Category: Tarterus

The opening story, Into Darkness, is primarily concerned with what’s happening in “the Real” as the city expression goes. We’re presented with Force Command, which is the main route of interaction with the outside world, which is almost always only part of the Real. We’re also primarily concerned with the manifestation of the Netwights and how they are a constant presence in many areas of the city; most often on The Spill, which is the section of the city that didn’t fall relatively cleanly in concentric rings. That section collapsed entirely and left a path of rubble from the Rim all the way down to Tarterus, which is the seventh level and one of the key lynchpins of the ShadowNet, the city-wide network that forms “the Now.” Unlike the other two levels that form that tripod of ‘Net structure, the fifth with the Black Market and the third with the Rogue Corps, the nature of the ‘Net on Seven is less technical and more mystical, for lack of a better term. In some ways, it’s the very root of the ‘Net and some of the phenomena that appear on it. There are other forces at work on Tarterus and those elements shape the character of everything that comes into contact with it and them. Among them are things like Hakker and his Cyberrats (just cybernetically altered or something more?), the gangs like the Azurademons, the TarBabies, and the Psycho Derelicts, and the regular presence of the Tech Walkers, which are more present on this level and Six than anywhere else in the city.

As I mentioned before, the concept of the ShadowNet is rooted partially in William Gibson’s concept of cyberspace, but it was always intended to be more than that. Whether you’re online or not, you can regularly feel the presence of the ‘Net in the city. It’s both “online” in terms of being an electronic communication network, but also physically and psychically present within the city. If you’re “in tune” with it, then you can recognize its effect on the physical world. Rare, indeed, are those who can be effectively online in both the Real and the Now, but one of them, Satori, is a regular resident of Seven, which speaks to one of those dual identities that that level holds. And, of course, “dual nature” is one of the main elements of the ‘Net as a story element, which our first story will get into. The fact that we’re beginning at the top of the Spill and its endpoint is on Tarterus is another nice coincidence. It’s almost like I’ve had this thing mapped out in my head for 33 years. But that “feel” of the presence of the ‘Net is also evident if you happen to run into those denizens of the city which, like Satori, have a connection to the Real and the Now as part of their own dual nature. Those are the Netwights and the Jackwraiths.

The latter is the screen name I’ve had for some 40 years, going back to the earliest elements of the Internet in places like local BBSs and some more well-known nodes like The WELL (yes, just like the Ninth level. Inspiration comes from many places, but that wasn’t an intentional naming match.) Of course, back then it had to be “jackwrth” (8-character names) but I could type it out in full in messages and posts. The original idea was a take I had on Gibson’s work, wherein his characters had to jack in, mentally, to his network and basically fully upload their consciousness. My thought was: What would happen if you died while you were jacked in? You’d leave behind a ghost. Or a wraith. Hence, jackwraith, since I was terminally online back in the day. In old school D&D, two of the most feared types of undead were wraiths and wights, since the former would drain your strength until you just died from being near them and the latter, even worse, would drain you of experience levels; meaning that all the work you’d done to become an 8th-level fighter might be lost when a couple hits from a wight reduced you to a 6th-level fighter. So, it was natural that if I had jackwraiths in the Now, I’d also have netwights in the Real and the residents of the city would have to deal with them, no matter where they were in the two worlds. I have a story in the queue that involves the Iron Wizards and a programmer named Kahina that orbits that concepts about the wraiths/wights and what spawns them and why. But that’s probably a ways out.

Anyway, that’s a bit more background on one of the most important elements of the setting. It has a presence in this first story and the Tribunal’s version of it- TrinityNet -will be part of the second story. The Tech Walkers also have an exclusive network of their own down on the eighth level, the Wasteland, so there’s no place that isn’t connected to some version of the Now, even as close as the Wasteland is to The Well, which tends to restrict that kind of communication and presence, which is kind of a clue to the essential nature of that aspect to the city and its origin. But we’ll get into that at some point in the future, either through Jeff’s art or me rambling away in some other fashion. Next time, I might talk a bit more about Force Command or perhaps resume the survey down to Two, the Control Ring.