The City & The City Trivia Quiz

Answer: Extreme Crime Squad

Major Case Squad I have borrowed from "Law and Order". Important Case Unit I pulled out of the air.
Cold Case Unit(s) exist officially in nearly every police service in the United States. While cold cases are of course investigated everywhere, the majority of police forces incorporate them into existing homicide divisions. There is also a web site dedicated to information about cold cases within the US. As Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett tell us: "Evil never sleeps and virtue is ever-vigilant". (Aziraphale, "Good Omens").

Answer: Tye

Tyad is his shorthand name throughout the novel. Bor and Tiller are just made up.
Mieville uses Tyador's name skillfully in the book. Tyad appears quite a way in. It underscores both his basic humanity and the evolution of the reader's relationship with the character. Prior to this he could be perceived as a generic, hard-boiled detective, largely two-dimensional, standard hero.
Then as he himself evolves, so too does his name - Tye.

Answer: Fulana Detail

Jane Doe is the English/American version. Jenny Dame and Felonia Descript are both made up.
Interesting trivia: Jane Doe is a placeholder name that is usually used in law to maintain anonymity.
The original use of John Doe, the male equivalent, was as a fictitious plaintiff in an English legal proceeding called ejectment; the fictitious defendant was Richard Roe. The point of ejectment is to restore ownership of land to dispossessed owners. In order to reclaim the land, the landowner would launch legal proceedings in the name of two fictitious tenants. The court would then establish (or not) the owner's title. The process of ejectment was discontinued in the United Kingdom in 1852.

Answer: true

This one is an interesting challenge in definition into layman's terms. Mieville is referring to mathematical field of topology, the properties of objects which do not change when they are distorted. In the strictest sense, citizens of Beszel and Ul Qoma are sharing the same gross topology, but spend their lives "un-seeing" citizens of each city.

Answer: Orciny

Orczel is a throwaway trick answer. Avalon is the mythical island featured in Arthurian legend. Breach is the third power in the novel, although the term is used synonymously for the act of breach when the breach falls under the jurisdiction of that authority.

Answer: Illitan

Besz is the language of Beszel. English is used in the novel by some of the characters, but is also referenced throughout the Beszel sections as pop-culture phrases are used by Beszel natives (such as the " 'Sup, policeman?" from one of the witnesses, or "gudcop" as a verb from one of the other officers). Qomasz is a trick one.

Answer: Sear and Core

Fulana/Mahalia thinks she is taking the artifacts to restore Orciny, but discovers that Orciny really is a myth. Orciny is an older children's fable in both Beszel and Ul Qoma, a city supposedly populated with magics and power beyond the two cities.
When the two cities were split, artifacts were deposited in Ul Qoma with chaotic jumbling of time periods, making a fascinating study for archaeologists. In Beszel, there is almost nothing. Sear and Core's interest is in the strange physics of archaeological artifacts and the marketing potential of same.

Answer: Mahalia Geary

Fulana Detail is the Beszel equivalent of Jane Doe. Marya and Byela Mar are Mahalia's aliases when she attends meetings for unification groups in Ul Qoma and Beszel, respectively. While the unification groups are trying to bring the split cities together, Mahalia is simply exploiting their records to find the mythical Orciny.

This naturally makes unification groups on both sides very uncomfortable as references to Orciny and unification are ruthlessly policed to prevent any breach (and subsequent involvement of Breach).

There is a theory that Breach and Orciny are at war.

Answer: stands in Ul Qoma and shoots a man in Beszel

In a brilliant sequence, Tyador chases his man down from Ul Qoma, keeping him in sight but unseeing him. When he realises that the man will get away into Beszel proper, he shoots from Ul Qoma through a crosshatch region.

Answer: Were a decoy to prevent Sear and Core to be held accountable

The decoy was to occupy avatars of the Breach in containing breach events. Both cities are placed in lockdown and avatars must maintain it. Under cover of lockdown, Sear and Core staff could get away from Beszel with Ul Qoma artifacts and David Bowden could attempt escape without facing justice for Mahalia's death.