New Crobuzon
Encyclopedia
New Crobuzon is a fictional city-state
created by China Miéville
and located in his fictional world of Bas-Lag
. It is prominently featured in both Perdido Street Station
and Iron Council
, and serves as a plot device
and background for The Scar
.
Several commentators have noted that New Crobuzon is reminiscent of Victorian London, but sometimes note other possible influences such as modern Cairo
and the Vieux Carre
of New Orleans.
along the eastern seaboard of the Rohagi continent
, on the world of Bas-Lag
. The city itself is situated around the Rivers Tar and Canker, whose confluence
forms the wider and more navigable Gross Tar. It is the Gross Tar that connects New Crobuzon to the Iron Bay, ten miles east of the city. The mountains that separate New Crobuzon from the rest of Rohagi are called the Dancing Shoe Mountains.
The basin occupied by New Crobuzon is vast, and its terrain varies greatly. Northwest of the city is described in The Scar as an uninhabited "expanse of scrub and marsh", ending eventually at the feet of the Bezhek Mountains. Immediately to the south lies a substantial forest called the Rudewood, beyond which is found an area called the Wetlands. Eventually, the Wetlands give way to the Mendican Hills. Beyond this is the Grain Spiral: an agricultural region that supplies New Crobuzon with much of its food.
Various tributary
settlements dot the lands surrounding New Crobuzon. Most are little more than agrarian
hamlets
, though one, Tarmuth at the mouth of the Gross Tar River, is notable enough to earn mention in The Scar.
In terms of climate, New Crobuzon occupies a temperate
zone with regular season
al changes: autumn and winter seasons are colder than the spring and summer. New Crobuzon was capable of controlling, or at least greatly influencing, local weather earlier in its history through the use of an "aeromorphic engine." This device has not functioned for over five centuries, however.
Details regarding the New Crobuzon calendar are murky. The novels name seven days — Dustday, Blueday, Fishday, Dockday, Chainday, Skullday and Shunday — which loosely imply a seven-day week. The year has twelve months, but only eleven are mentioned: Lunuary, Soluary, Swiven, Chet, Melluary, Tathis, Sinn, Octuary, Rinden, Arora and Dust. Lunuary is the first month of the year (it follows New Year Eve) Chet and Melluary seem to constitute some of New Crobuzon's spring, Tathis, Sinn and Octuary are summer months, and Rinden and Arora are implied as falling within the bounds of late autumn.
magazine. Though none of the novels account for the city's origins, author reveals that Crobuzon was a small village in the estuary of river Gross Tar (it is mentioned by a character in Perdido Street Station
as "just plain Crobuzon").
About year 100 Anno Urbis it was completely burnt by the pirate raid and survivors moved upriver to the place where Brock Marsh is now located and founded new town called New Crobuzon. Its inhabitants kept the old timeline beginning with founding of "old" Crobuzon.
The books do not give an account of the first millennium of the city's existence, or the specific relationship or transition between the New Crobuzon and the former city. The oldest documented event of New Crobuzon's past is the arrival of individual khepri traders between the years 1000 and 1100, perhaps resultant of a merchant
–explorer named Seemly making contact with their homeland on the continent of Bered Kai Nev. Two centuries later, an unnatural meteorological phenomenon battered the city, prompting the construction of the weather-controlling aeromorphic engine. This event, called a "Torque storm", was presumably followed by the "Full Years" — an era of indeterminate length which a character in The Scar suggests was New Crobuzon's golden age
.
New Crobuzon's fortunes waned during the final decades of the 15th century, and it is from this point that the city-state's history becomes more detailed. The Full Years ended around 1500 with the construction of Bas-Lag's most magnificent and ineffectual warship
, the Grand Easterly. Shortly thereafter, New Crobuzon found itself embroiled in an epic military campaign referred to as the Pirate Wars, during which the Grand Easterly was captured by the pirate-city called Armada. New Crobuzon emerged from the Pirate Wars victorious in 1544, after obliterating the rival city-state of Suroch with "Torque bombs." It was around this time that the Weaver assumed residency beneath the city and the aeromorphic engine ceased working properly.
A hundred years after emerging from the Pirate Wars, New Crobuzon's government dispatched a small scientific expedition to the ruins of Suroch. Many of the expedition died, in horrible and bizarre fashion, as a result of the still-prevalent fallout. The scene was so horrific that one of the expedition's men felt the public should know of the damage wrought by Torque weaponry. He published his reports and heliotypes, against the wishes of the mayor and Parliament, and thus sparked the Sacramundi Riots of 1689, which a protagonist in Perdido Street Station claims "damn-near brought the government down."
More-or-less concurrent with this event was the khepri forced-migration to New Crobuzon. Their homeland had been devastated years before by a mysterious disaster referred to as the "Ravening", prompting an exodus to continents unknown. For over two decades, khepri arrived in New Crobuzon's ports, eventually settling into ghetto
s where they were relatively safe from persecution.
Perdido Street Station begins and ends in the summer of 1779. The Scar opens some five or six months later, and concludes in 1780. New Crobuzon is plagued with troubles throughout the span of those two years: labor strikes, civil unrest, an epidemic of nightmares spawned by exotic moth-creatures, and an abortive war with Armada, to name but a few.
