Where have all the Zeppelins gone?

So why is it the only steampunk novel I can find is Fitzpatrick's War, an excellent book, but just one. Where are all the other ones?

Click to expand...

I looked at the description and reviews at Amazon, it's not what I thought it might be, it's an "alternate future" rather than an alternate history that I thought Steampunk would neccesarily be. But anyway...

I read "The Difference Engine" thinking I'd like it, but it wasn't anything like what I thought and hoped it would be. I kept looking for the hardware, and it was as hard to find as the sex and violence in Asimov's novels. What's an example of some real, good Steampunk, or have you only now just started writing it? I may have to write my own too. This highly technological civilization sucks.

Aw heck, I don't have to restart all those stalled novels, do I?

Hmm. Could be my first New Year's resolution.

Or I could go back to bed. Decisions...

-Derek

Helium is limited. The only way helium exists is through the fusion process that occurred during the big bang and during radioactive decay. On earth, most helium was created by radioactive decay. And since it doesn't bind with anything chemically, it remains pure helium, which under normal circumstances, is a gas, which means it goes into the atmosphere and escapes. A major source of helium is from natural gas and oil deposits underground. The same geological formations that trap natural gas or oil and keep it from escaping also trap helium. Once its all gone, there is no easy way to get large quantities of helium. The main strategic use for helium is as a coolant for particle accelerators and such equipment that need to operate near absolute zero.

Or something like that.

The problem with airships is that they have to be huge to contain enough helium to maintain bouyancy. But they have to be light and therefore fragile. That doesn't correlate well to naval ships made out of steel. Plus the atmosphere is extremely volatile compared to the ocean. Ships float on the ocean naturally, but airships have to constantly adjust their bouyancy to maintain a constant altitude.

They're fun for fantasy tales, but they do require a certain level of suspension of disbelief to be read.

Just use Hydrogen in your Zepps

Zoombie said:

Most fantasy tales need a suspension of disbelief. Is it really that hard to think of some kind of fantastic answer to the air-ship logical problem. Maybe some kind of 'magic gas'

As long as your world is consistent and fun to read, everything will be fine. Thats my two rules for writing, consistent and fun.

Click to expand...

Why not just use Hydrogen? Lighter than Helium, easy to manufacture and the dangers of its inflammable nature can add to the steamy or punkish atmosphere.

Sokal said:

Why not just use Hydrogen? Lighter than Helium, easy to manufacture and the dangers of its inflammable nature can add to the steamy or punkish atmosphere.

Click to expand...

If you have airships with hydrogen, you can't have fixed wing aircraft of any significance. Your fixed wing planes must fly too slow, too low, or something that explains how a zeppelin with hydrogen isn't shot out of the sky.

No Petroleum?

greglondon said:

If you have airships with hydrogen, you can't have fixed wing aircraft of any significance. Your fixed wing planes must fly too slow, too low, or something that explains how a zeppelin with hydrogen isn't shot out of the sky.

Click to expand...

so true. Either the Zepps are magic or...the airplanes have no fuel...

Make your Hydrogen with electricity and water and have no fossil fuels to make aviation gas...Zepps run on wood-fueled steam engines...?

Zepps used internal combustion engines

Zoombie said:

A thought occures. Dragons would be a big problem...but before I get ahead of myself.

Fixed wing air-craft...fixed wing aircraft require a lot more 'machining' than a zeppelin, right? The moter and prop and so on...so they could just not have that level of machining. They made hot air baloons far eariler than fixed wing aircraft, and zepplins are, based off my somewhat...shaky understanding of steam technology, simmiliar to hot air baloons.

To the reserch forum!

Click to expand...

Zepps used internal combustion engines. You could have them use something else (big batteries?)...but in this world, they used the same technology as airplanes.

Given early 20th century technology, a Zepp is only going to last as long as it takes to get a plane to go 80 mph, climb to 20,000 feet and carry a machine gun and reach the Zepp.

The US Navy had Zepps that could carry fighter planes in the mid-1930s....so some wierd combos are possible.

Zepps remained useful in areas where airplanes were primitive or were hampered by other factors such as over the North Sea or the Black Sea where they could not be intercepted. Even as nightbombers Zepps failed against even the most primitive defenses.

Even now, various balloon-based technologies have some interesting potential military uses such as for electronic warfare or to replace satelite communication networks or for high altitude recon...

Zoombie said:

A thought occures. Dragons would be a big problem...but before I get ahead of myself.

Fixed wing air-craft...fixed wing aircraft require a lot more 'machining' than a zeppelin, right? The moter and prop and so on...so they could just not have that level of machining. They made hot air baloons far eariler than fixed wing aircraft, and zepplins are, based off my somewhat...shaky understanding of steam technology, simmiliar to hot air baloons.

To the reserch forum!

Click to expand...

No, Zeppelins had piston-pounding engines, just like fixed wing aircraft. The thing was that Zeppelins didn't have to use their engines to produce LIFT, so they could LIFT a whole lot more than aircraft could, back when aircraft design was pretty shakey. Zeppelins were only of use in WW1 while aircraft couldn't fly as high as them as fast as them, and so on. Fixed wing aircraft design quickly caught up and soon surpassed zeppelin performance at which point zeppelins became sitting ducks.

So, you could have zeppelins, with piston engines and petroleum fuel, but only if the fixed wing aircraft are flim-flammy contraptions, like a low flying, slow moving, open cockpit biplane or something. If Zeppelins can outfly fixed wings, then their vulnerability of being a giant bag of flammable gas is irrelevant. Once fixed wings can outfly zeppelins, zeppelins are big booms just waiting to happen.

