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

[Ry]

Spelljammer... spelljammer... spelljammer...

 

[Pbartender]

Spelljammer... spelljammer... spelljammer...

As much I didn't like the movie itself all that much, I've always thought that the ideas behind Treasure Planet would make for a great steampunk-style setting for Spelljammer.

 

[Ry]

I was especially thinking the Neogi, Beholder and Illithids as space monsters (exactly as spelljammer does them) is sweet.

Oh, look! Here's a copy of Lords of Madness by my side!

 

[William drake]

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?

Well, I'd go with the look, of Steampunck since it is a very interesting and stylish approach...but as for the science...sorry, Id have to up date it. Things would work like standard scifi games. I couldn't get it into my head that the ships in space were powered by steam, got to the speed of light by steam, just...ahh it hurts my head.

 

[I'm A Banana]

One of my proto-campaigns had a great World Tree. People lived in it's branches. Goblins and Orks infested the roots. And the very tip of it grew up to meet the Moon...out in space...

 

[Rel]

Be happy: Star Wars as steampunk!

http://ericpoulton.blogspot.com/

That is some COOL artwork!

 

[dougmander]

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.

I, too, am trying to figure out how my beloved Space: 1889 is hokey. Maybe because it's too well-grounded in the literature, culture, and speculative science of the actual Victorian era to qualify as steampunk?

it's hard to beat Space: 1889's "ether propeller" concept for coolness, but you could posit ships that are launched into orbit by super-cannons, as in Verne, or powered by the antigravity material liftwood, oops, I mean, cavorite, as in Wells.

Radiation pressure was in fact deduced theoretically by Maxwell in the 1870s, so the idea of solar sails in a steampunk game fits pretty nicely into Victorian speculative science.

I seem to remember an extremely wacky Dr. Who story about a yacht race in space, where the "deck hands" wore bulky spacesuits to climb the rigging and trim the solar sails.

As for your aliens, how about a race of clockworkmen, possibly the progeny of automatons built by now-vanished Martians as slaves, only to overthrow their masters and now threaten Earth?

Or maybe just some bat-crazy octopus men.