< Leviathan (novel)

Leviathan (novel)/WMG


The call away for the Kappas has something to do with fabricated cucumbers

  • Because it is kinda obscure, especially in WWI, and it would just be cool.
    • I see it now;

"Mmm...Clanker saile-CUCUMBERS!" (Every Kappa in battle slides away seeking cucumbers).

Ummm, as the first random guess, I predict that Alek and Deryn will get together. This isn't very original, I know.

  • Would it be more of a WMG that Alek and Deryn don't get together?
    • Dr Barlow and Volger will also hook up, and did while they were offscreen in Behemoth.
  • Confirmed. Except for that second part...

Alek and Deryn won't get together.

  • Honestly, look at the author's track record with the romance in his various books. Uglies and Midnighters being the best examples.
    • He's had just as many successful romances as tragic ones - look at Peeps and So Yesterday. It's still up in the air.
    • Or, they get together and are separated by politics. If Alek becomes emperor, he won't be able to properly marry Deryn and so, she either has to be his mistress or just leave as they wouldn't wish a left-handed marriage on any children they have.
      • Thoroughly, and satisfyingly, Jossed

The outcome of the war will be entirely different than it was in real history, with more a a truce than a beatdown.

  • The author notes in the Afterword that he wants the Ottoman Empire to stay together.
    • Psuedo-Confirmed, because although it is implied that the war will end quickly, no truce was implied.

WWII will be HORRIBLE.. Hitler (Or whoever wills his role) will use both sides's technology, and will not have qualms about messing about with Human DNA.

  • Providing the author even decides to go that far into history.
    • Too late on that. Thanks a freaking lot, Westerfeld.
  • But if Westerfeld does, the Eastern European front will liturally be flowing with blood. Millions more there will be killed there than they were in our world. The Nazis will probably turn to Darwinist tech to try to create supersoldiers and will have no qualms about creating human/animal fabs. And the Pacific theatre may turn into a much longer conflict than in the real world; it may even be a lot like Vietnam. It also wouldn't be a streach of the imagination for both the Axis and Allies to turn to germ warfare. Maybe instead of the atomic bomb, the Americans devlope a super virus to use against the Japanese.
    • Not so sure about that...the way I see it, this universe's version of Hitler would stick with "German pride" and avoid any Darwinist stuff. However, the idea of supersoldiers on the side of America (and possibly Japan, for that matter) isn't to crazy.
    • Or the Americans might use a Darwinist variant of the real-life Bat Bomb.
  • Implying that WWII wasn't already horrible IRL?
  • No, but the Nazis didn't have mutant super-soldiers or Humongous Mecha.
    • Perhaps there'll be less anti-Semitism and so more Nazis for invading Russia?

America is... (post your speculation on what America is like in the series here)

  • This troper personally vouches for some sort of isolationist Zeerust utopia. (Note: I have not read Behemoth out, so I've got no clue if there is any reference to it in the book)
    • Jossed. As of Behemoth, America uses a mix of Clanker and Darwin technology.
  • America shall arrive and put the beatdown on the Germany, just as the its about to overwhelm the Darwinists, just like in the real WWI.... except Germany's going to use a bucketload of secret weapons this time.
    • But America will have it's own, and we get to see the glory of fabricated humans fighting giant mechs. At least, that's what my head canon of the post-Goliath series is.
    • Alternatively, thanks to some secret undercover missions, anti-war yellow journalism, and Alek taking the throne, WW 1 ends early and the Americans never get involved at all, except perhaps to act as mediators during the treaty negotiations.
      • I'm going with beat down.

Dr. Barlow knows Dylan likes Alek...

  • But still thinks he is a guy, and so believes him to be gay. Alternatively, this is what Alek believes and it makes him a wee bit uncomfortable...
    • Jossed. They are completely clueless about this. At least until Bovril steps in...

Volger doesn't know Deryn's real secret

  • Much like with Dr. Barlow, he assumed something else. In this case, like the WMG above me, he believes "Dylan" to be gay.

Russia is going to have bear cavalry

  • As of Behemoth, Austria-Hungary isn't doing so well against Russia's bears
    • Confirmed.

The Japanese will have kick-ass fabricated beasts.

  • Real Life WWI Japan had a ship that conducted the first naval-launched air raids, so you can bet they'll have the Darwinist version of a seaplane carrier and biplanes in Goliath. And actual multi-tailed foxes.
    • Alternatively, they will have Humongous Mecha. Because it's Japan.
      • But, given that Japan is a total Darwinist state here, and not a Clanker state, wouldn't that just be an utter absurdity?
      • But since Japan had only open up to the west in the mid 1800's (which is about the same time that DNA in this world was discovered), and only became a Darwinist nation in 1902. So maybe the Japanese were "courted" by the Darwinists and Clankers who provided "samples" of their tech and after Japan chose to go Darwinist they still kept some of the Clanker machines and there's still someone working on the machines. Oh yeah, as for fabs, the Japanese could have Pokémon and Godzilla in their arsenal!
  • This troper is disappointed that this may be a case of Did Not Do the Research, as Japan borrowed much of it's modernized government (at the time) from the newly formed German state, and went to war with another of the "Darwinist" states only ten years before (Russia, if you need a hint). Besides, Japan will be resoundingly on the Clanker side of things come WWII, so why Darwinist now?
    • Possibly because Japan will follow OTL's path and fight along their allies, the British. After feeling cheated out of the spoils of war, they shall break out the old Clanker tech and become a Hybrid of the two, like the Americans. Besides, Italy will be allied to Germany come World War II, yet they are obviously a Darwinist Power right now.
  • Word of God says that the Japanese, like the Americans, will be mixing technologies. Which makes a lot of sense when you consider that what Westerfeld has stated to like about the Japanese is how willing they are to adapt the customs and technologies of other nations to their own needs and build on them.

