Steam Wars - Notes

WHY STEAM WARS IS LIKE A JEALOUS MISTRESS

Except it's not a woman. But everything else is the same. Well...not really. What I mean to say is STEAM WARS is like this woman I've had an affair with on the side and every now and then we get together but another relationship always comes along to break it off.

I've kept coming back to this project over the years, but never had the opportunity to spend full time on it. Frankly, it's always been that "other thing" I'm doing when I've had the luxury of some spare time. That dream project; too huge, too elusive, to think of right now. Maybe later. Then it fades from my consciousness, during other endeavors. Only to come roaring back again in time, bursting with some new inspiration.

The idea crystallized in the mid seventies, with some artwork and a short story I'd written called "In the Days of the Steam Wars". Around this time I began illustrating for Galileo Magazine, my first printed work (not counting my brief fling with underground comics; "Blazing Violence" featuring the Predator). I reworked the story and it was picked up by Galaxy Magazine and featured as their cover piece (the cover being one of my paintings) in 1980, on condition that the diary format I incorporated be rewritten in straight narrative form by associate editor Floyd Kemske. My original diary excerpts purported to be the newly unearthed account by a young member of the US Steam Force as he goes into first battle. I wanted that claustrophobic tight sweaty you-are-there POV.

The 80's for me was spent dividing my time between science fiction illustration and Boston theatre: acting, as well as writing and directing plays. My play of Robin Hood was published and has been performed hundreds of times, all over the world. Every now and then I would add something to the world of STEAM WARS, but still it took that back seat.

Illustration did not pay greatly so I took a lot of jobs, including working construction for a year. During that time, among other things, I worked in close contact with heavy equipment; dozers, back hoes, front-end loaders and such. Unfortunately I wasn't driving them--I was the chump who jumped in the hole and dug around for gas or water mains so the big shovels didn't make big mistakes. The operation of these machines added another dimension to how I saw the grit and mechanized grime of STEAM WARS; Victorian elegance at the mercy of primitive mechanics and grinding gears.

When I started writing screenplays in the late 80's one of my early attempts was a STEAM WARS piece, but it didn't quite gel. I was SAG by then and my focus was whatever film and TV acting I could grab in Boston: Unsolved Mysteries episodes, corporate videos, indie films--STEAM WARS would have to wait. Again.

In the mid-90's I found myself once again steam-inspired and did a new flurry of paintings as well as a pretty solid 30 page treatment. Again it got sidetracked as I moved to LA with Bali Hai Entertainment, creating the animated interactive adventure series The Wise-Eye Guys, which I scripted, directed and drew. I wrote more screenplays: a dark (really dark) western IN THE NATIONS; an adaptation of my hit play, the dark comedy JUMP CAMP; a film noir with a somewhat mind-bending twist, EDGE OF THE FRAME. After shooting LOST SKELETON OF CADAVRA I wrote a follow-up TRAIL OF THE SCREAMING FOREHEAD.

Still, that damn STEAM WARS would pop into my head. And it was always triggered by the oddest things: Philip Sainton's great score to John Huston's MOBY DICK, the cable car scene from WHERE EAGLES DARE, or (pretentious cultural reference) Carl Nielsen's 5th Symphony, as well as anything to do with trains, cranes, subs, tanks, dirigibles. I'm inspired by the truck scene in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, the chariot race in the 1959 BEN-HUR, any action scenes that show that propulsive, elusive, kickass kinetic drive. Well mounted, well-choreographed action, and I don't mean ten edits a second. This is what pulls an audience in, and it's all too rare.

Now once again I'm caught in the grip of STEAM WARS madness. But this time it's personal...

I'm not sure what that means...Anyway, I decided to get things rolling once and for all by setting up the world of the piece, presenting it to the public, finally organizing notes, sketches and paintings--a solid support for the film concept I'll be shopping around. I've rewritten the treatment, solidified the characters. I'm recently discovering--much to my embarrassing ignorance--things like steam punk and manga involving giant robots (sorry, I was busy!). But perhaps creating on the sidelines in ignorant bliss allows SW to remain fresh, unique to the way I see it. I have caught the amazing trailers for STEAMBOY though, and all I can say is IT LOOKS GREAT. Can't wait to see it. And I hope it does HUGE.

