It’s the first half of the 19th century. France has just had its July Revolution, once again replacing a king with an emperor, or a king with a king, or, well, someone with someone or something else. Steam technology is proliferating, factories are replacing workshops, railways are spreading across the world. The USA is buying slaves by the shipload, a pandemic is sweeping across Europe, and Karl Marx is a teenager. People are watching wondrous, seemingly godlike technologies become commonplace in the space between their adolescence and adulthood. Fear of another revolution has each State escalating its violence to new levels.