History Literature / MortalEngines

* HeroesWantRedheads:
** Tom has had crushes on Katherine Valentine and Freya Rasmussen, but the only one he has ever loved is Hester.
** After falling for [[spoiler:Arlo Thursday, who has black hair,]] in ''A Web of Air'', Fever falls in love with [[spoiler:Cluny Morvish, who has flowing dark-red locks,]] in ''Scrivener's Moon''.

* AnArmAndALeg: General Naga lost one of his arms and the use of his legs during the Green Storm's war; the only reason he's even able to move is because the Resurrection Corps built him a set of PoweredArmor.

** Subverted. Even Stalker technology combined with Old-Tech designed to seek out the memory centres can't ''truly'' bring someone back from the dead; Popjoy more or less spells this out in the last book, explaining to [[spoiler:the Stalker Fang]] that she's ''not'' [[spoiler:Anna Fang]] as much as she is a very advanced Stalker whose intelligence stems from possessing some of [[spoiler:Anna's]] drives and memories.

* FauxAffablyEvil: Nabisco Shkin's perfectly polite manners do little to hide his nature as a ruthless slave trader who's willing to [[WouldHurtAChild enslave children and sell them off for]] GladiatorGames in Nuevo Maya. Best exemplified during [[spoiler:his meeting with Tom,]] where he remains perfectly polite even as he calmly lays out how he's sold his daughter into slavery, enslaves him, and then uses this to blackmail the former into a highly risky mission.

* FriendlyEnemies: Naga and Kriegsmarshal Von Kobold. Naga sends his rival a gift of a bullet-proof vest inscribed with the words 'sorry we missed you' when he learns that the Kriegsmarshal survived an attack from a Green Storm sniper. The Kriegsmarshal, in return, considers Naga more likable than some of his allies in the Traktionstadtgesellshaft.

* MadeOfIron: Shrike, who survives being run through with a sword, falling into a ravine, and ''being run over by a city'', among many ''many'' other things. In fact, he's actually older than the Traction Era itself, and has lived through it all. Somewhat justified by his being a cyborg, and specifically designed to be hard to kill for good.

** [[spoiler:It's unclear whether Wolf Kobold really ''was'' dead when he fell under Harrowbarrow's tracks, or whether (as Wren convinces herself) he lived to be crushed by the tracks]].

** Shrike gets run over by a city, but he gets better. He gains a bit of respect for [[spoiler:Tom]] for tricking him.

* FauxAffablyEvil: Nabisco Shkin's perfectly polite manners do little to hide his nature as a ruthless slave trader who's willing to [[WouldHurtAChild enslave children and sell them off for]] GladiatorGames in Nuevo Maya. Best exemplified during [[spoiler:his meeting with Tom,]] where he remains perfectly polite even as he calmly lays out how he's sold his daughter into slavery, enslaves him, and then uses this to blackmail the former into a highly risky suicide mission.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: A beautiful example in A Web Of Air. [[spoiler:In the narration Thirza Jago is described as very beautiful, with thick curly dark red hair. Then Fever 'felt a splinter of Godshawk stir deep down in her mind'. It is then revealed that Godshawk himself was bisexual. Fever's love interest in then next book? A girl with thick, dark red, curly hair, and Fever is revealed as bisexual.]]

* KilledOffForReal : Employed liberally; a great number of major and minor characters get the chop, usually quickly and horribly. In the first book alone, [[spoiler:Shrike, Anna Fang, Thaddeus Valentine, Kate Valentine, Bevis Pod, Magnus Crome, and ''pretty much the entire city of London'' die]]. Partly subverted as in the course of the second, third and fourth books, some of these characters turn out to have survived [[spoiler:or have been Stalker-ized]], but then at the end of the fourth book (before the DistantFinale) [[spoiler:Pomeroy, Naga, Stalker Fang and - last but not least - [[TheHeroDies Tom and Hester]] all die]].