I see STEAM WARS as clearly as if it's being projected--a tough, gritty, colorful but realistic live-action adventure with a wry sense of humor. Yes, I said realistic. It's my intention that the steam rigs not be treated self-consciously. I'm not tracing a history of steam warfare-- when the story opens we are thrust into the middle of a battle. I see these not as robots but as fighting machines like tanks or submarines, manned by crews who approach their specified tasks as a normal workday--and we'll see their operation down to the smallest detail. The Victorian conceit here just happens to be that war is fought in these eccentric walking battleships. In introducing this single fantastic element, it's important to me to remain matter of fact, with a technology that seems right for the period.

Many of you have asked about the game potential, as well as the marketing of toys, figures, graphic novels. I've always felt all of these were logical possible extensions of STEAM WARS. Right now, as I say, I'm concerned with introducing the basics of the world.

The story follows the adventures of three protagonists--Tunney, Duff and Cribbs--who fight, drink, carouse, screw up and sometimes get the job done. They're human. And they're underdogs. Throughout the course of events they come to learn that invading Prussia has developed the largest--

...well, more on that later. See? It's just like a mistress. I'll continue to add to the site so please check back. Because this time I've gone too far. This time...there's no turning back.

--Larry Blamire

"...and there was little question that the powerful Prussian Empire's sudden interest in minerals was a direct result of its ever-increasing hunger for steam; enough steam to power its rapidly expanding steam fleet. But the seeming folly of the invasion of Canada through Hudson Bay, taking Ontario and much of Manitoba in 1896, opened not only a window to mining interests. It was a window to what was quickly becoming the new home of steam power: the United States. After all, America had practically invented the steam rig. Or at least refined it into the dependable gunrigs of the late 90's. And so it was with slightly more than good neighbor policy that the United States quickly rallied to Canada's defense. However, none of this lessened the surprise and disbelief at the soon rumored Prussian activity in the south, straining their already rather uneasy alliance with Mexico. Whatever would Chancellor Bismarck want in Texas?...

--from The Power of Steam, 1922, by Harrison Beech

"It is often said a rig stoker can say anything he pleases to a captain. After all, where would you find a replacement?"

--Toliver Randolph Cribbs, LT, USSF

"Get them a bigger rig"

--US Steam Force Commander Teddy Roosevelt upon learning that Tunney, Duff and Cribbs have lost another machine.

STEAM WARS GLOSSARY:

steam rig n : informal term for any of various late 19th Century steam-powered walking machines, usually military, generally anthropomorphic in shape, operated by a crew.

gunrig n : early 20th Century term for any of various armed steam-powered walking machines, having the general appearance of a large armored warrior, operated by a crew.

battlerig n : any larger class gunrig, usually carrying heavy artillery. A land battleship.

knothead n : slang term for a novice crewman on a steam rig. Origin believed to be from the number of lumps on the head received on the first few runs, before the crewman found his "land legs". This was often exacerbated by the initiate being given a heavy iron helmet by his helpful rigmates, for "protection".

rigmaten : fellow crewman on a steam rig.

runabout n :a small two-man operated steam rig. In military use, usually mounted with a Maxim or Vickers machinegun.

low adj : slang steam force term for "shore leave".

shutdown n : the state below IDLE on a steam rig, with all engines stopped and no steam production.

U.S.S.F. or USSF n pl but sin or pl in constr : abbreviation for United States Steam Force.

rig class n : steam force classification system, defining various sizes and characteristics of fighting rigs, most commonly; RUNABOUT, AJAX, HERCULES, GOLIATH, SAMSON and JUGGERNAUT.

steersman n : the pilot of a steam rig.

headcab n : the base of operations on a steam rig, generally the "head", where the steersman and commander sit, except on smaller rigs where they are one and the same. On battlerigs, the headcab crew can number up to a dozen.

cranesman n : steam crewman assigned with the task of operating the rig's "arms" or cranes. Divided on larger rigs between the port and starboard cranesmen.

ambulator n : formerly ambulation engineer. Steam crewman assigned the task of operating the "legs", overseeing the rig's general balance and walking.

chief fireman n : an enlisted man in the steam force of a rank corresponding to a chief petty officer in the navy or a noncommissioned officer in the army, whose job it is to oversee the stokers and the stokehold. Also called chief stoker.

rigshape adj [short for earlier rigshapen, fr. rig + shapen, archaic pp. of shape] : TRIM, TIDY.

gunnery sergeant n : a noncommissioned officer in the marine corps or steam force ranking above a staff sergeant and, in the former, below a first sergeant. In the latter, usually responsible for the maintenance of a rig's artillery.