Surrounded in exotic matter, with pockets wherein time and space are measured inconsistently, The Rail is a dangerously wild frontier environment. Creatures and anomalies run rampant here, storms made of cross-dimensional energy make life incredibly difficult, but not impossible.
Large, unbound clusters of mass floating amidst a cloud of other massive clusters suggest that once an edge is reached, the pure anti matter, void like existence will dematerialize anything caught too far from the "Beacons." Beacons are large, pale blue spheres which float above platform or clusters. The shape and appearance of these beacons similarly resemble the same bio-luminescent glow of deep sea angler fish, leading to many speculative stories of their origin.
Streams float through the empty space between clusters and masses, allowing some travel between locations. Trying to travel anywhere these streams do not allow results in disintegration.
The storms of the rail usually only appear in open spaces exposed to the streams and beacons. When these storms do appear however, the environment can change drastically. Fortunately, these storms are usually located in relatively predictable areas and the exotic materials specific to these areas can sometimes be collected or mined between storms.
History
After the destruction of the Shipnets - Interstellar Travel, rifts opened up and swallowed several operatives at some of the objective locations. One such Rift swallowed a squad lead by Arturian Maxus, the grandfather to Ruth Maxus. Arturian was the third known wielder of the five PsiBlades, after Mark and Carver. Upon landing in the Rail, the travelers were forced to accept their new life after some time, realizing that even if they did make way back, it might not be done in their lifetime. Upon finding other survivors and small, unorganized tribes amidst the Rail, Artiruan built a township society, becoming the Sheriff. Years passed, the Rail had already begun to alter and augment the inhabitants, some of those born in the Rail even being born as Leapers due to the combination of ambient energy from the rifts during the destruction of the Shipnets - Interstellar Travel. However their complexion was lost as the physical toll on their bodies forced those born in the Rail to hyper mutate thick, charred like skin and signatures of Railian crystal formations in their bodies which acted as conduits to make living in the Rail biologically stable. With so much time passing, the second generation of Rail-born realized that they were living within a time-dilated field, their equipment marking that upon escaping these fields, nearly two-hundred years was lived in the span of a few months. Arturian was able to live long enough to see his great great grandson Ruth, just for a few years before passing away, his lifespan, like all Rail-born, extended by the exotic matter there. The PsiBlade passed on to him. After the death of Arturian, Ruth grew to be in his mid-late twenties when the Rail began to see rifts to the outside world, again.