Interstitial Mass Transit System
The Interstitial Mass Transit System was a public transport and freight network, derived from transmat technology, that linked humans settlements throughout the Sol system between the late 21st and mid 22nd centuries. It was run by the STS company from a central control facility at Olympus Mons on Mars (NA: Transit).
History
By the middle of the 22nd Century, humanity had developed close-ended transmat technology to a degree of technical reliability, energy efficiency and cost effectiveness that it replaced traditional means of freight transfer. Unfortunately an attempted Martian invasion exposed a number of critical and systemic flaws in the T-Mat network. This and the manner in which the subseqeunt war was won through the mass transmat of human troops onto the martian surface saw T-Mat replaced by an interstitial mass transit system that combined matter transmission with specially adapted trains similar to those of the British Underground.
Significant components of the initial system infrastructure were sourced from the Yamatzi Corporation of Japan, and the Central Line was established before the turn of the 22nd Century. Although newer branches are able to benefit from improvement in technologies and methodologies -- such as the claimed affinity African manufacturers possess for using the transient nature of reality as a basic operating principle -- older ones are more likely to be serviced than replaced.
By the 2220s, the network had grown into what those familiar with it liked to call a sprawling beast. As a result the chief maintenance crew of the network enjoyed pointing out that very few people understood just exactly how the entre system worked and all of them were on that crew. While the veracity of the claim was never tested, the Chief Ops granted them a great deal of latitude in their behaviour in return for their ongoing expertise.
By the end of the decade, the decision as made to open the first interstellar line. Properly called the Stellar Tunnel -- and more referred to more commonly by the portmanteau 'Stunnel' -- it reached 40 light years between Mars and a planet in the Acturus system. Unfortunately the quantum mechanics involved in maintaining and opening the connection allowed a hostile intelligence to punch through into this dimension from its own and infect the system. Apart from the resulting (potentially unintended) massacre of high ranking members of the Union of Solar Republics, this even may also have been responsible for kick starting the self-sustaining artificial intelligence that had been generated by the network's convoluted and complex structure.
How It Works
Like transmats, the system relies on carrier waves transmitted between stations. At each end of a station platform is an induction system -- Lorenzo attractors held in a precise pattern by a gravito-magnetic field. It requires only a slow rotation speed to generate a multi-frequncy carrier wave, the ends of which manifest as an event horizon. A physical object cannot pass through a carrier wave.
When two inductors spin at a matching harmonic frequency and the correct degree of energy is fed into the carrier wave, a tunnel is established. Tunnel dynamics are controlled by field regulators whose output is in angstroms..
System Details
A curious artifact of the System's design is that it runs entirely on Greenwich Mean Time, regardless of the local timezone; the only exception is Triton, which for historical reasons runs at GMT +5.
Structure
- Feeder Lines
- Char'kov - Warazawa - London
- Francais - Sardegna
- TransIonian aka The Connection
- Branch Lines
- Millfield
- Worthing - Le Havre
- Commuter Lines
- TransCancer One
- TransCancer Two
- TransCancer Three aka Sydney - Kyoto
- InterWorld
- Central Line
- Loop
- Outreach
- Stellar Tunnel
Freight tunnels run parallel to a main line.
Capacity
- Stations: 50,000
- Trains: 100,000
- Passengers: 56,000,000
Prominent Stations
Acturus Terminal, Mars
Located in the bedrock beneath the permafrost of the North Pole.
- Alight for Stellar Tunnel Terminus.
"The Connection"
A series of submarine stations along the Ionian sea built for floating cities that never were, they've become a multi-stage flea market and trade meet.
- Alight for Ice Maiden's.
Kings Cross, London
Bridging connection for half the transcontinental feeder lines in Europe
Lowell Depot, Pluto
- Alight for Aryan Heights Housing Estate aka "The Stop", a ghetto beset by violence and crime at the hands of ethnically based gangs such as the Dixie Rebels, Der Broederbund and Le Penn Freikorps.
Olympus Mons, Mars
- Alight for STS Central.
Prominent STS Employees
Chief Operations Officer
During the 2220s, a woman nicknamed Ming the Merciless by her underlings, in equal parts due to her chinese ethnicity and her bad temper.
Chief Maintainance Crew
- Main Article: The Floozies
