Stalker (Philip Reeve)
Encyclopedia
The Stalkers are a type of combatants mentioned in Philip Reeve
's Mortal Engines
, Predator's Gold
, Infernal Devices
and A Darkling Plain
. They are also known as the Resurrected Men. The Stalkers were built by the Nomadic Empires that battled each other across the volcano maze of what was once Europe
long before the Traction Era. They are seven feet tall, armoured from head to toe, have glowing green eyes and are also armed with sharp claws. The Stalkers were built by salvaging corpses from the battlefields and bringing them back to a sort of life by wiring 'Old Tech' machines into their nervous systems and made deadly warriors by removing unnecessary internal organs, grafting on a metal carapace and implanting weapons, typically finger-glaives. A known unit of Stalkers was the Lazarus Brigade.
Once a dead person is resurrected as a Stalker, they have no feelings and emotions and will not have any memory of who they were before they died, even if they do the memories are hazy and only in glimpses (if killed and re-resurrected, some memories may return. It often takes several deaths to return the memory.) Known examples are the Stalkers Fang and Shrike (called "Grike" in North American versions), who were the only stalkers known to have been resurrected more than once (the Stalker Fang may be a special case, because her stalker brain was salvaged from a "Remembering Machine"). In the case of Stalker Shrike, as he was "dying" for the first time since being resurrected, he was finally able to remember his life before resurrection. This appears to be due to the circuitry in Stalkers' brains, which is designed to suppress previous memories. In Mortal Engines
, one of the minor characters is a Stalker named Shrike and the London Guild of Engineers build new Stalkers from dead prison convicts at their experimental prison in the Deep Gut, though these stalkers are not as refined as Shrike due to less sophisticated stalker-brains, the devices used in the brains and nerves of Stalkers.
Stalkers seem to be all but invulnerable to small arms fire and hand-held weaponry. They do not feel any pain, and kill all those who stand in their way. It is unlikely that swords, knives or daggers could harm them at all, but no-one has ever gotten close enough or survived long enough to find out. However Tom Natsworthy (a fundamental character in the books in which the stalkers feature) does manage to 'kill' Shrike with a sword near the end of the first book; this was mainly due to luck as Shrike was distracted at the time and had previously been run over by two Traction Cities and shot with a cannon, but it proves stalkers are not totally 'invulnerable'. Shrike also finds Popjoy's stalkers are weakest at the neck.
In Predator's Gold
, a London Engineer named Dr Popjoy, who survived the explosion is captured by the Green Storm
which makes him build new Stalkers. These Stalkers are different from the original because they come in many different forms such as spider-like-machines armed with a machine gun in its belly, while Stalkers designed to shoot missiles against Raft Cities and bird Stalkers called Raptors used to aid Green Storm airship fighters. By the fourth book stalkers have also been modelled into trains, and Popjoy also had a number of pet stalkers built from such creatures as cats and insects. The most common were still the humanoid stalkers which would be used as footsoldiers by the Storm. Their faces were concealed by blank, steel faceplates with narrow slits for eyes and their armour was marked with the green lightning-bolt symbol of the Green Storm. Unlike their predecessors, they were mindless and had to be recharged after a while.
Interestingly, the same engineer was able to "resurrect" Anna Fang so that she could lead the Green Storm. As many stalkers, the 'new' Anna did not remember much of her past life at all, was increasingly angry because of her confinement and had to be kept in a secure underground room with all entrances to it electrified. She escaped during an attack by the Lost Boys
, a pirate organization. The Stalker then took control of the Green Storm
base. Now known as the Stalker Fang, she led the Green Storm military forces during an attack on the League
's capital Tienjing which resulted in the overthrowing of the High Council.
Stalkers would be used by the Green Storm during its war against the Traction Cities. A special branch of the military called the Resurrection Corps was also founded. They specialised in resurrecting corpses taken from the battlefield into Stalkers. In Infernal Devices
, a Resurrection Corps Surgeon-Mechanic named Dr. Oenone Zero
also managed to locate and resurrect Shrike. However, she programmed Shrike with secret programming so that he could be forced to kill Fang upon hearing a certain phrase.