* LetsGetDangerous: [[spoiler:The Guild of Historians]] of all people, at the end of the first book, mounting a defence against [[spoiler:the Guild of Engineers and their Stalker forces with various articles of ancient weaonry]].

* PocketProtector: Pennyroyal survives being shot because the bullet is stopped by a book he had on him. Of course, the book in question is the Tin Book, a book with pages made out of metal.

%%* ScavengerWorld

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:The Traction War cost untold numbers of lives, Tom and Hester are dead and Shrike is left bereft...but New London heralds the rise of a type of moving city that will no longer damage the world, Wren and Theo go on to make new lives for themselves, and Shrike, after hibernating for hundreds of years, wakes up to find the world green again and settles into his new role -- and family -- as a remembering machine.]]

* CameBackStrong: The typical purpose of Stalkers is to resurrect someone as a super strong warrior.
* CameBackWrong: Stalkers remember little to nothing of their previous life. This doesn't stop people from trying to bring back their loved ones through these methods.

* CourtMage: Nintendo Tharp. He has [[FutureImperfect powerful apps]].

* DeadGuyOnDisplay: A classical Type 2 in ''Fever Crumb'', where the flayed skins of London's former Scriven masters are put on display following the Skinners' Riots.

* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler:Hester stabs herself in the heart rather than live without Tom.]]

* FantasticRacism: Between the Scriven and humans. The former shun the latter for lacking their advanced technology and inherent synesthesia, derisively calling them "monkeys" and forcing them into the state of second-class citizens, while the latter hate the former for their tyrannical rule over London, referring to them as "Patchskins" and "Dapplejacks".

* FriendlyEnemies: Naga and Kriegsmarshal Von Kobold. Naga sends his rival a gift of a bullet-proof vest enscribed with the words 'sorry we missed you' when he learns that the Kriegsmarshal survived an attack from a Green Storm sniper. The Kriegsmarshal, in return, considers Naga more likable than some of his allies in the Traktionstadtgesellshaft.

** ''The Traction Codex'' reveals there to be confusion about several characters' historical fates[[note]]For instance Shrike is cited by "Stalkerologists" as having varyingly entered Chrome's service, died for good on the Black Isle, or fought for the Green Storm[[/note]], and even references ''Mortal Engines'' as a [[SelfDeprecation "passably accurate but somewhat sensationalised"]] account of London's historic push eastward.

* GambitRoulette: used a couple of times; it seems just about everything is helping [[spoiler:Anna Fang, resurrected as a cyborg Stalker]] get the control codes to the superweapon.

* [[HalfTheManHeUsedToBe Half The Woman She Used To Be]]: [[spoiler:Poor, poor Wavey.]]

* LightningBruiser: Traction cities are very fast (London hits 100 kph in the first book), and when armed for war can pack insane amounts of firepower and armour.

* LostTechnology: Dovetails neatly with the above Kill Sat and Black Box. Also plays a big role in the setting otherwise: "Old Tech", barely understood technology left over from our own civilization (and several others that followed, and collapsed in turn) is a constant source of headaches for our heroes.

* MadScientist: Dr Popjoy, a former member of [[spoiler:London's K Division, who is directly responsible for creating most of the marks of Stalker that the Green Storm uses]]. When [[[spoiler:Fishcake and the Stalker Fang reach his house in ''A Darkling Plain'']], the former notes numerous strange stalkerized constructs, like a dog with the head of a dead girl; the Green Storm officer [[spoiler:investigating his murder]] ominously remarks that his house was full of [[NothingIsScarier "horrible things"]].

** Anna Fang may be from the German "anfang", meaning "beginning"

*** The limpet ''Naglfar'' was a ship in Norse mythology made of the ''toenails of the dead''; this myth is even told by Caul InUniverse as it's prepped for departure.

