Sweterlitsch sets the novel’s present day in 1997, a year marked by a blend of scientific wonder and apocalyptic dread due to the appearance of Comet Hale-Bopp, which captivated the public. Sweterlitsch uses the mass hysteria and fascination surrounding the comet to undergird the novel’s themes of cosmic horror. Comet Hale-Bopp, named for American astronomers Alan Hale and Thomas Bopp, is “about five times the size of the object hypothesized to have led to the demise of the dinosaurs. Due to its large size, this comet was visible to the naked eye for 18 months in 1996 and 1997” (NASA. “C/1995 O1 (Hale-Bopp) – NASA Science.” Science.Nasa.Gov). In the novel’s opening section, Moss notes the comet’s dominating presence in the sky—“The stars were thick out here […] Orion and the Dippers were clear, but the sky was dominated by the silvery flare of the comet Hale-Bopp, the cosmic ice and burning tails like a thumb smudge of light” (67). 

Connecting the widespread fascination with Comet Hale-Bopp to the Heaven’s Gate cult’s collective deaths by suicide, Sweterlitsch uses a real-world tragedy to ground the novel’s exploration of trauma, existential dread, and the threat of human extinction. In March 1997, 39 members of the group participated in a mass suicide pact in Rancho Santa Fe, California. A central focus of the group’s ideology was a disdain for the recalcitrant nature of human bodies plagued by aging and uncontrollable urges. The founders of Heaven’s Gate, Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles, believed that “two heavenly messengers [would] descend to Earth near the end of time […] to gather human supporters […] into the Kingdom of Heaven, where they [would] enjoy eternal life as androgynous entities,” shedding “their human bodies and evolve[ing] into Next Level beings” (Raine, Susan. “Reconceptualising the Human Body: Heaven’s Gate and the Quest for Divine Transformation.” Religion, vol. 35, no. 2, Apr. 2005, pp. 98–117). When the comet appeared, the cult became fixated on the idea an extraterrestrial spaceship was trailing the comet, ready to transport their souls to a “Next Level” of existence, finally freeing them from the pain and limitations of their human bodies.

This real-world event provides a parallel to the behaviors induced by the novel’s apocalyptic Terminus. The ritualistic actions of the Heaven’s Gate members, driven by a belief in cosmic deliverance, mirror the inexplicable actions of those affected by the “QTNs” in the future, such as the “runners” who drown themselves in the ocean or the “hanged men” who are crucified upside down (7). The novel layers this real-world tragedy with Moss’s personal grief over the death of her friend and colleague. Moss watches a news report about the Heaven’s Gate deaths with her mother, noting that “The news of Brock’s funeral had been buried beneath the news of a cult in California, thirty-nine members discovered dead, a mass suicide” (340). By weaving in this specific historical tragedy, Sweterlitsch anchors the book’s futuristic apocalypse in a documented instance of real-world eschatological panic.