TRANSCRIPT: Hello! And Welcome back to Archives of Fabella. The podcast that’s about to go daily with a host who couldn’t stick to the bi-weekly thing.
Yes! It’s true; your ears weren’t deceiving you. The podcast is going daily. I still owe you guys a further description of the last two ages of Fabella, one of which we’ll explore a little bit today, and they will be coming, but in the meantime, you’ll be able to enjoy these new episodes. These episodes will be shorter as we take on kind of a “Today in History” motif. It’s my goal that this will better help you understand the world of Fabella and further build out the history of this world.
Now you may remember —if you don’t, that’s cool, I’ll remind you — that Fabella takes its calendar from the Horoscope. An elf named King Erasan stole the idea from the Babylonians and gave the horoscope their names. So the New Year for them does not begin in January but on March 21st, which —hey! That’s today.
So let’s get started, I’m Dillon Foley, and this is Archives of Fabella.
Beyond our world, there is love
Beyond our world, there is war
Beyond our world, there is life
Beyond our world, there is Fabella
Aries 1st, 6000 FY Fabella Year equal to March 21st, 2000 AD Earth Year.
The Age of Technology in Fabella is an apt name for a period that has seen the magical world achieve the height of its industrial promise. Gone are the days of medieval castles and palaces. Fabella in the year 6000 has far surpassed the days of yore. People from the smallest entic to the largest minotaur ride on cable cars speeding across wires strung up bustling metropolises, subway trains are pushed through tubes using compressed air, flying speeders have replaced broomsticks, and everyone can enjoy a life of ease and comfort their ancestors could never dream of.
Electricity is key to this new modern age of incredible wealth and prestige. Fabella powers its utilities through several means. Power is harvested from the electric currents generated by wind, solar, coal, and water, similar to how it is produced on Earth. Additional power sources used by Fabellans across the world include electromagnetic molasses and pixie dust. Pixie Dust largely takes the place of batteries and fuel, as it helps vehicles fly and power small appliances and electronics. Huge vats the size of grain silos are used to store this goo called electromagnetic molasses. It gained its name mostly because it has roughly the same consistency as maple syrup but is really more of an electrified ooze. More on that later, but suffice it to say electricity is essential to modern society.
With all its modern developments and technology, one thing that Fabella doesn’t have are computers. Repetitive processes like those mostly used at power plants are handed over to a small army of wind-up mechanical automatons.
Automatons aren’t necessarily robots, but they are machines that function as a wind-up toy of sorts to perform the same task on repeat 24/7. They share more in common with a clock than with a traditional robot. They have been built expressly to be a set it and forget it, mechanical servant.
On New Year’s eve, 5999, People all over the world are celebrating the new millennium. But at the stroke of midnight, the biggest power failure in the history of the world occurs as all of Fabella suffers a massive rolling blackout. The Great Global Blackout began as every country celebrated the new year, rolling across the world and baffling scientists.
Fabella is just as dependent on electricity as Earth. Without running power, the electrified cables which enable Fabella’s major source of traffic, cable cars, to move. Now thousands of people are literally stranded in the air in confined little boxes with little connection to understand what’s going on. Wild theories abound; was it a miscast magic spell? Was this an attack launched by a group of terrorists? Were there other environmental sources involved?
Fearing the worst, nations mobilized their infantry, bringing Fabella very close to a third world war. As scientists scramble to avert global disaster, the big picture starts to take form. The reason for the global blackout was — drum roll, please — the automatons.
The automatons were set up as wind-up mechanical servants, and people forgot about the essential tasks they were performing. Think about a wind-up toy. You can’t wind it up to perform on an infinite loop. Sooner or later, that toy will reach the end of its cycle, and that’s what has happened here. Automatons across the world were set to be active until 11:59 pm in the year 5999. As soon as the calendar year expired, so did they. All the tasks Automatons were relied upon to do shut down with them including power plants.
As soon as the automatons’ problem was discovered, they were rewound to separate dates in the future, and Fabella was able to avert a third Continental War — at that point anyway.
That’s going to do it for us today. Tune in tomorrow for the story of a dubious psychic and the grim reaper. Subscribe now to get more new episodes right in your feed. Rate and review the podcast on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts. Send your questions to archives of fabella@gmail.com.
Archives of Fabella is created, produced, and hosted by Dillon Foley with music by Garret Ferris and Audioblocks. Books are available on Amazon in ebook and paperback, as always, “Look outside of what is possible and think about what might be.”