Editing The Difference Engine (section)

==Plot==
{{cleanup section|reason=[[MOS:NOVELPLOT]]: A summary for a full-length novel should be between 400 and 700 words.|date=May 2025}}
First Iteration. The Angel of Goliad.<ref>This is an allusion to a woman who worked to heroically save individuals who otherwise would have died during the executions of historic Texans at Goliad in March, 1836, an event known as the [[Goliad Massacre]]. See {{cite web |first=George O. |last=Coalson |date = August 1, 2017 | orig-date = 1952 | title=Francita Alavez: The Angel of Goliad and Her Heroic Acts |work=Handbook of Texas Online |url=http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fal53 |accessdate=March 12, 2021 |publisher=Texas State Historical Association}}</ref> In 1855, Sybil Gerard, going by the name of Sybil Jones, daughter of an executed [[Luddite]] leader, is a [[wikt:dollymop|dolly-mop]] targeting respectable gentlemen, and is recruited by one, Mick Radley, a secretary to an [[alt history|alt historical]] [[Sam Houston]], to assist Mick in support of Houston's cause in Britain. Mick has confronted Sybil regarding her hidden past, says she is no longer a [[wikt:dollymop|dolly-mop]], but rather is now Mick's "[[apprentice|prentice]] adventuress", although Sybil remains with mixed feelings regarding him. Mick is a schemer with two ongoing plays, a set of [[punch card]]s that purport to encode a betting system, or "modus", and a second set of "kino[punch]-cards" encoding visuals for a presentation. Before one of Houston's speeches, Mick has Sybil send the betting system set on to Paris. Meanwhile, Houston is preparing to give one of a series of presentations in support of his hoped for return to Texas, presentations that in this era require support of a "kinotropist" and kino-cards, the latter encoding images for the presentations. (What the technician operates is termed a ''kinotrope'', which ''Kirkus'' describes as "a new art form, motion pictures by way of programmed arrays of changing, clacking tiles", this driven by a steam-driven "Engine", a mechanical computer.<ref name=KirkusDiffEng>{{cite web | author = Kirkus Staff | date = March 1990 | title = The Difference Engine by William Gibson & Bruce Sterling ‧ Release Date: March 4, 1990 | work = [[Kirkus Reviews]] (KirkusReviews.com) | format = book review | url = https://www.KirkusReviews.com/book-reviews/william-gibson/the-difference-engine/ | access-date = 8 May 2025 | archive-url =  | archive-date =  | url-status =  | location=  | publisher= | quote = }}</ref>)

Mick has surreptitiously laid hands on the kino-[[punch card]] set needed by Houston's kinotropist, and so Mick has been of value to Houston. To disenfranchise Mick, Houston steals that card set, and Mick enlists Sybil to steal them back again. Sybil distracts the hotel concierge by composing in his presence a telegram to Charles Egremont, an MP and a former lover, boldly confronting him for his past abusive behavior around the time of her father's death; Mick uses the diversion to obtain the key to Houston's hotel room. Sybil, acting alone, gains access to the room and finds a [[Texian]] assassin lying in wait to kill Houston. He interrogates Sybil, and disarms, knifes, and murders Mick when he arrives. When Sam Houston arrives, the Texian thrice discharges Mick's small [[pepper-box]] pistol into him, direly wounding him, ruining a punch card set Houston has tucked in his waistband, and breaking Houston's heavy, [[raven]]-headed [[walking stick|cane]]. The assassin escapes after breaking a window, Sybil assigning him the monikor of "Angel of Goliad"; Houston appears to be dying, but readers are left unclear as to his fate. Sybil finds a missing fortune, taken from Texas by Houston, a spill of large diamonds from the hollow cane, which she retrieves (along with Paris tickets from Mick's dead person). Mick Radley dead, Sybil departs alone for Paris, and some indication is given that Houston may too have survived.

Second Iteration. Darby Day. Edward Mallory, a [[paleontology|palaeontologist]] and explorer, while visiting his friends participating in a [[Gurney's steam carriage|gurney]] race derby, encounters [[Ada Lovelace|Lady Ada Byron]] being mistreated by a man and a woman. After Mallory fights the man and woman over their treatment of Lady Byron, she gives Mallory a case containing punch cards and returns to her family. Mallory hides the case in the skull of the exhibit of the dinosaur he discovered, the [[Brontosaurus]]. The man, fashioning himself '[[Captain Swing]]', threatens to 'destroy' Mallory unless he returns the punch cards. As part of his attempts, Swing spreads rumours that Mallory was responsible for the death of Mallory's rival, Rudwick.

Third Iteration. Dark Lanterns. [[Laurence Oliphant (1829–1888)|Laurence Oliphant]] meets Mallory to offer him police protection. Oliphant argues Rudwick died as a result of a conspiracy and Mallory could be the next target, given that both received sponsorship for their research work in return for supplying arms to Native American tribes thereby checking the expansionist ambitions of the United States. Mallory agrees to Oliphant's offer after he is tailed and attacked. With the help of Andrew Wakefield, Oliphant's contact at the Central Bureau of Statistics, Mallory identifies Florence Bartlett, the woman he saw with Lady Byron at the derby. It is suggested that Bartlett brought the case of punch cards that Sybil Gerard had sent to France back to England. Mallory sends Lady Byron a letter which reveals where the case of punch cards is hidden. "[[Great Stink|The Stink]]", a major episode of pollution in which London swelters under an [[Inversion (meteorology)|inversion layer]] (comparable to [[Great Smog of London|the London Smog of December 1952]]), causes much of London's elite to leave the city. Mallory is accompanied by Ebenezer Fraser, a [[secret police]] officer, as he goes about his business in the city, but Fraser is wounded after confronting a gang of youthful looters, as civil order begins to break down.

