Where It All Goes Down
An Alternate Version of Europe, June-August 1914
Let's chat for a minute about what was going on in the real-world version of Europe in the summer of 1914. On June 28, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Princess Sophie, were assassinated. And while this didn't seem like such a big deal at first, it turned out to be a really big deal.
See, most European nations were involved in a tangled web of alliances, which basically means they had all sorts of agreements to help each other out in a fight. The assassination of the Archduke was the first domino to fall in a chain that had most of Europe bogged down in war by August.
Something very similar happens in Leviathan, but with a twist. What we would call the Central Powers are all Clankers, while the Allied Powers are all Darwinists.
Now let's take a look at more specific settings. Alek's story starts out in Austria, and then he runs around Central Europe in his walker for a month, trying to avoid being assassinated like his parents. Deryn's starting point is London, but she doesn't stay there long, so soon she's aboard the Leviathan, which is a setting all its own. Deryn and Alek collide (almost literally) in Switzerland, which, significantly, is a neutral nation—here, desperate for each other's help, the Clankers and Darwinists join forces to get the Leviathan back into the air.
We'd say setting is pretty important to our characters because whether they are Darwinists or Clankers is a huge part of identity for them. The idea of home is pretty important, too—Deryn feels at home aboard the Leviathan, while Alek is left searching for a new home after his old one becomes too dangerous.