The events of The Scar and Iron Council are separated by a span of almost thirty years — the latter opens in 1805 and closes the following year. During the elapsed decades, New Crobuzon's problems grow exponentially. An effort by one of the city's private corporations to build a railway across the width of Rohagi fails, the city violently purges itself of its previously-clandestine population of sentient
machines, economic depression sets in, and hostility towards the government increases. At some point between 1780 and 1804, New Crobuzon entered into a war against the nation of Tesh; war ended in 1806 with unclear outcome. By the end of The Scar, civil unrest had grown to the point that martial law was necessary to keep the reigning government in power.
circa 100: Crobuzon is razed by the pirates; survivors abandoned ruins, moved upriver and founded New Crobuzon.
circa 1000 - 1100: The merchant-explorer Seemly makes contact with the khepri of Bered Kai Nev. Khepri traders begin to arrive in New Crobuzon.
c. 1300: New Crobuzon is battered by a Torque storm; the aeromorphic engine is constructed.
c. 1300 - 1500: The "Full Years." New Crobuzon is at the height of its militaristic and economic might.
c. 1500: The completion of the Grand Easterly marks the official end of the Full Years.
c. 1500 - 1544: The Pirate Wars. The Grand Easterly is captured by Armada.
1544: New Crobuzon obliterates the rival city-state of Suroch with "Torque bombs", thereby ending the Pirate Wars. The Weaver assumes residency beneath New Crobuzon.
c. 1644: The New Crobuzon government sponsors a scientific expedition to the ruins of Suroch.
1689: One of the Suroch-expedition's survivors, named Sacramundi, publishes his photographs and notes without government approval. The public is so horrified that riots break out throughout New Crobuzon.
c. 1689 - 1709: The khepri migrate to New Crobuzon from their home continent in the wake of the Ravening.
1779 - 1780: The events of Perdido Street Station take place during the summer. Between six and eight months later, the events of The Scar take place.
c. 1780 - 1804: New Crobuzon goes to war with the rival city-state of Tesh.
1793: The Construct Wars. New Crobuzon purges itself of its automaton population.
1805 - 1806: The events of the Iron Council take place.
ary republic
, but in actuality it is a "ruthlessly mercantilistic
" and "corrupt" authoritarian oligarchy
with colonialistic
ambitions.
. In Perdido Street Station and Iron Council, the mayor is depicted as possessing powers bordering on the dictator
ial. In Perdido Street Station, for example, Mayor Bentham Rudgutter orders the abduction and torture
of suspected dissidents without restriction, and entirely on his own initiative.
after the rise of the Empire
. Parliament is divided among a handful of political parties
, which the protagonists in both Perdido Street Station and Iron Council consider nothing more than an old boy network
.
Punishment at the hands of the New Crobuzon justice system is a harsh and terrifying affair. Crimes ranging from petty theft to murder are almost invariably punished with lengthy prison sentences and Remaking
— a grotesque, painful process whereby a person's body is intentionally mutilated.
in New Crobuzon is not universal. Those who pay sufficient tax (this is not a Poll tax
, rather an automatic qualification) gain suffrage automatically. Anyone else seeking the vote must enter their name into a "Suffrage Lottery", the winners of which are permitted to cast their ballot. Left-wing groups and seditionist cells believe this system is highly corrupt.
force, but also as its standing army
and an intelligence
-gathering operation. In Perdido Street Station, the Militia resembles "secret police", maintaining order not through uniformed enforcers but rather through double agent
s, paid informants, blackmail
and above all fear. Thirty years later, in Iron Council, they patrol the streets of New Crobuzon openly and are employed as soldiers against the rival nation of Tesh. At all times, the militia is hooded or masked.
New Crobuzon also maintains a navy
, which in times of peace serves to protect the city-state's shipping interests. In The Scar, about half of the New Crobuzon navy is deployed against Armada, and though it loses the engagement it is nevertheless described as a fairly intimidating force that inflicts substantial damages on the pirate-nation.
in Perdido Street Station. The staff of the Double-R, as it is colloquially known, operates through a cell structure, so as to best evade government capture.
Dissatisfaction with the existing government is so widespread by the time of Iron Council that numerous other sedition
ist groups have formed. Though factious and disparate, these groups attempt to coordinate their activities through a loose alliance
called the Caucus. The staff of Runagate Rampant, meanwhile, is portrayed as having devolved into an ineffective gaggle of leftist intellectual
s, content to spend their nights complaining about New Crobuzon's government but never actually taking action.
Other notable anti-government forces include:
/clockpunk: difference engine
s, advanced clockwork
"constructs
", helium-balloon airship
s, firearms, primitive photography and coal
-powered trains and ships all abound in the three Bas-Lag novels. Yet despite all this, the citizens of New Crobuzon seem, by the 18th century, to merely be utilizing the inventions left to them by their ancestors. They apparently do not have the know-how necessary to repair the city's aeromorphic
engine, for example, and widespread fear of artificially-intelligent machines prompts the New Crobuzon government to destroy its population of constructs between 1780 and 1805. New Crobuzon seems to be limping along in terms of scientific and technological achievement, having devolved significantly since its heyday hundreds of years prior. Occasionally, a new technology may be rediscovered, and it is suggested in Iron Council that the phonograph
may be an example of this.
Where science fails, however, magic steps in. New Crobuzon harbors a large population of magic-users — broadly referred to as "thaumaturges" — who are capable of earning a substantial living from their craft. The Militia utilizes thaumaturges, as does organized crime and private industry. Bio-thaumaturges often find work as ReMakers; their skills allow them to do virtually any transplant or alteration without causing lethal trauma to the victim, potentially making them master surgeons. Such a practitioner is yet to be seen, however, and the post seems to attract sadistic psychopaths who relish the opportunity to inflict a fate worse than death on sentenced criminals. In the pirate city of Armada, though, there exist Remakers whose craft is not used for punishment but for bodily augmentation. The arcane is treated like a science, with courses available on the subject at New Crobuzon's eponymous university; senior members of the faculty are often tied to the higher level of government.
