Questions tagged [steampunk]
For questions based in worlds where technology is typically steam-powered rather than based on electricity.
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The late-victorian nuclear-thruster
Nuclear fission! How hard can that be? Nuclear reactors have been quietly humming under the earth's surface only a few billion years ago after all.
It's very convenient then, that my planet's quite a ...
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Space-ships and stations...made from cast-iron?
If there's two things i love, it's space-flight, and late 19th century technology, and i hope to implement as much of the latter into as much of the former in my current setting. And one thing that ...
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How to make a hybrid mapping system for aircraft on barren planets without celestial or compass use?
My captains and pirates belt out lots of navigational commands and jargon, but none of it can relate to terrestrial maps. So I’m needing a system they use in transit and combat, that they will ...
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What are the best blackmail and extortion paths for haberdashers in post-apocalyptic Victorian cities? [closed]
In a Victorian city on an apocalyptic world, a haberdasher has gained social power. All things pertaining to the Victorian life circa 1880 would be proper here, save for the equine industry. He has ...
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Optimal Organ Preservation in a Steampunk World?
In a steampunk world where multiple more-or-less humanoid species (with varying levels of intelligence) coexist, organ hunting is prevalent and authorized (outside of cities).
The harvested organs are ...
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There's no space to construct a runway. Are early planes still useful and promising technology?
My setting exists on a huge vertical cliff with no top or bottom, and currently nearing the end of an steampunk-y industrial revolution, putting its tech level somewhere in the range of 1860s to 1910s....
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Believably Enhancing Actuator Machinery Performance through Ground Detection Techniques in Articulated Mechanical Racehorse Hooves
My hero is an ingenious technician held captive in a pirate enclave and serving them in the mechanical maintenance of their steampunk race horses. Similar to pod racing in Star Wars I: The Phantom ...
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What industrial exoplanet machine would serve as the best escape vehicle from a remote secure stronghold?
My world has 18th century society norms with steampunk tech. I have added a scene from the story to the end of this question, just fill in the blank. Some characters become impressed into service with ...
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Is there a physical/structural upper-speed-limit to steam locomotives?
In my world (essentially playing in the late 1920's to early 30's, though with a bit of hand-waved technological and political progress), a rail line exists that spans Eurasia from Lisbon to Bangkok.
...
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How do I store enormous amounts of mechanical energy?
Imagine a typical steampunk setting. Now, let's make two grand assumptions about it:
Steam engines here are MUCH more efficient than those in our world. Yep, we have to violate laws of physics for ...
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How Would a Spacefaring Civilization Using No Electricity Communicate?
I'm working on a civilization who was born out of a century-long interstellar war with an AI. So they had previously developed electrical and digital technology but now they're avoiding using any of ...
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Could a steam-age civilization trial-and-error their way to a nuclear reactor if they had access to enough fissile material?
I think this boils down to a question of how much fundamental understanding is needed to build a very basic nuclear reactor to boil water.
If fissile material was readily available to an otherwise ...
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What are most hydrogen-dense materials that a pre-electric civilization could produce? [closed]
Context
My world has an 'unobtanium' strategic resource that is an alternate form of hydrogen. When atoms of this hydrogen is embedded in a rotor, they generate a field force that pushes against the ...
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Heated Adamantine "Bricks" as a Fuel Source
I was pondering a situation where adamantine could be harvested from deep underground, amongst lavaflows, to work as a fuel source.
Facts:
The Adamantine has been heated for millennia at thousands of ...
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What fluids would be better than water for steam power?
I was wondering what it'd take for a fluid to be more efficient than water for steam engines.
My current idea is a fictional fluid with three properties: 1) It boils at 80C, thus requiring less fuel/...
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What obvious technologies would this early 20th century analog have? [closed]
I have a city-state, bound to protect the evil, and the souls of the inhabitants are used to power that, and no one who enters the city can leave, so the outside world supplies it with food and ...
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How would you design an American Civil War Era Napalm/incendiary munitions?
I am working on a Steampunk/Alt history novel of the American Civil war. I would like a plausible way/recipe to include napalm/incendiary munitions fired from the steam tank/mobile artillery that you ...
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Is there development of advanced polymers/composite materials?
Background: seeking modern technologies, resources, etc that could potentially be discovered and applied in a fantasy setting where manufacturing processes, while advanced, are more akin to the late ...
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Does my command structure work?
Background
The first 'Engev' (Emperor of Lazaeron) sees a need to unite the entire planet to defend against an alien threat, only he knows of this threat and he has no way to definitively prove this, ...
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How would anti-gravity airships change 1950s warfare?
The antigrav is a bedroom-sized cube of smooth sheet metal walls encasing complicated metallic machinery inside. When switched on, it generates an anti-gravitational field enough to lift a stone ...
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Illegal Steampunk horse racing after the apocalypse: What format is most profitable?
My pirates need to maximize profit from their illegal horse racing activities
But the horses are not normal, they are machines. You can ride on top with difficulty, and it may slow them down. So ...
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How large could a passenger airship be built with 1920s era technology?
I am writing a steampunk novel set in a human world without computer chips, heavier than air aircraft, or recyclable plastic.
How large could a passenger airship be built using 1920s era technology? ...
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How Would a Stirling Engine’s Throttle Work Using Technology From the 1800’s?
I am working on a stirling engine powered train for a DnD game I am a part of, and am trying to figure out how the engine works. I have the basics of the engine done, but I can not figure out how a ...
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What population size is reasonable for a moving, steam powered, predatory city?
For a DnD campaign, I'm designing a setting with steampunkish tech level, as well as magic used to explain tech accomplishments not possible with real world physics. Almost all settlements in this ...
