The Sparrow Avengers Universe

Allohistorical setting inspired by Jordan Weisman's and Dave McCoy's Crimson Skies, but set mainly in Europe. Created by Petike. Years in the making (since 2008), some glimpses into it have been posted in various parts of the board. For now, this page serves primarily as a repository for canon elements of this alternate universe.

Vignettes, Narratives and Miscellaneous Articles from the Sparrow Avengers universe

Spoiler on the initial POD - Don't read if you don't want to spoil the surprise.

Petike's military-related artworks and images from the Sparrow Avengers universe

Would you like/be interested a European version of Crimson Skies ?

WI: Woodrow Wilson gets shot just before the start of the Versailles treaty

Silesia and Galicia turn into mini-monarchies post-WWI. What happens to Poland ?

How can the invention of nuclear weapons be delayed till the 1950s or 60s ?

ATL vehicle-manufacturing industries in a non-Sovietized Hungary

Plausible suggestions for alternate names of modern music genres

Analogues of the Western genre in alternate timelines ?

Need help with Yiddish translation and writing

Plausibility discussion: The daily life of an air pirate in an ATL 1930s

Culture and everyday life in a post-WWII ATL Europe with no or lesser holocaust

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The roundels, markings and air force emblems of the timeline's various past and present polities.

Notes:
(1) - a constituent country of the Confederation of Polish Peoples, i.e. modern post-war Poland
(2) - the post-WWII Polish roundel represents the entirety of post-war Poland, i.e. the Confederation of Polish Peoples (CoPP). Silesia and Lesser Poland-Galicia do not have their own armed forces or air forces, and their roundels are no longer in official use.
(3) - the Polish national aerobatic team still uses the Silesian and Galician roundels from the first half of the 20th century in a symbolic capacity.
(4) - based on an OTL aircraft insignia of the country (Slovakia 1944 (insurgent), Hungary 1990-1991)
(5) - continuation of a pre-WWII aircraft insignia

The Visegrad Union is listed at the top, as each of the countries below is a member state of that political block.

Glimpses into the world of the Disunion Wars (1910s-1920s)

Steyr-Männlicher Pandur advanced sniper rifle (late 1930s)

Letov L-395 Krkavec of the Orava-Kysuce Air Guard, 2nd Fighter Squadron

Uniforms and rank insignia of Zemplín Federation Armed Forces soldiers and personnel

Officer uniforms of the Zemplín Federation Armed Forces

Modified Romfell armoured cars of the Zemplín Federation's Armed Forces

PZL V-10 Dragoon strike fighter of the Visegrad Defence Pact, with VU and member state insignia (standard and low-viz)

Various media and propaganda from different time periods of the timeline (mostly from the interwar years).

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Elections posters from various polities throughout the history of the timeline.

Social Democrats of Považie (SDP) 1930s parliamentary elections poster

Agrarian Party of Turiec (APT) 1930s parliamentary elections poster

Sample of Slovak National Council composition, 2000s

CMSR Air Force recruitment poster (1935)

CMSR cautionary poster on the eve of the alternate WWII

Orava-Kysuce Air Guard morale poster

Propaganda poster warning against Soviet communist agents subverting the youth

"Citizens of Košice ! Report all suspicious airships to your local anti-aircraft defense guardhouse !"

Košice City State Air Force morale poster ("Retribution on Air Pirates")

Zemplín Federation Armed Forces recruitment poster

ZFAF Border Guard morale poster

Recruitment flyer of a Radical Regionalist movement terrorist cell (from 1960s/1970s Slovakia)

Propaganda flyer of a Radical Regionalist movement terrorist cell (from 1960s/1970s Slovakia and Poland)

Public Service Announcement poster warning the populace of the actions and propaganda of extremist and terrorist movements (including Radical Regionalists)

Laurin & Klement T.14 Karpaťan all-terrain motor car (prod. 1949-1972)

Tatra 840 Celestia passenger motor car (prod. 2008 onward)

WN-12 "Zodiac" launch vehicle of the Visegrad Union Space Programme (1960s) - Among other things, involved in Projekt Aport, the first succesful set of manned spaceflight missions, including reentry.

Patria spacecraft programme spacesuit - the first flight suit and spacesuit of the VUSP, used by stellonauts in the pioneering manned flights of the Patria class capsules.

First stellonauts of the VUSP - The “Patria Five” and the first female stellonaut.

Early space station of the VUSP - serviced by the Concord class of manned capsules, a long-standing orbital workhorse of the VUSP.

Later type of VUSP spacesuit - used during the first VUSP spaceplane missions of the late 20th century, a joint development effort with France (main developer) and Germany.

Interesting quotes and speeches from the ATL 1870s to the 2000s

A patriotic gathering of Silesian citizens for rememberance of the victims of 1940s wartime terror

See the scrapbook thread for more details.

"Snap" and "Pop music" - Equivalents of OTL pop music and OTL esotheric or world music.