Following the purge of constructs, golemetrists - thaumaturges specialising in the construction of golem
s - have risen in demand. Golems in New Crobuzon and Bas-Lag can be made of any substance or abstract concept. In Iron Council there are golems made of (among other things) water, light, sound, corpses, railway tracks, stone and even time. A somewhat similar brand of magic is the ability to summon and control elementals, performed by thaumaturges called elementarii. Some of the more bizarre types seen in Bas-Lag include moonlight and flesh elementals.
City-state
A city-state is an independent or autonomous entity whose territory consists of a city which is not administered as a part of another local government.-Historical city-states:...
created by China Miéville
China Miéville
China Tom Miéville is an award-winning English fantasy fiction writer. He is fond of describing his work as "weird fiction" , and belongs to a loose group of writers sometimes called New Weird. He is also active in left-wing politics as a member of the Socialist Workers Party...
and located in his fictional world of Bas-Lag
Bas-Lag
Bas-Lag is the fictional world in which several of China Miéville's novels are set. Bas-Lag is a world where both magic and steampunk technology exist, and is home to many intelligent races...
. It is prominently featured in both Perdido Street Station
Perdido Street Station
Perdido Street Station is the second published novel by China Miéville and the first of three independent works set in thefictional world of Bas-Lag, a world where both magic and steampunk technology exist...
and Iron Council
Iron Council
Iron Council is China Miéville's fourth novel and his third set in the Bas-Lag universe, following Perdido Street Station and The Scar , although each can be read independently of the others...
, and serves as a plot device
Plot device
A plot device is an object or character in a story whose sole purpose is to advance the plot of the story, or alternatively to overcome some difficulty in the plot....
and background for The Scar
The Scar
The Scar is the third novel written by China Miéville, a self-described "weird fiction" writer from London, England. The Scar won the 2003 British Fantasy Award and was shortlisted for the 2003 Arthur C. Clarke Award. Miéville won both these awards in 2001 for his previous novel, Perdido Street...
.
Inspiration and creation
Miéville has discussed the inspiration behind New Crobuzon:Several commentators have noted that New Crobuzon is reminiscent of Victorian London, but sometimes note other possible influences such as modern Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...
and the Vieux Carre
French Quarter
The French Quarter, also known as Vieux Carré, is the oldest neighborhood in the city of New Orleans. When New Orleans was founded in 1718 by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, the city was originally centered on the French Quarter, or the Vieux Carré as it was known then...
of New Orleans.
Geography, environs and climate
New Crobuzon claims dominion over a watershedDrainage basin
A drainage basin is an extent or an area of land where surface water from rain and melting snow or ice converges to a single point, usually the exit of the basin, where the waters join another waterbody, such as a river, lake, reservoir, estuary, wetland, sea, or ocean...
along the eastern seaboard of the Rohagi continent
Continent
A continent is one of several very large landmasses on Earth. They are generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria, with seven regions commonly regarded as continents—they are : Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia.Plate tectonics is...
, on the world of Bas-Lag
Bas-Lag
Bas-Lag is the fictional world in which several of China Miéville's novels are set. Bas-Lag is a world where both magic and steampunk technology exist, and is home to many intelligent races...
. The city itself is situated around the Rivers Tar and Canker, whose confluence
Confluence (geography)
In geography, a confluence is the meeting of two or more bodies of water. It usually refers to the point where two streams flow together, merging into a single stream...
forms the wider and more navigable Gross Tar. It is the Gross Tar that connects New Crobuzon to the Iron Bay, ten miles east of the city. The mountains that separate New Crobuzon from the rest of Rohagi are called the Dancing Shoe Mountains.
The basin occupied by New Crobuzon is vast, and its terrain varies greatly. Northwest of the city is described in The Scar as an uninhabited "expanse of scrub and marsh", ending eventually at the feet of the Bezhek Mountains. Immediately to the south lies a substantial forest called the Rudewood, beyond which is found an area called the Wetlands. Eventually, the Wetlands give way to the Mendican Hills. Beyond this is the Grain Spiral: an agricultural region that supplies New Crobuzon with much of its food.
Various tributary
Tribute
A tribute is wealth, often in kind, that one party gives to another as a sign of respect or, as was often the case in historical contexts, of submission or allegiance. Various ancient states, which could be called suzerains, exacted tribute from areas they had conquered or threatened to conquer...
settlements dot the lands surrounding New Crobuzon. Most are little more than agrarian
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
hamlets
Hamlet (place)
A hamlet is usually a rural settlement which is too small to be considered a village, though sometimes the word is used for a different sort of community. Historically, when a hamlet became large enough to justify building a church, it was then classified as a village...
, though one, Tarmuth at the mouth of the Gross Tar River, is notable enough to earn mention in The Scar.
In terms of climate, New Crobuzon occupies a temperate
Temperate
In geography, temperate or tepid latitudes of the globe lie between the tropics and the polar circles. The changes in these regions between summer and winter are generally relatively moderate, rather than extreme hot or cold...
zone with regular season
Season
A season is a division of the year, marked by changes in weather, ecology, and hours of daylight.Seasons result from the yearly revolution of the Earth around the Sun and the tilt of the Earth's axis relative to the plane of revolution...
al changes: autumn and winter seasons are colder than the spring and summer. New Crobuzon was capable of controlling, or at least greatly influencing, local weather earlier in its history through the use of an "aeromorphic engine." This device has not functioned for over five centuries, however.