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Societal impact of steampunk robots on the Victorian era [closed]
I’m doing some cursory research into the Industrial Revolution as a whole for a steampunk/Victorian fantasy story and one detail of my setting that’s setting off alarm bells in my head is the use of ...
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3D models for steampunk components [closed]
I'm looking to do design/fabrication of some steampunk accessories. I want to find component-level models of stuff like gears, pistons, gauges, etc. Can anyone point me to resources?
I've done ...
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My in-atmosphere traversible wormhole, does it make sense, and what propulsion is needed to gain access to it?
I am trying to make up my own special Wormhole concept, researching and trying to understand what the practical and theoretical sciences we have, and am curious if its good or bad? The simple idea is ...
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What kind of rock could I use in my mountains?
in my world there is a mountain system where most of the rock is some kind of material or mineral that conducts heat very well. So much so that there is no snow on the peaks as it melts quite quickly ...
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How to limit the usefulness of an anti-gravity mineral to airship construction in steampunk?
Airships are awesome, but making them realistic while retaining the awesome factor is hard due to how relatively little weight they can realistically carry.
I was thinking about ways to mitigate that ...
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How do you navigate on a cylindrical world?
In my setting, the inhabited world is basically a huge cylinder sticking out of the pole of a gas giant with a breathable atmosphere:
Everyone lives on a side of a giant wall, basically - the top is ...
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How would limited and mostly narrow living space affect pre-industrial warfare?
In my setting, the entire known world is clinging to the side of a humongous nearly vertical cliff. Living space is a kind of commodity since there aren't many cliff benches large enough to build a ...
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Advanced mechanical engineering without electricity in a traditionally medieval fantasy setting?
Could you have advanced mechanical engineering without, say, advanced electrical engineering accompanying it? Thick clockwork, clickety clackety stuff, does it need steam/electricity by default? How ...
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What are the technologies which has a prerequest of quantum mechanics [closed]
I'm thinking about a world where the planet was wrapped by a force field that experiments which lead to quantum mechanics and special relativity gives the false result. I'm wondering what technology ...
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Logistics of a steam-powered subway system
I'm building a steampunk city, and I wanted to include an underground subway system, where things like goods and people might be transported to different parts of the city. But the logistics of ...
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How would a Steampunk voice synthesizer work?
I have a character who is mute and they would need a voice synthesizer to assist them in their day-to-day communications (shopping, working, romancing, etc.). How could that work in a Victorian-...
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How functional/versatile would airships utilizing perfect-vacuum-balloons be?
tl;dr: My world has airships using vacuum spheres made out of a super-strong and lightweight material. I'd like to know how versatile such airships could be used, and how big the spheres would be ...
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Mounting a cybernetic prosthetic arm
So I have a steampunk setting with some magic and I have a young, 20 year old female character who is supposed to have a full prosthetic arm. It might be assumed that the answer to this question could ...
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Automated Steampunk Artillery
I have a world with late 19th-century steampunk technology. The major nations are at war, and one of them has depleted a lot of its manpower.
I thought that they could try to design automated ...
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Materials preferably available up to early 1900s ideal for mechanical wings
My universe is focused on a steampunk-esque atmosphere although with more modern technologies up to the early 2000s (yes I am aware of dieselpunk, atompunk etc, but in here the steampunk aesthetic is ...
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Why would a compass not work in my world?
I’m trying to build a world with steampunk-level technology, but would like it if compasses didn’t work/exist (or, failing that, if they were prohibitively expensive or difficult to get hold of). The ...
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Coal or coal analogs without Carboniferous?
In my world, there could be no Carboniferous, during which the overwhelming majority of coal was deposited on our planet. No swamps probably exist either, cutting off that way of generating coal as ...
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Would lack of petroleum oil help make planes impossible, or uncompetitive to airships?
In my steampunk world (developed to roughly 1870-1910 levels of technological development), there are no oil deposits and flatlands are highly valuable due to their relative rarity (the entire thing ...
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Could they send a satellite in space before the 15th century?
Suddenly, on one of their routine maintenance space missions, NASA or SpaceX (or whoever else) finds a big, clunky piece of metal with some kind of mechanical, crude mechanism and a big mirror with a ...
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Can clockwork robots have any sensory apparatus other than touch/contact/pressure? [duplicate]
Ignoring the constraints of mechanical computation, what sensory modes are even available to such a robot?
Even in the 21st century artificial odor detection is rather primitive, and we have over a ...
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Sensors for a clockwork/fluidic robot?
So, mechanical computers are a thing, as are pneumatic and hydraulic actuators.
Combining those ideas, it's not that hard to design simple purely-pneumatic/hydraulic robots--provide them with a ...
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What medium to use to drive steam engines?
I want to create a Steampunk setting, but I'd like to introduce another medium than water to do the inner-engine work for me. Of course, water is a fine medium for steam engines, because:
it expands ...
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highly resistant metal or other material in late 1700s
What metal or material could be used to make super high-pressure canisters in the 1700s? It is for use as a fuel or propellant for a piston-driven engine to power vehicles, due to the fact that a gas ...
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How would medieval/Renaissance-era castles protect themselves from air raids?
Context : my fictional universe is set in a time period akin to the european Middle Ages/Renaissance. Think of the 1400s-1500s for reference.
In most aspects (political, social, industrial etc.) my ...
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Roman air force
I need help in figuring out how to form an air force in the roman empire. In my story a time traveller goes back in time to ancient rome and becomes emperor and begins his attempt at modernizing the ...
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Steam-heated Balloons?
In my world, one of the main methods of transportations is via hot-air balloon. These balloons are propelled by aluminum(or other lightweight metal, it doesn’t really matter) steam engines, and the ...
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