City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

Steampunk, Time Travel and Suspension of Disbelief

AncientSpirit_NA

By AncientSpirit_NA,
Posted on: 2009-05-31 16:42 in Mission Architect

 

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And if someone says that he couldn't have figured out a way to mimic Rikti telepathy because he uses steam, I am going to flip out.

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Like a ninja?

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While I still don't have time to go over everything in detail, this makes me want to throw physics books at people.

Cooling systems do not make heat "go away". You can't actually "cool" things. "Cold" is not an energy or a force, it is the absence of heat. A cooling system is really a heating system that makes something else hot in part by taking heat away from something you don't want to be hot. The air conditioner in your window is not cooling your room; it is heating the outside air, sucking heat out of your room to do it. The ice in your soda is not cooling your soda. The soda is melting the ice, losing energy to do it.

If you've got a Nemesis automaton with a steam engine in it, using lots of heat to make steam and keep it hot, that heat's got to go someplace. You can't just "install a cooling system" to make the machine put out only as much heat as a human body. If Nemesis technology is Exactly What It Says On The Tin, as the writers insist, then the only place for the heat to go is the environment around the robot, meaning not only would it stand out like a sore thumb on any kind of heat or IR sensor, but it may not even be too comfortable standing anywhere near one. If, on the other hand, Nemesis is using the same kind of Applied Phelbotinum as the rest of the world's super-science and superhumans in general (the customary favorite at least since Marvel's OHOTMU, being "extra-dimensional energy sources"), we're back to "Nemesis technology only looks archaic but is really cutting edge", only it's not described that way. It would mean that DATA, Aeon, etc. would easily be able to tell from examining it that the steam parts were useless cosmetic affectations and the real work was being done with the usual tricks, but instead the writers insist on:

1) Steam power
2) ????
3) Profit!

It's not cool, it's just bad writing and there's no justification for it.

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I love how you keep saying, "I don't have time to explain it," what's so hard about saying that heat is infact the speed at which the particles that make up an object are moving (just like the state is caused by the dispersal of those objects as they move faster or slower). And yes something get's colder as it transfers the energy in it's particles to something else's particles which in turn gets faster. (I know that's a slightly simplistic explanation).

But why the need to act so superior about it? That's grade school science, any high school grad should know that, it's not a big mystery.


Anyway... all this grumbling about Steampunk technology misses on key point of the genre.

Basically when one writes Steampunk you go back and write a piece of science fiction like you were someone in the Victorian/Edwardian Era... You work from their asthetic and usually they're understanding of physics and technology... meaning it really doesn't even have to make sense by today's understanding.

You can even use outdated theories in steampunk, it's perfectly acceptable in a steam punk novel/comic whatever to refer to space as an aether field, instead of a (near) vacuume... Infact it's kind of expected.

Of course when you try to mix that logic, with a universe that also clearly has modern technology and understanding, that's what makes it not work.

 

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But why the need to act so superior about it?

[/ QUOTE ]Well, if people keep treating him like he's a big deal... But I simply understood Venture's common 'I don't have time,' to mean that he's saying he doesn't have time to address everything in this thread that needs, in his mind, addressing.

Purely as a curiosity, in lower pressures, water boils at a much lower temperature. That's what kills you when you fall into space - the fluid in your tissues boil. Just something of which I was reminded by this thread which I thought was incidentally cool.

I have conceived a directive for Nemesis that I appreciate and can use, if I was ever possessed of a need to deal with it. I have also a fe plot holes that are driving me bonkers. The Rikti invasion telepathy thing, for example. On the other hand, he apparently has a steam-powered weather controlling device and a steam-powered force field and phase tech, so what the [censored] ever.

The thing is, the canon says that these things do exist. Venture seems to be arguing against the idea that they should - and {i]I[/i] argue against it because I feel that it was a sutpid idea. But this game is built on stupid ideas written by mediocre writers who hold up the banner of 'It's a comic book universe, it doesn't have to make sense.' They then claim that 'it's okay because it's cool,' completely failing to grasp that their bad explanations made a potentially cool thing less cool to those people who actually analyse things.

