Lands of Red and Gold, Act II

Wonderful interlude! Really gives a feel for the future of this TL, and the various little hints i.e. "... in Teegal." are as tantalising as ever.
 
Another Atjuntja-speaking actor was engaged to provide the brief dialogue in his own language. However, none of the film producers understood Atjuntja. So in the chase scene where the character is meant to be saying “get the murders!” what the actor actually said was “Look at me, I’m in a big movie.” This moment continues to produce uproarious laughter whenever the film is rebroadcast in Teegal.

This is classic hahaha
 
Another Atjuntja-speaking actor was engaged to provide the brief dialogue in his own language. However, none of the film producers understood Atjuntja. So in the chase scene where the character is meant to be saying “get the murders!” what the actor actually said was “Look at me, I’m in a big movie.” This moment continues to produce uproarious laughter whenever the film is rebroadcast in Teegal.

Apparently Native Americans used to do this sort of thing in Hollywood movies all the time.
 
Really? Didn't know that.

Yup.

In the movie "Cheyenne Autumn" Navajo actors were cast as Cheyenne (because there were no Cheyenne available) and spoke in Navajo (because most Americans can't tell the difference). The issue is that what the Navajo actors were actually saying in Navajo were a variety of sexual jokes making fun of the director, the crew, and the non-Navajo actors, which no one other than the Navajo themselves could understand. At one point the "Cheyanne" chief gives a solem speech making fun of the penis size of the white actor (playing a US Army colonel) in front of him. The Cree actors in the film "Dead Man" also said some very choice insults in Cree. There are some good examples of Africans doing similar stuff in movies as well- the Bushman actor in "The Gods Must Be Crazy" spends most of the movie compaining or commenting on the film in his native language, and the dying Zulu warrior in "Zulu" whose last words are supposed to be a declaration of loyalty actually translate to "I have an enormous penis".
 
In another topical development, it turns out that a native Australian plant (one of their species of tobacco), may turn out to be rather useful for responding to COVID-19. This is because it's a plant that can be grown easily, its genome is known thoroughly, and can be used to insert any genes needed to produce COVID-19 treatments (including antibodies and vaccines) then grown easily over most of the world.

I so have to find a way to work this into a future LoRaG chapter.

Full story here: https://www.miragenews.com/ancient-australian-plant-may-help-in-production-of-covid-19-vaccine/
 
Hmm, did no-one notice the publication date on the last interlude chapter? (In Australian time, at least.)

Wonderful interlude! Really gives a feel for the future of this TL, and the various little hints i.e. "... in Teegal." are as tantalising as ever.
Gracias. There were of course a lot of bits adapted from actual movies and books in this: African Queen, Heart of Darkness and The Godfather are the biggest three, but not the only ones. And I did find the idea of Brian Blessed and Marilyn Monroe climbing Uluru together to be a movie moment which should have really happened.

This is classic hahaha
Apparently Native Americans used to do this sort of thing in Hollywood movies all the time.
The particular anecdote I had in mind was one about a movie set in southern Africa - I can't remember now whether it was meant to be South Africa, Zimbabwe or Botswana - where the character was meant to be saying "look out, the enemy are coming" and they gave a line about making it into a big movie. Although as you note, there are plenty of others of examples of actors taking advantage of others not knowing the language they're using.
 
Great Interlude, I think that's the most detailed description of the modern Aururia ? Many details and easter egs, first, the coastal regions of aururia seem industrialized like "Dogport, the great entrepôt and brass manufactory". But, what the hell are "steamless machines"? if they do not produce steam; then coal is not used; are we talking about oil or another alternate fuel ? On the other hand, it seems that some level of racism is still something in the 1960s, but what seems to be different is that this racism exists even in an industrialized region like aururia, this maybe must happen because of religion, of course there is a tension between Christianity and plirism in aururia, and the systematic rejection and violence against Christianity may in the eyes of Europeans make aururia "wild", or that "wild" is only for desert tribes, the "dark heart" of aururia, but not the indutrialized coastal regions. Finally, airship in the late 19th century? I don't know much about airships, but I thought they only started to be used in the beginning of the 20th century
 
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Great Interlude, I think that's the most detailed description of the modern Aururia ?
I think it's the first description of Aururia from the nineteenth/twentieth century. On the other hand, it's an alt-Wikipedia article (notorious for its inaccuracy) which reviews a movie (which are not noted for historical accuracy at the best of times) and which was published on the 1st of April, so it's an open question how much of it (if any) should be treated as accurate.

