Early Victorian Science Fiction?

[v_lazy_dragon]

Has anyone done any 'early Victorian' VSF? Any suggestions for potential inspiration?

Most folks seem to be firmly in  the 1875-1900s bracket, with a few in the ACW, but my victorian figure collection is firmly pre-Crimea.... Coatees, bell top shakos, shell jackets and forage caps.
Most of the invetions of the following 20 years have potential as 'inventions' - ironclads, revolvers, repeater carbines and hand cranked machine guns from mister Gatling. Not a far stretch to go for land ironclads, although probably closer to lumbering fixed gun mobile emplacements (the old Redoubt 'Victoria's secret weapons models come to mind) rather than some of the nimbler 'steam tankettes' from Ironclad

[AdmiralAndy]

Has anyone done any 'early Victorian' VSF? Any suggestions for potential inspiration?

Most folks seem to be firmly in  the 1875-1900s bracket, with a few in the ACW, but my victorian figure collection is firmly pre-Crimea.... Coatees, bell top shakos, shell jackets and forage caps.
Most of the invetions of the following 20 years have potential as 'inventions' - ironclads, revolvers, repeater carbines and hand cranked machine guns from mister Gatling. Not a far stretch to go for land ironclads, although probably closer to lumbering fixed gun mobile emplacements (the old Redoubt 'Victoria's secret weapons models come to mind) rather than some of the nimbler 'steam tankettes' from Ironclad

Present vogue for those in the era your refering to is more Turnip 28 and the recently released Silver Bayonet rather than SteamNaps gaming, or you get the earlier Italian WarsmSteampunk Musketeers type stuff using Da Vincis inventions. So the Naps horror twisted reality is well covered not so much French Revolution Steampunk. Sorry to be negative for what your looking for, good luck on your quest though

[v_lazy_dragon]

Thanks - its really that post Napoleonic period I am after.
1st Afghan war, 1st Maori War, Alami, Mexican-American War, Cape wars kinda era... But yes, I fear I am doing my usual "super niche" exploits, and that others might have found other outlets

[OSHIROmodels]

Not really explored the time period (all our stuff is 1880’s or thereabouts) but if you’re after ‘tech’ then balloons would be a prime source as well as naval elements of course.

[swiftnick]

I have dabbled in the earlier period a few times. Less of the space 1889 focus on technology and more on the Supernatural. The Perry New York rioters versus zombies that sort of thing. I did start a campaign where the British found the hidden valley of shangrila about the time of the mutiny but it didn't take off.

[Cat]

First steam powered car was 1769.  First steam locomotive railway opened in 1804.  Oruktor amphibolos amphibious craft 1805.
 
So lots of early vehicle possibilities to work from, looking forward to seeing what you come up with!

[AdmiralAndy]

So have gone away and thought about it.

As others have posted, steam powered tech was around since mid 17th century, balloons were used in warfare during the Napoleonic era I belive, so stick a steam powered propeller on and hey presto airship.

Just advance some of the inovations a decade or two and you get quite a different sort of warfare. You did have steampowered navies in combat in the 1830s/1840s, well the Mexicans had steampowered ships, the Texian Lone Star State still had sailing ships and are notable as having a under sail fleet defeat a steam powered fleet. Just have the mexicans stick armour plate on, Ironclads 20 years early the tech was already there just the inovation to apply it was missing.

If you want a more sifi aspect gold old Doctor Who has a few stories from the era your mentioning. Peter Capaldi story with great London ice fayre 1814 has an alien fish
which produces rocket fuel level of power poop which is farmed.

More recently the Crimea was fought between te Briish Empire and the Sontaran Empire. Maybe experiments with the fish poop trying to get to the moon got Earth noticed.... The Crimea episode does have an alternate map on screen briefly.

It really depends what your after that the later normal VSF settings aren't ticking your boxes? Do you want Alien Invasions, which conflicts do you want to have with steampunk and how does it apply?