They have been claimed to bear some resemblance to the Cybermen.
The Remembering Machines were hidden in a temple "so far north you started going south again" with workshops attached where the priest-engineers would take one of their number and turn them into a Remembering Machine. It is likely that the Temple was built before the Sixty Minute War
due to the loss of technology and life in the destruction of the war.
The Stalker Fang's brain was taken from one of these workshops in the days of the Green Storm. Presumably it was there because the priest-engineers were unable to install it before the Sixty Minute War broke out - however, if the temple was from a later date, the reason for the presence this unused brain is harder to explain.
The temple was dynamited by the Green Storm after the brain was salvaged for fear that someone from the traction cities would discover it and use the knowledge. It is assumed that the Remembering Machines were destroyed in the blast.
Shrike has always been a remembering machine, as his stalker brain was taken from the temple by a Snowmad and sold to Nikola Quercus, whose Technomancer, Wavey Godshawk, fitted it into an archaeologist named Kit Solent who for a few days before his death employed Fever Crumb. He was Resurrected by the Movement, after he had been shot by them for reasons that have not so far been explained.
, as weapons for war. These stalkers, instead of being Resurrected humans, are animals of various kinds - Stalker whales, cats and birds have been noted throughout the series. These are not the only Stalker-animals, though - Auric Godshawk gave Daniel Thursday (Arlo Thursday's grandfather) the Aranha, an angel Resurrected as an armoured crab.
Philip Reeve
Philip Reeve is a British author and illustrator. He presently lives on Dartmoor with his wife Sarah and their son Samuel.-Biography:...
's Mortal Engines
Mortal Engines
Mortal Engines is the first of four novels in Philip Reeve's quartet of the same name, which is also known as the Hungry City Chronicles in the United States...
, Predator's Gold
Predator's Gold
Predator's Gold is the second of four novels in Philip Reeve's series for young adults, the Mortal Engines Quartet.-Setting:Predator's Gold is set two years after Mortal Engines...
, Infernal Devices
Infernal Devices
Infernal Devices is the third of four novels in Philip Reeve's children's series, the Mortal Engines Quartet.-Anchorage:The story continues sixteen years after the events of Predator's Gold. The peaceful city of Anchorage is now a static settlement called "Anchorage-in-Vineland" on an island in the...
and A Darkling Plain
A Darkling Plain
A Darkling Plain is the fourth and final novel in the Mortal Engines Quartet series written by author Philip Reeve.The novel won the 2006 Guardian Award and the 2007 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Young Adult Fiction.-Setting:...
. They are also known as the Resurrected Men. The Stalkers were built by the Nomadic Empires that battled each other across the volcano maze of what was once Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
long before the Traction Era. They are seven feet tall, armoured from head to toe, have glowing green eyes and are also armed with sharp claws. The Stalkers were built by salvaging corpses from the battlefields and bringing them back to a sort of life by wiring 'Old Tech' machines into their nervous systems and made deadly warriors by removing unnecessary internal organs, grafting on a metal carapace and implanting weapons, typically finger-glaives. A known unit of Stalkers was the Lazarus Brigade.
Once a dead person is resurrected as a Stalker, they have no feelings and emotions and will not have any memory of who they were before they died, even if they do the memories are hazy and only in glimpses (if killed and re-resurrected, some memories may return. It often takes several deaths to return the memory.) Known examples are the Stalkers Fang and Shrike (called "Grike" in North American versions), who were the only stalkers known to have been resurrected more than once (the Stalker Fang may be a special case, because her stalker brain was salvaged from a "Remembering Machine"). In the case of Stalker Shrike, as he was "dying" for the first time since being resurrected, he was finally able to remember his life before resurrection. This appears to be due to the circuitry in Stalkers' brains, which is designed to suppress previous memories. In Mortal Engines
Mortal Engines
Mortal Engines is the first of four novels in Philip Reeve's quartet of the same name, which is also known as the Hungry City Chronicles in the United States...
