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The CTA & The MagneTrain or 'Train

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 The MagneTrain The MagneTrain is the primary means of transportation around the Chasm chain. At this time, only one of the main loops has been completed, that which runs through the Rockhelm side of Chasm City. For some reason, more inhabited planets reside on this loop than the other.  The ‘Train, as it is called, is electromagnetically floated on a monorail; technology that has been around for a long time. It is run by an interplanetary cartel. On the Windstrom side of Chasm City, the ‘Train loop is incomplete, running only from Cordoba to Earth at this time, and since there is little demand for its completion, the cartel has decided to wait until more planets on that loop have acquired a great enough population to support its continuance. Cordoba, of course, is incensed at this, because that means all of its trade has to go through Chasm City, which charges exorbitant fees. Cordoba is working to tunnel through the obstructions of Lockjaw, in hopes that the completion...
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Describing the Chasm Chain

 The Chasm Think of Chasm not as a feature on a planet, but as a phenomenon; a device to travel from planet to planet. Each planet on the Chasm Chain has this geographic feature: a canyon or gorge some 70 to 75 stories deep, between 2 and 8 miles long, and between 50 and 300 feet wide at bottom. Sides are extremely steep if not sheer; ends are perpendicular to the surface of the planet. Most are in temperate climes. From outside the canyons, they look like short, unnatural slots in the surface. From inside the Chasm, the canyon appears to continue indefinitely, because each end is connected to the end of the next in the chain. How the Chasm came to be After several hundred years of star flight, humankind had inhabited about 50 worlds aside from Earth, none of them possessing any kind of sentient life (that was recognizable as such, at least) First contact with another intelligent being proved embarrassingly to be also the last contact mankind would have, at least in th...
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Creds

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  Money used in the Chasm system.  The CTA Central Bank set this up so that a planet's local currency could be more easily interchanged. Most topside businesses accepted both local and Creds, at least in the immediate vicinity of the Chasm.  Cred chits are plastic tokens representing portions of a cred. The lowest denomination is .01 Cred and the highest is 1000 Creds
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Map of the Chasm Chain

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  Zooming in on this image shows the planets as aligned by the Chasm Chain, their numbers and names (if they have a name) and the Y connections.  The Chasm Chain was officially mapped under charter of the United Nations, but in the early years there were numerous private expeditions to map the planets, mostly to get a first crack at claiming the best ones. At the time of the Chain's creation, people of Earth had begun settlements on Cordoba, Barienne and Excelsior.
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The House - Second in the Series - Available soon in Paperback! on Amazon

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 Kindle edition of The Chasm, first book in the set, can be found here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09L73T5MR This will be available in paperback soon.
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Time to Launch

 Welcome to the LowKey/Chasm blog. 30 years in the making. Here I'll be posting inside info about The Chasm and LowKey and the writing of these stories. Also images and links and news about upcoming books in the series. Please feel free to leave your comments, unless you're a political nutjob or someone with an ax to grind. Life's too short, people, let's just find some enjoyment and escapism here, okay? Thanks! RM Torrey
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