Calendar
New Crobuzon operates on a standard day, week, month calendar. Years are denoted as Anno Urbis, and are presumably counted forward from the city-state's founding — i.e., 1,779 years after the establishment of the city is listed as "Anno Urbis 1779", or simply "1779."Details regarding the New Crobuzon calendar are murky. The novels name seven days — Dustday, Blueday, Fishday, Dockday, Chainday, Skullday and Shunday — which loosely imply a seven-day week. The year has twelve months, but only eleven are mentioned: Lunuary, Soluary, Swiven, Chet, Melluary, Tathis, Sinn, Octuary, Rinden, Arora and Dust. Lunuary is the first month of the year (it follows New Year Eve) Chet and Melluary seem to constitute some of New Crobuzon's spring, Tathis, Sinn and Octuary are summer months, and Rinden and Arora are implied as falling within the bounds of late autumn.
History
The history of New Crobuzon prior to about 1500 is obscure and sparsely-detailed, but some further details are disclosed by author in the interview to DragonDragon (magazine)
Dragon is one of the two official magazines for source material for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game and associated products, the other being Dungeon. TSR, Inc. originally launched the monthly printed magazine in 1976 to succeed the company's earlier publication, The Strategic Review. The...
magazine. Though none of the novels account for the city's origins, author reveals that Crobuzon was a small village in the estuary of river Gross Tar (it is mentioned by a character in Perdido Street Station
Perdido Street Station
Perdido Street Station is the second published novel by China Miéville and the first of three independent works set in thefictional world of Bas-Lag, a world where both magic and steampunk technology exist...
as "just plain Crobuzon").
About year 100 Anno Urbis it was completely burnt by the pirate raid and survivors moved upriver to the place where Brock Marsh is now located and founded new town called New Crobuzon. Its inhabitants kept the old timeline beginning with founding of "old" Crobuzon.
The books do not give an account of the first millennium of the city's existence, or the specific relationship or transition between the New Crobuzon and the former city. The oldest documented event of New Crobuzon's past is the arrival of individual khepri traders between the years 1000 and 1100, perhaps resultant of a merchant
Merchant
A merchant is a businessperson who trades in commodities that were produced by others, in order to earn a profit.Merchants can be one of two types:# A wholesale merchant operates in the chain between producer and retail merchant...
–explorer named Seemly making contact with their homeland on the continent of Bered Kai Nev. Two centuries later, an unnatural meteorological phenomenon battered the city, prompting the construction of the weather-controlling aeromorphic engine. This event, called a "Torque storm", was presumably followed by the "Full Years" — an era of indeterminate length which a character in The Scar suggests was New Crobuzon's golden age
Golden Age (metaphor)
A golden age is a period in a field of endeavour when great tasks were accomplished. The term originated from early Greek and Roman poets who used to refer to a time when mankind lived in a better time and was pure .-Golden Age in society:...
.
New Crobuzon's fortunes waned during the final decades of the 15th century, and it is from this point that the city-state's history becomes more detailed. The Full Years ended around 1500 with the construction of Bas-Lag's most magnificent and ineffectual warship
Warship
A warship is a ship that is built and primarily intended for combat. Warships are usually built in a completely different way from merchant ships. As well as being armed, warships are designed to withstand damage and are usually faster and more maneuvrable than merchant ships...
, the Grand Easterly. Shortly thereafter, New Crobuzon found itself embroiled in an epic military campaign referred to as the Pirate Wars, during which the Grand Easterly was captured by the pirate-city called Armada. New Crobuzon emerged from the Pirate Wars victorious in 1544, after obliterating the rival city-state of Suroch with "Torque bombs." It was around this time that the Weaver assumed residency beneath the city and the aeromorphic engine ceased working properly.
A hundred years after emerging from the Pirate Wars, New Crobuzon's government dispatched a small scientific expedition to the ruins of Suroch. Many of the expedition died, in horrible and bizarre fashion, as a result of the still-prevalent fallout. The scene was so horrific that one of the expedition's men felt the public should know of the damage wrought by Torque weaponry. He published his reports and heliotypes, against the wishes of the mayor and Parliament, and thus sparked the Sacramundi Riots of 1689, which a protagonist in Perdido Street Station claims "damn-near brought the government down."
More-or-less concurrent with this event was the khepri forced-migration to New Crobuzon. Their homeland had been devastated years before by a mysterious disaster referred to as the "Ravening", prompting an exodus to continents unknown. For over two decades, khepri arrived in New Crobuzon's ports, eventually settling into ghetto
Ghetto
A ghetto is a section of a city predominantly occupied by a group who live there, especially because of social, economic, or legal issues.The term was originally used in Venice to describe the area where Jews were compelled to live. The term now refers to an overcrowded urban area often associated...
s where they were relatively safe from persecution.
Perdido Street Station begins and ends in the summer of 1779. The Scar opens some five or six months later, and concludes in 1780. New Crobuzon is plagued with troubles throughout the span of those two years: labor strikes, civil unrest, an epidemic of nightmares spawned by exotic moth-creatures, and an abortive war with Armada, to name but a few.