Many details and easter egs, first, the coastal regions of aururia seem industrialized like "Dogport, the great entrepôt and brass manufactory". But, what the hell are "steamless machines"? if they do not produce steam; then coal is not used; are we talking about oil or another alternate fuel ?
Steamless engines are Stirling engines (and other similar types of hot air engines), I can say that much. They're called steamless engines here to differentiate them from steam engines, and they produce no steam directly for power (just the smoke from whatever fuel is being burnt). A Stirling engine can use a great many fuels, coal included; one of its advantages is that you just really need something which will burn. (And as an aside, in alt-Australia an engine which doesn't need a huge amount of water has advantages over a steam engine, which does need a lot of water.)

On the other hand, it seems that some level of racism is still something in the 1960s, but what seems to be different is that this racism exists even in an industrialized region like aururia, this maybe must happen because of religion, of course there is a tension between Christianity and plirism in aururia, and the systematic rejection and violence against Christianity may in the eyes of Europeans make aururia "wild", or that "wild" is only for desert tribes, the "dark heart" of aururia, but not the indutrialized coastal regions.
There are different levels of racism involved, but I'd make two points. Firstly, this is a movie which is nowhere described as being based on any actual historical events, so it's essentially someone in the alt-1960s making up various things about something set 70-80 years before. It's not necessarily reflective of the actual times.

Secondly, the use of blackface/makeup to have white actors play non-white roles was unfortunately quite common at the time of the OTL 1960s, due in part to a belief that moviegoers would turn out more to see well-known stars in leading roles rather than people who were actually of anethnic background more similar to the character they were portraying. This is still quite racist, of course, but doesn't mean that Aururians of the 1960s were oppressed in their own countries; it just means that alt-Hollywood cared more about using actors they already knew and that even when they went on location to Aururia for filming, they still didn't care much about the locals, since the locals weren't from alt-Hollywood.

Finally, airship in the late 19th century? I don't know much about airships, but I thought they only started to be used in the beginning of the 20th century
Even assuming that the presence of the airship is historically accurate, there were various early airships in the nineteenth century. The Giffard dirigible flew in 1852 (although it didn't have enough power to fly into the wind). There were a variety of other experimental airships from about the 1870s onward. The engines were the biggest challenge. For rigid airships getting enough aluminium was also a challenge, but that was less of an issue with non-rigid airships such as the blimp described in this interlude.

There were probably significant butterflies.
Now I'm picturing an airship powered by a lot of butterflies...
 
The date here is March 31, anyway, I still believe in the veracity of the article. taking the article as truth, the film popularized the "brass and leather" period, would that be the period of the alt"aururian western"? because of the sense of exploration of the wild "dark heart" by both Aururian and European "civilization"? Something like that has a lot of potential, it looks like a fusion between African neo-colonialism "heart of darkness" and the american wild west, all in the Australian outback. Among outback aborigines, is the belief in the rainbow serpent and dreamtime still widespread? I imagine that aboriginal mythology can be even more influential in an alt-pop culture, because aururian-rest of the world interaction is bigger and older
 
The date here is March 31, anyway, I still believe in the veracity of the article.
It's impossible to post something which is on 1 April everywhere in the world at once, thanks to the vagaries of time zones, although this was posted on 1 April in Australian time.

That said, this article is about as canonical as any of the "special" posts. Which is to say, the gist of it is reasonably accurate, allowing for the vagaries of unreliable narrators and even more unreliable alt-Wikipedias, but the details are not necessarily so. For example, in this case, the real actors in question would not exist several centuries after any divergence, Which means that no matter how tempting the image is of Brian BLESSED climbing Uluru with Marilyn Monroe, it isn't canonical.

taking the article as truth, the film popularized the "brass and leather" period, would that be the period of the alt"aururian western"? because of the sense of exploration of the wild "dark heart" by both Aururian and European "civilization"? Something like that has a lot of potential, it looks like a fusion between African neo-colonialism "heart of darkness" and the american wild west, all in the Australian outback.
Well, Brass and Leather is broader than just Aururian settings, but it can be broadly thought of as Steampunk meets Western. Although Aururian peoples would usually call them Northerns more than Westerns, but I digress (because most of the population is further south).

