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Transitus Should Be Set In New England (Northeastern United States) - A List

By: A Midwestern American

It’s on my to-do list to spruce up the album’s wikipedia page and I’ll probably ask Arjen about location directly at some point for it. But for now, for fanfiction’s sake:

It is never explicitly stated where in the world the real-world portion of Transitus takes place. You can glean from basic context that it’s somewhere in the Global West but no real locations are stated by the lyrics, narration or liner notes.

I think the default is to assume it’s set in Great Britain, which is totally reasonable. Daniel’s family is consistently referred to as a “house,” hinting at noble status. The plot and setting are heavily inspired by that of Downton Abbey, right down to the uptown girl character dying horrifically and their racially discriminated servant spouse having a five-alarm crisis about it after the two were cut off financially from the uptown girl’s family.

That’s how I initially thought of it. Easy (not really), inconsequential Victorian setting.

But now, after a lot of research and writing and just sitting around and thinking about it, I have an alternate suggestion.

I think the story fits and would actually be more effective if it were set in New England, aka the farthest Northeast region of the United States. Specifically Connecticut but that’s not as relevant as it taking place in this region/country overall. I’ll go through the major arguments for this one by one, getting more plot-relevant as they go. Hopefully, given historical context and narrative themes, you’ll see my point here.

New England highlighted on a map of the U.S., comprising the states of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island. The entire west side of the region borders New York State.

Enjoy. 🔥🇺🇸

1. Nationalities of Main Cast

The weakest point, but worth mentioning. Three of the six human characters in Transitus, a majority and the most of any Ayreon album, are played by American singers: Amanda Somerville, Cammie Beverly, and Dee Snider. Dee Snider being the most notable because his character is this staunch, traditionalist patriarch guy who’s on Daniel’s back about the Old Ways, and from there I think it’s safe to assume this guy’s family has been in the spot they’re in for more than a few generations.

I personally really like integrating certain non-personality-related traits from irl singers into their characters, and I think nationality applies to that nicely in this context. 19th century New England aristocrats were usually one of two categories: generationally wealthy European wannabes that take an insane amount of pride in their colonial ancestry, or “self-made” business tycoons that made ungodly amounts of money during the Second Industrial Revolution.

More on that second category in a second, but given the very, very limited information we get on Dee’s character, he gives me more of that high-and-mighty old money vibe.

Also, with almost zero canon evidence: I am completely glued to the idea that The Soprano, played by a very Dutch Dianne van Giersbergen, is the ghost of Daniel and Henry’s mother. Like I will die on this hill. Coincidentally, Connecticut, a state I picked from New England almost entirely at random, was first colonized by Dutch settlers, setting it apart from a few other Northeast states. If we’re keeping with the Nationality of the Parent Characters Carrying Through From Real Life theme, then that would create a very strong tie between Daniel’s family and their home state, further emphasizing the father's prioritizing of retaining status and “proper breeding.”

2. Weirdly Specific Combo of Architectural Styles

I genuinely cannot think of any other place where these three buildings could possibly exist in close proximity to each other, like-

Daniel’s family’s house (bottom right) is by far the strongest visual argument you can make for Transitus being set in Britain, like that is an 18th century English manor house through and through. Fair enough, but:

The East Coast US is a bunch of former colonies that were under British rule in the Georgian period (1714-1837), hence the name “New England.” A lot of the architecture from that time is reflective of this, especially in the older Northern colonies. Southern ones tend to follow the Greek Revival/Neoclassical styles more.

I’d believe the Britain argument here if it wasn’t for the other two houses’ whole situation. Too much US-adjacent design present in this specific region for you to go “yea but the mansion, though” at the mansion that could also exist in said specific region.

As much as I don’t like this as a design choice in the comic: Abby’s parent’s house (bottom left) is a frontier log cabin. These became very, very common during Westward expansion, fueled by the Homestead Act in 1862, the Manifest Destiny Doctrine present throughout the 19th century, the California Gold Rush in 1848, etc… The style wasn’t exclusive to the West though, and a bunch are still standing in the rural East Coast.

Cabins in Blue Ridge, Virginia and Hampton, Connecticut, respectively

As I said, I think it’s just a very odd choice. Among other reasons, the only part of this house that’s plot-essential is that it has a set of stairs for Lavinia to snap her neck on, and these things are pretty much always single floor structures.

Girl, where do those even lead to???

I dunno. I just don't like it, even if it supports my point. It should have been a little two-story rowhouse. Moving on.