The events of The Scar and Iron Council are separated by a span of almost thirty years — the latter opens in 1805 and closes the following year. During the elapsed decades, New Crobuzon's problems grow exponentially. An effort by one of the city's private corporations to build a railway across the width of Rohagi fails, the city violently purges itself of its previously-clandestine population of sentient
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
machines, economic depression sets in, and hostility towards the government increases. At some point between 1780 and 1804, New Crobuzon entered into a war against the nation of Tesh; war ended in 1806 with unclear outcome. By the end of The Scar, civil unrest had grown to the point that martial law was necessary to keep the reigning government in power.
Timeline
0 AU (anno urbis; lat. for year of the town): Founding of Crobuzon.circa 100: Crobuzon is razed by the pirates; survivors abandoned ruins, moved upriver and founded New Crobuzon.
circa 1000 - 1100: The merchant-explorer Seemly makes contact with the khepri of Bered Kai Nev. Khepri traders begin to arrive in New Crobuzon.
c. 1300: New Crobuzon is battered by a Torque storm; the aeromorphic engine is constructed.
c. 1300 - 1500: The "Full Years." New Crobuzon is at the height of its militaristic and economic might.
c. 1500: The completion of the Grand Easterly marks the official end of the Full Years.
c. 1500 - 1544: The Pirate Wars. The Grand Easterly is captured by Armada.
1544: New Crobuzon obliterates the rival city-state of Suroch with "Torque bombs", thereby ending the Pirate Wars. The Weaver assumes residency beneath New Crobuzon.
c. 1644: The New Crobuzon government sponsors a scientific expedition to the ruins of Suroch.
1689: One of the Suroch-expedition's survivors, named Sacramundi, publishes his photographs and notes without government approval. The public is so horrified that riots break out throughout New Crobuzon.
c. 1689 - 1709: The khepri migrate to New Crobuzon from their home continent in the wake of the Ravening.
1779 - 1780: The events of Perdido Street Station take place during the summer. Between six and eight months later, the events of The Scar take place.
c. 1780 - 1804: New Crobuzon goes to war with the rival city-state of Tesh.
1793: The Construct Wars. New Crobuzon purges itself of its automaton population.
1805 - 1806: The events of the Iron Council take place.
Government and politics
The New Crobuzon government styles itself a parliamentParliament
A parliament is a legislature, especially in those countries whose system of government is based on the Westminster system modeled after that of the United Kingdom. The name is derived from the French , the action of parler : a parlement is a discussion. The term came to mean a meeting at which...
ary republic
Republic
A republic is a form of government in which the people, or some significant portion of them, have supreme control over the government and where offices of state are elected or chosen by elected people. In modern times, a common simplified definition of a republic is a government where the head of...
, but in actuality it is a "ruthlessly mercantilistic
Mercantilism
Mercantilism is the economic doctrine in which government control of foreign trade is of paramount importance for ensuring the prosperity and security of the state. In particular, it demands a positive balance of trade. Mercantilism dominated Western European economic policy and discourse from...
" and "corrupt" authoritarian oligarchy
Oligarchy
Oligarchy is a form of power structure in which power effectively rests with an elite class distinguished by royalty, wealth, family ties, commercial, and/or military legitimacy...
with colonialistic
Colonialism
Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
ambitions.
Executive branch
At the helm of the New Crobuzon's political machine is the mayorMayor
In many countries, a Mayor is the highest ranking officer in the municipal government of a town or a large urban city....
. In Perdido Street Station and Iron Council, the mayor is depicted as possessing powers bordering on the dictator
Dictator
A dictator is a ruler who assumes sole and absolute power but without hereditary ascension such as an absolute monarch. When other states call the head of state of a particular state a dictator, that state is called a dictatorship...
ial. In Perdido Street Station, for example, Mayor Bentham Rudgutter orders the abduction and torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
of suspected dissidents without restriction, and entirely on his own initiative.
Known mayors
- Bentham Rudgutter is the mayor of New Crobuzon in Perdido Street Station and The Scar. He is a somewhat two-dimensional embodiment of corrupt government authority, emotionally bankrupt and stoic under pressure, with little personality or motivation beyond his desire to maintain the status quo. Perdido Street Station apparently grants only a snapshot of his rather lengthy administration; in Iron Council he is described as having been mayor "forever". He has a problem with his eyes which requires them to be repeatedly replaced.
- Collod, whose mayoralty is called "ghastly" in Perdido Street Station. It is implied that he had Cactacae farms, but the exact meaning of this term is never explained. It is implied that these farms were used to enslave or imprison the Cactacae
- Dagman Beyn, whose mayoralty is two centuries gone by the time of Perdido Street Station, and lasted through part or all of the Pirate Wars. He is notable for having been mayor when the Weaver assumed residency beneath the city.
- Eliza Stem-Fulcher served Rudgutter as his calculating, cold and unflappable Home Secretary in Perdido Street Station. By the time Iron Council opens, she has become mayor in her own right, having succeeded Rudgutter upon his death: she is assassinated during the course of the story. The admittedly biased protagonists of Iron Council attribute all manner of atrocities to her and her administration, and she is portrayed in that novel as racist, reactionary and venal.
- Mantagony was briefly mentioned in Perdido Street Station and was noted only for being mayor at the time the bio-philosopher Calligine successfully had himself Remade with mechanical wings. His or her tenure was during the late 17th century.
- Tremulo the Reformer, who earned his sobriquet by building low-income and veterans' housing in and among the neighborhoods of the city's rich. In Iron Council, his mayoralty is said to have occurred "two centuries past", shortly after Dagman Beyn's.
