by the modern consumer as a replacement for cars.

As a result, the oil industry, airline industry, and train industry were rendered useless. After all, who has the need for automobiles, airplanes, and trains, when teleportation was readily available and relatively safe?

While many cities did not completely get rid of these modes of transport (for example, keeping wind-powered bullet trains for sky malls/sky cities) oil and coal mines were abandoned everywhere, inciting environmental cleanup that would have otherwise been impossible to start up due to the inelasticity of those resources.

People worked to come down hard on policies and companies that turned the other way to or took part in environmental damage that could be fixed with the now-absent dependency on unsafe and toxic resources. The newly found freedom for action in and surge of environmental awareness led to the development of countless eco-friendly gadgets, devices, and galore that further advanced the global society, shooting it into a new page of ingenious creations, “futuristic” technology, a constantly developing cyberspace and an international unity.

Finally, the revelation that forever changed the human world rose from out of the shadows it had hidden in, locked back for centuries by an unbelieving populace that turned only to what could be proven. Now, it had given the evidence that revealed its existence.

This discovery, as many before it, had been through complete serendipity.

No one knows what had brought it about. The first news of the discovery came from a city that was being cleaned from smog and serious pollutants, when an unnamed individual from a global cleanup organization had purified water that was too toxic and filled with oil to clean. The person at hand claimed not to know anything about how that was done, and though the purified water was taken to a lab to observe, nothing out of the ordinary: the chemistry seemed to be the same process as any typical purification, except this water had been deemed impossible to clean before.

Soon, it was found that people in that same cleaning project had similar experiences when they were dispatched to that city. Originally, people believed it to be a virus, or perhaps an uprising in the presence of a mutated gene. But more people started to report unusual things happening, being able to do unusual things-hospitals, famous medics, and the media channeled the increasing amount of murmur until over time, with more and more inexplicable things happening at a rate science could not keep up with, several world leaders decided that rather than trying to examine and separate what had used to be deemed impossible, to let what happens happen and instead incorporate it with the high standard of technology already built and sustained. People did not know what to call the new established “unexplainable forces” that affected a select few so randomly and variously.  Eventually, people decided on an old name that seemed to fit the situation well, and thus it was so forth deemed...

“Magic”.

After the official acknowledgement of Magic, the world turned to a playground. At first, it was all a game: the more people discovered they had magical abilities, the more people enjoyed the charm of magic in their lives, something that had once been possible only in fantasy books. Magic was slowly injected into daily life and technology as magic and non-magic people agreed to explore the phenomenon, gathering what they could and giving the information to global engineering and science platforms.

Along with the discovery of magic amongst humans was the finding of magical creatures and beasts, as well. Many people who wholeheartedly accepted the existence of magic amongst humans immediately predicted that there must be other magical life forms that they had once thought as nothing but fairytale-material: simply nothing more than imaginative stories. Thus, when the discovery of several magical animals on Earth was made, there was relatively less uproar. Wary and unlearned in how to handle the creatures, most people left them alone in their habitats and observed at a distance to research.

A new age started to dawn: the age of magic, research, possibility.

An age of miracles.

Such a bright future was filled with an equal amount of darkness to pair, however. People soon started to notice that along with the jubilous glee magic had brought into the lives of many, there was unrest and tension growing just beneath the surface.

The initial signs were easy to brush off, but worrisome nonetheless.

Science teams asked for magic human volunteers to assist in research that would further advance the global community.

This was not quite a lie, but certainly not the entire truth either: magic humans were tested on, experimented with, to observe genetic differences, reactions the magic in them would have to different variables, and so on. The experiments were done under the mission of securing the medicinal future, but there was much more beyond this intent, though none of it confirmed: rumors of genetic engineering, creating a super race, improving individual countries’ armies, spread quickly in laboratory cracks.

Soon after, people started capturing and taming magical creatures for personal and business purposes; faeries, changelings, talking animals, and the likes were brought into private corporations that sold the creatures to collectors, pet owners, enthusiasts, and scientists. While many protested for the creation of magical reservations, everyone knew such an establishment would not last long with how coveted and valuable the creatures were becoming.

Things started to get out of hand as social unrest stirred as well. Non-magic people were starting to grumble and snap at the fact that their magic counterparts were noticeably more well off in practically every aspect. Classes were no longer structured on economic status or noble blood, but rather magic and non-magic. Why should magical humans have privileges non-magic humans didn’t? Was it fair that the people who could use magic were allowed to do so whenever and however?

