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Apr. 28th, 2013 11:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
madbakerAn article in the SF Comicle this morning referred to Emperor Joshua Norton as "the godfather of steampunk." How is that? The Emperor was, admittedly, a very cool crazy historical character. But to the best of my knowledge he never did *anything* with gears, Jacob's Ladders, or mutant gerbils. If you want a historical personage to venerate, how about Ada Lovelace? She was Lord Byron's daughter and a lifelong friend of Charles Babbage. A mathematician, she understood how the Difference Engine would work and could easily have been a programmer.
For those who say "Steampunk is an alternate-universe thing, and in this canon the Emperor could have been the patron of steamtech" - in that case, it's just as valid to venerate James T. Kirk as the godfather of steampunk. Because once I wrote some fanfic about an alternate universe where Captain Kirk went back to the 18th century, and started the industrial revolution so he could build a warp engine. He was inspired/assisted by my Mary Sue, who also had badly-written sex with him.
(Okay, I never wrote that fanfic. But in an alternate universe I did, so it still counts.)
For those who say "Steampunk is an alternate-universe thing, and in this canon the Emperor could have been the patron of steamtech" - in that case, it's just as valid to venerate James T. Kirk as the godfather of steampunk. Because once I wrote some fanfic about an alternate universe where Captain Kirk went back to the 18th century, and started the industrial revolution so he could build a warp engine. He was inspired/assisted by my Mary Sue, who also had badly-written sex with him.
(Okay, I never wrote that fanfic. But in an alternate universe I did, so it still counts.)
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Date: 2013-04-29 12:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-02 02:26 pm (UTC)