Editing The Difference Engine (section)

== Background ==
{{cleanup| reason = to move the hidden plot-related material that follows to the actual Plot section, editing to remove WP:OR and redundancies, and to then to add further sourced material here that complies with [[MOS:NOVELS]]—presenting Background that presents a "history of the novel's writing and development" that "report[s] the writings of significant and reliable sources"|date=May 2025}}

''The Difference Engine'' is a [[novel|fictional work]] of [[alternative history]] (alt history),<ref name=WWEnd>{{cite web | author = WWend Staff | date = 8 May 2025 | title = Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Books: The Difference Engine | work = WorldsWithoutEnd.com (WWEnd) | format = book database entry | url = http://www.worldswithoutend.com/novel.asp?ID=180 | access-date = 8 May 2025 | archive-url =  | archive-date =  | url-status =  | location=  | publisher=Tres Barbas, LLC | quote = }}</ref>{{better source|date=May 2025}} what Kirkus describes as a "Victorian alternate history".<ref name=KirkusDiffEng/> It been assigned to the genre of [[steampunk]],<ref name = PointAAS_1991/><ref name=MitrovichAmazStor_2013/> and has been described as an early such work.<ref name=MitrovichAmazStor_2013/> The novel "takes the reader to London in 1855 where an Industrial Revolution unlike any seen in a history book is in full swing".<ref name = PointAAS_1991>{{cite web | author = Point, Michael | date=April 28, 1991| title=Cyberpunk Heroes | newspaper=[[Austin American-Statesman]]| page=53| url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/austin-american-statesman/139303110/ | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240122073714/https://www.newspapers.com/article/austin-american-statesman/139303110/ | archive-date=January 22, 2024| access-date=January 22, 2024| via=[[Newspapers.com]]}}{{better source needed|date=May 2025}}</ref> Matt Mitrovich, writing for ''AmazingStories.com'', describes it—rather than as a novel—as being a "collection of three short stories and several snippets at the end all connected by a box of punch... cards [Engine cards]...", narrated in those stories by a distinct trio of [[First-person narrative|POV character]]s: first, Sybil Gerard, daughter of an earlier executed [[Luddite]] agitator, drawn into a conspiracy involving an [[alt history]] [[Sam Houston]], here a "[[Texian]]"—a repurposed term meaning, in history, residents of former province of Tejas, [[New Spain]], and its later derivative political entities<ref>{{cite web| author = Tarin, Randall | date = 2007 | title = The Texian Web: Texas History on the Internet | work = [[Texas A&M University]] (tamu.edu) | url = http://www.tamu.edu/faculty/ccbn/dewitt/txweb/txwebmain.htm | access-date = 2025-05-03 | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20111205164025/http://www.tamu.edu/faculty/ccbn/dewitt/txweb/txwebmain.htm | archive-date = 2011-12-05 | quote = male and female citizens or the culture of the former province of Tejas, New Spain, the Texas section of the state of Coahuila y Tejas, Republic of Mexico, and the subsequent Republic of Texas}} For a currently maintained website of the same apparent information, see [http://www.sonsofdewittcolony.org/txweb/txwebmain.htm this link].</ref>—Houston now exiled and in London; second, the esteemed "savant" paleontologist and [[alt history]] discoverer of ''[[Brontosaurus]]'', Edward “Leviathan” Mallory, serially attacked to attempt retrieval of a parcel with which Mallory is entrusted; and third, a fictional representation of [[Laurence Oliphant (author)|Laurence Oliphant]], still a spy and diplomat, but introduced as Mallory's protector, who continues in the final story to pursue investigations into earlier events in the book.<ref name=MitrovichAmazStor_2013>{{cite web | author = Mitrovich, Matt | date=April 30, 2013 | title=Review: The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling | work= AmazingStories.com | url=https://amazingstories.com/2013/04/review-the-difference-engine-by-william-gibson-and-bruce-sterling/  | archive-url= | archive-date=  | access-date= 2025-05-03 }}</ref>
<!--FOLLOWING MATERIAL IS HIDDEN as expanded plot content, rather than MOS:NOVELS Background—content that is rife with WP:OR editorialising and WP:VERIFY violations:
The fictional historical background diverges from our timeline around 1824,{{original research inline|date=May 2025}} at which point [[Charles Babbage]] completes his [[difference engine]] and proceeds to develop an Analytical Engine. He becomes politically powerful and at the [[1830 United Kingdom general election|1830 general election]] successfully opposes the [[Tories (British political party)#1783–1834|Tory]] Government of the [[Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington|Duke of Wellington]]. Although Wellington stages a ''[[coup d'état]]'' in 1830 in an attempt to overturn his defeat and prevent the acceleration of [[technological change]] and social upheaval, he is assassinated in 1831. The Industrial Radical Party, led by a [[Lord Byron]] who survives the [[Greek War of Independence]], comes to power. The Tory Party and [[hereditary peerage]] are eclipsed, and British [[trade union]]s assist in the ascendancy of the Industrial Radical Party (much as they aided the [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party]] of Great Britain in the twentieth century in our own world).{{original research inline|date=May 2025}} As a result, [[Luddite]] [[Neo-Luddism|anti-technological]] [[working class]] revolutionaries are ruthlessly suppressed.