Among outback aborigines, is the belief in the rainbow serpent and dreamtime still widespread? I imagine that aboriginal mythology can be even more influential in an alt-pop culture, because aururian-rest of the world interaction is bigger and older
The beliefs of the outback Aboriginal peoples are changed from what they are in OTL. This is mostly to represent 10,000+ years of butterflies. So their beliefs are not exactly the same as ones which would be recognised historically, although there's still a lot of things which are recognisable. (Some songlines, for instance, go back longer than 10,000 years, so will still be pretty similar).

There's also a belief in a kind of Rainbow Serpent among Gunnagalic peoples as well, although that also has some differences from any OTL belief.
 
Speaking of the Aururians of the Outback, I always liked the "uncivilised" Aururians ITTL and the glimpses we have at them. I've love to see another entry or two centered around them. While I'm still doing a re-read of LoRaG, did they ever adapt emu herding? I'd think basically every group no matter how remote would be able to conduct some limited horticulture (especially whichever groups live near where domesticated wattles can grow) and emu herding for the reliable meat/bones/leather it would provide. Militarily I'd think they'd be useful as scouts and light infantry from the earliest of times and into the colonial era of Aururia I'd think armies across Aururia would employ them as tribal auxiliaries just like what many Middle Eastern and North African armies did historically.

I'd think the groups of Western Queensland who OTL grew the most favoured pituri would still hold some prestige ITTL, even if the Five Rivers peoples still view them as barbarians.

Their lives must've changed incredibly after the introduction of horses and the trading missions of the Nangu and Portuguese. I'd love to see more on that.
 
Militarily I'd think they'd be useful as scouts and light infantry from the earliest of times and into the colonial era of Aururia I'd think armies across Aururia would employ them as tribal auxiliaries just like what many Middle Eastern and North African armies did historically.

When putting together army lists earlier this year, I came to the same conclusion; there are some references to them here and there, especially for those polities that border on the interior.
 
Having finally got my Kindle in the right city/working again I've purchased and read the first volume of the published version of LoRaG. I did not realise there would be new content! I've reread those early chapters many times, having first read them while in high school, and was very confused that there were parts that just did not seem familiar next to ones which I could recite almost verbatim. An excellent quarantine treat, I strongly recommend it to everyone in this thread and would do so on Amazon if I had spent $50 and was allowed to write reviews. I'll buy a paper version if it ever becomes available.
 
Speaking of the Aururians of the Outback, I always liked the "uncivilised" Aururians ITTL and the glimpses we have at them. I've love to see another entry or two centered around them.
I'll probably get to covering at least some of those peoples at some point, it's just that there's so many different cultures there that covering all of them is just about impossible.

While I'm still doing a re-read of LoRaG, did they ever adapt emu herding? I'd think basically every group no matter how remote would be able to conduct some limited horticulture (especially whichever groups live near where domesticated wattles can grow) and emu herding for the reliable meat/bones/leather it would provide. Militarily I'd think they'd be useful as scouts and light infantry from the earliest of times and into the colonial era of Aururia I'd think armies across Aururia would employ them as tribal auxiliaries just like what many Middle Eastern and North African armies did historically.
The "desert peoples" (which is the literal translation of the most common term used in both the Middle Country and Tjibarr, even for those who don't actually live in the desert) don't really take up emu herding in a big way. Emus are hard to keep in without building a lot of fences, and still need to be fed a bit even when kept in. Even more importantly, the desert peoples usually move around from time to time within their country, as the dictates of resource management require. (Such as depending on what food is in season, among many other things). It's hard to move emus, and then you need to build more fences to keep them in where they are... basically, high effort for low reward.

Some domesticated horticulture has spread to a small degree (similar to how it's spread to the Palawa), but again... "desert peoples." The Gunnagalic crop package is a dryland agricultural package which relies on rainfall. The desert peoples don't live in much of the high-rainfall country (or they would have been pushed out already). There is some integration of a few domesticated plants into their resource management strategies, such as planting wattles across dry watercourses since the plants can often get the water they need with deep roots.