If its a case of you want the VSF sort of thing, then knock a few decades of the dates, add it in, mix as required and have fun, its your alternate history so not like someone else can shake there head at you and go 'That's not what happened, or what it says in supplement XX'.

[Cacique Caribe]

Does the old Wild Wild West series qualify as early VSF, with all its guided torpedoes and other gadgets?

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0748591/

Dan

[Cat]

Does the old Wild Wild West series qualify as early VSF, with all its guided torpedoes and other gadgets?

American Civil War and later is thoroughly VSF time period.  Wild Wild West is well past the early stages of VSF, smack in the apex of Victoria's reign. 

[FramFramson]

Aesthetically, I think one cue to make these unique would be to take contemporary machines (or ones 10-20 years later, as many have suggested) and just over-complicate them (British engineers will never use one part when four will do...  ). So you could have something like the Salamanca, Puffing Billy, or Blucher, but with extra pipes, gauges, and knobs to create a VSF effect. You could also perhaps change the running gear for something like traction engine wheels to take them off rails.

They would be slower than dirt but rules could be created to give them utility in-game, perhaps with a row of pavises or armour plates spread out from the front, allowing the engine to be used as movable cover terrain.

[Bogdanwaz]

I did a couple of games of weird science AWI that I called "Ben Franklin's War"  So not Early Victorian but "Mid-Georgian" perhaps?  The British had steam technology, the Americans used electricity and harmonics with balloons loaned by the French, who also, thanks to Antoine Levoisier, used weird chemistry. Here's some reports on my blog:

http://bogdanwaz.blogspot.com/search/label/Ben%20Franklin%27s%20War

[MaleGriffin]

I remember that game as one of the MOST IMPRESSIVE at that Historicon! Lovely and beautifully executed!

[carlos marighela]

As a side project, I have been putting together bits and bobs for a based a bit on history/ trouble at mill scenario, combining the more wargamery bits of the Chartist revolt, the ‘Swing Riots’, Bossenden Wood and various agrarian disturbances etc, etc for a civil insurrection somewhere set in the late 1830s. I have always found the late Regency and early Victorian period a bit more appealing.

At the time of Victoria ascending to the throne high tech is the railroad and the high priest of tech is Stephenson, so if you wanted an early VSF I’d be locating it around the outgrowth of Stephenson’s Rocket and various other infernal machines. The beauty about early choo-choos is that to a modern eye they are so exotic and unusual looking and as a bonus, once you have sorted the wheels out, look like easy scratch builds, largely because most of them were, indeed, one-off scratch builds themselves. Have a look at Puffing Billy, the creation of one of Stephenson’s early rivals. Going back even earlier you have Trevithick’s bizarre looking London Steam carriage.

Bit of inspiration here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOGYZC-IJPQ

There’s even a diecast 1/64 Stephenson’s Rocket out there if you are scale agnostic and/ or can’t be bothered making your own.

Add balloons, early steam paddle and screw vessels, the first suspension bridges and you really could create a very distinctive looking world and the beauty is that the established tech of the late 19th C is really bleeding edge stuff a few decades earlier.

[Westfalia Chris]

The only two novels I am aware of being set in an earlier timeframe would be William Gibson's "The Difference Engine" (in 1855) and Stephen Baxter's "Anti-Ice" (sometime after the Crimean, but it might be as late as 1870 - it has been almost twenty years since I last read either) which explore the computer age and the nuclear age, respectively, occurring in the 19th century.

Both are rather technology-focused, though, which might not exactly be what you are looking for.

There still are some interesting ideas in The Difference Engine, such as Luddite uprisings and (hoping I'm not mixing up the two) a Marxist commune controlling a city state of New York. The main advancement is of course the information processor, actually house-sized analytical engines of Babbage's design, but some mentions are made of steam-driven coaches and armoured cars. The main focus is social change brought about by advanced data processing, though.

[The_Beast]

My apologies on my not finding same, though my searching was hardly exhaustive, but I seem to recall things in the Gothic section that might dovetail into your seekings.

If this jogs anyone else's memory, all credit to you!

Doug