- Triesti, about whom nothing is known beyond the name. He or she assumed the mayoralty upon the assassination of Stem-Fulcher.
- Turgisadi was mayor about a century prior to the events of Perdido Street Station. He is mentioned only in passing by one of that novel's protagonists.
Legislative branch
New Crobuzon's elected Parliament ostensibly holds legislative authority, though it is characterized as stagnant and feckless in Perdido Street Station, much like the Roman SenateRoman Senate
The Senate of the Roman Republic was a political institution in the ancient Roman Republic, however, it was not an elected body, but one whose members were appointed by the consuls, and later by the censors. After a magistrate served his term in office, it usually was followed with automatic...
after the rise of the Empire
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
. Parliament is divided among a handful of political parties
Political Parties
Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy is a book by sociologist Robert Michels, published in 1911 , and first introducing the concept of iron law of oligarchy...
, which the protagonists in both Perdido Street Station and Iron Council consider nothing more than an old boy network
Old boy network
An old boy network, or society, can refer to social and business connections among former pupils of male-only private schools. British public school students were traditionally called "boys", thus graduated students are "old boys"....
.
Known political parties
Four political parties are mentioned in Perdido Street Station, with another, the New Quill Party, appearing in Iron Council.- Diverse Tendency Characters in Perdido Street Station imply that the Diverse Tendency Party represents New Crobuzon's non-human ("xenian") population. One protagonist in that novel refers to them as "compradorCompradorComprador or Compradore is a term used to describe native managers of European business houses in East Asia.-History:...
scum.". Diverse Tendency's pro-xenian preachings are generally regarded by seditionist eyes as a ploy to capture liberalist votes - Fat Sun: The majority party in Parliament during Perdido Street Station and Iron Council, and presumably in The Scar. During the events of "Perdido Street Station", the city is ruled by Mayor Rudgutter. By the time of "Iron Council", Rudgutter's Home Secretary, Eliza Stem-Fulcher has taken over as mayor.
- Finally We Can See: Seems to be an idealist pseudo-liberal party though none of their actual policies are described in the books
- New Quill: Founded on hatred for all non-human races, the New Quill Party may be a splinter group of the Three Quills Party. In Iron Council, its adherents are described as wearing bowler hats, ill-fitting blazers and iron-toed boots.
- Three Quills: It is implied in Perdido Street Station and Iron Council that the Three Quills is a party formed on a racist platform. Its members seem opposed to all non-human races (called "xenians").
Judicial branch
As in the real world, New Crobuzon's judiciary concerns itself primarily with hearing disputes and passing sentence upon transgressors. The judges of New Crobuzon are referred to as "Magisters", and all operate under false names to protect themselves from possible retribution. It is implied that they wear masks while holding court.Punishment at the hands of the New Crobuzon justice system is a harsh and terrifying affair. Crimes ranging from petty theft to murder are almost invariably punished with lengthy prison sentences and Remaking
Remade
The Remade are a fictional group of bio-engineered people in the novels and stories by China Miéville set in the world of Bas-Lag. Bas-Lag itself is a mix of magic and technology, and the Remade are an example of this...
— a grotesque, painful process whereby a person's body is intentionally mutilated.
Suffrage and elections
SuffrageSuffrage
Suffrage, political franchise, or simply the franchise, distinct from mere voting rights, is the civil right to vote gained through the democratic process...
in New Crobuzon is not universal. Those who pay sufficient tax (this is not a Poll tax
Poll tax
A poll tax is a tax of a portioned, fixed amount per individual in accordance with the census . When a corvée is commuted for cash payment, in effect it becomes a poll tax...
, rather an automatic qualification) gain suffrage automatically. Anyone else seeking the vote must enter their name into a "Suffrage Lottery", the winners of which are permitted to cast their ballot. Left-wing groups and seditionist cells believe this system is highly corrupt.
Armed forces
The Militia acts not only as New Crobuzon's policePolice
The police is a personification of the state designated to put in practice the enforced law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in civilian matters. Their powers include the legitimized use of force...
force, but also as its standing army
Army
An army An army An army (from Latin arma "arms, weapons" via Old French armée, "armed" (feminine), in the broadest sense, is the land-based military of a nation or state. It may also include other branches of the military such as the air force via means of aviation corps...
and an intelligence
Intelligence (information gathering)
Intelligence assessment is the development of forecasts of behaviour or recommended courses of action to the leadership of an organization, based on a wide range of available information sources both overt and covert. Assessments are developed in response to requirements declared by the leadership...
-gathering operation. In Perdido Street Station, the Militia resembles "secret police", maintaining order not through uniformed enforcers but rather through double agent
Double agent
A double agent, commonly abbreviated referral of double secret agent, is a counterintelligence term used to designate an employee of a secret service or organization, whose primary aim is to spy on the target organization, but who in fact is a member of that same target organization oneself. They...
s, paid informants, blackmail
Blackmail
In common usage, blackmail is a crime involving threats to reveal substantially true or false information about a person to the public, a family member, or associates unless a demand is met. It may be defined as coercion involving threats of physical harm, threat of criminal prosecution, or threats...
and above all fear. Thirty years later, in Iron Council, they patrol the streets of New Crobuzon openly and are employed as soldiers against the rival nation of Tesh. At all times, the militia is hooded or masked.
New Crobuzon also maintains a navy
Navy
A navy is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake- or ocean-borne combat operations and related functions...