"Hook & Hoodlum" and "Hooligan" ("Hool" for short) - Equivalents of OTL rock and roll music and rock music, plus associated genres.

"Rubble" - Equivalent of OTL punk music and associated genres, evolved from “hooligan music”.

"Debris" - Equivalent of OTL ska music and folk-rock, evolved from “hooligan music” and jazz music.

"Goth" and "Vandal" - Equivalents of OTL hard rock and metal music, evolved from both “hooligan” and “rubble” music.

"Drone" - Rough equivalent of OTL techno music and associated styles and genres.

"GW" (Gramowrangler) - ATL term for disk jockey (DJ).

"Easterns" & "Pierogi easterns" - The alternate geopolitical and cultural developments of much of the 20th century spawned a unique spin on the genre of film Westerns. Pierogi Easterns are a subgenre of Eastern set in central Europe and Ruthenia, mostly during WWI and the period of the Disunion Wars in the late 1910s and early 1920s. (Russian and Central Asian Easterns also tackle that same period very often, though from their own geographic and historical perspective.) (Link to be added.) Easterns and their Pierogi Eastern subset have also created genre crossovers with science fiction. EastWar is a science fiction thriller series (and semi-official sequel to Čapek's R.U.R.) with Pierogi Eastern elements, examining robotics, humanity and the entertainment industry. The Visegrad Space Guard franchise spinoffs Outpost Delta 7 and Terra Nova are partly considered Space Easterns, equivalent to OTL Space Westerns.

Visegrad Space Guard - A primarily televisual media franchise, has run since the early 1960s or so, though it has been somewhat dormat since the first half of the 2000s. Consists of four television series - VSG 2145, VSG 2185: The Mission Continues, VSG: Outpost Delta 7, VSG 2215: Terra Nova - and loads of various related works, including novelisations, comics, various model kits and toys, some feature-length films, and so on.

EastWar - A science fiction detective thriller series from the early 2000s, and a sequel to Karel Čapek's 1920 science fiction play, R.U.R. A rebranded Rossum's Universal Robots corporation, fallen on harder times, creates an entertainment industry division that oversees the creation and management of three historically inspired robotic theme parks: HussiteWar (15th century, medieval intrigue), With Fire and Sword (17th century, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth swashbuckling) and EastWar (early 1900s, the Eastern genre).

League of Nations (LoN) - Reconstituted and reformed after the second world war and continued since then.

The International Red Cross and Red Crescent - Same organisations as in OTL, just with a different century of history since WWI.

Visegrad Union (VU) - Formed in the early 1950s, as an economic, political, cultural and military integration effort of five central European countries (Confederation of Polish Peoples, Czech-Moravian-Silesian Republic, Slovak Republic, Republic of Hungary, Transcarpathian Republic).

Western European Community (WEC) - Western Europe's own multi-faceted European integration effort, started in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

On "translation convention"

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Impromptu backdrop soundtrack (to interwar air pirate shenanigans):
Hrdza - Chvastúňska, Zbojnícka, Na horách býva (remix version)
Čechomor - Súsedovi koně, Slunéčko, Větříček
Zuzana Mojžišová & Jej Družina - Ta vypimo, Pije, pije
F. K. Veselý - Ja som optimista (urban settings)

Thematically, I wanted to have a bit of order in it. The jazzy or swing stuff is all period, 1930s central European stuff. But the stuff with a folk music motif is all by contemporary bands and artists who play folk music in more modern arrangements. Most of that setting's air pirate narratives take place in more rural areas, and I want to reflect that by not using a traditional rendition of folk music associated with the countryside. As the setting understandably has a bit of a “dieselpunk” undertone, the more modern sound is intended to be a nod at that.

I want the choice of music to symbolise that these interwar air pirates, often from actually humble backgrounds, are sort of “at home” in two different worlds. The then-contemporary rural landscape, which generally serves as their hideout (less infrastructure, harder to get defence forces out there and down them, by FLAK or planes) and the bleeding edge of aviation tech, at least for the period. Traditional songs, with an updated outer shell, to demonstrate that stuck-halfway-between-two-realities situation these modern outlaws find themselves in. A strange, out-of-place, somewhat anachronistic situation - similarly anachronistic as the music that serves as its backdrop.

Speaking of outlaws, the content of several of those selected traditional songs (or songs done in the style of traditionals) touches upon thievery or outlaws. Súsedovi koně (“The Neighbour's Horses”) is a Moravian folk song, interpreted here by Čechomor, about a guy unfairly charged with theft of horses and threatened with hanging at the gallows. The Zbojnícka and Chvastúňska songs by Hrdza are, in turn, a general send-up of various romanticised “outlaw tropes”. I found it a good fit.

Weirdly, beyond writing and worldbuilding, “finding a sound” to a particular fictional setting I'm working on has always been surprisingly helpful to me. Not necessary at all, but it does give you that extra “kick” as a creator, and it can even help the tone of the setting “really click” in your mind. At least that's my own creative experience with this.

Petike's works