Hello, friends and fans!
Today in Fun Facts, a series of articles about characters and plot devices in my stories, I’ll be talking about Obsidian Crows. What is an Obsidian Crow? Readers of the Quantum Series may well wonder.
Perhaps first and foremost, Obsidian Crows are a known road hazard on Deanna – the planet central to most of the adventures in the Quantum Series. While they rarely get more than a mention in any single book in the series, they are one of the elements which help distinguish the setting. If you ever do visit Deanna, please ensure you have a spare tire when traveling. (You might want to read “Dead Man’s Hammer” to understand why.)
Obsidian Crows are green, heavy (full-grown birds average around ten kg) and are quite possibly the laziest birds anywhere. It is perhaps ironic then, that the Obsidian Crow appears on the flag of this Terran colony, which is called “The Crow” by locals, and generally flown alongside the Imperial Terran standard (“the Jack”.
These alien birds are natives of Deanna, the small third class Terran colony world on the fringe – and some say the lunatic fringe – of explored space. Their feathers had over millennia of evolution adapted to form pseudo-scales. The creatures are flightless since the hard-bodied creatures are far too heavy to fly, or run – or even to move at anything faster than an annoying modest shuffle.
Obsidian Crows are generally fearless since they have no known natural predators on the planet, and it has been said the only thing that can frighten an Obsidian Crow is quicksand, which does not occur naturally on Deanna.
Obsidian Crows have been a major road hazard on Deanna for many years because they tend to walk straight, as the crow fl – er, walks, more-or-less. Obsidian crows frequently get run over, but are rarely harmed in the process – usually they just shake the dust off their stony scales, before climbing out of the shallow crater in the road surface and wandering off again.
Because of the damage caused to vehicles by these frequent meetings between Jeepo and crow, a small but strong industry arose, which manufactures the safety bars fitted to Deannan vehicles – and which are named after them. “Crow-bars” are today some of the most well-known and appreciated automotive accessories (and some would say necessities) on Deanna!
There you have it – a quick summary of what the Obsidian Crow is!
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All material copyright © Christina Engela, 2017.