More on Urban Elephants – expanding on the Osibisi concept mentioned in passing in the last chapter. v2 with slight addition:-
The Osibisa is the winged flying elephant of Howondaland, thought to be an escapee from Mono Island where the God of Evolution was working on a really efficient distribution system for dung, so as to nurture beetles. too good not to incorporate into my take on the Discworld. The Osibisa is now established in Howondaland and makes its nest in really tall strong trees. The mating flight of an Osibisa Queen surrounded by her retinue of drones is something to behold, but, as Howondalandian zoologists emphasise, do not try and observe this from directly underneath. As with so many other examples of local wildlife, this animal has a name in the Vondalaans language: the Niestaannieonderbeeste, or the Schiessvolelefante. You have been warned.( Notable Assassin Miss Jocasta Wiggs made this fundamental error on a visit to Howondaland, and incurred a rather large cleaning bill as a result. Miss Wiggs, alas, does have a reputation for this sort of thing.)(1) As yet, the Ankh-Morpork City Zoo does not have any representative examples. The Zoo accepts there are management problems and it would need a pretty big aviary. Lord Vetinari has also remarked, mildly, that pigeons present a big enough ongoing problem. While he believes that the occassional little incident involving a Pegasus relieving its bowels from several hundred feet up is far outweighed by their benefit to the City, he is desirous that we do not import any larger flying creatures. Just yet.
(1) see my story Bungle in The Jungle.
The Roundworld referent is a rock/jazz/African music band called Osibisa, formed in England from expat West Africans, largely from Ghana and Nigeria. Record companies, in a sniffy and slightly racist sort of way, declined to sign them as it was thought there was zero interest in African music and, in the words of one executive, it was as likely to take off as a flying elephant. Their first record deal saw psychedelic artist Roger Dean signed up to design the LP sleeve. Sure enough, he put a flying elephant on the cover. The music is a fusion of African and Western. This (the piece linked to on the FB page together with the inspirational LP cover) is a sample. I'm not sure if the flute player stood on one leg to do his bit, although it sounds rather like an African Jethro Tull at this point... enjoy.
Odd additional notes:
As you might expect from the God of Evolution, they also have dragonfly wings and compound insect eyes. for functional flying elephant wings, I'd favour something more substantial than that...same material as the ears, perhaps. but looks good so long as you don't look too closely!
Maybe all these are experimental things worked up by the God of Evolution with his fondness for insects; the V0.2 Osibisa might have been propelled by flying ears and the V0.3 replaces the insect wings with hide ones... and (I speculated about this happening with Pegasi) the winged elephants can interbreed with flightless ones - thus mixing the genes in some very interesting ways... the God might – reluctantly – have omitted the wheels on the production version. Interesting that roger Dean draws the Osibisi with bird-like taloned feet – which supports the proposition that they nest in very sturdy trees….
EDIT: I had to add this... again from the FB page...
that's a point for the god of Evolution's V0.4: he gets to see a Pegasus - maybe a messenger from the Pegasus Service calls at Mono Island to pass on a friendly message from Vetinari, possibly one politely asking if the elephants appearing in Ankh-Morpork are anything to do with him. He talks to, perhaps, Captain Olga Romanoff or one of her duty pilots, expresses professional interest in the Pegasus, and gets the idea for very big bird wings on a prototype elephant... meanwhile, Olga, a flight-minded Witch who found gainful employment in Ankh-morpork, has equally inspiring ideas about the nascent Royal Ankh-Morporkian Air Force expanding from Pegasi to a sort of "Bomber Command" heavy squadron, mounted on the Discworld equivalent of Lancasters or, indeed, Flying Fortresses...(you know, the sort of tower arrangement seen on fighting elephants in our world or on Mumakil in Middle Earth). yes. this could be a viable fic... also added a version of this post to my FanFiction archive, the one that preserves my better posts here;