The year is 1919. WWI has been over for a year. The country is still rebounding from it. But for what it's worth, the United States didn't pay nearly as much for the war as a lot of societies in Europe did...
Seven years ago, Arizona became the 48th state. There are now forty-eight stars on the U.S. flag...as shape it will retain for many decades to come.
As did most of the country, Georgia contributed a lot to the war effort. They even renamed the hamburger to the "beef patty," and the frankfurter to the "pork link," as much as it confused a lot of them. Ever since the end of Reconstruction, it's become easier and easier for Georgians to vote for rightist politicians. And yet, as if that wasn't noticeable, many voters here STILL vote for the leftist candidates in elections...for the cheap workers, if not the scapegoats they stand for.
Next year, the country's voting pool will expand, when women are granted suffrage. On the downside, the man's vote will become less valuable. On the upside, at least the 18-, 19-, and 20-year-old won't be able to vote for several more decades. The man's vote has until then to cling to whatever value it has left, in the aftermath of the de-valuing decimation caused by women's suffrage...
Next door, and in the mental hospitals, all the WWI veterans, who're still re-adjusting to their homes, are screaming and having nightmares. For many of them, the war was terrible. It was worse, and longer, for the British, French, Belgians, and other European Allies. Even so, before the war, shell shock and trench foot weren't concepts Hazzard County Georgians were used to.
But at least the Allied Georgians never had to fight the Central Powers' Georgians, from the North Caucasus. THAT would've been confusing beyond forgiveness...
In times like these, William Pratt Hogg, a high-ranking member of the Hazzard County civil service, does not regret his decision to dodge the draft. He still can't believe he got away with it for a year and a half. Before that, he was hoping against hope that there'd never be a draft for him to dodge. But of course, when the Germans pledge unrestricted submarine warfare, there's only so much the world can do to remain neutral in the war...
He paid the people concerned handsomely to exempt him from the draft. This was illegal; but somehow, no one ratted on him. He stayed on the home front, and kept a lot of hot chicks company, while their men were getting stabbed, shocked, poisoned, frozen, hung, electrocuted, and burned on the Western Front. It was wonderful; most of the local dames and belles slipped right into estrus, as if they didn't miss their men at all...
One certain resident of Hazzard, a balanced and fair black woman, was harder to charm into estrus. She just so happened to be the fiance of someone William knew very well.
When the American military started drafting, David Duke didn't hesitate to answer the call. At camp, he did all the work necessary to prepare himself...as much as it sometimes hurt. Most of all, he anticipated the charges across No Man's Land. Brutal, of course; but as a pathological speedster, and somewhat of a mechanophile, there was nothing else about the war for him to anticipate.
At one point, the British started investing in tank production... But if only America could've been in the war long enough to open a tank plant... But it's just as well. Tanks may be cavalry vehicles, but they're still a LOT slower than the cavalry horses of 19th-century wars were...
And so, David went overseas. Shosanna, his black fiance, still remembers the last time she saw him before he left for France...
Over there, David had a lot of fun, alright, charging across No Man's Land, and putting the overworked and under-hoping poilus to shame. Although frankly, he could've used less of the cowering in the trenches, and waiting for orders to abandon them and charge...
Alas, the Hungarians really liked to experiment with poison gas. And at one point, while David was stationed on the French Front, they used an experimental poison gas on a single enemy victim, who got a lot farther into their territory than they'd expected...
At long last, the dreaded day comes. A postman comes to Shosanna's door, and leaves a wrapped package in her hands.
Grieving, she places it to her chest, bows her head, and sighs. She thinks she knows what's in it; its return address is a U.S. Department of War one. Clearly, it's her fiance's dog tags. They've been lying to her for over a year; they've been telling her that her fiance's still alive, but barely hanging on.
Sadly, she sets the box on the table, and peels off the paper. She opens the box inside, and dumps the contents all over the wood.
True to her expectations, the dog tags slide out. But there's something else that does, too...which confuses her.
It looks like a spice jar...only higher-tech. It looks like there's something in it. Confused, she holds it up to her eye, and shakes it. Inside, the thing writhes...and becomes familiar.
It's David. He's a thousandth the size he was when he first left for France!
"Hi, baby," he shouts, seemingly embarrassed. "Sorry I'm late!"
With her giant eye, she stares at him, and gapes.
"You uh," he fidgets, "don't, by any chance, still want to get married, do you?"
She closes her eyes, and faints. Near her hand, David's spice jar rolls across the wooden floor.
"I'll uh," David stammers, "I'll give you some time to mull it over..."
For the most part, Shosanna did a great job of caring for David. But she hid him from the public, and didn't talk about him. And at some point, she was going to have to come to terms with being the only attractive woman in Hazzard County who was still single. Everyone kept talking to her as if David had died in the war, and nothing could bring him back.
It was bound to happen, and one spring, it did. William proposed to her; a high-ranking civil servant, with a chance of getting promoted...AND running for county commissioner. Shosanna hesitated for as long as she could...but she accepted his proposal. They were married in the Commissioner's backyard.
During the wedding, Shosanna wore a pendant around her neck. David sat inside, watching helplessly as his fiance, who stayed loyal to him throughout the war, said her vows to a family frenemy, and took his last name as her own.
And just like that, a formerly earmarked Duke bride became a Hogg wife. And she was black...and beautiful. David never stopped having a crush on her because of her titanic size. For the two of them, it was happily ever after...but it was never his ring on her finger.
She still isn't sure how she got David past William for all those years. She's even more confused as to how David passed on his family's name, if his sperm couldn't get a normal-sized woman pregnant... But then she'd hesitate, and remember that David had brothers. And naturally, at some point, one of them moved back to Hazzard County, took up the Duke Farm, and took it to the present, another century later...
