Sunless Sea is set 30 years after the Fall of London.
Is Fallen London set in the same time period or at an earlier time?
The real problem, of course, is that a great deal of Sunless Sea relies on the old credo of David Bellisario in regards to Quantum Leap - "Don’t examine this too closely".
The Zee is dangerous, deadly and terrifying; but our characters steam all over it regularly and there are colonies everywhere. Londoners hardly ever leave home and don’t seem to know about the Khanate at all except as a rumor, while Zee Captains never stay in London longer than it takes to resupply and they constantly encounter the Khanate and various sorts of pirates all around the Unterzee.
It feels like there’s only so much you can chalk up to the perspective differences between a zailor and a landlubber.
But if Fallen London is set closer to the ACTUAL Fall then the disparities make some sense.
I’m deliberately hand-waving away all of Zubmariner, given that the whole idea of underwater settlements, let alone ports like Nook or Hideaway and the apparently universal agreement by governments around the Neath to pretend, for seemingly unexplained reasons, that they don’t exist, really doesn’t jibe with anything logical.
For the most part it’s best to ignore the exact chronology. After all, you can give a Long-Box to a zee-captain in FL and have your SSea captain receive it years prior. The Treachery of Clocks can get silly.
Okay. So if I’m making a Sunless Sea mod, I just shouldn’t worry about making it consistent with Fallen London. The games may superficially share a universe but they’re really not a shared universe in any meaningful sense.
I think the way that Failbetter treat their universe between games is that while they are all set in the same universe, they’re not all in the same timeline, per se. So Sunless Skies is not necessarily the future of Fallen London, and it explains why things that happen in Sunless Sea don’t have any presence in FL, and vice versa.
Edit: which is to say, yes, I wouldn’t concern yourself overly with continuity! edited by Barse on 7/6/2017
Should be remembered that the catalyst for the Fall was the death of Albert, Prince Consort, which was at the end of 1861. I recall something about the Fall being dated to the week of February 14, 1862 (the Valentine’s Day after Albert’s death), but I can’t remember where that’s from, so don’t quote me on that.
Anyway, the "thirty years" figure is just an approximation.
The world pretends like the underwater settlements don’t exist because
there was an incident where London and the Khanate made overtures to the Lorn-Flukes to try and expand into the depths of the zee, but then there was a skirmish and the Lorn-Flukes got mad, and you can imagine what happened next. The two governments subsequently agreed to end research into zubmarines and say that there was nothing of consequence beneath the zee. It’s hinted at in Zubmariner in the quest to obtain a zubmarine and in the August Travel-Writer questline, and discussed more fully in the Season of Wrecks Exceptional Stories.
That makes no sense, given that Albert specifically didn’t die in the FL universe because of the Masters’ help. The catalyst of the Fall was his illness, but it couldn’t have taken place after he died IRL, or there would have been no chance to heal him.
That makes no sense, given that Albert specifically didn’t die in the FL universe because of the Masters’ help. The catalyst of the Fall was his illness, but it couldn’t have taken place after he died IRL, or there would have been no chance to heal him.[/quote]
Well, the Masters know how things work, somewhat. A person can die, and the Fathomking can resurrect them. True death is not always final, in the Neath.
That makes no sense, given that Albert specifically didn’t die in the FL universe because of the Masters’ help. The catalyst of the Fall was his illness, but it couldn’t have taken place after he died IRL, or there would have been no chance to heal him.[/quote]
Well, the Masters know how things work, somewhat. A person can die, and the Fathomking can resurrect them. True death is not always final, in the Neath.[/quote]
But he died of… either typhoid or Chron’s Disease, there’s a bit of contention, there. Anyway, he died of natural causes, isn’t that one of the explicit points of no return on death like eviscerations or REALLY strong toxins?
That makes no sense, given that Albert specifically didn’t die in the FL universe because of the Masters’ help. The catalyst of the Fall was his illness, but it couldn’t have taken place after he died IRL, or there would have been no chance to heal him.[/quote]
Well, the Masters know how things work, somewhat. A person can die, and the Fathomking can resurrect them. True death is not always final, in the Neath.[/quote]
But he died of… either typhoid or Chron’s Disease, there’s a bit of contention, there. Anyway, he died of natural causes, isn’t that one of the explicit points of no return on death like eviscerations or REALLY strong toxins?[/quote]
That’s for most people, The Masters can remove all limitations on immortality.
And I think Fallen London also started in the 1880s. Time advances in Fallen London at the rate of one year for each real-world year, and Fallen London has been around since 2009: Fallen London - Wikipedia
I would like to add that the first ES of this season, Web of the Motherlings, both recognized the Khanate and maked it clear that (at least) the upper class knows a lot about it.
I’ve dug up the image that shows the more-or-less exact date of the fall.
Above the title, in small print, it says
FOR THE WEEK ENDING THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1862.
So, yes. London fell in 1862, somewhere close to February 14th (you need some time to write the newspaper, gather info, learn that London is in the Neath, etc, etc).
