Constance Doves’s Fortune
This is a question that comes up pretty often, and for good reason: where did Constance Dove get all that money? We don’t know anything about her other than her social status, that she was a good adoptive mother, and that she died. She sounds sweet and unassuming, but is basically just a plot device to explain why Clive is rich. Now this could be seen as more of a fic prompt than a theory, but could Clive be continuing/repurposing something that she started?
Look, Future London is massive. The construction is unfinished, as you can see on “Midland Road”, but the drainpipes and grates are rusted, and there are full grown trees out in the distance. You could say Dimitri and Clive got them like that on purpose, but what if they didn’t? Do you really think a city can be popped up in just ~5 years, even with infinite money at your disposal? What if Future London was a project started by Constance for whatever reason, and the whole thing was included in Clive’s inheritance?
Why would she build this? It would have to be for something both literally and figuratively underground. According to her anecdotally good nature, maybe she was trying to evade the corrupt government by building a secret community exempt from the law, housing people and letting them live on their own terms. It would explain why the residents didn’t seem like actors so much as people who have lived there for a long time, participating in an established community.
This is where the “theory” gets kind of edgy. Clive’s gang goes by the vague name of “The Family”. You’d think they’d have his name in front as families typically do. He somehow built up a functional organized crime ring in those ~5 years as well? It’s not impossible, but it’s unlikely. Correct me if I’m wrong, but Spring and Cogg said that they loyally worked for the Dove family, right? What family? It was just Constance until she adopted Clive. What if The Family is short for The Dove Family, and it’s been around much longer than Clive? It would explain how organized and powerful it is, but it would also explain why Spring and Cogg didn’t seem too bothered by the underground city. They expressed guilt and horror at Clive’s terrorism plan, but not anything going on before that.
Back to the topic of the post, what if Constance’s massive fortune came from illegal activity? That way, someone could make a ridiculously obscene amount of money even at an old age. All of this could have been part of Clive’s inheritance, repurposed by him for his revenge plan, disregarding any of the original intent behind it.
Or Constance could’ve just made all that money from selling both soap and chocolate.