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Spoiler warning!
This article or section contains plot spoilers for the Mortal Engines quartet. Proceed at your own risk. |
New London is a suburb of London that was introduced in A Darkling Plain. It is a hybrid of a Traction City and an Airship. This reconstituted London has no jaws or wheels, for it was peaceful and was meant to hover by using magnetic levitation, making it less harmful to the environment.
History[]
Mortal Engines[]
New London was originally built by the Mag-Lev Engineers inside the gut of the traction city London, known as Experimental Suburb L/M 1. Its creator, Lavinia Childermass, tried to keep funding for the work on the suburb, but the then-Lord Mayor, Magnus Crome, believed that the superweapon MEDUSA was a better solution rather than the suburb. Crome then diverted the fundings for New London to fund MEDUSA, effectively stalling the project. The suburb survived when MEDUSA destroyed most of London due to its overload.
A Darkling Plain[]
New London's construction continued, inside a surviving piece of London's gut. Wren Natsworthy and Wolf Kobold discovered New London while wandering the debris field. After Lavina Childermass explained to them about the suburb, Wolf Kobold ran from London's wreck to go back to his suburb Harrowbarrow with the intention of having his town eat New London. Work on New London continued faster knowing of Wolf's plan. New London's engines were tested, but failed. Tom Natsworthy decided to go to Batmunkh Gompa and ask the Green Storm's leader, General Naga not to turn ODIN onto New London as it leaves the debris fields. Naga believing that New London was actually a secret weapon and that Tom was lying, had Tom imprisoned, reuniting him with Hester Natsworthy. However, Naga and the Green Storm arrived at London's wreck (believing they were the ones controlling ODIN, while in reality the Stalker Anna Fang was, from Erdene Tezh). They found New London, and Naga agreed to help the Londoners get away from Harrowbarrow. The Londoners tested the suburb again, and it worked. As Harrowbarrow chased New London, Wren and Theo Ngoni engaged Wolf in a fight on top of Harrowbarrow. Once Wolf was killed, Naga, having realized his errors, flew his airship into Harrowbarrow and destroyed it and himself, saving New London. In Wren's letter to her friend Angie Peabody, she stated that she and Theo were now citizens of New London.