[Game] Work Up a Steampunk Setting

[dcarson]

Question 70- NA States & Territories
And is this a reasonable map to base our version on?

Answer 70- Hawaii
Hawaii is still and independent kingdom having been able to play off Japan vs the weaker then out world US nations. It has to maintain a strict neutrality being too small to have a major navy but as a trade port and meeting place does quite well.

[TGLS]

Question 70- NA States & Territories (Addendum)
Do the North American countries have states, territories or provinces? Or is it all Louisiana, say, from tip to tail? And is this a reasonable map to base our version on?


Answer 70
Louisiana calls itself a Confederacy, when in reality it is substantially more centralized than the United States of OTL. It is organized into provinces, territories and special cities (Primarily New Orleans, but also a half dozen other large cities). Territories are governed by elected assemblies and appointed commissioners. They have limited representation in the Constituent Assembly. Provinces are modeled after the Louisiana government and have full representation in the Constituent Assembly. Some have eliminated the lower house. Special cities are essentially the same as provinces, but are governed by city councils.

Quebec is a unitary state. Local governments exist, but are completely subordinate to national government.

The British Colonies in the Canadas (Ontario, Alberta, Newfoundland, etc.) are colonial governments with a elected council and appointed governors. The council's powers are usually limited to delaying the gubernatorial actions, proposing legislation for the governor's approval, or requesting that British Parliament remove the governor. Smart governors are usually amenable.

Texas is a true confederation with a great number of component states, some of which with their own subordinate states. The federal government has no real power that isn't granted by the states. A number of the component states used to be subordinate states of other component states.

California is a true kludge. California proper is almost a unitary state (except for the special powers granted to San Francisco and Los Angeles, and the North California devolved senates, and Southern votes on Southern laws, and...). Territories are steadily approaching total self-government as the national government gives up appointment powers to the territorial governments and allows them to write their own constitutions. However, they have no formalized process for adding Senators to the Senate, instead adding Senators by redistricting. There has been much debate to who is responsible for handling redistricting or whether redistricting can cross territorial lines.

Periphery states like Alaska or Neuva Vizcaya are basically unitary (Claims of federalism are greatly exaggerated.)

The map presented above is generally accurate for Louisiana. Note that the Thirteen Colonies and Florida are part of the Louisiana Confederacy. The purple Spanish cessions and the dotted region in Texas are points of contention between Texas and Louisiana. Areas north of Kansas are much more murky in terms of control. Quebec controls all regions modern Quebec controls.

This map is useful for discussing the territory of California and Texas. Texas directly controls Neuvo Mexico and Texas, as well as a chunk of Nueva Vizcaya. The other members of the confederation include the all of the areas bordering the Gulf of Mexico to Merida de Yucatan as well as Nuevo Reino de Leon. Nueva Vizcaya also controls Coahuila. California controls the Californias and Sonora as well as all the islands on the Pacific. The other Mexican Regions (not Guatemala and further south) are part of the Tlaxcalan-based Mexican Alliance. It is backed by Brazil.

Californian Territories:
Baja: The pacific islands mentioned earlier as well as the Baja Peninsula.
Sonora: As depicted on the Mexican map.
Columbia: Washington and Oregon
Deseret: Utah, the pink parts of Wyoming and Colorado on the first map.
Montana: Idaho and the yellow parts of Montana and Wyoming.
Nevada: Nevada and Arizona.

[(E)]

Answer 44
Many major cities have a municipal steam supply, concerns about burning coral in built up areas combined with the difficulty of of having overhead powerlinea to run electricity in places frequented by Airships has lead to many regions choosing to use underground steam pipes to transmit power instead.

Travelators
To make a building stand out rather than going for height like in OTL the people employing the designers and architects have graceful and large people moving devices on the outside (to show them off better) of their buildings. Complex screw lifters and diagonally traveling elevators are common but the having a new system that works in a dramatic or unusual fashion is what the companies want to show off their prowess. These slight extravances are more frequently found in areas with a municipal steam supply.

[Daigoro]

Just to keep things going, here are a couple of random questions:

Question 72- Brazilian Scandal
What's a scandal facing the current Imperador of Brazil, Dom Pedro IV, or a member of the royal family?

Question 73- State of Photographic Tech
As previously mentioned (by myself…)

Originally Posted by Daigoro

(Incidentally, photography is significantly retarded compared to OTL, as Napoleon forced Nicéphore Niépce to continue work on high-speed steamers, and thus his OTL discoveries in photography never occurred.)

So what is the current state of photographic and cinematic technology? Is it possible that these technologies simply don't exist, are they behind the times, or did they follow a different tech path?

[Warlockco]

Originally Posted by TGLS

This map is useful for discussing the territory of California and Texas. Texas directly controls Neuvo Mexico and Texas, as well as a chunk of Nueva Vizcaya. The other members of the confederation include the all of the areas bordering the Gulf of Mexico to Merida de Yucatan as well as Nuevo Reino de Leon. Nueva Vizcaya also controls Coahuila. California controls the Californias and Sonora as well as all the islands on the Pacific. The other Mexican Regions (not Guatemala and further south) are part of the Tlaxcalan-based Mexican Alliance. It is backed by Brazil.

Looks about what I had in mind when I thought of the the Republic of Texas.

[TGLS]

Question 73- State of Photographic Tech
So what is the current state of photographic and cinematic technology? Is it possible that these technologies simply don't exist, are they behind the times, or did they follow a different tech path?

