The image was my entry in the cgsociety Steampunk Myths and Legends challenge. Above: detail of the working steam engine and at right: close-up detail of from the image. Reproduced below is my story written to go with the entry.

Things could have turned out so differently.

Chicken civilisation had been making great strides and only their wearying age-old conflict with the ducks was holding them back.

According to duck mythology, the chickens were a fearsome and unsophisticated tribe, utterly lacking in grace, manners and webbed feet. Yet the chickens threatened to overwhelm the ducks by sheer weight of their numbers.

The head duck, a mighty avian warrior called l’Orange, addressed his assembled flock with a disquieting mixture of excitement and sad resignation. ‘If we don’t find a way to move on to other ponds, our days as noble birds are numbered. We need to build a mighty vessel, fit for a whole tribe of ducks, to spread ourselves across the globe.’

And so began the era of the waterskiing duck. After an unfortunate series of failed prototypes, including the perpetual-motion-powered waterskiing duck and the cold-fusion-powered waterskiing duck, an awesome steam-powered version was created. Not only did this marvelous vessel carry the proud ducks across the oceans to colonise every part of the planet, but the very sight of it leaving at high speeds demoralized the chickens to the point where they quickly succumbed to domestication by the up-coming new race of humans.

No human knows what became of the steam-powered duck and it’s awfully difficult to get the ducks to tell you. We can only hope that somehow, some parts of it have been preserved so that one day it might be recovered and finally show us, once and for all, that it really happened.

Or was it all just a myth?

A word of warning: while ducks revere the great steam duck of their ancestors, you have to be careful how you describe it. For example, “steam-powered duck” is fine and is likely to be met with quiet understanding and empathy. Same with the term “steam duck”. But “steamed duck” is a term considered offensive to ducks and is likely to be met with alarm.

 

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