Drawn by Silvana Bevilacqua
In the Finishing School series, many of a household's simple, menial tasks are carried out by steam and gear-powered mechanicals, most of which run on sets of tracks installed throughout a building. These artificial servants tend to outnumber human staff.
Most mechanicals resemble stylized human forms, with metal mask "faces." They usually mimic the shape of a dress—small on top and wide on the bottom. The mechanicals at Mademoiselle Geraldine's are unusual, in that they have mosaics of gears as faces instead.
Mechanicals become tools in a Picklemen plot to overthrow the government (The Great Picklemen Revolt of 1854), through the installation of crystalline valve frequensors that allow the Picklemen to control the mechanicals.
After their plot was foiled, the Dewan managed to push through the Clandestine Scientific Information Act in 1855. As part of the act, mechanicals were declared a threat to the commonwealth. By the time the Parasol Protectorate series occurs, the use of mechanicals is banned and out of practice in the United Kingdom.
Models[]
- Buttlinger
- Footmech
- Clangermaid
- Clangerclerk
- Mechanimal
- Pilot of Mademoiselle Geraldine's: This mechanical is made in such a way that allows it to transmit to multiple mechanicals at once to operate the airship. This makes it a perfect tool in the Great Picklemen Revolt, and the Picklemen commandeer the airship in order to use this technology.
- Pigeon
Known mechanicals in the series[]
Quotes[]
- "People wouldn't need so many tracks if the supernatural politicians stopped restricting mechanical development. After all, mechanimals don't need tracks, but free rollers are illegal. It was the potentate that pushed that piece of legislation through." (Waistcoats & Weaponry, Session Ten)
- "The mechanimal twitched and peeped again. Then it threw its little beak back and its whole head rolled inside out and converted to a kind of morning glory flower shape, like a hearing trumpet. A human voice emerged, as if from one of those newfangled gramophones." (Imprudence, Chapter Ten)