Is Steampunk possible or ASB?

Depends on what type of steampunk you're going for. If it's the kind with airship battleships all powered by steam, robots, laser guns and the ilk yeah that's ASB. If you're going for a world that's more or less using steam for the majority of transportation then no not really.
 
I think it could be sort of done by extending the 'long nineteenth century,' perhaps by preventing WWI (though of course the POD would have to be far before that). The general idea is that you need a slowing of technological advancement but not a slowing of Western society's general wealth and ability to build/maintain infrastructure.

As an example of this, airships only make sense in a world where heavier-than-air flight is never discovered/mastered. Imagine a world where, absconding the vagaries of wind and tide, most cargo is moved by long-haul zeppelins, and fleets of air-warships lob incendiary rockets at each other.

Another thing that is a crucial part of steampunk, to me, is the Victorian Internet. Have Babbage's analytical engine be completed and adopted; but at the same time, slow the advent of the digital computer. Maybe a company like IBM could get involved with someone like Babbage (or someone with one of Babbage's machines) and figure out a way to have multiple analytical engines communicate with each other using a telegraph line.
 
Most of it is technologically feasible - for example you had battleships, tractors, locomotives, automobiles all running on steam, of great size, and ever-increasing efficiency.

The discovery of the internal combustion engine of course changed the dynamic - why go to all the incredible hassle of building a steam powered airship when you can stick a diesel engine on it?

But it also changed the competitive dynamic - steam-powered cars from 1900 to the 1920s were perfectly viable, equally efficient etc but the companies building them increasingly got squeezed out by the giant automobile conglomerates whose money was in internal combustion engines.

I wonder whether steam power married to rocket technology might get one to the Moon in time, without the internal combustion engine? Maybe it depends on what amount of electricity we allow a Steampunk world to have?

After all, on battleships etc the electric lights were often powered by dynamoes off the main steam engines.

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
Maybe it depends on what amount of electricity we allow a Steampunk world to have?

After all, on battleships etc the electric lights were often powered by dynamoes off the main steam engines.

Again, it depends on what your definition of steampunk is. A nuclear reactor is just a steam engine after all.
 
Isn't Steampunk about style and culture as well as technology?

I think one could imagine a world in which the culture of the Victorian/Edwardian era (continued social stratification, imperialism, global dominance of the British Empire and a handful of other world powers) survived well into the 20th century that is not ASB. One can also imagine a world in which coal and oil burning steam engines survived as the major source of power for utilities, many vehicles, and utilities.

But having this technology coexist with airships, airplanes, space travel, computers, or nuclear power is unlikely, since the technological innovations necessary for these things requires small and light engines, a high degree of miniaturization, and other advancements incompatible with continued reliance on steam power.

I have no problem with a "steampunk-lite" world that looks and acts Victorian with huge iron contraptions and belching smokestacks everywhere, and for that matter has cool things like steam cars and airships, but giant steam powered armored airships, massive land battleships, mechanical computers, and Jules Vernesque space travel is ASB, since you have to invent some impossible things to make these things possible.
 
I think it could be sort of done by extending the 'long nineteenth century,' perhaps by preventing WWI (though of course the POD would have to be far before that). The general idea is that you need a slowing of technological advancement but not a slowing of Western society's general wealth and ability to build/maintain infrastructure.

As an example of this, airships only make sense in a world where heavier-than-air flight is never discovered/mastered. Imagine a world where, absconding the vagaries of wind and tide, most cargo is moved by long-haul zeppelins, and fleets of air-warships lob incendiary rockets at each other.

Actually, I think it wouldn't be that hard to delay heavier than air flight for a decade or more than it was in our world. If for some reason the Wright brothers hadn't started work on the airplanes, there is no way of knowing when the other pioneers of aviation would have made the breakthroughs that made flight practical (specifically roll control).

--
Bill
 

Pomphis

Banned
It´s somewhat ASB, much less oil on earth would make oil and therefore combustion engines much more expensive.
 
It´s somewhat ASB, much less oil on earth would make oil and therefore combustion engines much more expensive.

Possibly not. It's possible and fairly inexpensive to run engines on coal gasification (happened a bit during WWII Britain with petrol shortages) and the industry was well established before 1900. And a gas to liquid process was discovered in the 1970s to convert it into petrol.

The easiest thing would probably be to introduce steam engines with efficiencies similar to more modern models. Small steam engines designed in the past 30 years are better than early internal combustion engines. Steam would remain king for a few decades longer.
 
Possibly not. It's possible and fairly inexpensive to run engines on coal gasification (happened a bit during WWII Britain with petrol shortages) and the industry was well established before 1900. And a gas to liquid process was discovered in the 1970s to convert it into petrol.

The easiest thing would probably be to introduce steam engines with efficiencies similar to more modern models. Small steam engines designed in the past 30 years are better than early internal combustion engines. Steam would remain king for a few decades longer.

But how many of those improved steam engines were due to improvements in other areas like metallurgy which enable better designs that were not possible before because the materials were just not able to handle it. Materials science is generally the limiting factor when it comes to enginnering. There are so many great ideas and designs it just that we do not have a material avaliable to actually impliment it.
 
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