"There's only four things we do better than anyone else
music
movies
microcode (software)
high-speed pizza delivery"
In a simple list, the author establishes the setting of the story in America and explains where the country stands in this distant future. The fact that these three of these things are not particularly critical to the functioning of human progress serve to emphasize the state of America at this point in the future. These things are America's crowning achievements, and serve to create the foundation for the type of society expected to grow in such a place.
"It won't pay the rent, but that's okay — when you live in a shithole, there's always the Metaverse, and in the Metaverse, Hiro Protagonist is a warrior prince."
Here, the author introduces the Metaverse, a virtual reality program that Hiro often spends his time in. The idea of parallel worlds coexisting alongside each other continues to reoccur throughout the novel.
“The Industry feeds on them and spits back images, sends out movie and TV programs, over my networks, images of wealth and exotic things beyond their wildest dreams, back to those people, and it gives them something to dream about, something to aspire to.”
L. Bob Rife explains how America works in comparison to other countries, who rely on reproduction to renew their numbers. However, to him, America works by drawing in immigrants from all over the world, using their labor and knowledge to grow even larger. The production of media from this biomass then goes on to entice more people to come, creating a cycle of consumption and production.
“Feds are serious people...The kinds of people who have the grit to wear a dark wool suit and a tightly buttoned collar even when the temperature has greenhoused up to a hundred and ten degrees and the humidity is thick enough to stall a jumbo jet. The kinds of people who feel most at home on the dark side of a one-way mirror.”
The Feds of the future bear a striking resemblance to those in our current times. Despite the changes in technology and the light-speed growth of human development, the author describes a government that is still familiar to us, suggesting that no matter the direction of innovation and creation, the paper-filing and committee-delegating suits of the federal government will be there.
“He believed that Babel was an actual historical event...and that afterward, languages have always had an innate tendency to diverge and become mutually incomprehensible — that this tendency is, as he put it, coiled like a serpent around the human brainstem.”
The introduction of Sumerian culture, Enki, and the Tower of Babel converge to bring ancient historical myths on a parallel track with futuristic technology overload. Hiro begins to suspect that Snow Crash, speaking in tongues, and L. Bob Rife’s Raft are all connected in a grand plan.
“I don’t want to say virus. But according to what you just quoted me, the Torah is like a virus.”
Further connections between Sumer and future-day technology are discovered. Hiro realizes religion spreads like a virus, and learns about the Ashera virus — a potentially malignant form of religion that spreads like a virus.
“We are all susceptible to the pull of viral ideas. Like mass hysteria. Or a tune that gets into your head that you keep on humming all day until you spread it to someone else. Jokes. Urban legends. Crackpot religions. Marxism. No matter how smart we get, there is always this deep irrational part that makes us potential hosts for self-replicating information.”
At this point, Hiro has connected all the dots and figured out how L. Bob Rife, Sumerian culture, technology, and viruses all come together. The understanding of how human brains possess intrinsic hardware is pivotal in Rife’s plan to infect the entire world with the Ashera virus. This innate infrastructure is the reason Da5id is in a coma and why those on the Raft speak in tongues. It is also the exact thing Juanita is attempting to stop.
“My father saw your father’s skeleton kneeling in front of him. that was the last thing he ever saw.”
Here, as Raven and Hiro engage in a high-speed, high-stakes motorcycle chase through the Metaverse, it’s revealed that their fathers once knew each other during WWII. While Raven grew into a man seeking revenge against America for nuking his homeland, Hiro grew into a paradigmatic American, seeking opportunity and creating information.
