Circling around a star in the far reaches of a galaxy, around a young, yellow star, a planet called "Al'Arith" by its inhabitants is shown in all of its green and blue beauty. But if one would look at the planet from space, one would be able to tell that something about the planet was odd.
Al'Arith could be considered something of an anomaly, even among the multiple dimensions and universes in the multiverse. Born from the ashes of multiple Earth-sized planet collisions millions of years before Earth formed, Al'Arith had a mass of three times that of its comparison. This planet also travels in a binary orbit with a moon of similar size and mass, causing constant flooding, rain, thunderstorms, and other weather-based anomalies from the moon's gravitational pull. Due to its age, Al'Arith actually has a lower core temperature than Earth. This causes a thicker formation of solid crust on the planet, which also allows an abundance of metal to sit beneath the ground.
Normally, a planet of this size would also experience an increase in its gravitational force on the ground, due to its size and composition. Yet the gravity of Al'Arith was similar, if not the same, as of Earth, even though it is three times the size and mass of Earth. Its closer proximity to its sun also meant that it was constantly bombarded with significant amounts of radiation, as it was so close to the sun that Al'Arith's gravitational field did not reflect as much solar radiation as one would expect. A person from Earth, as soon as they land on Al'Arith, would immediately be assaulted with as much radiation as standing right next to an unprotected nuclear reactor. This person would die within days, if not in 24 hours, due to the exposure, regardless of any medical treatment they receive.
Despite the hectic conditions of Al'Arith, life flourished on the planet. Flora and fauna can be found virtually everywhere, even growing off of glaciers and hanging in volcanoes, impervious to the lava that boiled beneath or the ice that froze the water in the atmosphere. Animals scurried around the tall trees of forests, and in the deep, dark tunnels of the underground.
Life here had evolved a little bit slower compared to Earth, contrary to the belief in the 60's that high amounts of radiation would induce faster evolution. From microbes in the sea to the humanoids of the planet, all shared a similar characteristic: the use of radiation in the atmosphere, called "mana" to the sentient beings.
"Mana" in this world was actually the background radiation in the planet's atmosphere, which was absorbed into the vascular system of organisms and stored in said organism's body in small sections of "bulbs" spread evenly around in the nervous system of animals (even in the case of plants, which evolved a rudimentary nervous system in order to absorb and use this mana). Its original purpose was to minimize the amount of radiation that a living body would experience, in order to reduce medical problems (i.e., cancer, radiation sickness, nausea, etc.). These "bulbs" are actually organs collectively known as the "mana pools" of people, and convert the radiation into a highly reactive chemical that would form a chemical reaction upon very specific conditions, an evolutionary trait to prevent animals and plants alike from spontaneously exploding in a ball of fire or zapping everything, including itself, in a flurry of lightning.
Genetics and environmental conditions actually play a large role in the absorption and capacity of mana pools. Radiation from the sun created large amounts of heavy metals in the crust, which would also create radiation in the form of beta and gamma rays (of course, this was nothing compared to the radiation of the sun). This is why Al'Arith's inhabitants have noticed larger mana pools or higher rates of mana absorption in animals and plants deep beneath the crust, and on the high, unprotected ledges of mountains and deserts - the radiation was at such a high level at these places that normal life, even on Al'Arith, would struggle to absorb and utilize this mana.
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This planet was also covered by a three to one ratio of sea to land, again a similarity to Earth. But the planet actually had significantly larger tectonic plates than Earth, due to the relatively lower temperatures of the planet's core. The lower temperatures of the planet's core also meant lower chances of volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, earthquakes, and other tectonic-related disasters, because the magma of the planet moves at a slower speed. This also has the consequence of reducing related disaster's impact on the environment. The most devastating attack on the environment would be a fifty-foot tsunami or a normal volcanic explosion, not a supervolcanic explosion like what happened on Earth, which nearly wiped out all life on the planet.
Al'Arith's sentient inhabitants do not differ from those in Western and Eastern fantasies. Dragons, elves, pixies, dwarves, and other humanoids or sentient creatures (such as dragons or kitsunes) exist on Al'Arith. Regardless of their characteristics, all have created their own cultures and languages, ranging from tribes, simple vocal languages, and the creature's own natural instincts and squeaks or grunts, to flowing languages, democracies, kingdoms, and empires. The large size of inhabitable space on this planet has allowed these races to have enough space to live on comfortably, thereby taking away the severe racism and discrimination often associated with the lack of living space, such as the "white supremacy" of Earth.
In this world, both sanitation, medicine, and generally science stand out in history. Through the advancement of medicine and science, sanitation has increased to Earth's modern proportion, with people taking baths and going to bathrooms about every day, which is all flushed down into sewer systems. (It should be noted that water is needed to be carried to the toilets and baths from wells and pumps). Medicine has advanced to the point of the 70's, with chemotherapy and modern medicine being the preferred choice of treatment. Of course, mana users would also specialize in healing, but only to the degree where basic broken bones, fractures, torn tendons, and the like can be healed. Magic cannot heal infections and diseases, which is best left to medicine.
It should be noted that this does not stop these races from waging war. War had been waged between different races, kingdoms, countries, and even internal factions; Al'Alrith's history is covered in the blood, gore, and viscera of the fallen. Mana has turned warfare into a combination of ranged and close combat warfare. Mana users can target armies and troops from a range of up to ten miles, and bombard them with spells and enchanted items, but close combat troops could simply weather the attack and crush the mana users with ease. Thus, an army would need to equalize its use of speed, attack, defense, and strategy in order to defeat the opponent. People with large amounts of mana are rare, about one in ten thousand, and even then, they may or may not be specialized in the use of combat magic. People then turned to other forms of long-range weaponry. For those with little to no mana pools, long-range weapons are also available without using mana, ranging from bows and arrows to simple rocket and explosion-propelled weapons like unguided tubes of fuel (which would create a high-speed kinetic missile), which do not need mana at all. At Al'Arith's current state, all races have stopped their expansion after ten years, and are now in the process of inhabiting their territories, keeping buffer zones and no man's lands between country borders to prevent invasions. Of course, these areas also serve as havens for criminals and mercenaries, since this area is lawless, spreading crime around the surrounding regions.
And the old robot, a remnant of humanity's scientific experiments and achievements, would be landing in a small country of Kesiah, a small kingdom of a majority of mixed races, on a wooded forest in the seclusion of a mountain. Alone and broken.