THE TRAVEL TUBES

Since the rise and fall of the ancient Mega Cities, many changes have befallen the planet formerly known as Terra. Aliens invaded, destroying the surface of the planet, and forced the Terrans to move underground. Resiliant as ever, the human race survived and prospered. Vast subterranean cities were built, and the Terrans went on to make one of their most amazing technological leaps.

The Emperor of the time, Zallin, oversaw Terran scientists attempts to harness the power of black and white holes to create cosmic spaceways to the stars. Through fear of being invaded again, Terran armies, The Eternal Soldiers, used these spaceways to conquer a thousand planets, carving out what can only be described as the greatest Empire in galactic history. The Terrans believed their empire would last forever and called themselves The Eternals. Vast subterranean cities were built around the 'Blackhole Bypass' (rightly regarded as 'The Seventh Wonder of the Galaxy'): Mausoleum, Necropolis and the Eternal City, Agartha, all of them connected via Travel Tubes, and patrolled by the ruthless Tube Police.

Excess energy from the holes was discharged in complete safety through an underground maze known as The Time Wastes. However, time radiation from the black and white holes also brought unique benefits to the Terran Empire. Harnessing this bizarre power, Zallin managed to see through his two hundred year plan to build the Blackhole Bypass. This regression also allowed the Terrans themselves to become true eternals. However, these benefits were only for the select few - if the radiation was made available to the masses there would be a population explosion, and Terra would become a termites nest of seething humanity.

But like all empires, Terra's began to decay. The weak emperor Thano The Third allowed human and alien intermarrige and the 'purity' of the human race was threatened. Thano himself, however was deaf to protests; indeed, he was guilty of much the protestors were concerned about. This was followed by a dark age of even greater excesses, until the inevitable backlash enabled the head of the Termite religion, and chief of the Tube Police - Tomas De Torquemada - to sieze power in a particularly bloody coup, with his infamous slogan: Be Pure! Be Vigilant! Behave!

Not only had the people of this era changed, but their religions had followed suit. Above ground, the Terrans once worshipped either the fierce sun god or the dark moon goddess, but when they moved underground, they sought new symbols for eternal male and female principles. The Worm became a symbol of the cosmic mother; the black hole was venerated as the ultimate worm hole in space and time. Death was a return to the worm, conveyed by putting worms in the coffins of their loved ones. The worm's soft, flexible shape encouraged a tolerant, friendly attitude towards aliens.

The Worm co-existed with the strict, aggressive Termite religion, which saw men as mere insects, obsessed with work, while women were like the queen Termite - looked up to in theory, but in practice nothing more than submissive breeding machines. For a while, the two beliefs co-existed in balance. The emporer of the time, Zallin, belonged to both - to be on the safe side.

Until Torquemada's era.

The Worm - gentle, earth-loving and androgynous - came to be regarded as suspect, and the Termites persecuted the cult; followers of the worm were called alien-lovers and witches and burnt at the stake. Eventually, Torquemada declared himself head of the Church of Termite, unifying church and state, and renamed the mighty Terran Empire 'Termight'.

During the rise of The Terminators (Torquemada's armies), science as well as alien life, was blamed for all the disasters that had befallen earth. Books were burnt, laboratories and computers smashed and thousands of boffins were butchered in the Anti-Scientist Riots. Terra had entered its darkest age yet.

Under Torquemada's iron rule, Terra was renamed Termight, and the downfall of science began. It was soon replaced by a new age of ignorance and superstition, from which came a Holy Crusade. Torquemada's followers set out to purify the galaxy and cleanse it of all alien life. The evil nature of his regime soon became apparent and many looked to his greatest enemy - a mysterious alien named Nemesis - for deliverance.

Before Torquemada's rise, however, The Eternal City, Agartha, was destroyed during a series of time quakes. A group of ageing war robots were blamed and hunted across the galaxy, but never caught. The destruction left only Masoleum and Necropolis for the self-proclaimed Grand Master to rule; the former site of Agartha, where the two remaining cities met, became known as The Central Abyss. The cities were coated with a substance known as magma, a strong magnetic adhesive, which allowed Termites (or Terrans) to walk at any angle on any surface of the labyrinthine world, through use of special boots and gloves. These coatings allowed the Tube Navvies to, not only dig out the underground tubes, but to also develop a martial art that became known as Traffkicking.

Now, the two cities thrive like termite nests. Citizens live in gigantic towerblocks called Stalscrapers, that rise out of the ground like stalagmites; Termites have been known to go insane by simply looking out of their window onto the nightmare world beyond. But for others, life goes on, pushing and shoving their way through the never ending People Pipes; night clubs and restaurants litter the cities, each with their own selective groups and patrons. Television Broadcasts are still made throughout the cities, incorporating news and soap operas.

For those Termites who sinned (or aliens unlucky enough to be stranded on the planet) there were special punishments, the most widely known of which is the Vapourisation Vats; public burnings were still used, especially for crimes of heresy, but Torquemada himself could usually come up with something suitably hideous, and make sure he administered it personally. Following the words of the Grand Master, the Thought Police were set up to patrol and monitor dreams; anyone having anti-government thoughts were immediately taken by the Thought Police and never seen again, proving that sleep was indeed no refuge for impure thoughts. For the criminally insane, there was Stalag 17, situated across a lava moat and holding several dark secrets of its own. And as for the Terminators themselves, they set up their headquarters in The Temple of Terminus.

In the years after Torquemada's death, Termites' love and appreciation for the Grand Master was unquenchable, and giant conventions were held in his honour, selling Torquemada merchandise (such as 'Walkie-Torqueys' and Candida wigs). During this time, Grand Master Krassan rose to power, but only as a front for Grand Dragon Mazarin. Between them, they introduced a more lax attitudes toward aliens, and made efforts to cement relations with other races. Realising that Termites needed fear to unite them, Mazarin and Krassan appointed the Arch-Bigot of Necropolis, Broeder Kruger, to bring about a new era of hatred, aimed at anyone but aliens.

However, Torquemada made a triumphant return from the dead (again) and, after eventually seizing power again, threw everything back to the way it used to be. Although this time, the termites knew exactly what to expect...

However, Torquemada's power was slowly beginning to slip away from him, and Nemesis covered the planet in a psychic sheath that would re-direct the fear and hatred of the Termites back at Torquemada himself. Remarkably, the Grand Master's reign was eventually overthrown and a new alien-friendly regime was introduced by President Purity Brown. Horrified by this unthinkable turn of events, Torquemada managed to steal Nemesis' Blitzspear and head for the Hypogeum to find a final solution, with Nemesis in pursuit. No one but the Grand Master and the Arch Deviant is really sure what happened during their final confrontation, but now, and forever, a ghostly ship drives through the tube for all eternity, through the Black Hole Bypass, into the galaxy beyond, then loops back to Earth again and again and again.

As for the ravaged surface of the planet, Overland, little is known. Some leakage from the Time Wastes has plagued the surface by disasterously warping time. Even in the face of this, several thousand humans have managed to grub out an existence for themselves, but they live in fear of the Gooney Birds, bizarre creatures who make their nests in The Petrified City. Whether they are the results of the Time Waste leakage, thousands of years of machine evolution, or the results of Terminator experiments gone disasterously wrong, no one is really sure.

Termight was rightly regarded as one of the most terrifying places in the galaxy, but with the new leadership of President Brown things have changed...