, one of the minor characters is a Stalker named Shrike and the London Guild of Engineers build new Stalkers from dead prison convicts at their experimental prison in the Deep Gut, though these stalkers are not as refined as Shrike due to less sophisticated stalker-brains, the devices used in the brains and nerves of Stalkers.
Stalkers seem to be all but invulnerable to small arms fire and hand-held weaponry. They do not feel any pain, and kill all those who stand in their way. It is unlikely that swords, knives or daggers could harm them at all, but no-one has ever gotten close enough or survived long enough to find out. However Tom Natsworthy (a fundamental character in the books in which the stalkers feature) does manage to 'kill' Shrike with a sword near the end of the first book; this was mainly due to luck as Shrike was distracted at the time and had previously been run over by two Traction Cities and shot with a cannon, but it proves stalkers are not totally 'invulnerable'. Shrike also finds Popjoy's stalkers are weakest at the neck.
In Predator's Gold
Predator's Gold
Predator's Gold is the second of four novels in Philip Reeve's series for young adults, the Mortal Engines Quartet.-Setting:Predator's Gold is set two years after Mortal Engines...
, a London Engineer named Dr Popjoy, who survived the explosion is captured by the Green Storm
Green Storm
In Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines Quartet, the Green Storm is a fanatical splinter group of the Anti-Traction League, which ends up in control of the League...
which makes him build new Stalkers. These Stalkers are different from the original because they come in many different forms such as spider-like-machines armed with a machine gun in its belly, while Stalkers designed to shoot missiles against Raft Cities and bird Stalkers called Raptors used to aid Green Storm airship fighters. By the fourth book stalkers have also been modelled into trains, and Popjoy also had a number of pet stalkers built from such creatures as cats and insects. The most common were still the humanoid stalkers which would be used as footsoldiers by the Storm. Their faces were concealed by blank, steel faceplates with narrow slits for eyes and their armour was marked with the green lightning-bolt symbol of the Green Storm. Unlike their predecessors, they were mindless and had to be recharged after a while.
Interestingly, the same engineer was able to "resurrect" Anna Fang so that she could lead the Green Storm. As many stalkers, the 'new' Anna did not remember much of her past life at all, was increasingly angry because of her confinement and had to be kept in a secure underground room with all entrances to it electrified. She escaped during an attack by the Lost Boys
Lost Boys (Mortal Engines)
The Lost Boys are a shadowy, fictional organisation which appears in the Mortal Engines Quartet written by Philip Reeve.-Beginnings of the Lost Boys:...
, a pirate organization. The Stalker then took control of the Green Storm
Green Storm
In Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines Quartet, the Green Storm is a fanatical splinter group of the Anti-Traction League, which ends up in control of the League...
base. Now known as the Stalker Fang, she led the Green Storm military forces during an attack on the League
Anti-Traction League
In Philip Reeve's book-series Mortal Engines Quartet, the Anti-Traction League is an organization opposed to the prevalence of Traction Cities and Municipal Darwinism. Its symbol is that of a broken wheel.-Geography:...
's capital Tienjing which resulted in the overthrowing of the High Council.
Stalkers would be used by the Green Storm during its war against the Traction Cities. A special branch of the military called the Resurrection Corps was also founded. They specialised in resurrecting corpses taken from the battlefield into Stalkers. In Infernal Devices
Infernal Devices
Infernal Devices is the third of four novels in Philip Reeve's children's series, the Mortal Engines Quartet.-Anchorage:The story continues sixteen years after the events of Predator's Gold. The peaceful city of Anchorage is now a static settlement called "Anchorage-in-Vineland" on an island in the...