These houses existed outside the US. It’s a plain, utilitarian style that shows up all over the place in Europe, even if they’re more synonymous and symbolic to America.

The main house, though, Daniel and Abby’s, narrows it down a bit more. It really reminds me of the Second Empire style, popular in the Northeast and Midwest regions at the time.

The John M. Davies house (Connecticut) and Terrace Hill (Iowa), both built in the mid-late 1860s.

Blocky base, mansard roof, giant statement piece (i.e. a tower) tacked on there somewhere.

The only issue with that guess is that it would make the house, at best, 25-30 years old. Second Empire was only a thing in the post-Civil War period, and the house is meant to be this ancient, haunted thing.

I had this idea for working around it a few months ago that it’s like…an older style that’s been updated in recent years? Say it’s originally a colonial era home (also plausible for New England) belonging to Daniel’s family. Makes sense, the base is still symmetrical and flat with two stories, steep roof, all that jazz.

Washington, Connecticut (ca. 1750) and Hingham, Massachusetts (1721)

They clearly don’t use it themselves so maybe they rent it out? Maybe that’s part of where their money comes from; tenant properties and such. Maybe, understandably, nobody wants to pay to live in it because it’s old and run down and has a cemetery for a front yard, so they gut it and renovate, slapping some new age architecture over the top to make it more appealing.

It doesn’t work but the house finds a use eventually. It’s still old as hell, still American, plus you get the bonus representations of traditionalist vs progressive styles being combined, like the two people that live there.

...get it

Anyways, again: these all exist within sprinting distance of each other. I’d love some other suggestions but the Northeast is the only spot I know all three of them can comfortably exist in.

3. Historical Implications - The American Civil War (1861-1865)

In January I finished this sort of…show bible for any and all Transitus HCs I had as an alternative to sending someone like 300 maxxed out rant-y text messages about it. Congratulations to @ay-miphae for somehow reading all of it.

Since it’s important to certain story elements, a section of the text is dedicated to a consolidated explanation of the American Civil War.

Kindly, a PDF of that section:

It’s deliberately written so someone with no prior knowledge of US history can follow it. That said, even if you are American and have the general gist of the war, I still think you should read it so you can really get where I’m coming from. It’s not something to be incorporated into a story lightly.

If you're not up for it, I at least think the intro paragraph speaks for itself in relation to my point:

The war ended about 20 years before the album takes place and you’d be hard pressed to say it fits with its story’s themes, far beyond the surface level of its very real effect on American race relations (that were much more intense than those of England at the time):

The hypocrisy of the Union, as if the majority of the North wasn’t still segregated and racist as hell long after slavery was abolished.

The tension not just regarding race but socioeconomic class in the war years. Of particular interest was the fact that wealthy men could pay their way out of conscription, often viewing the war as a mere inconvenience rather than the system-altering mess that it was for everyone else.

Death. Just completely unprecedented amounts of it and unnecessarily so.

Your pick of the million and one ways it could have affected Daniel and Abby’s parents, and even Henry depending on how old you picture him.

Et cetera. You want a way to push the “Two Worlds” motif? Set the story in a Northern state two decades after a war fought over whether millions of people got to be treated like human beings or not, so impactful that the two sides of it are still so clearly, ridiculously discernible and will stay this way for another century and a half after.

As far as the possibility of setting Transitus in the South goes, fascinating as that could be, the plot of Act II makes it impossible. Interracial marriage was either void or outright criminalized in every single Southern state, until the ruling of Loving v. Virginia deemed the policies unconstitutional in 1967. There is no room for conflict over Abby receiving inheritance money - she and Daniel would have been straight-up arrested once Henry found out about them.

In the North, laws like this were repealed during or before the 1880s, if a state had them at all. In Connecticut’s case there were no laws ever prohibiting interracial marriage, but starting in the 1840s you were required to disclose your race in order to obtain a marriage license, which could create its own conflict with the risk of Daniel and Abby being exposed. Regardless of legal allowance, the practice was heavily frowned upon wherever you went, and the majority of them are recorded as being ordained in black churches, since white ones would turn them away and be well within their rights to.

A helpful reminder. 🔗

4. Main Setting - The American Gilded Age (1877-1900)

This was the point in my amateur "research" for this setting that I completely dug my heels in.

I mentioned the two sides of the 19th Century New England aristocracy - The dynastic, nobility-adjacent old money crowd, and the new money industrialists that rose to power during and after the Civil War.

Hey look, another (shorter) helpful PDF summary of a historical period:

Emphasis on "the wealthy elite using underhanded, exploitative practices to get what they want with no real consequences for it."

