Transportation is key for civilization to thrive. The ability to travel great distances not only opens up trade and commerce options, but also affords governmental structure the ability to rule over many locations from one centralized seat.
Though the Underworld began as a lofty experiment into the creation of environments of perfection; the wealthy and privileged willing to pay high costs for domiciles that offered life within a simulated Upperworld without ever needing to be concerned with the unleashing of nature’s at times wrathful behaviors. As the Upperworld declined however, ultimately spewing deadly gasses into the atmosphere and chiseling away at the once abundant surface life, The Underworld communities became the only option for salvation. The government began constructing the expansion of the Underworld in a desperate race for survival, though the efforts were not large enough and not as expedient as nature’s intended decline was. As the migration underground grew into a desperate plight, panic ensued. The ultimate result was fragmented boroughs within the ground, contact between them lost in the final years of a war for survival.
As the years rolled by, some communities withered into death, unable to keep up with the demand for the production of food, water and oxygen. Others survived, eventually reaching out in search of neighboring communities through the expansion of the tunnel network. As connectivity between communities grew, so too did the need for travel not only between sectors of the expanding communities, but ultimately between the territories once communication was returned.
Velocity One inc. was born from the need for transportation. Though initially travel within the Upperworld was seen as necessary and continues to be utilized by means of highly protective aircraft, the sub-transit web became the engine that returned humanity back to full power; a brilliant network of rails that tunnel deep throughout the Underworld territories. With the production of high speed transports that could sail through those tunnels within the Earth, the ability for travel throughout the communities as well as between territories became as easy as stepping aboard the appropriate train.
Velocity One continued to seek out greater technologies to increase the speed of travel, ultimately delivering the possibility to journey from the California Territory to the Territory of Boston and Quebec within a matter of hours. Though the tunnels themselves are subjected to the fiery heat of friction and exhaust, the technologies within the walls trigger an adaptive reaction that allows the constructs to remain stable. Should any living soul find its unlucky way onto the rails of the sub-transit web, however, survival would not be possible.
As the story of The Psych© begins, all communities are walking distance to a rail station, all lines connecting to the larger depots within their territories that ultimately grant the ability to connect out to the expansive locations within their territories as well as to other territories. Though the at-times dangerous travel through the Upperworld is a component of the novel, use of the web is a critical aspect of a story that spans a world within the Earth from one side of a continent to the other.