Answer 73
Photographic technology is far behind the times. Plate glass photography is the only viable option. Dry plates were introduced at the beginning of the century. Color photography has been demonstrated in labs and won the Nobel prize (Lippmann did this in 1891 and won the prize in 1908 OTL). There have been attempts playing at film cameras (usually many plates in one camera), but most are very much unsuccessful due to clunkiness and expense. When film cameras are introduced they will probably use cellulose acetate due to fire concerns.

Reconciling Steam Grid (Recent A44) with A18
There are more reasons to why electricity is not the main method of power transmission than just overhead wires.
-> AC power has not yet been invented. Thus, transmitting electricity is very inefficent.
-> Electric motors are fairly primitive. Thus, there are significant losses in converting mechanical to electricity and back again.
-> Electricity is only necessary for electric lights. There are no other real demands for electricity.
Thus, electric power is only used where the electric power supply doesn't create heat by default (i.e. hydroelectric, wind). Electric power is usually used to provide heat for the local steam grid. City blocks that use electric lights generate DC power locally using steam from the grid.

Question 74
Why hasn't AC power been invented yet?

[Emerald Cat]

Originally Posted by TGLS

Question 74
Why hasn't AC power been invented yet?

Answer to Question 74
This setting's Edison and Tesla are "steam engineers" rather than electrical engineers. Everything is designed to work with steam rather than electricity due to steam's ubiquity. Electric motors are known to exist, but lack of electrical infrastructure makes these unattractive to investors. Without electric motors and appliances, electric lights can be powered with localized DC turbines. Research on AC power has been glacial.

Question 75
What are Edison and Tesla working on?

Question 76
Edison and Tesla were bitter rivals in OTL. Their format war over AC vs DC power turned quite acrimonious. Edison went so far as to make AC current look dangerous by introducing it as a method of execution! What format war(s) are they fighting in this setting? How far has it escalated?

[starslayer]

Originally Posted by Emerald Cat

Answer to Question 74
This setting's Edison and Tesla are "steam engineers" rather than electrical engineers. Everything is designed to work with steam rather than electricity due to steam's ubiquity. Electric motors are known to exist, but lack of electrical infrastructure makes these unattractive to investors. Without electric motors and appliances, electric lights can be powered with localized DC turbines. Research on AC power has been glacial.

Question 75
What are Edison and Tesla working on?

Question 76
Edison and Tesla were bitter rivals in OTL. Their format war over AC vs DC power turned quite acrimonious. Edison went so far as to make AC current look dangerous by introducing it as a method of execution! What format war(s) are they fighting in this setting? How far has it escalated?

Answer 75/76

No one has heard of 'Edison' beyond anecdotes of how a rich man who thought he could buy his way into being an inventor, and failed miserably wasting his family fortune.

Tesla by comparison is hugely famous for his development of the Tesla turbine/pump ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_turbine), which is a revolutionary way to extract motion from steam, or motion to achieve work (moving fuel, gas, or water). Turbines form his design are vital to modern tar coral extraction.

Tesla's work in turbines and harmonics have significantly advanced what can be done with steam power, make it safer, as well as make failures more graceful and less prone to serious injury.

His work in magnetic theory is responsible for TEWS (Tesla Electromagnetic Warning System), a system of embedding magnetic collars around boilers and steam transmission pipes that are connected to a meter for easy display next to the steam controls. The meter reads the current deflection/vibration in the pipes, the meter will slide into the 'red' before any catastrophic failure, or venting of steam, takes place.

Further his work in domestic compression refrigeration has put a Tesla in basically every home, revolutionizing personal food storage and giving everyone all the more reason to run personal boilers.

Tesla has a variety of patents and work projects related to the system of tar coral and its interactions with other matter. Tesla's most recent project is that he has discovered a way to catalyze tar coral with atmospheric condensation- building a 'self-feeding' low output steam engine. He further proposes that his catalyzing system could be used to "instantly extra all potential energy from the coral in a water system", and has drawn up plans for a steam cannon he says is capable of launching a projectile into orbit.

Tesla's work, as it did in our world, often walks a fine line between 'revolutionary' and 'crackpot neo-mystiscisim', sometimes on the wrong side of that line- he has made, and continues to make a lot of research into, the capability of Tesla-Turbine powered message devices to do everything form cure mundane ailments to raise the recently deceased (basically steam-Tesla's version of the violet ray https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violet_ray ), as well as extensive experimentation into Tar Coral interactions.


Question 77
With so many 'new age' mystics and therapy moving around, peddling cures like soaking ones feet in baths containing electric eels, diets of strict corn flakes, and steam powered message devices to handle hysteria, sore muscles, boost intelligence, relieve stress, and myriad other claims- are any of them getting close to tapping into the magic that actually does exist (potentially from atypical and unseen avenues)? Are there any measure to prevent/encourage this from existing practitioners?

[(E)]

Answer 44
Black wool insulation
One of the byproducts of burning semi refined tar coral is soot. But a very specific soot that can be harvested by a skilled "Blackshear". This is what is known as a type of Buckey tube in otl. This blackwool can be woven into mats and it is quite abundant. Cheap and plentiful blackwool is an excellent thermal insulator that can be easily treated for a number of specific applications, lagging steam pipes being the most common.

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by (E)

lagging steam pipes being the most common.

Had to look that one up (ref: 1. the act of covering a boiler, oil tank, etc., with heat-insulating material./2. the covering formed.) In my day, it was another word for snitching.