In terms of interactions between "agriculturalists" and "desert peoples", there is of course quite a lot of that, in various forms. The Atjuntja have made it a policy to have varying levels of relations with their neighbours. Tjibarr being Tjibarr, many levels of interactions occur as a result of the factions being factions.

Tjibarr gets particularly interesting because "desert peoples" include some who live within territory claimed by Tjibarr - part of the course of the *Murray is so dry that rainfall can't sustain agriculture. While there's some careful irrigation there, it's also a place where there's several "desert peoples" who dwell not very far from "farmers". Tjibarr also maintains some links with "desert peoples" along a rough frontier area into the desert where they have some outposts where they collect resources directly, and others where they have different levels of trade with the locals. *Broken Hill and its silver mines is the most notable of those, with opals being not far behind, but there's also some collection of salt from dry salt lakes, gypsum, and a couple of other resources.

The "desert peoples" of course have all sorts of goods which they'd gladly trade for if they could get a chance - iron tools, textiles, and a bunch of others. The challenge is having something which the others value enough to trade for. That works in a few locations (again, salt, opals, and a few other bits and pieces), but mostly it's more of a challenge.

In terms of military service, well, scouts are particularly valued. Light infantry not so much, but there have been a few specialist units or skirmishers and the like from time to time. Tjibarr in particular will recruit all sorts of people in the right circumstances (Palawa archers and Maori mercenaries have already been shown in the timeline, and there are others).

One other point I'd note is that interactions with the Gunnagalic and Atjuntja peoples has also brought some social changes to their nearer neighbours. OTL Aboriginal peoples rarely if ever had "chiefs" in the European sense of the word. They had a great deal of respect for elders who formed consensus decisions, but didn't really have one person who decided for them. ITTL, the Atjuntja and to a degree the Tjibarri like having just one person to deal with, and so have encouraged the development of what they call chieftains. This hasn't led to hereditary leadership or anything like that amongst the desert peoples, but it has encouraged the emergence of individuals who are effectively 'first among equals' - there's still a need for consensus of elders, but the chieftain has a certain primacy. There was one viewpoint character of these who visited the White City in one of the earlier chapters.

(And then there's occasional raiding leaders who emerge amongst the desert peoples and go raiding for the things they can't trade for, but that's another story. And not all that frequent in the east, although reasonably common with the Atjuntja because the Atjuntja don't have the older Tjibarri experience in building peaceable relations.)

I'd think the groups of Western Queensland who OTL grew the most favoured pituri would still hold some prestige ITTL, even if the Five Rivers peoples still view them as barbarians.
The groups around the *Mulligan River do still hold considerable prestige with other "desert peoples", but not very much with the Five Rivers. The Five Rivers have plenty of *pituri, including some selectively bred strains which they value more than the desert product.

Their lives must've changed incredibly after the introduction of horses and the trading missions of the Nangu and Portuguese. I'd love to see more on that.
The northern coast of Aururia (where the Portuguese and Nuttana have had most contact) has changed in a variety of ways. I really need to get a chapter or two on them written at some point.

When putting together army lists earlier this year, I came to the same conclusion; there are some references to them here and there, especially for those polities that border on the interior.
There are various references, though again there's so many different aspects of this world which could be explored that it's hard to cover all of them.

Having finally got my Kindle in the right city/working again I've purchased and read the first volume of the published version of LoRaG. I did not realise there would be new content! I've reread those early chapters many times, having first read them while in high school, and was very confused that there were parts that just did not seem familiar next to ones which I could recite almost verbatim. An excellent quarantine treat, I strongly recommend it to everyone in this thread and would do so on Amazon if I had spent $50 and was allowed to write reviews. I'll buy a paper version if it ever becomes available.
Thanks very much. Amazon are annoying in how they have started restricting who can write reviews.

However, there's another option for reviews which has almost as much influence as Amazon. Goodreads lets people write reviews without needing to go through all of Amazon's rigmarole. If you (or anyone else who's read it) would like to write a review on Goodreads, I'd really appreciate it. Needs creating a free account but no other barriers. Walking Through Dreams is on Goodreads here.

In terms of new material, there is a fair bit in Book 1. Something over 12,000 words, although I didn't keep complete track of everything. Book 2 will have more than that - already written around 20,000 words - although getting time to write it is challenging at the moment because I have a day job which has gotten busier with all of the pandemic times. But probably somewhere between 25,000-35,000 words of new material in that volume.