, which in times of peace serves to protect the city-state's shipping interests. In The Scar, about half of the New Crobuzon navy is deployed against Armada, and though it loses the engagement it is nevertheless described as a fairly intimidating force that inflicts substantial damages on the pirate-nation.
Seditious groups
An illegal newspaper entitled Runagate Rampant is portrayed as New Crobuzon's primary source of opposition and dissentDissent
Dissent is a sentiment or philosophy of non-agreement or opposition to a prevailing idea or an entity...
in Perdido Street Station. The staff of the Double-R, as it is colloquially known, operates through a cell structure, so as to best evade government capture.
Dissatisfaction with the existing government is so widespread by the time of Iron Council that numerous other sedition
Sedition
In law, sedition is overt conduct, such as speech and organization, that is deemed by the legal authority to tend toward insurrection against the established order. Sedition often includes subversion of a constitution and incitement of discontent to lawful authority. Sedition may include any...
ist groups have formed. Though factious and disparate, these groups attempt to coordinate their activities through a loose alliance
Coalition
A coalition is a pact or treaty among individuals or groups, during which they cooperate in joint action, each in their own self-interest, joining forces together for a common cause. This alliance may be temporary or a matter of convenience. A coalition thus differs from a more formal covenant...
called the Caucus. The staff of Runagate Rampant, meanwhile, is portrayed as having devolved into an ineffective gaggle of leftist intellectual
Intellectual
An intellectual is a person who uses intelligence and critical or analytical reasoning in either a professional or a personal capacity.- Terminology and endeavours :"Intellectual" can denote four types of persons:...
s, content to spend their nights complaining about New Crobuzon's government but never actually taking action.
Other notable anti-government forces include:
- The Flexible Puppeteers: A subversive group of performance artPerformance artIn art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or...
ists, named in memory of a previous editor of the Runagate Rampant, Benjamin Flex who was captured, tortured and executed by Rudgutter's government during the novel Perdido Street StationPerdido Street StationPerdido Street Station is the second published novel by China Miéville and the first of three independent works set in thefictional world of Bas-Lag, a world where both magic and steampunk technology exist...
. - The fReemade: Nominally led by Jack Half-A-Prayer during the 1770s — and perhaps earlier — the fReemade are RemadeRemadeThe Remade are a fictional group of bio-engineered people in the novels and stories by China Miéville set in the world of Bas-Lag. Bas-Lag itself is a mix of magic and technology, and the Remade are an example of this...
who refuse to accept their fate as slaves to the state. They operate in small groups, or individually, both within the city and without. Many become brigands, bandits and urban terroristsTerrorismTerrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
. - Toro's Gang: A small band of urban terrorists, they fight against the tyranny of Parliament in a more literal sense. They were led by a Remade who wore a giant metal helmet shaped in the head of a bull — hence the group's name.
City districts
- Badside (slum)
- Bonetown: A poor district, known for its random, maze-like streets and named for the Ribs—its prominent landmark feature of a gargantuan, partially buried skeleton. The origin of the bones is unknown, but they have mystical emanations, seemingly causing increased misfortunes and accidents during construction attempts in the area. Widely considered as "thieves quarter".
- Brock Marsh: A scientific district. Because followers of Bas-Lagian science include a broad mix of physicists; chymists; necrochymists; mathematicians; karcists thaumaturgists and more, the combined waste products of the inhabitants of Brock Marsh can be both dangerous and random. Badgers make popular messenger animals because of their natural immunity to these factors.
- Canker Wedge (rich district, location of aeromorphic engine)
- Chimer (slum)
- Chnum (rich district)
- Creekside: Khepri slum, does not make the displays of khepri history as its more affluent cousin Kinken does. Some residents of Creekside feel that Kinken has no real claim on true khepri culture and simply flaunts a recycled version of what little was preserved when the khepri made their exodus to New Crobuzon.
- Dog Fenn (slum)
- Echomire (docks and industry)
- Flag Hill: The elite district, full of bankers, officials, wealthy artists, and captains of industry. It is described in Iron Council as a place of "wide-open ways and sumptuous houses sheer onto the streets, backing on to shared gardens". Small part of Flag Hill was built up with cheap houses for veterans of Pirate Wars (located in rich district in accordance with "social merging" policy of Mayor Tremulo the Reformer), quickly become a slum, and then was gentrified and converted into some kind of slum-museum for wealthy people.
- Flyside: Poor district, crowded and cheap but not particularly dangerous.
- Gallmarch (middle-class suburb)
- Gidd (consists of East Gidd and West Gidd): old noble district with wide streets and elegant baroque buildings.
- Glasshouse: A cactacae ghetto, this suburb is literally a giant greenhouse that preserves the temperature and humidity levels that the desert-dwelling cactacae prefer. However, it can contain only one third of cactacae population, so many of them inhabit northern Riverskin around Glasshouse. Only cactacae are allowed inside, and Glasshouse authorities are to some degree independent of the rest of New Crobuzon.
- Griss Twist: formerly industrial area, now huge industrial junkyard and waste storage area. By the time of Perdido Street Station, it had become the dwelling of Construct Council.
- Gross Coil (docks and industry)
- Kelltree (docks)
- Kinken: A khepri ghetto, although most of the buildings are originally of the same construct as the rest of the city, they have been extensively remodelled by home beetles. A relatively prosperous neighborhood, Kinken is essentially the centre of khepri culture on Bas-Lag, as it is inhabited by the descendants of the last survivors of the khepri civilisation, who fled an unspecified catatrophe on a distant continent.
