The Precocious Animated Duck Awards

[PaulGazis]

What would the world of 1926 have been like if the Great War had ended in 1916? For that matter, what was our world like in 1926? If you have any suggestions, or if you have some other alternate, steampunk, or dieselpunk history to propose, post a topic and get some discussion going.

And if you spot some difference between the world of the Flying Cloud and our own that I either missed or hid in the story, here's the place to submit your entry to win one of those coveted Precocious Animated Duck Awards!

[Kona]

I realize what you mean by it, but am I the only one who reads “Precocious Animated Ducks” and imagines waterfowl that skipped second grade and don’t NEED mom or dad to give them “the talk”?

[Kerostasis]

This hasn't been specifically stated, but has been referenced indirectly a number of times.

It appears to be summer...in August...in the Southern Hemisphere. In our World, that would be Winter instead.

[PaulGazis]

This hasn't been specifically stated, but has been referenced indirectly a number of times.

It appears to be summer...in August...in the Southern Hemisphere. In our World, that would be Winter instead.

Good call, Kerostasis! And it would most definitely be an issue if they were farther south -- down near Melbourne, perhaps. But they're in the Tropics, much closer to the equator, so the big issue is the wet season, which won't start for a few more months. Indeed, that's one of the reasons I began the story in July.

[doctorpat]

I've spotted some issues that are either just mistakes, or serious variations from our world:

1. Swan lager. In our world no resident of Cairns or Darwin would be drinking Swan lager. They certainly wouldn't regard it as a local brew. This is a West Australian beer. In Cairns they would drink NQ Lager, a drink that was the local beer up until the 1980s. Darwin would have it's own beer, but I couldn't say what it was.

2. You can't see wombats in Cairns. It is about 2000 kilometres North of wombat country.

3. You can't see anything in a Cairns waterway. The local creeks are thick with mud. Any cars sinking beneath a creek near Mulgrave road (Episode 129) would be invisible as soon as they sank. I will leave aside the fact that you can't see any city view from the top of Mount Sheridan, because it is about 100 feet tall and far too far away from the city. This could be a simple error on the character's part.

[PaulGazis]

I've spotted some issues that are either just mistakes, or serious variations from our world:

At last! A current resident of Cairns to help with the details! It's been far too long since I've been there, so I've had to rely on memories, old photographs, and topo maps.

Question 1: What hills west of Cairns do give a view of town? The last time I was there, I wasn't keeping track. The way I see it, Iverson might get the name wring, but MacKiernan is the ships navigation officer, so he'd be expected to know these things.

Question 2: How far inland does the harbor extend? What streets are even with the western port of the basin? I only wandered around the eastern part and never thought to explore further. Is there a better side-street than Mulgrave to drive expensive touring cars off of?

I could try to claim that wombat escaped from a marsupial dealership (Mike's World of Diprotodontia Bargains?), but that would be silly. We saw so many of the darn things in NSW we assumed they were everywhere. I suppose I should change it to an opossum. They're supposed to be nocturnal, but maybe this one was heading home late after a wild all-day party

As far as that Swans lager goes, I did try to make sure it only appeared on the R-67 and the... uh... er... Tranquility out of respect for the inhabitants of Queensland, but I'm sure I slipped up in places. Please feel free to post a list of Episodes and I'll start de-Swan-alizing them. Thanks in advance!

I prefer VB myself, but it's hard to find here in the States. Alas.

[doctorpat]

An ex-resident of Cairns I'm afraid, not current. But I did spend my entire childhood there, so I can certainly help.

The hill you can drive to the top of, and see the city and harbour, would be Munro's Hill, Mooroobool. Of special note, this featured a large old house (the Fairview house) known as "The House on the Hill" which was still a popular drinking establishment when I was growing up in the 1980s. This house was the centre of a secret commando force (Task Force Z) during World War 2, which is probably useful.

Mulgrave road IS an appropriate place to have the car chase. They diverted right off Mulgrave onto a side street while heading back into town. This would send them right into the port smith area, which consists now of a bunch of industrial sheets leading eventually into the Swamps of Smith's Creek or Chinaman Creek. Only the very end of smiths creek is a navigable harbour even today however.

Opossums? Called possums in Australia. They are available in Cairns, but rare as. I don't think I ever saw one. Further south they are everywhere. A wild pig or a tree kangaroo is more likely. Or a cassowary, they used to come into our backyard in Cairns (children were hastily called inside!)

[doctorpat]

Another point of interest. Next to Mount Sheriden is Red Hill, which was (according to local legend in the 1970s and 1980s) the site of a vast underground American military base in World War 2. The story goes that at the end of the war the Americans filled the tunnels with surplus equipment and concreted/dynamited the entrances.

North Queensland is filled with old World War 2 stuff.

[Ron Andrea]

Is this the appropriate thread to ask questions (or make suggestions) about post-war east Asia?

Little is said in the "World of..." column about east Asia other than that the Japanese Empire grudgingly returned Germany's Pacific colonies. (Obviously, Paul has great plans for the Japanese, but I don't suppose you want to discuss potential spoilers: such as: who built the Flying Cloud?)

China, for example, is not mentioned and yet, thwarted in the Pacific, the Empire of Japan may have turned its attention toward China earlier than in our timeline. The Republic of China, weakened by warlords and a civil war with the Communists, may have tempted Japan to stage the Mukden Incident--and subsequent invasion of Manchuria and establishment of the puppet state of Manchukuo--earlier than 1931.

Since Japan was still interested in Pacific territory--see "tourists" routinely mentioned in early chapters--their military adventures might not have been so restrained. After all, it was the effectiveness--not the failure--of western sanctions against Japan in the 1930s (our timeline) which triggered the spasm of aggression of which the attack on Pearl Harbor was merely the most notorious element. Had the Japanese Empire been able to expand into east Asia and the Pacific unopposed, they undoubtedly would not have needed to gamble on such a huge war effort.

Separate issue: if the end of World War Two (our timeline) was any indication, the sudden demobilizing of the combatant armies might have been bad--not good--for their respective economies in the short term. In any case, by the 1920s, that would have all smoothed out.