By 1855, the Babbage computers have become mass-produced and ubiquitous, and their use emulates the innovations that actually occurred during our [[information technology]] and [[Internet]] revolutions. Other [[steam power|steam-powered]] technologies have also developed and so, for example, [[Goldsworthy Gurney#Gurney's steam carriage|Gurney steam carriages]] become increasingly common. The novel explores the social consequences of an information technology revolution in the nineteenth century, such as the emergence of "clackers" (a reference to [[Hacker (hobbyist)|hackers]]{{original research inline|date=May 2025}}), technologically proficient people, such as [[Théophile Gautier]], who are skilled at programming the Engines through the use of [[punched card]]s.

In the novel, the [[British Empire]] is empowered by the development and use of extremely-advanced steam-driven technology in industry, and are thus more powerful than in "our reality".{{clarify|date=May 2025}}{{original research inline|date=May 2025}} In addition, similar military technology has enhanced the capabilities of the armed forces ([[airship]]s, [[dreadnoughts]], and [[artillery]]) and the Babbage computers themselves. Under the Industrial Radical Party, Britain shows the utmost respect for leading scientific and industrial figures such as [[Isambard Kingdom Brunel]] and [[Charles Darwin]]. Indeed, they are collectively called "savants" and often raised to the [[peerage]] on their merits, causing a break with the past as regards social prestige and class distinction. The new patterns are also reflected in the educational sphere: classical studies have lost importance<!--Relative to what? According to whom?--><!--to more practical concerns such as [[engineering]] and [[accountancy]].{{original research inline|date=May 2025}}

Britain, rather than the [[United States]],{{original research inline|date=May 2025}} opened [[Japan]] to [[Western world|Western]] trade, in part because the United States became fragmented by interference from a Britain that foresaw the implications of a unified United States on the world stage. Counterpart successor states to our world's United States include a (truncated) United States; the [[Confederate States of America]]; the [[Republic of Texas]]; the [[Republic of California]]; a [[Communism|communist]] [[Manhattan|Manhattan Island]] [[Intentional community|commune]] (with [[Karl Marx]] as a leading light); [[British North America]] (analogous to [[Canada]], albeit slightly larger in this world); and [[Russian America]] ([[Alaska]]).{{original research inline|date=May 2025}} In the novel, an entente exists between[[Napoleon III]]'s [[Second French Empire|French Empire]] and the British, and Napoleon is married to a British woman.

In the world of ''The Difference Engine'', France occupies [[Second Mexican Empire|Mexico]], as it [[Second French intervention in Mexico|did briefly]] in reality during the [[American Civil War]].{{original research inline|date=May 2025}} Like Great Britain, it has its own analytical/difference engines (''ordinateurs''), especially used in the context of domestic [[surveillance]] within its [[police force]] and [[Intelligence agency|intelligence agencies]]. As for the other world powers, [[Germany]] remains fragmented, with no suggestion that [[Prussia]] will eventually form the core of a [[German Empire|unified nation]], as it did in our own timeline in 1871,{{original research inline|date=May 2025}} which may be caused by French sabotage analogous to that pursued in the case of the fragmentation of the United States noted above.{{editorializing|date=May 2025}} Japan is awakening after the British ended its isolation, and looks, as in our timeline,{{original research inline|date=May 2025}} set to become one of this world's leading industrial and economic powers from the 20th century onward.

The intervention of Lords Byron and Babbage provide [[famine relief]] with grain confiscated from the landed aristocracy. The [[Great Famine (Ireland)|Great Famine of Ireland]] never occurred, there is no agitation for [[Irish home rule]] or [[Irish Free State|Irish independence]] and the Irish instead have become enthusiastic supporters of the Radical regime. A Spanish Civil War is mentioned to be taking place in 1855 with one side being the Royalists, and in 1905, possibly as a result of that conflict, there is an [[Catalan separatism|independent Republic of Catalonia]].

Among other historical characters, the novel features "[[Texian]]" [[President of the Republic of Texas|President]] [[Sam Houston]], as an exile after a political coup in [[Republic of Texas|Texas]], a reference to [[Percy Bysshe Shelley]] (as a [[Luddite]]), [[John Keats]] as a ''kinotropist'' (an operator of mechanical [[pixellated]] screens), and [[Benjamin Disraeli]] as a publicist and [[tabloid journalism|tabloid]] writer.-->