The tension built and built until a turning point: the first magic exclusive employment opportunities arose.

This incited riots all over. Non-magic civilians demanded equality and an immediate suppression of magic, if they wouldn’t be able to utilize magic themselves. It certainly would be a fair negotiation as well, but the image of magic users in the common people’s eyes had been contorted and stained with disdain and loathing.

As if to add onto everything that had been rotting the shining dreams magic had once drawn, people found out that various governments were engineering ways to infuse magic into their military to create weapons of mass destruction on a brand new scale. Magic was being abused and used in crime and war, crumbling the hopes for a generation of miracles.

World unity? Peace, harmony, finally achieved? What a fiasco. The bring-about of magic had completely devastated humanity: magical and non-magical alike.

Action had to be taken. A world treaty was forged that strictly banned magic of all and any kinds, in all living and non-living things. People made the effort to revert back to the way society ran before magic was introduced while still benefiting from the technology that it had advanced.

While the technology to detect whether someone has the ability to use magic has yet to be created, plenty of technology was made to inhibit or outright block magical abilities. Most large cities now had an inhibitor planted on a skyscraper that broadcasts waves to make magic extremely difficult to use.

The use of magic became a crime by law, with a punishment of life in prison or worse. Society and law turned against magic, turning their backs completely on what they had found.

The imposition of the ban created a frenzy as magic users tried to flee for their lives or hide amongst crowds, but for too many there was no place to go: some were reported and turned in, and some who tried to run were caught and done for.

Many were imprisoned that year. Even more were captured, sold, or worse. Those who were luckier were forced to run from place to place and live in secret, hiding their magic abilities and live out their lives like “normal” non-magic folk.

Magical people grouped together when they could, helping one another out before scurrying away- while no where was safe, these people treated one another as fellow comrades in exile. This secret kinship led to the formation of a magic society that had much more advanced technology in comparison to their non-magic counterpart, simply because of desperate measures to stay hidden and stay alive.

While this new society was very loose in structure, the fact that there was some order amongst magic beings became evident as fewer magic users were reported in: behind the thin wall that divided magic and non-magic, people were hastily creating temporary safe havens and developing protective charms and technology.

For example, cloaks were invented and become extremely popular: a spell that causes your appearance to change when outside of magic havens. This way, a non-magical human does not see your true appearance. These do not work on anyone with a magical ability. Higher-level cloaks can also be used to make one appear invisible by causing human eyes to shift away.

In 2040, magic users from all over gathered to a hideout as the society proposed a way to finally be free from the oppression placed upon them. The people supported the idea of creating refuge away from non-magic beings to escape persecution, and murder-- thus the idea of the World Train was birthed, and like a strain, the idea caught on inter-universally. Great strides in education and knowledge in the magic community were made in the effort to engineer a home for the condemned.

When the World Train was created, one could take it into a literal sense that many lives were put into its creation. While some magic-users abhorred its creation, many more welcomed their new safe haven and joined its ranks. This “branch” of the magical society would be known as the Travelers. Their leader, the Conductor.

In order to prevent this mythical train from falling into the hands of an unworthy being, a spell was cast on the train to give it artificial intelligence that allows it to accept or reject a potential conductor and their attendants. Only the conductor and his or her attendants would be able to run the World Train. In addition to that, those who take on the role of Conductor are granted a conditional form of immortality. As long as the Conductor remains on the train, they will never die or age. To pass on the mantle of Conductor to another would mean that they will begin aging once more. If they were to leave the train, however, they can be killed.

As the Travelers traversed the dimensions, they swore each other to secrecy. They developed a spell that would allow them to sense the aura of an individual, in order to aid their quest in finding others like themselves. That way, if they were tied to magic, they would know. And perhaps they would join their team of explorers.

One recruit was a poor choice.

That person revealed names of important community leaders to world treaty enforcers, and the Travelers were reduced to a mere three. Two decided to remain in other dimensions, sick of Earth. The third was our first conductor, Silas, but he has since disappeared, turning over the power of the ‘Conductor’ to his remaining, inexperienced attendant, Arlaena.

The traitor is still on the loose, somewhere on Earth.