*** The "Clear Air Turbulence" may be named for the mercenaries' Hronish assualt ship in the first of Iain M. Banks' 'culture' space operas. It might also, possibly be a reference to the Ian Gillan Band's 1977 jazz-rock album.

* TheSpock: The engineers in Fever Crumb. Fever herself is slowly Becoming TheKirk

* TakingYouWithMe: General Naga. And HOW.

* ThatManIsDead: "I am not Anna Fang. We are wasting time. I wish to destroy cities." (Admittedly in this case the character did literally die.)

* WorldHalfEmpty: The basic premise is living on a giant mobile city, eating cities smaller and slower than you and running away from bigger ones. If your city gets taken by a bigger and meaner one, it will be taken by force, completely looted, stripped down for raw materials and its population enslaved. In the third and fourth books, the antagonism between Traction Cities and the Anti-Traction League turns into a total war between the Traktionstadtgesellshaft, a union of militarised German cities and their allies, and the Green Storm, a band of psychotic air-pirates who overthrow the previously peaceful League leaders and turn it into a totalitarian state obsessed with the annihilation of cities. Aboard any Traction City, even non-militarised pleasure cities, you're liable to be blown apart by man-piloted heavy bombs, fleets of giant airships and psychotic undead cyborgs armed with finger-blades; fighting for the Green Storm, you're likely to be either piloting one of the bombs or attempting to fight conventional battles against ''war-rigged mobile cities'', and if (when) you die on the battle lines, may have the bad luck to get your corpse turned into one of the aforementioned psychotic undead cyborgs and have to do the whole stupid thing again.

* AntiVillain: [[spoiler: Valentine turns out to be a [[SlidingScaleOfAntiVillains Type II]].]]

** [[spoiler:The Stalker Fang]] [[DeathFromAbove attempts a Class 3a]] in ''A Darkling Plain''.

* AndIMustScream: Aspects of this in stalker technology. Individuals do not find rest in death, i.e. [[spoiler: Anna Fang / Kit Solent]], but instead are nightmarishly brought back to life through creepy old-tech (there are some gruesome descriptions of how this happens). What makes it eligible for this trope is [[spoiler: they often remember who they were, and quite possibly are unable to destroy themselves for various reasons -- such as due to tinkering done to their brains. They must endure as half-preserved, monstrous killing-machines.]]
* ArousedByTheirVoice: Fever with [[spoiler: Cluny's TrrrillingRrrs]].

** Anna Fang wears a long aviatrix's coat, and is capable of [[spoiler: fighting [[ImplacableMan Shrike]] one-on-one, on top of being one of the Anti-Traction League's greatest agents]].

** [[DownplayedTrope To a lesser extent]], the London Engineers and their white rubber lab coats; while they're noted to make them look like novelty erasers, they're also [[spoiler: smart enough to rediscover the otherwise lost science of Stalker creation and restore an ancient Old-Tech superweapon]].

** MEDUSA ([[spoiler:a giant laser weapon]]) and ODIN ([[spoiler:a {{KillSat}}]]).

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: The Traction War cost untold numbers of lives, Tom and Hester are dead and Shrike is left bereft...but New London heralds the rise of a type of moving city that will no longer damage the world, Wren and Theo go on to make new lives for themselves, and Shrike, after hibernating for hundreds of years, wakes up to find the world green again and settles into his new role -- and family -- as a remembering machine.]]
* BlackBox: Most [[LostTechnology Old-Tech]] functions like this - for example, the Nomad Empires understand how to wire a Stalker-brain into a corpse to create a Stalker, but they don't understand ''how'' the Stalker-brain itself reanimates the body.
* BlindWeaponmaster: [[spoiler: The Stalker Fang]] is blind for the first half of ''A Darkling Plain'', but can still fight people and even stalkers.