If they're ever shown, the Australians are going to have the scariest fabricated beasts

  • Think about it, everything in Australia is already trying to kill you. All the Aussie fabricators really have to do is to make the animals more trainable and a bit bigger if need be.

Doctor Barlow is a Mrs. Robinson.

  • For Dylan or Deryn (if she's figured it out). Some of her actions in Behemoth... hoo boy...
    • Which actions?

Someday, the Clankers will invent the nuclear bomb while the Darwinists will invent a supervirus.

  • Both sides would be forced into a Cold War situation or face the absolute destruction of at least human life.
    • And it will end with the destruction of humanity. You know, for kids!

WWII won't happen.

  • But I doubt it, as the possibilities are too awesome...
    • And too horrific.
      • I'm going with awesome. Japan and America, two hybrid nations duking it out in the Pacific?
  • Considering how high this series is on the Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism, this actually seems pretty likely to me. After all, it's made abundantly clear that all sides of this fight are at least partially to blame for the conflict and the author's already changed history to save the historical "Sick man of Europe" Ottoman Empire. It's not too out-there to think that this war might end more reasonably for the Clankers than its real-world equivalent did, which would go a long way to preventing both the rise of the Nazi party and WWII in general.
  • On the other hand, Hitler was probably a bit insane, so it's possible that he would still somehow become a dictator. In this case, since Deryn and Alex join the Zoological Society, which is sort of like an international espionage and peacekeeping corps, it's very likely that the two of them, Barlow, and Volger would manage to end WWII early as well, or kill Hitler before he does anything too bad, in something of a subversion of Hitler'sTimeTravelExemptionAct.

We'll wind up in France or Russia somehow during Goliath

  • C'mon. We've really only seen the naval/aeronautical power of the Darwinists so far: A real, grisly scene of trench warfare has yet to occur, and I want to see land-beasts and walkers have at it!
    • Not to mention that the first Russian revolution took place during (and because of) World War One.
      • Confirmed, though Russia makes a very brief appearance, as does Japan, for that matter.

Deryn will die.

  • Scott Westerfeld seems awfully fond of screwing his romances over, and has apparently has been quoted as saying something along the lines of "you can't have a war story without someone dying". Since Alek presumably needs to survive and inherit an empire, Deryn seems to be the most likely victim.
    • On top of that, Deryn won't have told Alek about her being a girl. He'll find out through a doctor, or when he goes to her funeral.

Volger or Dr. Barlow will die.

  • If somebody is going to die, they seem the most likely.


In the third book, Deryn will end up with an Unwanted Harem

Read: Lilit, Alek, Newkirk, and some Japanese person. Preferably twins. And besides, this is Japan were talking about here. An Unwanted harem is obligatory.


Bovril and the other perspicacious loris will continue to become more and more intelligent until they are entirely sentient beings, thus breaking one of the chief rules of Darwinist fabrication.

  • And so the Terminator franchise will have adorable little ferret-weasel things instead of robots? AWESOME!
    • Eh, close enough.
      • Who knows what happens after the books. Thanks for nothing, Westerfeld.

Deryn Sharp is a relative or descendant of Richard Sharpe

  • Specifically the TV movie version. In the TV movies, Richard Sharpe is a short, blond northern badass. Deryn is, of course, a blonde Scot badass. Also both the Sharp and Sharpe families are step clans of Clan Stewart: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clan_Stewart
    • Possible relation to Anne Sharp from the Michael Crichton book Pirate Latitudes as well? I mean, admittedly she's from the 1600's, I think, but it's still plausable. She's certainly bad-ass enough to be Deryn's predicesor. Not to mention she's pretty much proto-Darwinist, considering how much sex she has...

Adolf Hitler will make an appearance in Goliath.

  • The historical Hitler fought in WWI.
    • Running with this - it will be under his original last name, Schickelgruber, so more casual readers won't make the link. And of course, he won't have the mustache.
      • He did have a mustache in WWI, although it wasn't a Toothbrush mustache.
      • Adolf's father was once named Schicklgruber but changed it before Adolf was born. Still, since this is an alternate history, he could possibly be using the surname.
      • Maybe he'll have been accepted into the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and become an artist instead of a sociopathic dictator.


Trotsky will make an appearance in Goliath.

  • Westerfeld hinted the Leviathan will head to New York in the third book. Guess who took a tour around the U.S in the war years?


Leviathan is the not-so-distant-past of Evangelion.

  • Think about it...

Following the Russian Revolution the Soviet Union will become a Clanker state

Because Stalin rejected Darwinism as "bourgeois science" and sent geneticists to the gulags.

There will be a fanfiction of the series that features fabricated humans.

  • Yeah, yeah, we all know it's illegal. But did that stop chemical warfare in the real WWI? No. Somewhere, sometime, some fan of Leviathan is going to sit down and think "we need fabricated humans". And then pormptly do it. Most likely creating supersoldiers, as stated above.
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