Fourth Iteration. Seven Curses. Mallory leaves Fraser at the police station and meets Hetty, another courtesan who knew Sybil. Mallory spends the night with Hetty in Whitechapel, and leaves the next morning to notice that the persisting Stink has led to further collapse of order in the city. Making his way back to the Palace of Palaeontology, he notices advertisements, commissioned by Swing, that claim Mallory murdered Rudwick and decry the excesses of the rule of savants. After meeting his brothers at the Palace and hearing that their sister's engagement was broken thanks to rumours spread about her infidelity by Swing, Mallory gathers them and Fraser, who has recovered, to attack Swing. They infiltrate Swing's location, noting that communists from Manhattan are supporting him. After recognising Florence Bartlett as a lecturer among them, Mallory and his group fight them off until rain ends the Stink and a river [[ironclad]] fires at Swing's location. Fraser apprehends Swing.

Fifth Iteration. The All Seeing Eye. A year later, Oliphant pursues his investigations into the disorder accompanying The Stink, while having persistent visions of an all-seeing eye. He identifies the assassin responsible for murdering Mick Radley and Rudwick.<!--DOES NOT MAKE SENSE: having been himself poisoned by Bartlett--> After the Prime Minister, Lord Byron, dies during the Stink and is replaced by Brunel, Charles Egremont has begun removing old associates in an effort to hide his past as the one that betrayed Sybil Gerard's father to his death. Florence Bartlett is informed by Lady Byron of the location of the long-sought case of Ada Byron's cards—the paleontologist Edward Mallory had hidden them, encased in plaster, within the reconstructed skull of ''Brontosaurus''. Bartlett attempts, with a crew, to steal the cards, but is thwarted, and dies in a firefight with soldiers and policemen as she attempts to escape. Oliphant, secretly having secured the cards, further uses the organs of Engine-driven state security (Wakefield's offices) to lay hands on the telegram that Sybil sent Egremont, thus learning of Egremont's past heinous crimes, and defining for Oliphant a means by which he might bring him down.<!--One of Oliphant's officers is captured by members of an agency affiliated with Egremont.{{what}}--> Oliphant confronts Wakefield, who is clearly fearful, and their discussion reveals that as a part of their efforts on behalf of state security, the two of them have had individual identities of those deemed enemies fully erased from records, and thus from a history of existence. Oliphant heads for Paris to meet with French intelligence, and to meet Sybil, intending to get testimony with which to blackmail Egremont. Oliphant's meeting with his French counterpart reveals that the case of punch cards, when sent to Paris, appears to have been run through France's equivalent Engine by a 'clacker', causing it to malfunction. After meeting and persuading Sybil that his cause is dedicated to their mutual safety, Oliphant returns to London, but falls ill; his Japanese protege{{who|date=May 2025}}<!--He should have been introduced in name, earlier. Japanese technology as presented in TDE is a common mention in reviews of the book.--> next appears, to the good humor of the recipient, and presents Egremont with a communique, presumably the testimony of Sybil, via Oliphant.<!--THE FOLLOWING DISPUTED, and hidden as WP:OR interpretation, until quotations and/or third-part sources in clear support are provided: The punch cards contain proof of [[Gödel's incompleteness theorems|two theorems]], which, in reality, would not be discovered until 1931 by [[Kurt Gödel]].{{says who}}{{cn}}--> Ada, Lady Byron delivers a lecture in France, the narrator there describing her as "The Mother".{{verification needed|date=May 2025}} She is chaperoned by Fraser; Sybil, who attends Ada's lecture, seeks her out afterward, addresses her with undue familiarity, and after giving offense, expresses sympathy for her challenges, and gives her a gift of a ring, bearing a large, uncut diamond. Frasier and Ada return to their apartments, take stock of their finances, contemplate their next speaking tour, and in a moment of vulnerability, Lady Byron asks if the familiar insults of Sybil actually characterise who she is; Frasier responds, no, Ada, you are "La Reine des Ordinateurs”" (The Queen of Computers, or "of Machines").<ref>{{cite journal | author = Oramus, Dominika | date = October 1, 2020 | title = Strangers in Togetherville–Women, Physics and Popular Culture | journal = Prague Journal of English Studies | volume = 9 | issue = 1 | pages = 133-153, esp. 147 | via =  Sciendo Team, Paradigm Publishing Services | doi = 10.2478/pjes-2020-0007 | issn = 2336-2685 | url = https://webkajl.pedf.cuni.cz/documents/journal/volume-9/PJES2020-0007.pdf | access-date = 8 May 2025 | location = Warsaw, Poland | publisher = De Gruyter Brill | language = en}} The full journal article was, as of this retrieval date, also available at [https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/pjes-2020-0007 this link]. Note, there is an internal discrepancy in this citation, in that it also associates volume 9, issue 1 of the journal with the date July 2020.</ref> Using a reflection in a mirror as the point of segue, the narrative shifts to 1991, where a vast Engine is now described as simulating the lives of all of humankind in London.<!--THE FOLLOWING DISPUTED, and hidden as WP:OR interpretation, until quotations in clear support are provided:  that preceded its existence to produce new conclusions. This Engine reveals itself to be the narrator,{{cn}}{{request quotation}} as it achieves [[self-awareness]],{{cn}}{{request quotation}} its Eye examining the records of people, documents, and artefacts.{{request quotation}}-->