** [[spoiler: Magnus Chrome]] for the first book, as it is his [[spoiler: decision to send [[TheHeavy Shrike]] after Tom and Hester and re-activate MEDUSA]].
** [[spoiler: Stalker Fang]] for the rest of the trilogy, as the [[spoiler: leader of the Green Storm and eventual OmnicidalManiac]].
* BodyguardBetrayal: [[spoiler: Shrike attacks and destroys the Stalker Fang at the climax of ''Infernal Devices''.]]

* BrokenAce: [[TheDragon Thaddeus Valentine]]. [[spoiler: Turns out he started off as a penniless Out-Country scavenger who was only accepted into London after bringing the Old-Tech superweapon MEDUSA there, having murdered his lover to get his hands on it; he's still rather guilty about this decades on, and eventually beings to question his loyalty to Chrome after understanding just how deranged the latter's plans truly are]].
* BrokenBird: Hester, so much. Losing your parents to murder at an early age and getting horribly scarred [[spoiler: by your actual father]], then being [[spoiler: raised by a walking {{Cyborg}}-corpse]] before dedicating your entire life to hunting down your parent's murderer will do that to a person.

** The Tin Book of Anchorage in ''Infernal Devices''.

* ClosetKey: [[spoiler: Cluny causes Fever to realize that she's bisexual.]]

* ConvectionSchmonvection: Zig-zagged with [[spoiler:ODIN's beam]]. [[spoiler:Orla Twombley]] was badly burnt despite being miles away from it, while [[spoiler:Naga]] was right next to it and wasn't harmed. The latter is especially strange, considering that the heat from convection set everything else in the room on fire and reduced [[spoiler: Cynthia Twite]] to burning cinders in moments.

* DeathEqualsRedemption: Invoked by Hester near the end of ''Predator's Gold''. She expects to die during the book's climax, and figures this will redeem her for [[spoiler: selling Anchorage's course to Arkangel.]] [[DeathSeeker She's actually disappointed when she survives.]]

* DistantFinale: The final chapter of ''A Darkling Plain'' takes place [[spoiler: centuries after the 'present day', with Traction Cities being considered no more than fairytales and the Green Storm War seemingly forgotten]].

** [[spoiler:Bevis]] dies near the end of [[spoiler: ''Mortal Engines'' as the ''13th Floor Elevator's'' wreckage crashes into Top Tier, [[HeroicSacrifice pushing Katharine to safety moments before a loose engine smashes into him]]]].
** Shrike gets run over by a city, but he gets better. He gains a bit of respect for [[spoiler: Tom]] for tricking him.
* {{Eagleland}}: Type II in the backstory. One historian notes that "the old American Empire was quite mad towards the end," coming up with crazy EnergyWeapons that drew power from places outside the physical universe. [[spoiler: One of them, MEDUSA, is central to the plot of the first novel.]]
* EarlyBirdCameo: After a fashion. An aviatrix named Cruwys Morchard is mentioned in passing early in the second book; she's a significant player in the fourth [[spoiler: and she's actually Clytie Potts from the first book, who everyone assumed died in the destruction of London]].

* EverybodysDeadDave: What it looks like at [[spoiler:the end of the first book - London's destruction seemingly takes everyone aboard with it, while both Valentines, Chrome, Anna Fang, and Bevis are all confirmed dead.]] Zig-zagged later, as [[spoiler: ''A Darkling Plain'' confirms that several named members of the Historians' Guild and multiple other Londoners survived the disaster, hiding in the ruins ever since]].

%%* TheFagin: Uncle.

* ForegoneConclusion: [[LaResistance The London Underground]] in ''Scrivener's Moon'' aren't going to stop the reconstruction of London as the first Traction City. From what we know of air technology in Mortal Engines, Arlo isn't going to complete his aeroplane [[spoiler: but then he does. It just gets destroyed and the technology banned by religion, making this a bit of a ShaggyDogStory. Some of his comments on 'bird roads' and such do indicate that he has an impact on flight though.]]
* {{Foreshadowing}}: A beautiful example in A Web Of Air. [[spoiler: In the narration Thirza Jago is described as very beautiful, with thick curly dark red hair. Then Fever 'felt a splinter of Godshawk stir deep down in her mind'. It is then revealed that Godshawk himself was bisexual. Fever's love interest in then next book? A girl with thick, dark red, curly hair, and Fever is revealed as bisexual.]]

