"Would The Eclipse Cut It As Mars Airship In VSF Or Fantasy?" Topic

Or would it be laughed at (because of the wings) by all the cool steam-powered airships already flying over Barsoom?

This is the ship I mean:

link

Dan
TMP link

How about this other winged one, from a 1904 illustration of Verne's Master of the World?

Dan

Don't see why not! A bit would depend on the ground rules for the setting and what keeps things aloft, but wings for maneuvering Make Sense in any setting.

And just because normal Aerial craft is a setting may be held up be liftwood or hydrogen or vacuum chambers or electrical anti-gravity or Cavorite doesn't mean a clever chap with a Bright Idea can't add another system. The old Space:1889 rules practically encouraged it… many of the inventions discussed were new ways of flying.

I don't see why not. Everything doesn't have to be belching smoke.

Agree with 79thPA – No reason why it would be laughed at, it's a think of beauty, a one off wonder. The sort of ship that the intrepid hero (shirt torn), being unable to find any other flying vehicle remembers that "one off experiment" that his aged professor friend created long, long ago and uses it to chase the evil villain to his secret lair and rescue the love of his life.

Ahhh, the old plots are the good plots.

"They laughed when I presented my aeroship, constructed of layered Cytherian Jubjub-fibre paper doped with Arean Klaaght-resins. Until I showed them how it worked…."

Is the Verne illo a small craft for the Albatross? I know my steam merchant will have winged for boats ship-to-ground access.

The ship itself will use several undersized Edison Negative Gravity Screws, long unused except in small craft, though the designer, a mad Russian, had worked a way to tune them for use together.

Alas, he was crushed to death when it unexpectedly settled during trials. His secret is thought to have died with him.

In spite of failure to use traditional liftwood or the modern R-Matter, it's been in service for years without an issue.

Been working so well that the 'accident' is now rumored to have been staged.

Really, you can mix and match this crap all day. ;->=

Doug

Edit: And if it's BARSOOM, I'm pretty sure the native craft ARE winged. Just saying.

Is it any different than Chinese junks alongside modern steam ships?

Old designs like junks and dhows are still in use to this day, and are even made new out of modern materials like fiberglass.

When large, expensive machines are involved, old and new are often seen together. When there are also cultural boat and ship building traditions, those tend to last long into the next age of "superior tech", until the so-called "superior" technology becomes more affordable than the old tech.

- Ix