There's a burden of ignorance, really. I know a friend who cannot enjoy CSI at all, because she's actually in the field of forensic investigation. She says it's frustrating that they take advanced, messy, confusing information and make it super-simple. I know it drives Fox, my wife, nuts when someone 'enhances' an image to produce something that very clearly wasn't in the image to begin with. It bothers me when I deal with people who talk about evolution and biology and indicate they don't get it. Our ability to handle this information gracefully is useful. It's actually very vexing to me to see mutation handled so readily, but I'm willing to accept it, willing to sidestep it. When someone claims to be 'a mutant' and develop, say, nineteen different powers off that one mutation, however, it bothers me. Why? I could argue about that for days, but this is a point of thematic barriers, the limits that we as individual writers and readers have.

The writer has to do their part, though. If a writer tells me 'He's a mutant, now shut up and stop thinking,' it makes me feel insulted. You need to lead me on a little. Lie to me sweetly, don't tell me to stop thinking.

 

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Lie to me sweetly, don't tell me to stop thinking.

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I would sig this if I could figure out how to do it without completely losing the context.

Honestly, if the devs just waved their hands and said "Nemesis found a kind of steam-catalyzed cold fusion" I'd be happy. It would explain everything, including his apparent grasp of atomic energy and steam-powered cybernetics.

 

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On the other hand, he apparently has a steam-powered weather controlling device and a steam-powered force field and phase tech, so what the [censored] ever.

The thing is, the canon says that these things do exist.

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Nope. Canon never says that he has a steam powered weather controlling device, and it's only implied that his forcefields are powered by steam.

This is my main problem with this thread, everyone assumes that everything Nemesis does is steam related. The only things that are for sure powered by steam are the guns, the Warhulks, the Jaegers, the Fake Nemeses, and the Nemesis Staves. Nemesis Staves being powered by steam kind of pushes it for me, but one could assume that the steam is being generated by something other than water and/or an incredibly hot burning fuel that would be able to get the job done with a smaller amount, making it more compact.

I'm just going to continue to employ Occam's Razor when trying to rationalize how Nemesis' technology works. If it doesn't seem plausible that it is powered by steam, it's probably not powered by steam unless it's stated specifically that it is. Just because the guy never left the Victorian era of style, doesn't mean his technology hasn't.

 

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The only things that are for sure powered by steam are the guns, the Warhulks, the Jaegers, the Fake Nemeses, and the Nemesis Staves.

[/ QUOTE ]Merely everything of his we've been able to analyse. I can't imagine how people find a trend there.

 

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The only things that are for sure powered by steam are the guns, the Warhulks, the Jaegers, the Fake Nemeses, and the Nemesis Staves.

[/ QUOTE ]Merely everything of his we've been able to analyse. I can't imagine how people find a trend there.

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His mind control network build into railroad tracks was actually described as being made of high tech alloys and circuitry. Nothing anachronistic about that. The steam thing to me just seems like a style choice on the part of Nemesis, him being an eccentric genius and all.

 

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Nemesis's Force Staff could easily be explained by just saying that it sprays super heated water out which violently explodes into steam when it comes into physical contact with a surface, such as the intended target. I think though, that it states somewhere that the actual functional mechanism of the staff is of some kind of very advanced unknown technology that has yet to be deciphered by anyone outside of Nemesis himself.

As far as Nemesis's automatons are concerned, being steam powered just means that the conversion of water from a liquid to a gaseous state is being used to induce mechanical force or motion. It does not mean that it uses a crank and piston mechanic like in a locomotive. Any system that is pneumatically driven is adaptable to being steam powered. A lot of the animatronics seen in amusement park rides are actually pneumatically driven robots.

