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Zeppelins From Another World
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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 zeppelins and other airships lost popularity in the late 1930s in part due to a series of catastrophic crashes (culminating in the the fiery Hindenburg disaster) but mostly because advances in other aircraft technologies had rendered them obsolete. More recently airships have made a bit of a comeback for limited applications such as advertising, pleasure crusing, logging , non-perishable bulk transport and scientific research where airships' strengths in vertical flight, long range, fuel economy and relative silence outweigh their obvious disadvantages.
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.
Do note that a zeppelin is hard bodied by having a supporting skeleton whilst a blimp is purely inflatable, airships deflating zooming away like balloons are by necessity blimps, which were always more popular in the USA (where they are quite friendly, they tell you to have a "good year").
Alternatively, you could make the whole sky different. This works, too.
The transportation of choice for Sky Pirates everywhere. Also see Airborne Aircraft Carrier, Cool Airship, and Floating Continent.
Examples:
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-WWI.
- 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).
- Zeppelins and blimps (along with windmills, solar power, and other eco-friendly technologies) are a big part of the "just like ours only better" world of Pokemon
- Castle In The Sky
- Kikis Delivery Service has a huge polar exploration zeppelin as befits its Retro Universe setting. It also crashes spectacularly, proving that Kiki's world, while different, is not all that different from ours.
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.
- Dang, It seems like the only reason that world changed is because of Manhattan, not the existence of comic book superheroes. Manhattan wins the Vietnam War for the US, Manhattan is the only thing between Russia and the US going into WWIII, until Ozymandias' plot came to fruition, and he's even changed the modus operandi of air flight! The guy's everywhere!
- Which is to be expected considering costumed vigilantes actually exist in our world, making the other Watchmen fairly inconsequential.
- The Invisibles by Grant Morrison has some of these early on when Dane and Old Tom trip their way to another London.
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 zeppelins in the sky. Note: this is not the good version with Ian Holm, which is zeppelin-free.
- Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow (2004), set in a Diesel Punk version of 1939, opens with the Hindenberg III docking with the Empire State Building. While the building was in fact designed with a mooring mast the idea was dropped after tests with a U.S. Navy airship showed that wind turbulence caused by the surrounding skyscrapers made it too hazardous.
- Well, that and the fact that most passengers found the idea of crossing a gangplank 1000 feet above the street more than a little intimidating.
- The film adaptation of The Golden Compass 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.
- One of the big differences between real 2009 and parallel universe 2009 in Southland Tales is the presence of massive perpetual-motion powered Zeppelins.
- The Rocketeer was clearly an alternate universe - Howard Hughes invents an alcohol-fueled rocket backpack - and so, of course, the final big battle of the movie takes place on a zeppelin. In this case the zeppelin is the "real-world" bit of technology.
- The film version of Watchmen manages to show a few Zeppelins in the background of some of the shots of New York.
- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, although it is supposed to be in the real world and an historical zeppelin, they still threw it in because it was cool.
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 jet planes (although small propeller aircraft exist). At one point Thursday has the option of being hidden in a parallel Earth where there are jetliners (presumably, from the sound of things, our world) and she says such a thing is impossible.
- Of course, there's little demand for high speed airliners with the gravtubes. (London to Osaka in 42 minutes!)
- 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 Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series features giant zeppelins as a mode of transport.
- This is the premise of Kenneth Oppel's Airborn trilogy: 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 Allston'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 too includes zeppelins docking at the Empire State building, where a Real Life mooring mast was 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, where 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 a post-apocalyptic future version of this world rather than a parallel one. Heavier-than-air flight is reinvented over the course of the series.
- The War in the Air by H. G. Wells is about the German Empire using giant zeppelins 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.
- During World War I the Germans DID bomb London several times with zeppelins. They did a better job of frightening the civilians than actually damaging docks or factories, but possibly that was their intent.
- Dean Ing's The Big Lifters has a messianic protagonist pushing high-tech "delta-dirigibles" as a way to get big trucks (like the one that killed his grandmother) off of America's freeways.
- The War Against The Chtorr. Blimps are used for military and rescue operations, but nothing beats the Hieronymus Bosch, a giant luxury airship (30% longer than the Hindenberg) converted for the scientific expedition in "A Season for Slaughter".
- In Charles Stross's Merchant Princes series, one of the two alternate universes featured in detail uses zeppelins for air travel. (The other one has a roughly medieval level of technology, so it doesn't have air travel at all.)
- L. Neil Smith's alternate history novel The Probability Broach features large zeppelin passenger liners. Interestingly, Smith does not have them simply for style, rather their existence proceeds logically from the nature of his world. The character's claim that zeppelin travel is uncommon in our world because the military subsidizes airplanes so that it can requisition them in emergencies. It does not subsidize the less militarily useful zeppelins, which means the incentives are for companies to develop planes. In The Probability Broach the governments and militaries of the world are much weaker, so are unable to subsidize much of anything.
