Farcana Story

Farcana is a tournament of Stars. It was established to test the capabilities of Axelar, a compound found on Mars that can bind to humans and give them amazing powers at a high cost. In the year 2101, most major issues of humanity are solved not through wars or political conflict but through powerful, enhanced individuals battling them out on the Farcana Arena. Each one of them has personal goals, dreams, and ideals, which only the winners will get to implement in the world.

In 2035, the first manned spaceship landed on Mars. The expedition, led by Diana, discovered Axelar on the surface, which became bound to her and gave her seemingly eternal life. That sparked a new level of interest in the earth’s scientists that has only grown throughout the past 70 years. Diana returned to earth, but the expedition that came after decided to stay on the red planet, and the one after that, and the one after that...

The settlement of Mars grew throughout the mid-21st century. Two corporations emerged as the leading powers at that time. Foresight, which took on the study of Axelar, grew to believe themselves to be the protectors of humanity, slowly turning into a religious community with the aim of pushing science forward while guarding humanity from its horrors. The Red Beacon became the builders of Mars, terraforming the planet with the hope of eventually turning it into a new home for humans. The illegal settlement of Mars also started at that time. Pirates, criminals, opportunists, and regular people looking for a new chance began to settle in the nooks and crevices of the planet that weren’t yet prepared to house them.

Slowly but surely, the studies of Axelar started producing results that were both wonderful, inspiring, and terrifying. Eventually, more and more humans and machines went into a symbiosis with the substance, which turned out to be bondable to any sufficiently complex system, be it a brain, DNA, or even computers. Axelar was also found to be programmable through an extremely difficult process. Foresight became the stewards of that information, guarding the substance from those who would use it for wrong. With that knowledge, Mars entered an era of unbelievable prosperity, slowly becoming a high-tech haven for corporations.

With Mars prospering, the earth began dying, and the production of superconductors caused a horrible, irreversible climate disaster, forever cooling the core of the planet. Seeing that the damage was already done, some earthlings decided to start building spaceships with whatever they had left, moving their whole lives to a planet that promised a brighter future.

With all that going on back on Earth, a new faction arose on Mars as an opposition to the corporations. The Anthill group wanted to promote a more free approach both to the colonization of Mars and to the study of Axelar. They saw more and more humans needing help that the centralized, slow-moving corporations were unable to provide. Anthill had a faster and riskier way of doing things. Wanting to discredit the corporations, they hacked Foresight and leaked information about their axelar experiments. After that scandal, Foresight was forced to make their studies more transparent. Farcana was established as both a tournament for Axelar-enhanced humans and a televised field laboratory for Foresight.

Earth, ravaged by the failures of humans, had finally run its course. People, scrambling over their chance to escape, fought both with each other and with their governments. Many countries fell apart, and, eventually, the Global Alliance was formed—a new ruling body that would take everyone to Mars. They built a ship named Legacy that would take all the good that came from earth and take it to the red planet. They also helped everyone else build their own ships and get off the planet. Diana, still alive thanks to Axelar, was picked to be Legacy’s captain and leader for the humans on their final voyage. In 2095, the earth was abandoned, left to float through space as a cold and lifeless rock. Billions of people reached the orbit of Mars but got stuck there, for Mars didn’t have the resources to take them all in at once.

With most of humanity hovering overhead, the corporations began working harder and harder. The invention of Stasis allowed for Farcana to be made safe for everyone, and that in turn allowed for a new possible prize. Anyone could participate and win a place for them and their family on Mars. The people in orbit had a civil war, with explosions and fights so terrible that they could be seen and heard from Mars. Eventually, all the scum, pirates, and criminals were defeated, and the people of the orbit formed their own temporary society. The Archipelagos of ships had just one purpose: to preserve their own honor and humanity while stuck in space waiting for their chance to start a new life on Mars.

By 2101, the situation stabilized but was full of subdued conflicts, mostly resolved in the arenas of Farcana by people representing their personal goals, ideals, and factions. People from orbit compete to move them and their families to Mars; people from Legacy compete for diplomacy; people from Anthill fight to loosen the rule of the corporations; and people from corporations fight to advance science in the name of helping humanity. Each one has a dream worth fighting for; the question is... Whose dream can win over you?