) to inquire "your papers, please" is NOT that far-fetched! 
Not a stretch at all... main issue was infrastructure. With the building of canals, and then railroads, road construction lagged terribly. Most roads were uniformly terrible throughout the 1800's...Speaking of steam carriages...
Funny thing is the first steam car was technically built the 1770's by a french inventor so it's honestly not to much of stretch.
Well that may be a bit out there crystal set radio's wouldn't be to far of a stretch and we've already talked about the successful development of mechanical computers so perhaps things could be slightly teslapunk?Checkpoint Charlie on the Potomac, the great North American dreadnought race, an early version of the dreadful British K-Boat steam submarines... silent-but-deadly pneumatic cannon/dynamite guns... steam "war-wagons"... in the civilian field, maybe pneumatic-tube trains in areas where traditional rail construction is too difficult... earlier development of vaccuum tube and CRT technology would have some interesting implications... all kinds of things could be worked into this, not to mention the political and social implications of a North American Cold War... and not all of it ASB, strictly speaking - since most of the technology was already there, just in its infancy and in bits-n-pieces...
Dammit now I have the "Mission: Impossible" theme in my head
Very true. They'd have to be pretty solid all terrain vehicles in that case.
Admittedly I thought of doing "a Cattlepunk Wild West" but I figured it wouldn't be so well recieved.
Steam turbine trains were developed in the 20th Century... I believe Sweden and Switzerland used a few turbine locos for a while. I think the fuel consumption was higher and low-speed efficiency was an issue. Also had the misfortune of being developed right as diesels were gaining in popularity.
Hiram Maxim's steam-powered contraption proved itself capable of leaving the ground... controllability once in the air would've been another matter (hence the fact that he discontinued the attempt):
All intriguing ideas. Wind power especially was very much a thing in the nascent days of electricity... what would a farm be without a windmill?
Well there has been a number of Steam powered aircraft over the course of the 19th and 20th including the besler steam plane in 1933. Actually with the various improvements in metallurgy that would be necessary for such steam vehicles we might also internal combustion engines developing a bit faster. Maybe to the point that the 1880s and 90s are a mix of steampunk and dieselpunk.Hiram Maxim's steam-powered contraption proved itself capable of leaving the ground... controllability once in the air would've been another matter (hence the fact that he discontinued the attempt):
Maybe with an early discovery of aerodynamic ground effect, and with engines with a sufficient power-to-weight ratio, you could've seen a Lake Michigan Sea Monster well before the Caspian Sea MonsterHiram Maxim - Wikipedia
en.m.wikipedia.org
Actually the first modern air conditioner was developed in the 1840's by the Floridan doctor John Gorrie. Perhaps in this timeline with the rapid technological advancements the technology could become widespread.
Prohibition... America's dumbest and biggest mistake.All intriguing ideas. Wind power especially was very much a thing in the nascent days of electricity... what would a farm be without a windmill?
But as to the last sentence... before Prohibition, there was a VAST array of beers and assorted rotguts that were available on the North American continent... Damn those teetotalers, damn them!!
Speaking of steam carriages...
Post-dates the French ones though, and Wikipedia tells me Sweden abolished theirs in 1860...
Nooo not wrong at all... don't think I'd want to be anywhere near the thing... much less inside it... once the artillery shells started coming in!
Occurred to me that, for all the talk about freedom and states' rights, that the CSA wasn't at all shy about restricting the movement and personal freedoms of its citizens... they had a system of "internal passports" that quite pre-dated the Soviet ones... The thought of grey-waistcoated men stopping passing travelers (no doubt in a steam carriage
This is making me think of the Confederacy eventually falling to Communist revolutionaries and getting very dictatorial.
The description makes me think it's less of a frontline combat vehicle and more like a patrol vehicle for the country side and urban ghettos.
Border guards! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_Troops_of_the_German_Democratic_Republic
But armour plates on each side may help with that... With the steam guns and incendiary rockets, the Confeds will also have steamwagon katyushas ! If you felt TL-191 had some silly Confederate tech-wankery, you ain't seen nothin' yet. (And yes, the spoof included a send-up of the 1999 film, giant clockwork scorpion, "younger n' hipper" approach and bad reception as an overproduced remake included. The rap number in period Persian was well-received, though. )How about the Gardner gun?
Sounds about right. Considering the Cold War & James Bond inspired aesthetic we're going with on this.Border guards! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_Troops_of_the_German_Democratic_Republic
Or something similar, of course... this is a Cold War, after all...
But yeah, I'd say one good round from a Martini Henry would cause lots of hot shards of copper or iron, along with lots of scalding steam and boiling water everywhere in the vicinity, and essentially turn what was left of the contraption into a fixed battery
There's also the Adventures of Brisco County jr. that came out around the same time as Legend so I can see some of it leaking in too.Legend was often referred to, even at the time, as something of a spiritual successor to The Wild Wild West, sans the espionage genre elements.
A few years ago, I wrote a brief parody of it and the WWW franchise, with a Persian adventurer/spymaster and his Italian inventor buddy, solving crimes and busting nefarious villains in Renaissance era Europe. The title was the same, but it was a reference to the Persian character's initial disdain for Europe as a less civilised place, the "Wild Wild West" from his Persian perspective.
Well the Confederates were early pioneers in submarine warfare so I can see them expanding on that. Especially as they attempt to expand their influence into the Caribbean... who knows they might end up jumping on the colonial bandwagon.For that extra steampunk touch in the Confed-Union Cold War, give the Confed's a souped-up version of the Winans Steam Gun. Also, let the confeds be the "submarine power" of this Cold War, like the Soviets were in our Cold War. I.e., the Confeds get souped-up, improved versions of the Hunley. Maybe ones capable of firing 19th century incendiary rockets at enemy targets, launched semi-vertically from hatches after the submarines surface.
Also, lever-action rifles, good as they are, are kind of boring. For that extra steampunk flavour, maybe a cheaper alternative to them, used by some people, would be harmonica rifles. I don't know about you, but they always struck me as rather steampunky in terms of appearance and how their mechanism and magazine frame worked. Also, also, air rifles were actually quite advanced in the 19th century, including some repeater versions. Maybe you could use these for stealthy precision-sniping ? Otherwise, the Springfield and the Sharps cartridge rifles would be the Dragunovs or Accuracy International AWM of their day. Add some steampunk accessories, and you might get Victorian or Gilded Age equivalents of "tacticool".