Book 3 will also be coming with new material at some point, and I plan on writing an original short story/novellette for the Alternate Australia anthology I'm editing, time permitting.
 
Thanks very much. Amazon are annoying in how they have started restricting who can write reviews.

However, there's another option for reviews which has almost as much influence as Amazon. Goodreads lets people write reviews without needing to go through all of Amazon's rigmarole. If you (or anyone else who's read it) would like to write a review on Goodreads, I'd really appreciate it. Needs creating a free account but no other barriers. Walking Through Dreams is on Goodreads here.

In terms of new material, there is a fair bit in Book 1. Something over 12,000 words, although I didn't keep complete track of everything. Book 2 will have more than that - already written around 20,000 words - although getting time to write it is challenging at the moment because I have a day job which has gotten busier with all of the pandemic times. But probably somewhere between 25,000-35,000 words of new material in that volume.

Book 3 will also be coming with new material at some point, and I plan on writing an original short story/novellette for the Alternate Australia anthology I'm editing, time permitting.

Very exciting! The extra content in Walking Through Dreams definitely helps with the pacing in a novel format, I think, as opposed to the online serialised version. I particularly enjoyed the extra information on Gutjanal and Yigutji, as while those two countries became very prominent during the Hunter arc they did seem a bit off on the sidelines in terms of actual writing prior to that, despite being considerably more developed and populated than any of the east coast/Tasmanian polities we did hear a lot about. I can also kind of see how much work converting these massive timelines into a publishable format must be, it's a very different experience reading them out of the discussion, and also having them presented such that a non-forum reader could easily understand and follow. I do hope the sales justify all the hard work, in part because it'd be very deserved but also, because, more...
 
Contest - Guess The Character
To celebrate Lands of Red and Gold finally getting published, and the hopefully not-too-far-away Book 2 - I've decided to hold a contest.

The contest topic is: with the completion of the Hunter sequence, there are now enough clues in the published timeline to guess what's going on with Mister "I've Lived For 300 Years" Clements. However, no-one so far has (at least that I've seen) said what that is.

So I've decided to turn this into a contest. There are a few rules.

(1) All guesses MUST be by PM to me. Guesses in this thread will not be counted, and may lead to the contestant being barred from consideration.
(2) One guess only per contestant. If in doubt, don't send in an answer until you're sure of what it is. If a guess is unclearly worded I may invite the contestant to clarify, but then again I may not, so don't count on it.
(3) I don't just want to see if people can guess the answer, I want to see if they've read the clues which point out the answer. So a guess must also be supported by references to what parts of the timeline demonstrated what the correct answer was. This doesn't need to be a lengthy essay, but it needs to be enough to show how the relevant part of the timeline supports the answer.
(4) To narrow the scope of things a bit, all of the clues which are necessary to work out the answer are in the Hunter sequence. That is, from the interview section between Clements and Ashkettle at the end of post #100, through to the end of chapter #123. While there are some additional clues elsewhere, they aren't necessary to work out the correct answer.
(5) A guess must contain a minimum of two (2) references to the published timeline to show how they support the answer. More is better (see below), but the minimum is two (2) references.
(6) The contest will be open for a minimum of two (2) weeks. If there are insufficient correct guesses, I may extend that timeframe.
(7) Contestants must agree to keep the correct answer confidential, since one or two of them will find out that it was correct.
(8) After I've received enough guesses, I'll close the contest and choose a winner. First priority will be to someone who has supported the correct answer with the greatest number of accurate, separate references (ie don't try to break up one section and call it three (3) references; I'll only count it as one, and I won't count a reference if it doesn't actually support the guess). If there are two or more people with the correct answer and the same number of references, I'll randomly choose between them for the winner.
(9) If no-one has correctly guessed, I'll randomly choose a winner from amongst those who are closest to the right answer. Though I still won't tell them what the right answer is.

The first prize for the contest will be a cameo appearance in the published Book 3, when that appears. I'll discuss the potential cameo in more detail with the winner since it will be part of the unpublished material, so there may be some options.

I may also declare a second place, depending on number of contestants. If so, the second place will be the opportunity to ask one (1) question about some unpublished aspect of LoRaG (past or future). Contestant must also agree to keep the answer confidential.

So, over to readers here.
 
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