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Zeppelins From Another World
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"A startling number of alternative histories wind up strengthening the marginal technology of airships and zeppelins, for example. This is a matter of flavor rather than logic, but this is a game book, after all."
- GURPS Infinite Worlds
If your characters have entered a parallel universe that's just a few steps removed from our own, the fastest way to establish it is by sticking a whopping great zeppelin in the sky.
In our world, of course, zeppelins and other airships decreased rapidly in popularity after the 1930s, partly because of the Hindenburg crash and partly because advances in plane technology left them percieved as rather redundant except as decadent novelties. Though they are making a comeback for some applications, particularly logging and other non-perishable bulk transport.
So by filling up Earth 2 with bulbous aircraft rather than hovercars or spaceships, you are suggesting a world that is of a similar time period to our own, but just happened to follow a different technological route. It also helps that they have lots of Steam Punk cred and are sufficiently olde-worlde to be used in fantasy stories too. They are also cool.
Alternatively, the zeppelins are just there to show the audience that the movie is set in another world, even if nobody from our world crosses over into it.
Alternatively, you could make the whole sky different. This works, too.
Also see Airborne Aircraft Carrier and Floating Continent.
Examples:
Live Action TV
- In the Doctor Who episode "Rise of the Cybermen," The Doctor immediately notices that they've slipped into a parallel world when he sees zeppelins in the sky above London.
Comic Books
- One of the more obvious differences in the Watchmen universe (which departed from our own when a genuine superpowered being came into existence in the aftermath of WW2 and singlehandedly won the Vietnam war for America) is the huge zeppelins that hang in the air over New York.
- Explicitly justified, because Doctor Manhattan can synthesize helium in large enough volumes to make airships safe and cheap. Electric cars become ubiquitous for similar reasons.
Film
- The (rather loose) film adaptation of The Borrowers has numerous indicators that is set in a mid-Atlantic Retro Universe, not least of all being the constant presence of one or more zepplins in the sky.
- Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, set in a Steam Punk version of 1939, opens with a zeppelin docking with the Empire State Building. While the building was in fact designed with a zeppelin dock, it was never completed. (And it wouldn't have worked anyway: winds through New York would pull the zeppelins down.)
- The film adaptation of His Dark Materials features airships in the establishing shots of the alternative Oxford.
- In the film of the book Stardust Robert DeNiro plays the captain of the airship Caspartine.
- Despite being set in 2019, the Los Angeles of Blade Runner appears to be infested with zeppelins, most of which wind their way through the labyrinthine skyscrapers advertising travel to the Off-World Colonies and various Chinese/Japanese products.
Literature
- The Robert A Heinlein book JOB: A Comedy of Justice has the main character from a zeppelin-filled world, slipping into a world with no air traffic at all, and then into one with similar technology to our own. One especially well-done part is when he attempts to explain to the readers what an airplane looks like from the perspective of someone who's never seen one before.
- Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series features a world with zeppelins and no planes. At one point Thursday has the option of being hidden in a parallel Earth where there are planes (presumably, from the sound of things, our world) and she says such a thing is impossible.
- The opening story in Elizabeth Bear's New Amsterdam is a murder mystery set on a zeppelin. With vampires.
- The parallel world that takes up the majority of Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials series features giant zeppelins as a mode of transport.
- This is the premise of the novel Airborn: an alternate world where, due to the existence of an ultra-light gas called hydrium, airships became the primary means of long-distance travel. Features lots of nautical metaphors.
- Aaron Alston's novel Doc Sidhe is set on an alternate world where zeppelins and autogyros are still cutting edge aviation technology, and the climactic showdown takes place on board the major villain's airship.
- Fritz Leiber's short story Catch That Zeppelin! is about an alternate universe where things turned out (mostly) much better than our own, it has zeppelins docking at the Empire State building, where a Real Life zeppelin docking tower was once considered. Needless to say, they didn't use hydrogen to lift them.
- Harry Turtledove's novel The Two Georges is about an alternate world where the United States never left the British Empire. The first chapter is set on an airship. The protagonist sees a Air Force biplane fly past and echoes the general view that while such speed is useful for the military, there's just no need for it in civilian life.
- S. M. Stirling's books are lousy with zeppelins.
- Mortal Engines has a lot of Zeppelins, though it's supposed to be this world five million years in the future rather than a parallel one.
- The War in the Air by H. G. Wells is about the German Empire using giant zepplins to attack the rest of the world, particularly the United States. While at the time it was written, it was a reasonable extrapolation of the current technology, it suffers from being set Twenty minutes into the future and so might now be considered an honorary alternate reality.
Video Games
- The beginning of Arcanum: Of Steamworks And Magick Obscura sees the player barely surviving a terrible zeppelin crash.
- Final Fantasy VI and VII (both much more technology-oriented than their predecessors) have their major airship as a badass zeppelin, and Final Fantasy IX brings them back as general-use vehicles in a fantasy Steam Punk setting.
- Used... interestingly in Timeshift. Most of the game takes place in an alternate 1940s, so the zeppelins are supposed to be there. The helicopters and giant mechanical spiders, however, make you realize something is more than a little wrong.
- The Crimson Skies game has Zeppelins as flying aircraft carriers/battleships. Somewhat appropriate considering the timeframe of the setting, but they were used far more than in real life.
- "Command And Conquer": Red Alert 2 and Red Alert 3 feature the Kirov Airships, massive war zeppelins incredibly hard to destroy used by the soviets to bombard ground targets.
Anime
- Done with a powerful kick in Fullmetal Alchemist: After falling through the Gate, Edward finds himself in a world with zeppelins in the sky... but it's our world: London, mid-WWII.
- Actually, the movie reveals that it was really during WWI... at least in terms of time scale. This particular troper does not recall if the Kaiser really bombed England with Zeplins in the real WWI, but the fact that Hitler's pre-WWII failed rebellion happened in the movie seriously casts light on it. Then again, it could be an example of a cross-universe Timey Wimey Ball.
- Actually, it's even more interesting because Not only yes, it was during World War 1, and yes, zepplins did bomb London during World War 1, but the air raid depicted was based on an actual one (indicated by the "on the next episode" of the previous one), including the zepplin that is shot down and crash's in the ouskirts. Only thing that doesent add up is that Churchill was in France following a scandal...
- Also done in Last Exile (though it turns out that said zeppelins are actually heavier-than-air ships made to float with the use of Applied Phlebotinum conveniently supplied by a neighboring society that happens to possess somewhat more advanced technology).
Webcomics
Western Animation
- Batman The Animated Series was fond of these, as they evoked a 1930s atmosphere.
- Avatar The Last Airbender has regular, reality-based two-people zeppelins, and massive metal ones that are truly from another world.
- They're called "hot-air balloons." They really exist.
Role Playing Games
- Kenneth Hite noted this trope in his column Suppressed Transmission, and took it to its logical conclusion: our own history was an Alternate Universe in the early 20th century.
- One of Ken's contributions to GURPS Infinite Worlds is a table to randomly generate alternate technologies for one's randomly generated worldline; it has a note that certain results dictate adding zeppelins regardless of the rest of the universe's tech level. Apparently, alternate history just generates airships.
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