MEDUSA

Spoiler warning!

This article or section contains plot spoilers for the Mortal Engines quartet. Proceed at your own risk.

M.E.D.U.S.A is an ancient Old Tech super-weapon that was introduced in Mortal Engines.

Although it was a major plot device in the first book, its effects were still seen and felt in A Darkling Plain.

In the 2018 film, the machine was voiced by Lynda Lester.^[1]

Description[]

MEDUSA's brain was a small sphere, no bigger than a soccer ball.^[2] It had a huge, metallic hood shaped like a cobra's hood, and fired a beam of energy (either sourced from outside the real universe, the city's generators, or some other Ancient power source), resembling a "cat-o-nine-tails" or a whip, at targets up to two hundred miles away.^[3]

London possessed a potentially far weaker power source for the weapon than the Ancients did, or that the degraded systems are less effective than they once were. The latter reason may also be evidenced by the energy beam discharging lethal bolts of lightning into the ground while travelling, and into the interior of St. Paul's, rather than staying on course towards its target (let alone a coherent energy beam, as was used on San Francisco. Or the former reason could be cited as well, as a strong energy source is required to concentrate the lightning charge toward a target.)^[2]

The target coordinates are input via a control panel at the base of the firing mechanism, using codes from an ancient, poorly-understood US-military document recovered from a military complex in the Dead Continent (the former United States of America). It seems to also possess a terrain scanner as part of its targeting system, as it can accurately create an image of the target's structure and position, to the degree that any damage caused after firing is accurately represented on the display screen mere moments after the explosion.^[2]

MEDUSA fired a bundle of lightning-like energy, which then concentrates into a single beam that discharges smaller bolts of energy into the ground during transmission (presumably unintended), striking its target almost instantly. Upon impact, the weapon either tears open a hole in the very fabric of reality, creating an interdimensional gateway, or creates a singularity. In any case, the effect pulls anything within range into it (such as debris or airships), before collapsing the dimensional hole or singularity, causing a shockwave of energy to pulse outward from the point of impact, followed by a massive explosion on par with a small nuclear warhead.^[4]

Other art showed a green energy beam, either lightning-like or even a concentrated laser, hitting toward its target.^[4]

In an ancient recording of the Sixty Minute War, to have once been far more devastating than it is when used by London thousands of years after the war, having once been capable of wiping out entire cities in a single blast. It showed that back in 2116, the laser charge was then extremely focused toward its target, with a far larger black hole, lightning (hemi)-sphere, and shockwave, when the proceeding explosion utterly destroyed San Francisco).^[5]

M.E.D.U.S.A is an acronym of what appears to be the name of a U.S military governing body, that controlled the use of these weapons before, and then during the Sixty Minute War. It stands for "Military Energy Department United States of America".^[6]

History[]

Pre-Series[]

M.E.D.U.S.A was developed by and used by the ancient United States of America during the Sixty Minute War, along with a plethora of other nightmarish weapons of mass destruction. It fired on several cities in both the American Empire and Greater China's lands (including several nuclear strikes), leaving them desolate, lifeless wastelands.

Thousands of years after the War, London secretly made archaeological expeditions to the Dead Continent (the former USA) and gathered the plans and pieces of M.E.D.U.S.A from an ancient, subterranean US military complex and re-assembled it inside St Paul's Cathedral. In order to obtain the ancient, artificially intelligent computer control system, a fabulously complex piece of technology even by the Ancients' standards, Thaddeus Valentine killed Hester's parents and scarred her face for life.

Mortal Engines quartet[]

Mortal Engines[]

Katherine Valentine spends most of the first part of Mortal Engines trying to figure out what M.E.D.U.S.A is. Then, when London is being chased by the city Panzerstadt-Bayreuth, and threatened with destruction, the roof of St Paul's Cathedral opens up like a flower. The cold metal hood of M.E.D.U.S.A emerged from within and, pulsing with strange, otherworldly energies that once brought humanity to the brink of extinction, fired a beam of destructive power at the pursuing traction city, and destroyed the predator in the blink of an eye, reducing it to a smoking pile of molten slag, its people, history and collection of ancient knowledge, wiped out in an instant. Katherine was horrified, but the rest of London was happy that they avoided being destroyed. London, guided by Magnus Chrome, then headed towards Batmunkh Gompa with plans to destroy the Shield-Wall and make Central Asia their new hunting ground. Magnus Crome planned to use M.E.D.U.S.A to become the greatest traction city in the world; if a city didn't deliberately drive into London's mouth then they would unleash M.E.D.U.S.A on it and salvage its remains. His plan would have it so that when all the Traction Cities were gone, they would turn the entire Earth into a mobile planet that consumed other planets for resources.

At the end of the novel, M.E.D.U.S.A was accidentally destroyed by Katherine who was mortally wounded while attempting to sabotage it. With incorrect targeting data, the machine turned its power upon itself and the city beneath it. This prevented the weapon from firing at Batmunkh Gompa, but caused it to overload, the terrible energy, then completely out of control, obliterating most of London and its people, reducing the city to a graveyard of molten scrap.

A Darkling Plain[]

In the wake of London's demise, remnants of the weapon's energy remained in the ruins of the traction city, manifesting as bizarre, floating bundles of electric power known as Sprites, as revealed in A Darkling Plain. They often ensnared towns such as Harrowbarrow, electrocuting them and even burning into some, welding them to London's wrecked superstructure. It was noted that these wrecks looked like a tasty mess of molten scrap. MEDUSA is also comparable to ODIN, though the former is far less powerful and far-reaching than the latter.

Film[]

In the film adaptation, M.E.D.U.S.A is shut down by Hester Shaw, using an ancient crash-drive with the letters "U.S.A" inscribed upon it, entering a code which turns the machine off and causes the weapon to overload. However, this does not destroy London as in the book, but merely shuts the weapon down, harmlessly (although it breaks apart soon afterwards). Despite this, London's Gut and engines are destroyed in the ongoing battle, rendering the city immobile and nonfunctional outside the Shield Wall regardless.