, a Resurrection Corps Surgeon-Mechanic named Dr. Oenone Zero
Oenone Zero
Oenone Zero is a character in the Mortal Engines Quartet, introduced in Infernal Devices.Doctor Zero was born on the Aleutian Islands about two years before Mortal Engines started, making her approximately nineteen or twenty when she is introduced, four years older than Wren Natsworthy, who wasn't...
also managed to locate and resurrect Shrike. However, she programmed Shrike with secret programming so that he could be forced to kill Fang upon hearing a certain phrase.
They have been claimed to bear some resemblance to the Cybermen.
Remembering Machines
The Remembering Machines were twelve men and women who were resurrected, in a similar although far more advanced way to the stalkers of the Nomadic Empires. The main difference is that these were not machines of war, but history recorders, built to remember all that had gone before.The Remembering Machines were hidden in a temple "so far north you started going south again" with workshops attached where the priest-engineers would take one of their number and turn them into a Remembering Machine. It is likely that the Temple was built before the Sixty Minute War
Sixty Minute War
The Sixty Minute War is a fictional event in Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines Quartet. It is a cataclysmic conflict which is deliberately left vague, but was evidently fought between the American Empire and Greater China. It is likely that the Middle East was involved, as this region has been reduced...
due to the loss of technology and life in the destruction of the war.
The Stalker Fang's brain was taken from one of these workshops in the days of the Green Storm. Presumably it was there because the priest-engineers were unable to install it before the Sixty Minute War broke out - however, if the temple was from a later date, the reason for the presence this unused brain is harder to explain.
The temple was dynamited by the Green Storm after the brain was salvaged for fear that someone from the traction cities would discover it and use the knowledge. It is assumed that the Remembering Machines were destroyed in the blast.
Shrike has always been a remembering machine, as his stalker brain was taken from the temple by a Snowmad and sold to Nikola Quercus, whose Technomancer, Wavey Godshawk, fitted it into an archaeologist named Kit Solent who for a few days before his death employed Fever Crumb. He was Resurrected by the Movement, after he had been shot by them for reasons that have not so far been explained.
Animal Stalkers
Many animal stalkers have been created, mostly by the Green StormGreen Storm
In Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines Quartet, the Green Storm is a fanatical splinter group of the Anti-Traction League, which ends up in control of the League...
, as weapons for war. These stalkers, instead of being Resurrected humans, are animals of various kinds - Stalker whales, cats and birds have been noted throughout the series. These are not the only Stalker-animals, though - Auric Godshawk gave Daniel Thursday (Arlo Thursday's grandfather) the Aranha, an angel Resurrected as an armoured crab.
Sources
- Mortal EnginesMortal EnginesMortal Engines is the first of four novels in Philip Reeve's quartet of the same name, which is also known as the Hungry City Chronicles in the United States...
- Predator's GoldPredator's GoldPredator's Gold is the second of four novels in Philip Reeve's series for young adults, the Mortal Engines Quartet.-Setting:Predator's Gold is set two years after Mortal Engines...
- Infernal DevicesInfernal DevicesInfernal Devices is the third of four novels in Philip Reeve's children's series, the Mortal Engines Quartet.-Anchorage:The story continues sixteen years after the events of Predator's Gold. The peaceful city of Anchorage is now a static settlement called "Anchorage-in-Vineland" on an island in the...
- A Darkling PlainA Darkling PlainA Darkling Plain is the fourth and final novel in the Mortal Engines Quartet series written by author Philip Reeve.The novel won the 2006 Guardian Award and the 2007 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Young Adult Fiction.-Setting:...
- Fever CrumbFever CrumbFever Crumb is the prequel to the Mortal Engines Quartet by Philip Reeve, released in 2009. A sequel called A Web of Air was released in April 2010.-Plot synopsis:...
- A Web of AirA Web of AirA Web of Air is the sequel to Fever Crumb, and the second book in the Mortal Engines Quartet prequel series. It was released in April 2010.-Information:...
- Scrivener's MoonScrivener's MoonScrivener's Moon is the sequel to A Web of Air, and the third book in the Mortal Engines Quartet prequel series. It was released in April 2011.-Information:...