- Nigh Sump quite old and prosperous quarter with wide streets and well-kept old buildings. The famous Glasheim, a facade of stained glass, located near Piazza della Settimana di Polvere (Place of Week of Dust), is mentioned in Iron Council as "one of city's prettiest places".
- Petty Coil: part of Old Town. Previously elite district, with wide streets and great mansions, it was abandoned by rich inhabitants disturbed by smog and noise from industry of Griss Twist across the river. Many mansions were rebuilt and became homes for craftsmen. Some houses in Petty Coil are almost thousand years old; Cockscomb Bridge in Petty Coil is mentioned in Perdido Street Station as one of oldest city's buildings.
- Rim (part of old town)
- Riverskin: Location of Glasshouse, this district is built-up with old tall timber-frame houses. Its southern part is much like Flyside it adjoined. Northern part of Riverskin is the location of Glasshouse and dwelling of lower-class cactacae.
- Salacus Fields: A bohemian district, popular amongst the left-wing inhabitants of New Crobuzon. Many artists either live or work in this district and it is notably more socially progressive and liberal than other districts. By the time of Iron Council it is considered by protagonists to have become something of a Bourgeois bohemian district, largely abandoned by the more radical artists.
- Serpolet (middle-class suburb)
- Sheck: part of Old Town. Lower-to-middle class and well-paid specialist workers live here. Crowded district, irregularly built up with old brick houses.
- Smog Bend (industry), also known as Didacai Village.
- Sobek Croix (has large gardens with monastery ruins amid; rather poor district).
- Spatters (lawless slum, garuda ghetto)
- Spit Hearth: part of Old Town. Triangular district, built up with old stone houses. Notorious for its punishment factories near the river; they supply city with Remade.
- Sunter (industry)
- The Crow (city centre)
Science, technology and magic
New Crobuzon's technological capabilities are decidedly steampunkSteampunk
Steampunk is a sub-genre of science fiction, fantasy, alternate history, and speculative fiction that came into prominence during the 1980s and early 1990s. Steampunk involves a setting where steam power is still widely used—usually Victorian era Britain or "Wild West"-era United...
/clockpunk: difference engine
Difference engine
A difference engine is an automatic, mechanical calculator designed to tabulate polynomial functions. Both logarithmic and trigonometric functions can be approximated by polynomials, so a difference engine can compute many useful sets of numbers.-History:...
s, advanced clockwork
Clockwork
A clockwork is the inner workings of either a mechanical clock or a device that operates in a similar fashion. Specifically, the term refers to a mechanical device utilizing a complex series of gears....
"constructs
Robot
A robot is a mechanical or virtual intelligent agent that can perform tasks automatically or with guidance, typically by remote control. In practice a robot is usually an electro-mechanical machine that is guided by computer and electronic programming. Robots can be autonomous, semi-autonomous or...
", helium-balloon airship
Airship
An airship or dirigible is a type of aerostat or "lighter-than-air aircraft" that can be steered and propelled through the air using rudders and propellers or other thrust mechanisms...
s, firearms, primitive photography and coal
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...
-powered trains and ships all abound in the three Bas-Lag novels. Yet despite all this, the citizens of New Crobuzon seem, by the 18th century, to merely be utilizing the inventions left to them by their ancestors. They apparently do not have the know-how necessary to repair the city's aeromorphic
Weather control
Weather control is the act of manipulating or altering certain aspects of the environment to produce desirable changes in weather. Weather control can have the goal of preventing damaging weather, such as hurricanes or tornadoes, from occurring; of causing beneficial weather, such as rainfall in...
engine, for example, and widespread fear of artificially-intelligent machines prompts the New Crobuzon government to destroy its population of constructs between 1780 and 1805. New Crobuzon seems to be limping along in terms of scientific and technological achievement, having devolved significantly since its heyday hundreds of years prior. Occasionally, a new technology may be rediscovered, and it is suggested in Iron Council that the phonograph
Phonograph
The phonograph record player, or gramophone is a device introduced in 1877 that has had continued common use for reproducing sound recordings, although when first developed, the phonograph was used to both record and reproduce sounds...
may be an example of this.
Where science fails, however, magic steps in. New Crobuzon harbors a large population of magic-users — broadly referred to as "thaumaturges" — who are capable of earning a substantial living from their craft. The Militia utilizes thaumaturges, as does organized crime and private industry. Bio-thaumaturges often find work as ReMakers; their skills allow them to do virtually any transplant or alteration without causing lethal trauma to the victim, potentially making them master surgeons. Such a practitioner is yet to be seen, however, and the post seems to attract sadistic psychopaths who relish the opportunity to inflict a fate worse than death on sentenced criminals. In the pirate city of Armada, though, there exist Remakers whose craft is not used for punishment but for bodily augmentation. The arcane is treated like a science, with courses available on the subject at New Crobuzon's eponymous university; senior members of the faculty are often tied to the higher level of government.
Following the purge of constructs, golemetrists - thaumaturges specialising in the construction of golem
Golem
In Jewish folklore, a golem is an animated anthropomorphic being, created entirely from inanimate matter. The word was used to mean an amorphous, unformed material in Psalms and medieval writing....
s - have risen in demand. Golems in New Crobuzon and Bas-Lag can be made of any substance or abstract concept. In Iron Council there are golems made of (among other things) water, light, sound, corpses, railway tracks, stone and even time. A somewhat similar brand of magic is the ability to summon and control elementals, performed by thaumaturges called elementarii. Some of the more bizarre types seen in Bas-Lag include moonlight and flesh elementals.