An automaton could be therefore, pneumatically steam driven. Steam produced is internally recycled though a cooling process that helps preheat the water that is to be turned into steam. Further cooling is achieved by a capillary cooling jacket inside the skin, releasing just enough heat to mimic body temperature, finally, the last bit of heat energy could be released just from standard breathing along with some unrecycled water vapor. The hottest parts of the automaton would then be thermally insulated to not let its unnatural temperature be outwardly apparent to thermal cameras while improving its thermal efficiency. Assuming that the system is advanced and energy efficient enough, it wouldn't output more heat energy than a normal human would.

 

Posted

You're all crazy.

Clearly, the Nemesis Staff is made possible by the Power of Glam.

Just like Liberace's piano.

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Oh, there is definitely a glam component to the Nemesis Staff. The fact that is actually does something functional other than look super cool is what makes it extra impressive.

 

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I wonder why if it's superheated, pressurised steam, it deals energy damage.

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Heat is energy. Fire is combustion. Steam doesn't combust. I often take "Energy" in this game to mean any form of power that isn't a form of combustion, physical force, chemical reaction, or "negative"-type energy.

 

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I wonder why if it's superheated, pressurised steam, it deals energy damage.

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Heat is energy. Fire is combustion. Steam doesn't combust. I often take "Energy" in this game to mean any form of power that isn't a form of combustion, physical force, chemical reaction, or "negative"-type energy.

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Dude, it shoots a giant bubble. How do we get force fields out of steam?

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I wonder why if it's superheated, pressurised steam, it deals energy damage.

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Heat is energy. Fire is combustion. Steam doesn't combust. I often take "Energy" in this game to mean any form of power that isn't a form of combustion, physical force, chemical reaction, or "negative"-type energy.

[/ QUOTE ]If you stand on a box, I'm sure you could reach further.

 

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I wonder why if it's superheated, pressurised steam, it deals energy damage.

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Heat is energy. Fire is combustion. Steam doesn't combust. I often take "Energy" in this game to mean any form of power that isn't a form of combustion, physical force, chemical reaction, or "negative"-type energy.

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Dude, it shoots a giant bubble. How do we get force fields out of steam?

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Because someone recycled graphics and animations.

 

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I wonder why if it's superheated, pressurised steam, it deals energy damage.

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Heat is energy. Fire is combustion. Steam doesn't combust. I often take "Energy" in this game to mean any form of power that isn't a form of combustion, physical force, chemical reaction, or "negative"-type energy.

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Dude, it shoots a giant bubble. How do we get force fields out of steam?

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Because someone recycled graphics and animations.

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Still, steam would do Smashing and Fire damage, like Fireball. If you get hit with pressurized steam, it's concussive force and heat. Force in this game = smashing damage.

Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper

Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
Arc ID#431270 Until the End of the World

 

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Still, steam would do Smashing and Fire damage, like Fireball. If you get hit with pressurized steam, it's concussive force and heat. Force in this game = smashing damage.

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I believe Nemesis's Staff is typed to do both 1/2 Smashing and 1/2 Energy.

Steam, in most cases, does not get hot enough to actually set fire to common materials. It COULD be made to get hot enough to set fire to something. That doesn't happen unintentionally. Most things burn at much higher temperatures than what it takes to make steam.

If it can not set fire to common materials, why would it be called fire damage? I believe Laser Beam Eyes use Energy as their damage type as well, to make the point that just because it is hot, does not mean it is Fire type damage.

 

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Qr - there are two types of sci-fi fans. Those who think The Core, Eight Legged Freaks and Tremors were awesome, and those who think they were terrible.

It's the same with Nemesis.

Imo those movies rock, and so does Nemesis

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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
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Posted

I happen to like Nemesis. (Well, except for the Snipers, but that's for different reasons. ) Steampunk is fascinating to me; where in other genres do you encounter titanic airships or clockwork automatons, all powered by something as innocuous as steam? And on top of that, it's a fun aesthetic concept, too.

