Here you go with a concise summary for the dystopian sci-fi novel, Snow Crash:
Hiro Protagonist is a hacker and pizza delivery driver for the Mafia. He meets Y.T. (short for Yours Truly), a young skateboard Kourier (courier) who refers to herself in the third person, during a failed attempt to make a delivery on time. Y.T. completes the delivery on her behalf and they strike up a partnership, gathering intel and selling it to the CIC, the for-profit organization that evolved from the CIA's merger with the Library of Congress. Within the Metaverse, Hiro is offered a datafile named Snow Crash by a man named Raven who hints that it is a form of narcotic. Hiro's friend and fellow hacker Da5id views a bitmap image contained in the file which causes his computer to crash and Da5id to suffer brain damage in the real world. Hiro meets his ex-girlfriend Juanita Marquez, who gives him a database containing a large amount of research compiled by her associate, Lagos. This research posits connections between the virus, ancient Sumerian culture, and the legend of the Tower of Babel. Juanita advises him to be careful and disappears.
The Mafia boss Uncle Enzo begins to take a paternal interest in Y.T. Impressed by her attitude and initiative, he arranges to meet her and offers her freelance jobs. Hiro's investigations and Y.T.'s intelligence gathering begin to coincide, with links between the neuro-linguistic viruses, a religious organization known as Reverend Wayne's Pearly Gates, and a media magnate named L. Bob Rife beginning to emerge. Lagos's research showed that the ancient Sumerian ur-language allowed brain function to be 'programmed' using audio stimuli in conjunction with a DNA altering virus. Sumerian culture was organized around these programs (known as me) which were administered by priests to the populace. Enki, a figure of legend, developed a counter-virus (known as the nam-shub of Enki) which when delivered stopped the Sumerian language from being processed by the brain and led to the development of other, less literal languages, giving birth to the Babel myth. L. Bob Rife had been collecting Sumerian artifacts and developed the drug Snow Crash in order to make the public vulnerable to new forms of me which he would control. The physical form of the virus is distributed in the form of an addictive drug and within Reverend Wayne's church via infected blood. There is also a digital version to which hackers are especially vulnerable as they are accustomed to processing information in binary form.
Hiro heads
north to where the Raft, a huge collection of boats containing Eurasian
refugees, is approaching the American coast. The center of the Raft is L Bob
Rife's yacht, formerly the USS Enterprise nuclear-powered
aircraft carrier. Rife has
been using the Raft as a mechanism to indoctrinate and infect thousands with
the virus and to import it to America. Y.T. is captured and brought to Rife on
the Raft, who intends to use her as a hostage, knowing her connection to Uncle
Enzo. With help from the Mafia, Hiro makes it onto the raft and recovers
the nam-shub of Enki which Rife had been concealing. With help
from Juanita who had previously infiltrated the Raft, the nam-shub is
read out and Rife's control over the Raft is broken. Rife flees the Raft,
taking Y.T., and Raven attempts to activate the digital form of Snow Crash at a
virtual concert within the Metaverse. Hiro is able to neutralize the virus and
Y.T. escapes. After a confrontation with the Mafia, Raven is injured, and Rife
is killed as he attempts to flee on his private jet. Y.T. is reunited with her
mother and Hiro and Juanita appear reconciled.
One of the prevalent themes in Snow Crash is the extreme
commercialization of society. Throughout the novel there are examples of
corporations that should not be corporations at all. This includes the
police force, the government, and extends as far as religion. For example, at
Reverend Wayne’s Pearly Gates, one must swipe their credit card to get through
the door. Religion has become less about sharing a common faith and more about
instant gratification. Faith becomes something people need to be able to afford
to be apart of, and can cancel their subscription when they no longer want to
be apart of it. In the book, Stephenson writes, “Then she performs the sacrament,
swiping the card through its electromagnetic slot…”(pg 195). This religious
institution is now selling religion and the confirmation of the sale is the new
sacrament and the way people are “saved” by religion. Religion is a
commercialized business; people pay money to feel like they are part of a
community and to feel “saved” by religion.
The concerning Matter:
One of the major themes in Neal Stephenson’s novel, Snow Crash, is the nature of humanity. In the novel, there exists two different societies, one real and one virtual. In the Metaverse, the virtual world, the human controls an avatar. The human can do pretty much whatever they want to do in this virtual world, which means that they do not have to follow the accepted rules of society. Humanity, as a result, is falling apart because people adapt their lives in the Metaverse into their real lives. One of the major examples of the strange nature of humanity presented in the novel is with Ng. Ng is a security contractor who, in 1974, was caught in a terrible helicopter accident. He was burned and lost both of his arms and both of his legs. Ng has the “coolest house in the Metaverse” (222) according to Y.T., yet, in the real world, he lives in a neoprene sack that is filled with “electrocontractive gel” (226). In the real world, he cannot do anything himself, he is plugged in to his van that he turned into a large wheelchair. However, in the Metaverse, he can do anything, which he uses to communicate with his clients. Since all of his communications are done in the Metaverse, nobody really knows that he is basically a cyborg. Everyone assumes he is a perfectly functioning human being, which shows that the nature of humanity is starting to fall apart because of these virtual realities.
The term
“metaverse”, as explained b4 in the novel summary, is used to
describe the
vision whereby the internet will evolve into a virtual world. It foresees the
internet as a 3D virtual living space, where individuals dip in and out,
interacting with one another in real time. Many in Silicon Valley still
view the
metaverse as the future. For example, Google is heavily invested in augmented
reality (AR),
which is where you use technology to look at the real world but with digital 3D
objects layered on top. And rumours
swirl that
Apple is building products like glasses for experiencing virtual spaces.
But Facebook
appears the most committed of all to this new vision. In his quest to turn
Facebook into a metaverse company, Zuckerberg is seeking
to build a system where people move between virtual reality (VR), AR, and even 2D devices,
using realistic avatars of themselves where appropriate. Here they will work,
socialize, share things, and have other experiences, while still probably using
the internet for some tasks such as searches which are similar to how we use it
now.
