Ancients

The Ancients refers to the civilisation that existed before (and then destroyed itself in) the Sixty Minute War, existing several millennia before the Traction Era. At the height of their civilization, they were at least 21st-century humans (at least until the year 2116), and were technologically advanced compared to anything present in the traction era and even beyond. Their technology was wide ranging - examples include advanced artificial intelligence and computer systems, movable vehicles such as cars, and small objects, to immensely destructive energy and nuclear weapons and resurrection technology.

Technology

The Ancient's legacy would live on in fragmented records, interpretations from archeological digs (e.g. 'strange hybrid settlements', later revealed to be their vehicles - cars and trains). Historians have pieced together a world inhabited by people we would recognise as human but whose ways of living are almost unrecognizably strange. The cities they lived in were neither Traction Cities as they are understood now, nor fully static settlements, but a strange cross between the two in which parts of their populations would in fact move around in mobile neighbourhoods which ran on metal rails and groundcars like very small four-person cities. So advanced was the technology of the Ancients and fragmented and surviving technology, then called Old Tech, including devices such as screens, everyday household objects and pieces, various ancient vehicles such as cars, trains, and even planes (used as hybrid settlements, according to some), weapons such as MEDUSA and ODIN: an energy weapon artillery piece (among other weapons of the Sixty Minute War, restored uses usually inflicted lots of devestation before self-destructing), and sentient human-merged/computer-uploaded/nanotechology 'brains', eventually incorporated into Stalkers - reanimated soldiers (similar to the Remembering Machines) adapted from centuries old tech likely developed by the Scrivener Institute (established only shortly before the War, preparing the Scriven to live through the Dark Centuries, ensuring that humanity 2.0 survives through/for the upcoming Black Centuries).

Society

The Ancient's cities would leave their legacy (despite being bombed by nukes and asteroids), in name and infrastructure, such as St Paul's Cathedral in London, though when mobilised into a Traction City, it would have sprawled a lot less due to lack of population compared to pre-War times. Even the concept of tall buildings was vaguely remembered, in cities such as San Francisco, or the glass sections of traction London. There, some semblance of Ancient religion also survived (for example, St Paul's Cathedral being perched on top of the glass curtain wall), but Christianity was often radicalized later on, in places such as Zagwa. For example, Oenone Zero considered a thought:

What on earth was the use of a god who went around getting nailed to things?

However, other remains of Ancient society were simply left there to sit (such as roads), being used defensively, such as walls and watchtowers, or even being built in or used for a purpose other than how the Ancients intended. Other remains such as "tiny toy ground-cars and trains' were applied to the concept of Tractionism to be movable suburbs and neighborhoods.

History

Very little is known about Ancient "ancient" history - what we would call "the past" in our present day (before 2000+ AD). For example, Ziggurat Cities were based off civilizations that fell over six hundred years before the War, yet were only half-remembered and merged to create them. In Africa, the Ancient Egyptian pyramids were mistaken for Pyramid Builders' pyramids, as having some sort of connection to them (in reality, only by shape.). Even the Hairyphants were mentioned to have gone extinct long before the War (really, the last Ice Age before the post-War ones happened around ~10000 BC, and the last mammoths survived to 4000 BC, at most. That is still more than 15-20000 years before the Traction Era.). What little else is known about pre-third millenium Ancient history is often fragmented or in conflict with real or existing history, for example the discovery of the American landmass then known as the Dead Continent, was supposedly in 1924, off by more than four hundred years in 1492 AD.

The evolution of technology was also not understood well, being that early computer electronics (such as CD's and circuit boards) were estimated to be around the late 1800s (really, the late 1900s/early 2000s, at the turn of the millenium, around the same time the first Mortal Engines book was written.), and that more advanced screens were already available by the 1940s, with VR and wheeled control created by 2100. As mentioned before, the War happened by 2116, possibly disrupting or destroying all the records of Ancient technology and history, forcing century-off estimates by the Traction Era.

Destruction

As it became clear that nuclear war was inevitable, some small groups of people prepared for the worst. Military and government personnel hid in bunkers, waiting for their superweapons to destroy the Earth in the next hour. Civilian populations evacuated towns: some were lucky, such as Anchorage being evacuated by Dolly Rasmussen before the first minutes of the war. Most other populations were immediately bombed and blasted, the Middle East targeting the rest of the world with Slow Bomb asteroids as the nukes and lasers exploded. It was only an hour, but the world was left completely destroyed afterwards.

Despite many preparations for post-war civilization, the Pyramid Builders and other Ancient remnants of humanity failed to preserve their information in a readable form. The very makings of simple mechanical technology were forgotten, even all the simple machines such as wheels (only later copied onto wagons, Traction Fortresses and eventually entire cities, from a 'half-understood traction technology', once used for Ancient cars.) Their books and papers would have fallen apart or become unintelligible by the Traction Era, their computers clogged with dust, run over by tracks or smashed by debris or explosions, and irreplaceable parts hindering access to the core pieces. Small objects such as Blast-Glass and Tin Foil were also considered Ancient relics, but were quite commonly found in wastelands and rubbish tips, respectively. As told by the Illustrated World of Mortal Engines:

the Ancients somehow stored all their books, letters and other information inside their machines, and that their knowledge was lost with them when their civilization fell.

Gallery

San Francisco, one of the Ancients' cities, as seen in the 2018 film.

The Ancients used 'mobile cities' - cars - to transport themselves. Their sites that somehow survived were re-utilised, for example the Orbital Moatway/former London M25.

Trains were reused on the Ancient railways throughout India.

Ancient view of St Paul's Cathedral.

One of the Ancients' cities being hit by the Sixty Minute War's slowbombs.

Ancients' technology, such as computers and other electronics, is known as Old Tech.

Ancient world view during the Sixty Minute War, as shown on the ancient company UNIVERSAL's logo.

The Ancients constructed pyramids that would later be accredited to the Pyramid Builders.