* GambitRoulette: used a couple of times; it seems just about everything is helping [[spoiler: Anna Fang, resurrected as a cyborg Stalker]] get the control codes to the superweapon.

** [[spoiler:Katherine Valentine]] in the first book, [[spoiler: [[TakingTheBullet Taking The Stab]] for her half-sister Hester Shaw]]. Shortly before that, [[spoiler: Bevis Pod dies pushing Katharine out of the way of a flying piece of debris from the ''13th Floor Elevator'']]
** [[spoiler:General Naga]] sacrifices himself during [[spoiler: Harrowbarrow's attack on New London]], flying his airship into [[spoiler: the harvester-suburb's jaws in a ''kamikaze''-style attack]].

* IdiotBall: Theo Ngoni does some pointlessly stupid things in ''A Darkling Plain''.
* IGaveMyWord: Once Crome and his people have learned all they can from Shrike, Crome could very well have had him dismantled, but he chooses to let Shrike go, and Shrike has faith that the Engineer will give him his "heart's desire" -- [[spoiler: which is to have Hester Resurrected into a Stalker.]]
* [[IHaveNoSon I Have No Mother]]: [[spoiler: Wren pretty much cuts off all ties to Hester at the end of the third book, and never sees her again.]]
* ImplacableMan: All Stalkers, but ''especially'' Shrike, who gets; hit by multiple times an emplacement-weapon grade Tesla cannon, buried for centuries, torn apart, shot (ineffectively), stabbed multiple times by many different people and other Stalkers (likewise, [[spoiler: though Tom manages to put him into a sort of hibernation for fifteen years by ramming a sword into his damaged chest]]), Battle Frisbee-d (makes sense in context) blown up, ''run over by a mobile town'', dropped out of an airship into a frozen lake, and [[spoiler:and is still alive in the DistantFinale, where he tells the story]].

-->'''Masgard''': What are you playing at, aviatrix? You [[spoiler: sell me this city]], then you [[spoiler: try and help them take it back]]. I don't understand! What's your plan?\\

* KarmaHoudini: Downplayed with Pennyroyal: he never paid for [[spoiler:shooting Tom and stealing the ''Jenny Haniver'']] but at the end of the last book, [[spoiler: his reputation is ruined and he spends a fair amount of time in prison. Though he does get released and married eventually, nobody ever trusted him enough to publish the one truthful book he wrote, not even his wealthy wife]].
* KilledOffForReal : Employed liberally; a great number of major and minor characters get the chop, usually quickly and horribly. In the first book alone, [[spoiler:Shrike, Anna Fang, Thaddeus Valentine, Kate Valentine, Bevis Pod, Magnus Crome, and ''pretty much the entire city of London'' die]]. Partly subverted as in the course of the second, third and fourth books, some of these characters turn out to have survived [[spoiler: or have been Stalker-ized]], but then at the end of the fourth book (before the DistantFinale) [[spoiler:Pomeroy, Naga, Stalker Fang and - last but not least - [[TheHeroDies Tom and Hester]] all die]].
* LaserGuidedKarma: Wavey Godshawk is the one who [[spoiler: turned Kit Solent into the Stalker Shrike. Years later, Shrike kills her by cutting her in half.]] Zigzagged somewhat in that she genuinely saw what she did as a high honor rather than horrifying.

* LetsGetDangerous: [[spoiler: The Guild of Historians]] of all people, at the end of the first book, mounting a defence against [[spoiler: the Guild of Engineers and their Stalker forces with various articles of ancient weaonry]].

