Hello everybody!
I am here to tell you that there are two kinds of 'steampunk' design. There is a correct way and an incorrect way! Almost everybody does the latter. Why? I'm honestly not sure. People seem convinced that plastering anything in brass gears and steam gauges makes something 'steampunk'. Observe:
Seriously, what the fuck.
Less obnoxious, but still fairly pointless, examples:
Okay, I get it. It's steampunk. Everything is supposed to work by steam, right? Act like it, then. Why would a firearm need fucking exposed gears on it? If it's a steam-fired weapon, figure out something practical and minimalistic.
Of course, my main point here is that applying the principles of steampunk to everything that works in that environment is pretty dumb. It makes sense replacing electrical or internal combustion appliances with steam-powered ones, right? Or at least having any electricity being steam-generated, yeah? That is fine. Making literally everything depend on steam, though, is pretty iffy.
As a general rule, people tend to treat steampunk as though technological advancement froze in the Victorian era. Lots of wood, lots of brass, lots of wrought iron and not a whole lot of steel. People dress and behave like they would have in that period. That's cool, it makes sense, it was a time of great upheaval and industrialisation. You know what, though? When it comes to some things, it's better to pull them over without change. I'm going to focus on guns, because guns are my thing and they also tend to be the worst offenders by far in the steampunk genre.
Guns were still not quite perfected back in the day. They still aren't, but we have a pretty good idea of what works and what doesn't. Not so in Victorian times; repeating firearms were still a new thing, and as with all new things, nobody had a fucking clue how anything was supposed to work. The early stages of any new tech are always the most exciting, because you see such wild diversity as designers try and figure out what is or isn't the best path of development.
Observe, the Degueldre revolver:
This was an actual thing, designed by a Frenchman. It was a pinfire revolver that was reloaded by swinging down the lever under the barrel, which sprung the entire front half of the gun forwards and ejected the spent cartridges. The lever was then returned, closing the action, and the revolver loaded through a loading gate on the right side.
Novel mechanisms like these were plentiful, not just for revolvers, but for all guns. Early autoloading handguns - the Borchardt, Mars, Bergmann, even the Luger - they were all odd-looking things with intricate mechanics.
Rifles could be even stranger.
Basically, stop putting gears on everything you fucking fucks. Brass is fine, gears and gauges are not.
Originally Posted by rossmum
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