Lockwood & Co Techline - Theory Time
It’s very plain that the techline in the Lockwood & Co universe has been stunted, seemingly not progressing far beyond the year that the Problem started (some time in the 50s or 60s). Where someone Lucy’s age would typically pass the time playing on a smart phone, she draws and reads detective novels by candlelight. There doesn’t seem to be any sign of the Internet, as the team (George) frequents The Archives where he pours through old newspapers, books, and other printed mediums. Even their casebook is entirely handwritten, not a computer to be found. Oh, they also have digital watches – that’s more advanced than the tech of the 60s, but it’s also noted how essential a luminous dial is to agents, so that was probably something they specifically invented out of necessity.
Now let’s push aside the obvious reason for this: it adds more challenges for the characters to get through their adventures, making for a (in my personal opinion) more enthralling story and somehow giving the universe a more magickal feeling (like the wizarding world in Harry Potter, there’s just something so novel about worlds void of the world wide web and smartphones). These would be the most obvious and probably the truest reasons for the tech downgrade this universe got.
But I’ve been thinking about the tech in relation to the story that is set solely in and around London. It’s possible that the techline has been so stunted over the past 50 years because 1) The British government has been solely focused on keeping its citizens safe and alive, 2) ghosts are mentioned to interfere with electricity and electronics, so computers and cellphones would be rendered pretty useless on the field, and the less obvious 3) the main audience of modern technology are those of us who have been born in the past 30-or-so years, well after the Problem would have started and children had to take up the task of protecting the public against visitors, they’d have no time to fuss around on computer games or social media, would they? But delving into it further, if the Problem only exists (I mean, as a MAJOR, widespread problem), that wouldn’t hinder the rest of the world from continuing on with more and more advanced technology, and in the L&C universe, England is portrayed as a relatively wealthy society what with the large industries cropping up in response to the Problem (the agencies, the Sunrise Corporation, the lavender company, salt mills, etc.). So importing tech into the country wouldn’t be a problem then, would it? Which leads me to this: the primitive techline in Lockwood & Co is solid proof that the rest of the world is also heavily preoccupied with The Problem, to the point where modern tech has suffered in its wake across the globe. The United States, Japan, China, Australia, etc. etc. – we all see our fair share of visitors.
This may not be nearly the revelation to everyone else as it is me, but I’ve often wondered what the state of the world might be like in this universe outside of London. The Problem in England was started because Marissa Fittes wondered into the other side and set up barriers so that visitors couldn’t cross over.
She must not have been the only one.
She was definitely not the only one.
And I wonder...who reaps the benefits of the Problem in other countries?