* LostSuperweapon: MEDUSA the [[spoiler:city-killing laser]] and ODIN the KillSat.

* KillSat: ODIN (Orbital Defense Initiative), used to [[spoiler: obliterate cities and make volcanoes erupt.]]

* MadScientist: Dr Popjoy, a former member of [[spoiler: London's K Division, who is directly responsible for creating most of the marks of Stalker that the Green Storm uses]]. When [[[spoiler: Fishcake and the Stalker Fang reach his house in ''A Darkling Plain'']], the former notes numerous strange stalkerized constructs, like a dog with the head of a dead girl; the Green Storm officer [[spoiler: investigating his murder]] ominously remarks that his house was full of [[NothingIsScarier "horrible things"]].

** In Norse mythology, Odin was the one-eyed All-Father, known for hurling lightning as his signature weapon. [[spoiler: The '''O'''rbital '''D'''efence '''IN'''itiative has an eye-like barrel, from which it fires huge superheated laser beams]].

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: If Hester hadn't abandoned [[spoiler: Fishcake]], half of ''A Darkling Plain'' wouldn't have happened. In the Fever Crumb series, Fever saves Charley from drowning outside Nonesuch House. [[spoiler: He shoots her "dead" immediately afterwards (she's saved by the mechanimalculae Godshawk injected in her blood), sets her up in the third book (to not much success) and later becomes hands-down London's most incompetent Lord Mayor.]]
* NonActionGuy: Tom Natsworthy.
* NoOneCouldSurviveThat: Shrike, several times. [[spoiler:Also Anna Fang. DoubleSubverted in that she actually dies, and is brought back as a Stalker.]]
* ObliviousToLove: Is Cluny the only one who hasn't worked out [[spoiler: that Fever's in love with her]]?
* ObfuscatingStupidity: [[spoiler:Cynthia Twite (a.k.a Agent 28)]] poses as a girly, [[TheDitz air-headed ditz]] who thinks only of gossip and fashion, while in truth she's a [[spoiler: hand-picked member of the Stalker Fang's elite intelligence network and a stone-cold killer besides]].

* OmnicidalManiac: [[spoiler:Stalker Fang's]] ultimate plan is to [[spoiler: trigger volcanic eruptons all across the globe, wiping out humanity and allowing "a world made green again".]]

** Shrike wants to be this for Hester [[spoiler: and often refers to her as "his daughter"]].
** Dr. Crumb to Fever. [[spoiler: This is what Crumb tells Fever, at least. It turns out he's her real father.]]

* PosthumousCharacter: Auric Godshawk is an important character in ''Fever Crumb'', despite being dead. He's learnt about through flashbacks, other characters' comments and [[spoiler: his own memories which were implanted in Fever.]]
* {{Precursors}}: The Ancients, i.e. us.
* ProfessionalKiller: Hester has this role at the start of ''A Darkling Plain''.

* ShipperOnDeck: Tom likes to tease his daughter about her relationship with Theo Ngoni. Anna Fang likes to tease Hester about her relationship with Tom. [[spoiler: Disturbingly, Stalker Fang does the same while trying to destroy the world in the final novel.]]

** In the DistantFinale, Shrike awakens to see that human civilization has become a peaceful, agrarian society living in simple dwellings amid the ruins of the old traction cities...with gravity-defying hovercraft floating around thanks to [[spoiler: New London's tech]].

* SplitPersonality: [[spoiler: After being heavily damaged, the Stalker Fang begins switching between her usual violent self and her pre-resurrection self, Anna Fang]].

* StalkerWithACrush: Yes, Shrike [[spoiler: wanted Hester as a daughter]], but it's close enough (and the IncrediblyLamePun writes itself).

