Sprawl Trilogy: The Final Cut
In a darkened room, lit only by the glow of a CRT monitor, I watched eagerly; my fingers flew across the keyboard. My pulserate quickened, awaiting the sound queue - one meant abject failure, one meant resounding success.
I heard the tone, and a smile broke across my face. I was in. I had made it into the Villa Straylight.
An absolutely true story. Contextually, this was circa 1988, the sound was that of my 1200 baud modem connecting, and the "Villa Straylight" a local BBS obviously created by a Gibson fan (the sysop's name was Wintermute). My online persona name for almost three decades was originally created as an homage to that era, where BBS operators, hackers, and computer aficionados derived names from his (and other) cyberpunk novels.
I wonder how one would describe this to a person born in the 21st century; how you would use a landline phone to connect to another person's computer that hosted a bulletin board system; how you were restricted to your area code unless your parents were cool with long distance calling charges; how they generally could only support one user at a time, so you would leave a message on the boards, wait an appropriate amount of time, and then try to call back in to see if anyone responded. An almost alien world.
This is my long-winded intro to announce that I finally finished my deep read of the Sprawl trilogy. The file itself, apart from general notes on the novels (and three short stories) includes a detailed breakdown of all the locations mentioned and visited in the series; all corporations mentioned, fictional and real; and a relative timeline for the series. But I'm saving any analyses for the blog, so without any further ado:
The Final "When Is Neuromancer Set"?
I managed to find one more piece of information that narrowed it down a bit further. But we'll start from the top:
1. All three books are set in the 21st century. This is reinforced several times; this also means that, taking 2099 as the last year (I realize that 'technically' it's 2100 but in practice it's taken to be 2099), the latest Neuromancer can be set is 2085, as the 1st and 3rd books are 14 years apart.
2. Reference is made to the Centenary of the Battle of Britain, which would be 2040, in the 3rd book. This places a lower limit to the 1st book at 2026.
3. The reference to the "Act of '53" in the 1st book is actually to a real-world Swiss citizenship law that went into effect in 1953. You would generally only refer to a year like that if it hadn't come again, which further sets the upper limit to 2052.
4. This is the new piece of information: Beauvoir mentions that the Projects arcology was designed 80-100 years ago, and elsewhere they are specifically called "Solari-style". Solari was the architect who coined the term 'arcology', and first presented the concept in 1969. As the 2nd book is 7 years after the 1st, this puts a lower limit (assuming 80 years and the design being at the very start of Solari's concept) of 2042.
5. Mona Lisa Overdrive is the only book to give a specific day and month - "the last day of November", when Bobby is dropped off at the Factory. Cherry's story seems to imply that the day of the week is Sunday. Looking at the years in the range 2056 to 2066, there are two years: 2059 and 2064, placing the 1st book in either 2045 or 2050.
My personal preference is 2050, if only because that is the same year that Shadowrun 1st Edition is set. (Also, it would be closer to the middle of the range of '80-100 years' for the arcology design).
When is World War III Set?
We can actually get a relatively good timeframe for when this is with three points:
1. Ashpool hadn't been seen in 30 years, and he states he was under for 30 years.
2. The Finn said he was in business for 40 years in Count Zero, and had started before the war.
3. Ashpool was awake and in Freeside when WW III happened, with Freeside's completion after (where he and Tessier both made public appearances at the opening)
This would set it sometime between 30-33 years prior to Neuromancer. Based on the previous work, this means the war was fought anywhere between 2012 and 2020. I would probably put it at the higher end, around 32 years, so my personal guess is 2018. (The war only lasted for 3 weeks).
What about Ashpool's age?
This was the big one. Neuromancer has Ashpool claiming to be 200 years old. It's also mentioned that no shares of Tessier-Ashpool has been traded in 100 years. Even picking 2050 as a date, this means Ashpool was born in 1850(!) and that Tessier-Ashpool was already in existence in 1950.
However, I am loathe to ignore any given dates or timeframes, unless there's good reason. My original guess was that there was some significant diversion of time here, where some critical technologies developed far earlier than they did in the real world, to explain how someone that was already at the frontiers of human aging in the mid-20th century was still around.
This time I noticed a difference. Angie Mitchell reviews a documentary about the Tessier-Ashpools in Mona Lisa Overdrive (where we finally learn Ashpool's full name!) which unfortunately is light on dates but gives some critical information. I had missed a crucial point every time before. Namely, that Tessier-Ashpool did not exist until their marriage, and it is said that within one year of their marriage Ashpool divested 90% of his engineering firm's holdings, reinvesting in orbital properties and shuttle utilities.
Unless we can say that the timeline was seriously skewed from the real world - which there is no indication - Tessier-Ashpool can't have existed 'a hundred years ago'. With that, one of the main support structures of Ashpool's comment is gone.
Ashpool is still obviously an old man, his life extended via cryonics; and we do have Julius Deane, whom we are told is 135 years old rather than a character statement. I suspect that we're given a clue in their obsessions and the revelations about Tessier and Ashpool; their interest in cryonics and the AI-generated digitized existence are two sides of the same coin - longevity. Tessier's fortune before the marriage/merger comes from 'nine basic patents in biochemistry'. What could those patents be? I suspect that they are involved with the 'de-aging' process that Deane undergoes yearly, and would explain what drew them together in the first place (cloning would also be along the lines of their explorations, but evidently felt to be a dead end - I suspect they observed the cloned children were unique individuals rather than an extension of the original person)
What happened to the United States of America?
The USA is never mentioned by name anywhere in the series. Gibson speculated that it may have broken up by the time of the trilogy. Yet, there are mentions to "Federals" and various agencies like the IRS which are apparently still in existence. On the other hand, BAMA - the Sprawl - almost seems to be its own government at times. How to resolve the contradictions here?
There are two indirect clues. One is when Tick boasts in the 3rd book that the UK still has a real government, one not directly controlled by corporations. The other clue is in the 2nd book, where there is reference to a matrix location called the "Dallas-Fort Worth Sunbelt Co-Prosperity Sphere". Why is this of interest? Because this is an oblique reference to a concept from the 20th century - namely the Japanese attempt at a hegemony in Asia at the start of WW II by encouraging 'economic self-sufficiency and cooperation' between its member states.
The implication here is that the Boston-Atlanta Metropolitan Axis is not unique, but one of a number of regions in the US (and possibly North America; Canada is never mentioned in the novels!). The "Sunbelt" is the region of states lying along the southernmost portion of the country, possibly forming another 'axis' stretching from Florida to Arizona. The implication is that these are economic in nature, spawned by corporate sponsorship.
So, in the end, the United States of America is still there, and still exists. It's just that the federal government is effectively irrelevant, with various 'economic confederations' becoming more important and powerful, as Congress and the President slowly fade into the background.
And on that note...
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