Henry fits...so perfectly into the category of these "robber barons" for me. Even if he's from a traditional, generationally wealthy family, he seems like enough of a greedy little cheat that he would force his way into this new crowd even if he didn't need to. It adds a few extra layers to a fairly archetypal 19th-century douchebag.

Henry being one of these Gilded Age industrialists sets him up as his family's main provider, allowing him to exert even more control over Daniel's life. Old money families had a severe distaste for these people, matching with Henry's extreme desperation to uphold his status. Even outside of higher social circles, these guys were hated by the general public and that was a 100% valid opinion. If Henry is this much more elevated above other characters in terms of wealth and the way he amassed it, it might make the insane jump from "jealous, nosy prick" to "murders an entire lower-class family for personal profit" a little more believable.

And, the most obvious point, the whole idea of this era, that "cartoonishly evil class divide" supporting the Two Worlds narrative.

The difference between Daniel and Abby's situations made all the more drastic, given that Henry may very well be one of (if not the) wealthiest men in the world in this prospective version of the story.

The nature of their wealth puts Henry, and by proximity Daniel, far more in the public eye than any British aristocrat would be. Daniel feels even more pressured and uncertain about his choices, even outside his family's expectations of him. Henry isn't just threatened by monetary loss after Daniel's death but cutthroat social humiliation, given who Daniel's inheritance is being released to.

Daniel is divided even further between his father's quiet, "safe" traditionalist lifestyle and his brother's much more forthright and totalitarian approach to everything. Maybe even tension created between Henry and his father for it.

Again, the stark difference between the post-War North and South, not exactly plot relevant but present in the setting.

The fact that the prosperity of Daniel's family is much more directly a result of the suppression of the poor and working class, the very difficult-to-navigate, set-in-stone power dynamic it creates in Daniel and Abby's relationship and how they come to terms with it.

And a little more on the Making-Shit-Up side: I have a troubling amount of extra characters I've used to fill plot holes that bother me, most of them servants, and trust me. The whole mass immigration aspect of this period makes character-building way more exciting. This is when the US Melting Pot idea really started, and it allows for a lot of different types of people to believably exist in a relatively limited setting. Christ, I even kept Abraham as an Englishman like his respective singer and it still makes sense within the world.

It's just...perfect. Arjen really picked the absolute perfect decade to set this story in for the sake of a throwaway 2084 joke.

5. The American Dream and the Tragic Fantasy of the Middle Class

This one is purely thematic, related to a more general national ideal than any one era or location (though I think the Gilded Age's presence boosts its effect). Oversimplified to all hell:

America is a very individualist society. It was founded on the idea of personal freedom and making your own way in the world with minimal resistance (or support) from an executive power, say, the British Empire. If you work hard and persevere, you can carve out the life you want and enjoy it. On paper, anybody can be anything, free from the restrictions of a tyrannical government or lineage-obsessed nobles. It's the ideal system, that benefits everyone who really wants it to.

Except it's just...not.

This isn't some groundbreaking concept. The American Dream is hypocritical as fuck and most people have figured this out by now. Sure, you can be anything you want in this country, no mountain is too high. So long as you are white, male, Christian, able-bodied and minded, not an immigrant, etc., etc.

Surely it's equal. Surely there are no unfair headstarts for people born into wealth and privilege, just like in Britain, and surely they will not use that advantage to lord power over the less fortunate with minimal consequences because they *earned* it and the government has no right to take it away. And surely, the people who really did work independently for what they have are not in a far more precarious position, as just a little bad luck can send them spiraling with nothing to fall back on.

...

And now, a small summary:

Daniel and Abby come from complete opposite sides of the social ladder, but are able to look past those differences because they care about each other as people. They are ridiculed and ostracized but they persist in the name of the life they chose (bada bing bada boom direct album quote 💃), and after enough time (and some pure luck), they get the house and make it their own. A quiet and steady spot, a safe middle ground between their two worlds.

One bad day and all of it is gone. Literally burned to the ground, and with it the character that all but stood for prosperity, change for the better and genuine human kindness.

The situation is then made exponentially worse when Henry, rich white jackass incarnate, steps onto the scene and twists the horror of it all into something that will benefit him. Doing so, mind you, by stepping on the backs of some select members of the lower class and tricking one through false promises of a shared reward to turn against her own. He fiddles with and fuels that fire while all previously mentioned genuine-human-kindness character can do is watch, and only after death does he get his comeuppance for it.

I figured it all fit together pretty well.

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