Spurious Contraptions & Other Steampunk Oddities

[KingArthur]

Not sure whether this is of use to anyone outside the UK but BBC Radio 4's Book at Bedtime is a reading of The First Men in the Moon by HG Wells. On all this week and available on iPlayer the day after.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lnmxy

 

[Blue Monkey]

Thanks, KingArthur. Librivox is another good source for many public domain downloadable books. I'm currently listening to Edison's Conquest of Mars.

 

[KingArthur]

Librivox - The quality of the narrators can be a bit hit and miss as can the quality of the recordings. Apart from that it's a great concept.

 

[Blue Monkey]

You're right about the narrators. OTOH, it's a source for stories - like ECoMC or Strange Manuscript Found In A Copper Cylinder - that are too rare or too expensive to get other ways, but useful for designing our scenarios. For example, the space craft described in ECoM are worth a unit. Picture a brass railway passenger car with what look like small wings but are really part of the control system for manipulating telluric energies that Tesla described, in order to selectively counteract gravitic effects. Most of the weapons & other technology described are attributed to Edison but really based on Tesla's work.

 

[Wyrmshadow]

Seen this yet?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds0-2irdP4c

 

[Plotinus]

That looks a lot of fun.

 

[Blue Monkey]

Thanks for the link. Yes, a lot of fun! Enough so that i wanted to see if there were images with good views of potential units or improvements. Their website has some stills with better resolution. And the trailer seems to stream better at the website of one of the techs involved than at youtube.

 

[Blue Monkey]

While waiting for a response from Wyrmshadow I took a screenshot of my current desktop. It's a reproduction of Athanasius Kircher's Magnetic Oracle at the Museum of Jurassic Technology. 200 years too early for steampunk, but then he was ahead of his time.

 

[Blue Monkey]

Some things are self-explanatory. Should it be in the requested units list? With a small Volta Cannon on the handlebars - charged in transit by the engine, of course.

 

[KingArthur]

That made me laugh Blue, thanks.

Here's something new on one of my favourite sites (io9):

http://io9.com/5334606/portraits-from-the-steampunk-planet-of-the-apes/gallery/

 

[Blue Monkey]

Love that new avatar, KA. Maybe a unit concept for the Lamarckian tech? Too bad the uniform isn't, say, cerulean.

Believe it or not I've yet to own a cell phone. But I could see myself with one of these. Could carry blank cards for people to jot their number on & punch later. Voice-over in coffee shop "Should I hand her the one with cupid, the gear, or the rook?"

 

[Moosezilla]

Is that the forerunner of B.O. Plenty's "Magnetic Air Car"?

 

[Blue Monkey]

Is that the forerunner of B.O. Plenty's "Magnetic Air Car"?

I'd have to see it. Got a link?

 

[Moosezilla]

No link. Try Dick Tracy, I will. oops! invention was Diet Smith's! for a color image : HTTP://www.hillcity-comics/models_dick_tracy_space_coupe.htm (DON'T WORK)anyhow still can buy at megahobby.com for $11....see clubhouse model museum!

 

[Blue Monkey]

I remember that! Mmmmm, Moon Maid.


Now if only Cyrano had been a steampunk...

 

[Balthasar]

If I remember, Tracy also had personal flyers sometime around 1970. Diet Smith's cop-toys were the best part of Dick Tracy back then...

 

[Blue Monkey]

If I remember, Tracy also had personal flyers sometime around 1970. Diet Smith's cop-toys were the best part of Dick Tracy back then...

There were circular platforms - kind of like the bucket on a "cherry picker". given things like the steampunk versions of marvel superheros I wonder what a sp tracy universe would be like. Certainly the lunar civilization in a rift canyon would an interesting contrast to the selenites.

 

[Blue Monkey]

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance - Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem!
Can a steampunk "Zombie Island" scenario be far behind? I know it would be fun to put together a team to create an sp urban terrain set.

 

[Blue Monkey]

Well, it's no Baphomet - it doesn't yet speak - but a clockwork laughing head does exist.

 

[West 36]

I've been lurking this subforum for a while, excited to see what comes of it, and I hope that progress is still going well, but I found something that, if you haven't seen it yet, I'm sure you'd enjoy!

Link to video.
hope there are plenty of airships to play with now