Sure, even in pure fantasy fiction I prefer some level of technical consistency. It has to sound like it could work, even if I don't understand all the physics or advanced technology required. I'm not going to put the game on hold so I can stop and think, "So, if I were to build a steam-powered firearm with excellent durability, no extreme heat discharge, and no bulky external power supplies, how would I do it?"

I remember reading a long time ago that every story is allowed at most one "gimme" concept -- a concept that the reader may have trouble believing, but is still willing to accept for the sake of the story. Every concept afterwards has to be based on the "gimme" without introducing new impossible ideas, or the story rapidly spirals out of control.

In an environment as large as the CoX universe, each villain group is practically a story of its own. And while some groups use more gimmes than they're allotted, many are reasonably within my limits. Okay, I can accept that something is making elemental monsters out of gemstones or fungi. I can accept that there's a famous singer who made a deal with demons to get his fame. I can accept that an ancient sorceress managed to implant her essence into a ceramic mask and is now using a modern-day pawn to psychically control her own army of soul-gathering circus minions. I fully expect to relinquish some reality in exchange for entertainment.

I'm sure many would disagree with me, but I'm certainly willing to suspend some disbelief in exchange for the shiny.

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Posted

The way I view Steampunk is this: "It's atomic power in a backpack."

I first considered the possibility while watching the anime movie [u]Steamboy[u], where everybody was talking about this "Steam Ball," but when they talked about the process of how it worked they were close to describing a nuclear reaction.

Some of the Nemesis arcs come right out and SAY that Nemesis' hordes are atomic-powered. Steam is just the method of moving turbines (in this case, lots and lots and lots of tiny turbines, all riddled throughout the machine's or power armor's powerplant), which then provide the energy to charge the Nemesis Staffs, the Fake Nemeses, Warhulks, the armor that protects these otherwise normal humans from punches that hit like dump trucks and so forth. However, at the core of it all beats an atomic heart. Nuclear power is used to superheat the water at a rapid pace, producing the required steam and empowering the mechanized forces.

I would think that if Nemesis' soldiers realized they all essentially had Fat Mans strapped to their backs, they wouldn't be quite so loyal.

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Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

 

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I wonder why if it's superheated, pressurised steam, it deals energy damage.

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Heat is energy. Fire is combustion. Steam doesn't combust. I often take "Energy" in this game to mean any form of power that isn't a form of combustion, physical force, chemical reaction, or "negative"-type energy.

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Dude, it shoots a giant bubble. How do we get force fields out of steam?

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The Staff itself is what is making the force beam through some unknown process (frankly, I'd have expected electricity and lots of it), the steam just provides the energy it requires.

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

 

Posted

OK Fine...I will get dragged into this if only to inject an outragous and partly informed opinion .

Computers, no matter how complex, are based on very simple logic (Such as AND, OR, NOT). We use Transistors to build our logic.

The way I have always imagined Nemesis technology was a "What if" type scenario. What if a reliable and easy to miniaturize transistor type device was developed that performed basic logic functions by using steam pressure? No need for electricity, just a sustainable source of heat to cause a pressure increase.

Of course we are talking about comparing a mechanical assembly to one with no moving parts but that is where suspension of belief comes into play. It is fun to let go of the real world and just enjoy the story for what it is.

 

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Even if we accept the premise that Nemesis' tech is all 'steam powered':

That doesn't mean that everything uses a brass boiler with a lump of coal.

Nemesis has apparently found and utilizes a power source that is nonmagical, smaller than the average Internal Combustion engine, and puts out enough energy to propel a (brass looking, but highly modern) musket ball through a half inch of titanium. As can be clearly seen in the case of the Nemesis Staff (as previously mentioned) he uses this power source to create electricity (likely by boiling water into steam which then drives turbines), which he can then use to power force fields and mind control devices.

Why does he use steam to convert the power source into electricity? Because he's Nemesis!

Technically, it would be equally accurate to say Nemesis Tech is powered by 'chemical reactions' 'electricity' or "nuclear power' as to say it is powered by steam.

By the way: dollars to donuts that the power source at the heart of all this is Ghost Rock.

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