And yeah, dragons would pretty much wipe out a zeppelin, unless they don't breath fire.

Layered Atmosphere?

Zoombie said:

Hm...these facts I must ruminate on...hmmm...I've got some really cool cool ideas from these. The planes are slow, short ranged and have very small guns, but they are packed on larger war-zepplines. Thats neat.

Now how to ward of dragons. Should I even have dragons?

Click to expand...

You could have your Zepps be denizens of the upper atmosphere. Have the lower atmosphere be thick and full of dragons (they eat the airplanes down there so Zepps are safe). Zepps could go from high mountain to high mountain, supplied by trains and powerlines. I'm not sure how the atmospheric layers would work in terms of "real" "physics"...hydrodynamics seems like a tough discipline at the best of times.

So Zeps and dragons would each be kings in their own layer of the atmosphere and not at their best in the intermediate areas where they might meet (mountain slopes, thunderstorms, tropical depressions, under the solar wind in the far polar areas....)

Zoombie said:

Hm...these facts I must ruminate on...hmmm...I've got some really cool cool ideas from these. The planes are slow, short ranged and have very small guns, but they are packed on larger war-zepplines. Thats neat.

Now how to ward of dragons. Should I even have dragons?

Click to expand...

yeah, you could have zeppelins that can fly higher than your aircraft. Then have the zeppelins come down to launch/retrieve their aircraft. weapons would be something along the lines of a 30 caliber machine gun and small bombs. If a zeppelin is attacked by planes, it just drops ballast (water condensed out of the clouds/atmosphere), and rises higher than the airplanes, so its safe.

Zeppelin to zeppelin combat would be the only way they could fight, and that could be presented as sailing ships shooting cannons broadside at each other.

Not too sure about dragons...

Poor Count Ferdinand, rolling in his grave...

A Zeppelin is a type of dirigible, more specifically a type of rigid airship pioneered by German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin in the early 20th century and based in part on an earlier design by Croatian aviation pioneer David Schwarz.

It strikes me that you only get Zeppelins in 20th Century Earth. Anywhere or anywhen else, you have dirigibles. According to Wikipedia, however: "The term zeppelin is a genericised trademark that originally referred to airships manufactured by the Zeppelin Company." Kinda like Kleenex.

But any airship, whether dirigible or blimp (non-rigid airship) or hot air balloon, if configured correctly could be really steam-punkish.

I would like steampunk better if it didn't have such a lame genre name.


Why couldn't they use "Victorian Sci-Fi" or "Neoanachronism" or something?

Shweta directed me to Girl Genius some months ago and I've been an avid reader since. You wants Zeppelins? This series has overshadowed just about everything I've written in the Steampunk genre. I'd be bloody annoyed if it wasn't so entertaining.

-Derek

Perhaps the reason they have zeppelins instead of airplanes is that the dragons will attack anything smaller than they are, but will naturally ignore or shy away from anything larger than them. Early air-engineers, realizing that bigger was safer, would have quickly dropped the plane in favor of the zeppelin--explaining all in one go why there's zeppelins and how they avoid dragons.

Or you could have the zeppelins all painted to look like bigger meaner dragons.

I remember your girl genius avatar a while ago, Dpat. She was hot.

I remember your girl genius avatar a while ago, Dpat. She was hot.

Click to expand...

Yup. I'm not sure whether it's sci-fi adventure or soft porn. Maybe a leetle beet of both.
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/cgi-bin/ggmain.cgi?date=20060526

Teasing artwork aside, the story arc is impressive and the dialogue is excellent.

-Derek

Insanely cool

dpaterso said:

Shweta directed me to Girl Genius some months ago and I've been an avid reader since. You wants Zeppelins? This series has overshadowed just about everything I've written in the Steampunk genre. I'd be bloody annoyed if it wasn't so entertaining.

-Derek

Click to expand...

Good god this is insanely cool. I love the flying trilobite motif.

Sokal said:

Why not just use Hydrogen? Lighter than Helium, easy to manufacture and the dangers of its inflammable nature can add to the steamy or punkish atmosphere.

Click to expand...

This in itself could make an alternate history, one where greater care was taken with safety and The Hindenburg did NOT go down in flames. But with the history of general transportation and especially newer technology, it seems unlikely that nothing ever goes wrong. Perhaps a disaster like the Hindenburg's could be put off for a few years while the dirigible (the true generic term for Zeppelins) becomes a more widespread method of travel, and then the story could be what such an accident does to the "dirigible-based travel industry" as well as to overall society.

As far as what did happen, especially in regard to helium, this appears informative:
http://www.unmuseum.org/hindenburg.htm

My social commentary: the Hindenburg disaster destroyed the dirigible industry (except for a very few used in advertising/promotion such as the Goodyear blimp), even though helium would have been used in later models and it would have been (relatively) perfectly safe. After the Hindenburg accident the public was horrified at the idea of being in a dirigible, regardless of the gas used.

A similar public reaction happened when Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) machines were first introduced a few decades ago. The word "nuclear" in the name turned off many people who didn't want to be "irradiated", even though the machine only gives off a large magnetic field, and has no connection with the radioactive decay in nuclear power plants and nuclear bombs that people associate with "nuclear." The manufacturers decided the name was bad, so it was changed to Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), as it continues to be know today.