- In fact, in the back story a sort of airborne militia try to use zeppelins in combat and are pretty much all shot down, lampshading the military uselessness of these aircraft.
- This turns up with the second word of The Haunting Of Alaizabel Cray, a somewhat Lovecraftian novel set in an alternate late-Victorian London. For the record, the first word is "The".
- The Red Mars trilogy has a fleet of automated "air"ships used both for exploration and as part of the early Terraforming effort (ultimately a failure but it turns out somewhat useful anyway), so they're Zeppelins on another world as well. Later (post-terraforming) a transforming high-tech sailboat turns into a blimp to escape rough seas.
- Neil Steaphenson's The Diamond Age features a very well justified abundance of airships. With ubiquitous nano-tech it's so simple to create objects that are lighter than air but stronger than steel that it's the law you have to add weight to things to make sure the atmosphere isn't filled with lighter-than-air-stronger-than-steel grocery bags clogging engines. As to the airships, when you can create these materials you don't have to fill the envelope with anything at all. Vacuum is lighter than everything and thanks to nanopumps cheap to create. Airships are so economical they replace shipping as the bulk transit of choice.
- Iain Banks' Transition invokes this - a man who frequently travels between universes at one point looks up at the sky when arriving in a new one, searching for zeppelins. As he says, he 'likes it when there's zeppelins'.
- In Michael Moorcock's Warlord of the Air, the alternate-timeline Earth is still using zeppelins in 1974, and has never developed heavier-than-air flight technology. The titular character whose people have just invented heavier-than-air vehicles, claims that the imperialism of the Great Powers has stifled innovation.
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.
- It's a relatively minor instance, but in the Stargate SG 1 episode "Past and Present," SG-1 finds itself on a post-industrial world remarkably similar to our own in the late 19th century. A zoomed-out shot of the city shows a zeppelin floating lazily in the sky.
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.
- Airship technology turns up from time to time in Shadowrun: in remote drones for aerial surveillance, in huge "cargolifters" for inexpensive bulk transport, and in luxurious cruise ships for the ultra-rich. The finale of the first Shadowrun book takes place at an airfield where a yakuza boss has just flown in on a zeppelin.
- GURPS All-Star Jam 2004, a 10-chapter compilation of various roleplaying concepts and settings, devotes one entire chapter (by Brian J Underhill) to airships.
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 a badass zeppelin as their major airship, 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 last of the zeppelins was scrapped in April of 1940, so they aren't supposed to be there.
- They are pretty badass zeppelins, though. How many can you name that use two giant vertical props, have two heavy-duty AA autocannon turrets, several machinegun emplacements, dedicated lift systems between decks, and self repair capabilities, thus able to fend off a heavy-duty assault by two or three dozen unusually slow jet planes?
- ...no, the guy with the Beta Suit on the gun turret doesn't count among those features. Even if he was pretty much the only reason they made it.
- As for weird and out of place stuff, let's not forget the crossbow with time-delay exploding bolts, the laser-sighted sniper rifle, and the plasma guns. Oh, and the machine-pistol-sized flamethrower that shoots incendiary bullets or gouts of fire.
- 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.
- Very much appropriate considering it's explicitly stated that all of the countries the US broke up into severed all roads and railroads in order to avoid invasion leaving zeppelins as the only vehicle capable of large scale intercountry commerce. Well that and how else are you supposed to justify air piracy.
- Command And Conquer: Red Alert 2 and Red Alert 3 (Both set in separate alternate timelines) feature the Kirov Airships, massive, heavily armoured war Zepplins used by the Soviet Union to bombard ground targets. Cutscenes and promo pictures, as well as the menu screen for RA3, show them looming ominously over US Cities.
- Actually, this is explained as an alternative approach to aircraft due to the Allies forbidding the Soviets from building a strong conventional air force. While the Soviets do get additional aircraft in Yuri's Revenge, this takes place after the main storyline, giving the Soviets more time to build fast-strike MiGs.
- Zeppelins seem rather abundantly used by villains in Dead Or Alive series, mostly by the evil DOATEC. Their universe seems to be a mix and match of different eras. At DOATEC, it seems to be a big city with elements of Cyber Punk, then there's the ninja clan villages which seem to be stuck in feudal Japan. Oh, and dinosaurs still roam the jungles for some reason. To top it all off, now there's a time travelling Spartan.
- In the World War II game The Saboteur, Nazi zeppelins act like helicopters from GTA. It is worth mentioning that these airships can be shot down in a fiery inferno.
Webcomics
Web Original
- In Decades Of Darkness, they're used to great success in the North American War and the Brazilian Civil War.
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.
- See also the ZMC-2. It got the nickname "Tinship" for a reason...
- Disney's Atlantis The Lost Empire shows why people riding in hydrogen-filled dirigibles shouldn't back-stab Bad Ass subordinates packing flareguns.
Other
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