Steampunk in SPAAAAACE!...???...Seriously

[ProtoClone]

I was wondering what other people thoight Steampunk in space would look like?
I know some setting have gone that step but I was wondering how you would do it?

Myself? I was thinking that the ships will have had the same approach as Cpt. Nemo had for his ship the Nautilus. Ships that resemble sea creatures with fins, or other appropriate parts, made of material much like solar sails. Steam vents help in the control of the stearing and docking of these ships as along with the heating for the crew.

Also, what do you think aliens would be like?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I think it'd look exactly like Space: 1889.

 

[Mallus]

It's all about the Cavorite.

Also, the aliens would look ripe for colonial exploitation. That usually means, you know, a few shades darker than the colonizers.

 

[Peni Griffin]

Oh, boy, have I got the book for you! Larklight, A Rousing Tale of Dauntless Pluck in the Farthest Reaches of Space, by Phillip Reeves. Space pirates! A Venusian plague that turns people into trees! Space whales among the rings of Saturn! Terraforming white space spiders! Hoverhogs!
http://www.amazon.com/Larklight-Rou...6360956?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1175800820&sr=1-1

 

[ProtoClone]

I think it'd look exactly like Space: 1889.

Yeah I am aware that such a setting exists. I want to know what you could come up with.

See what I was thinking was something that wasn't so hoaky.

 

[Pbartender]

See what I was thinking was something that wasn't so hoaky.

Steam-powered spaceships shaped like sea creatures with solar sails is less hokey?

I've got to side with Whizbang on this one... Space: 1889 is pretty close to how I'd do it.

 

[painandgreed]

You could go with more a ERB flavor and just have tranport to the different worlds via portals, death, secret caves, or some other fairly unexplained phenomenon. Or go with HG Wells style platform but the machine travels to planets or dimentions instead of time. You could also just shoot them out of guns, but you wanted something a little less cheezy.

My suggestion, skip steam and go straight to Teslapunk and electric cannons, deathrays, and power transmitting towers. With power tranmitted though the air, you could have floating platforms supported by rotors or even easy tranport to orbit if you could come up with an electric engine. There could also be railguns for launching things into space, and androids (Tesla did lots of work with robotics).

 

[WayneLigon]

See what I was thinking was something that wasn't so hoaky.

I don't see the hokiness of it. It was a pretty well-thought-out world design based on what people beleived in at the time (the Ether, canals on Mars, etc). Really I don't think anyone else could do much better or anything very different and still remain within spitting distance of the source material and the time period.

 

[The_Gneech]

Steampunk is by its very nature hokey! That's like saying you want "Pulp Interplanetary Romance" that isn't hokey.

-The Gneech

 

[Piratecat]

Be happy: Star Wars as steampunk!

http://ericpoulton.blogspot.com/