Thread: Victoriana evolved

Well I'm not sure if I'm in on the right board, this is mostly research into public opinion, but it seemed fitting.

I am writing a steampunk novel and while I have a pretty good idea of what the steampunk community desires, I am wondering what the people outside that group feel about it. This helps me sort out the eye candy that only I like from the eye candy that I'll be serving, so to say.

So, imagining that the Victorian lifestyle had lived on and the technology of their time had simply become more and more elaborate and intricate, instead of being replaced by modern materials and methods. Fashion and architecture haven't changed much and airships and steamboats are the transportation of choice.

Under these circumstances, what aspects would you find most interesting to explore?

Whether or not you can join a mile-high club on an airship.

There's something about the steampunk take on Victorian era that puts me in mind of political intrigue, plots, and the Ripper.

Women's suffrage. If the Victorian mores would have continued would women have ever earned the right to vote?

Glad to hear that. Steampunk often goes one of two ways, either maintaining the standards of the time, or simply omitting that aspect and having an equal society. The latter is quite common in steampunk set in a fictional universe where as the first is the predominant method in historical/alternate time line steampunk.

The way I've managed it in my novel(alternate time line, mid 1930's) is actually a combination of both. Britain as a superpower is the main conservative force, where as the feminist movement had a great impact on the continent. It actually plays an important part of the story, constantly causing conflicts and frustrations for the female protagonist.

on a different note:

How much would you say that the average reader knows of the technology of the era? If I were to mention things like Teslas resonance machine(basically an earthquake machine), or if I were to speak of the Babbage analytic engine(a mechanical computer), would the avarage reader recognize these as actual inventions or simply think I was making stuff up?

I think most people have heard of Tesla but does it matter if they think you made them up? Would that make a difference in your story?

Knowing it's real doesn't make much of a difference to the story itself. However, through out the story there is a lot of technology that is completely made up, so balancing it out with technology, equally fantastic in nature, that was actually invented in real life would give the entire story a more real feeling. It's like science fiction that speaks of technologies that we are researching today, as opposed to making up something completely different. One feels fantastic but realistic, the other feels like pure fantasy. Even if the level of fantasy in my story is off the chart in some aspects I want to constantly throw in bits of reality, real places, real people, just to give the reader the sensation that all off this could have been real if things had gone differently at some point in time.

I've always wondered how clockwork artificial intelligence would work...

EDIT: Oh, and I've heard of Babbage--- I was a CompSci major. He's credited as having invented the first 'computer' over 200 years ago.

Originally Posted by Razzazzika

I've always wondered how clockwork artificial intelligence would work...

There's actually an active debate about that going on at the brassgoggles.co.uk forums. Sadly it seems nobody is able to conjure up a viable way to make it believable. An analytic engine with the processing capabilities of a modern PC would be the size of a building and so slow that even the simplest process would take weeks. If anyone's heard of some alternative that would be great. So far the only option seems a biological brain hooked up to a mechanical body with help of victorianesque electonics.

The steam automobile eventually died because it was too complicated and expensive for the average person.

The electric was a victim of its own marketing. In the early days the gasoline engines had to be hand cranked and the electric was marketed to women. Just turn on the switch and drive away, though you couldn't drive very far or very fast. In 1912 when Kettering put the first practical electric starter on the Cadillac, and the sales of electrics bagan to slide. They were ladies' cars so men wouldn't buy them, and with the electric starter the ladies had no hesitation in driving gasoline cars.

I've often wondered - if a simpler and cheaper steamer could have been developed, or if electrics had been marketed differently and better batteries developed, would they have seriously challenged the internal combustion engine?

I've always found it interesting that Mrs Henry Ford's personal car was an electric.

You should check out a documentary called "who killed the electric car"

And yes, I'm pretty sure that with some better marketing the first electric cars would have sold much better, creating revenue to fund the same advances in batteries that have been made in internal combustion. Considering the electric cars that have been developed and that they almost rival the internal combustion cars, imagine if they had been given the same funding as the car industry has given to the internal combustion engine over the last century

I really enjoyed that doc. Made me wish to have my van converted to electric when I have the money. But considering I live about 30 miles from a large town then it's not practical for me. Here in the little city I live in I walk to most everything as it is.

I wonder what happens to the coal miners if technology does not progress beyond steam. I would like to see a steampunk story that deals with the large, downtrodded, underclass. There is a lot of potential for a workers' revolution if their lot stays frozen rather than being improved bby technological advancement.