When you think of steampunk, do you think 1800s like a lot of people, or do you factor in modern things like modern habits, musical styles, job practice, and greater equality among racial and social differences?
While I love Victorian/western steam, I feel that even if such machines kept being used, social and perceptual changes that we live with now might still develop. Musicians might still develop rock and hip hop music but use different instruments, but based on the same social backgrounds; cars and subways running on steam engines might look and be used something like today with steam powered lunch wagons, public transit stations, and rush hour traffic; and in the light of the capibilites of someone with a lightning gun or jet pack, older social inequalities might seem as antiqued in a present with clockwork computers as one with electronics.
The combustion engine did not make these things happens, who's to say the steam- or crystal engine might stop any of it?
While I love Victorian/western steam, I feel that even if such machines kept being used, social and perceptual changes that we live with now might still develop. Musicians might still develop rock and hip hop music but use different instruments, but based on the same social backgrounds; cars and subways running on steam engines might look and be used something like today with steam powered lunch wagons, public transit stations, and rush hour traffic; and in the light of the capibilites of someone with a lightning gun or jet pack, older social inequalities might seem as antiqued in a present with clockwork computers as one with electronics.
The combustion engine did not make these things happens, who's to say the steam- or crystal engine might stop any of it?