* TinMan: The Engineers are revealed to be this in Fever Crumb. Most of the time they're TheSpock but when it matters they've got their sensitive side even if they don't really know how to deal with it. Hell compared to the cutthroats and ruffians that take up most of London's screentime they're practically TheHeart. Which is ironic, as Fever Crumb is the only female Engineer, EVER.
* TitleDrop: Done several times in ''Predator's Gold''. The term refers to the money earned by selling the location of a city to a predator city so the predator can hunt it down.
* TogetherInDeath: Invoked by Hester at the beginning of the second book. [[spoiler:Played straight at the end of the fourth]].

* UglyGuyHotWife: Fat Jago and Thirza. Thirza is attractive, and Fat Jago... Well, they don't call him that for nothing.
* UnderwaterBase: Grimsby; after it sank to pack ice during the Iron Winter, [[spoiler: Stilton Kael (a.k.a Uncle) converted it into a base for the Lost Boys]].
* UrbanSegregation: Goes hand-in-hand with the widespread use of the LayeredMetropolis trope. In the first book, Tom being from Tier Two defined him as a respectable citizen of London (at least, in the eyes of people from smaller towns); the lower of London's seven Tiers were populated by progressively poorer workers. Every Traction City is segregated in this way, however many layers it may have (some only two, some a dozen). The topmost Tier will be occupied by mansions, landmarks, and the Mayor's residence; the next one below may have respectable businesses and offices; below that -- working class residences. On the meaner cities, the lowest tiers may house slaves; on the nicer ones, some literal social climbing may be possible. Because the lowest tiers also house the giant engines that move Traction Cities; these are usually very unpleasant places to work and live, and of course only the top Tier gets full sunlight and fresh air. An alternate variant is seen in ''Predator's Gold'' in the case of the polar Traction City ''Arkangel''. The less well-to-do of ''Arkangel'' live in the outer regions of the city where they are more exposed to the cold, while the city's elite live near the center where thay can benefit from the warmth given off by the city's engines.

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

->''It was a dark, blustery afternoon in spring, and the city of London was chasing a small mining town across the dried-out bed of the old North Sea.''

Creator/PeterJackson and WETA Digital worked on a film adaptation of the first book, ''[[Film/MortalEngines Mortal Engines]]'', which was released in December 2018.

* TheChick:

* TinMan: The Engineers are revealed to be this in Fever Crumb. Most of the time they're TheSpock but when it matters they've got their sensitive side even if they don't really know how to deal with it. Hell compared to the cutthroats and ruffians that take up most of London's screentime they're practically TheChick. Which is ironic, as Fever Crumb is the only female Engineer, EVER.

* AndIMustScream: Aspects of this in stalker technology. Individuals do not find rest in death, i.e. [[spoiler: Anna Fang / Kit Solent]], but instead are nightmarishly brought back to life through creepy old-tech (there are some gruesome descriptions of how this happens). What makes it eligible for this trope is [[spoiler: they often remember who they were, and quite possibly are unable to destroy themselves for various reasons -- such as due to tinkering done to their brains. They must endure as half-preserved, monstrous killing-machines.

Mortal Engines takes place in a post-post-post-post-post-apocalyptic future. Nations no longer exist, except in the lands of the Anti-Traction League. Traction Cities -- entire cities mounted on caterpillar tracks for mobility -- are fiercely independent city-states, using giant jaws to devour one another for resources in a horribly unsustainable city-eat-city environment known as Municipal Darwinism: large cities eat small cities, small cities eat towns, towns eat suburbs, and everyone eats non-moving or "static" settlements. Trade is mostly accomplished by airship, though sometimes cities of roughly equal size (unable to devour each other) will stop to trade. Much of the AppliedPhlebotinum involves [[LostTechnology Old-Tech]], ancient remains of lost civilisations ranging from statues of MickeyMouse ("[[AllHailTheGreatGodMickey animal-headed gods of lost America]]") to {{Lost Superweapon}}s.

* OfficialCoupleOrdealSyndrome: [[spoiler:Tom and Hester ''and'' Katherine and Bevis. [[KillEmAll It really doesn't end well...]]]]