4 Steampunk Space Universes

4 Steampunk Space Universes
-----------------------------
Preface: In designing a setting which has rocketpunk levels of space exploration and settlement, steampunk technology and aesthetics, and realism, you have to balance the three. There is no hard science AND historically authentic alternate history where the victorians explored space. Something has to give. Either you have to use real technology that the victorians didn't have, making it less steampunk; less extensive space efforts, making it less of an interesting universe; or add hand-waved devices like antigravity or magic fuels, making it less realistic.

Here are four settings which relax each of the three requirements somewhat in order to get a coherent space setting.
---------------------------------

British Ministry of Astronautics

In the 1850s, rockets developed for use in the war were being experimented with for building bigger bombs. Study into rocket science leads to an understanding of the rocket equation, multi-staging of rockets, and eventually even orbital mechanics. The United Kingdom invests into a science program with the public purpose of exploring space, but with the private purpose of developing intercontinental ballistic missiles. By the 1860s, rockets enter space. By the late 1860s, an unmanned satellite covered in reflective material shines like a dim sky over the world. By the 1890s, men have flown in space and unmanned crafts controlled by mechanical computers have photographed the dark side of the moon. By the time the victorian era comes to a close, the first plans to develop chemical fueled rockets for larger payloads and exploration of the moon are starting to become realized. Liquid Hydrogen is created. But by the time any of this can become truly impressive, the victorian era ends, and becomes more of a teslapunk or dieselpunk history. This is the most modest of the settings in terms of space exploration and colonization, but it is also the closest to being a realistic alternate history, and being hard-steampunk.

-------------------------------------

The Flare System

A solar system with a red flare star was colonized by human starships long long ago (I mean really a long time in the future), but the flare star produces geomagnetic storms which wreak havoc on all electronic technology, which is lost for millenia. By the time civilization is re-industrialized, there is next to nothing known about electricity, and experiments constantly fail to produce useful results. As a result, electricity is never anything more than an experimental oddity. This doesn't prevent things like diesel engines from replacing steam engines, of course. Eventually the civilization's eyes turn skywards, and large-scale exploration of space commences. While it's not neccessarily steampunk--other engines than steam exist, there's not necessarily any victorian-era visual aesthetics, and material science and metalurgy is quite a lot better; all spaceships are realistic. An additional problem arises with the fact that the flare star would kill off life on the homeworld, especially the not-adapted humans. Not to mention the fact that there ARE ways of dealing with geomagnetic storms to get working electric and electronic devices. Still, the "rules of the game" as a designer are simple. Any technology is available, as long as there's no electronics. Control systems are mechanical, displays are gauges, but rockets have had decades and decades to go through R&D, and there's been decades and decades for the space opera setting to be set up.

---------------------------------------

Blast Coal

A mineral similar to coal is discovered in meteorites. When burned it lasts hundreds of times longer than a normal lump of coal and burns quite a bit hotter too. It's actually a type of coal with a few percent of a special nano-carbon-structure which holds antimatter in it. It was left behind by the Gods, or the Precursors, or the Martians, or whatever, and can only be found in carbonaceous asteroids--luckily one of them has captured into a medium/low earth orbit! The Ministry of Astronautics is formed as in the first alternate history, but with a valuable macguffinite in the form of blast coal! Revolutionary fuel supply, capable of fueling NTR-like rockets and far more efficient than terrestrial coal. It even keeps the steam engine around longer, you can't make an internal combustion engine run off of coal, after all! This is hard steampunk, as you keep the steam engine around even after the victorian era ends, and it's high-space rocketpunk, as the high-power rocket engines allow you to go much further, much cheaper, and with bigger payloads. But it does, unfortunately, have the flaw in requiring you have a totally made-up fictional resource in space. While spaceships can be both impressive AND realistic (and even solid rocket boosters, the most steampunk of rockets, are able to be used), the basic setup of the universe is fundamentally changed. This is no longer really an alternate history, but an entirely alternate universe!

---------------------------------------

Wellsiverse

Inventor and astronomer Thomas H. Wells invents a fantastic new contraption! An anti-gravity generator. Simply apply mechanical steam power to the device and fly away! The Wells Engine is total hogwash pseudoscientific handwavium, but if you assume that to be your one "gimme" then victorian era space-operas can be realized. Hard-Space, because you can get truly massive spaceships, space stations, and space exploration. Hard-steampunk, because aside from the Wells Engine everything else can use victorian technology in the victorian era--you could take this as a somewhat serious alternate history if you're ok with ignoring the handwavium introduced. But it's not at all realistic. Reactionless drives are some of the least realistic types of sci-fi propulsion. I don't seriously propose this one, but this is the method that I see most in "popular" steampunk. Invent a new magical device that is better than even current technology, and give it to the victorians. But be careful, as adding futuristic technology can be a slippery slope. One futuristic technology is a handwave. But add too much futuristic technology and you end up with soft-steampunk. That is, it's got the aesthetics of copper tubes and gears and whatnot, but it can't be taken seriously as an alternate history. Soft-steampunk is fine, and seems to be the most popular kind of steampunk. But it's not my cup of tea.

--------------------------------------------------------
Conclusion

Steampunk is not just a certain aesthetic--one which has been flanderized and corrupted by self-reference in popular media to be an over-exaggerated mess. The popular steampunk aesthetic is just messy. There should be no such thing as a Steampunk Lamp, with gears and rivets and absurd levels of detail. A steampunk lamp should just be an oil lamp from the 1800s, or perhaps an early lightbulb fixture. Steampunk fashion puts way too much focus on the technology and not enough on the basics. Not everyone will have had robotic arms and goggles and gears on their hats. Not every device is covered in gears. Steampunk Trains shouldn't be big copper-brown masses of metal with golden tubes and gears coming out of them, they should just be old steam locomotives. It's fine if you like these kinds of things in your steampunk but I don't.

To me, the fun of steampunk comes from imagining how technologies could have been realized by victorian-era engineers and inventors. Looking at actual inventions from the era and imagining how they might have taken off if history was different. Imagining a world powered by mechanisms and steam, not electronics and electricity. It's not necessarily a better, world, but it is an interesting one. So to me, the most interesting steampunk space settings to build for capitalize on this.

British Ministry of Space is fun because it is the closest to historically accurate you can get and still have spaceships. Designing for this, you'd have to look at historical british rockets, the propellants available at the time, how pressure vessels capable of withstanding a vacuum could be produced, and analyzing how much rockets would cost in the economy of the time, reconciling it with that.

Flare System changes the rules of the game a bit. The goal isn't to be steampunk, but to build spaceships and space stations without electricity. No limitations on historical accuracy of materials, no need to consider the economy, no need to think of a detailed tech tree. Just the raw design limitation of no electricity. Getting light into spaceships is actually quite difficult with this limitation! I've concocted different designs for mirrors to focus light into space stations, considerations of lighting in the command decks of spaceships, etc. Flare System puts the focus of spacecraft design on the parts that, with electricity, we usually gloss over. Like how do you actually turn on the rocket engine? How do you steer the Reaction Control Thrusters? How do you land on a planet if you don't have a radar altimeter.

Blast Coal combines some of the fun of British Ministry of Space with the fun of Flare System. British Ministry of Space is more focused on things like Sputnik and Mercury and Explorer-1 and MAYBE Apollo. But Blast Coal lets you go the next step. Building actual spaceships within the materials, budgets, and technology of victorion era industry, BUT with the extra help from the blast coal to make it possible.