The Steampunk World in review:

1840: Cavorite was developed in Research Labs at Oxford. Newly crowned Queen Victoria knights Professor Cavore and creates the Royal Academy of Sciences.

1850's: A massive development in the Royal Academy with cavorite as a catalyst sees breakthroughs in medicine, transport, weaponry, environmental sciences, energy, genetics, mysticism, and Quantum mechanics. Great Britain steps forward as the new super-power of the world. Its resources supported by Canada, African and Australian colonies and Antarctica. Cavorite is the perfect renewable energy source, which in addition to its anti-gravity properties also allows a very functional steam powered engine to run indefinitely. Most diseases have been beaten and there is full employment. Beautiful parks criss-cross the countryside and incredible monuments are constructed celebrating the new peace and posterity.

1855: Ministry of Truth is created to protect the interests of the British Empire.

1860's: An attempt to blockade Great Britain by jealous European countries turns out to be a provoked assault as Britain brings out its new big guns! Massive Armoured Dirigibles and Man-o- wars reduce the blockade to splinters and in a gracious gesture the Queen offers the role of Protectorate to the European Union, allowing access to industrial/medical/agricultural advancements in exchange for allowing British based military strongholds in strategic places. Although there is a very minor underground resistance, most people welcome the new prosperity. Civil War has begun in America, North Vs South. As the country tears itself apart over the issue of slavery, the British Armoured Forces make invasion plans from the west coast of the Americas, the greatest single invasion force ever witnessed in the world. Hundreds of Thousands of Airships silently drift across the Pacific delivering on their shores massive armoured steam-men. The small port cities of San Francisco and many others surrender immediately but a small garrison refuses to acknowledge the firepower and might of Britain. They are quickly engulfed in flames and blown into oblivion but their short-lived ideals create a legacy that has them immortalized as martyrs. Airships sweep across the Rockies and continue into the great western plains, setting up mobile cities as they go. Once the untamed wilderness has been overrun and a strong presence of the victorious invader was brought to bear, Ships Captains orchestrated treaties giving little concession to the settlers. Many accepted the terms but some, turned back to the eastern seaboard. Meanwhile the Civil War ground to a halt as a more powerful enemy made its presence known. A few brief engagements with British forces caused mass withdrawals from both sides, but not without some consequences as several Airships were brought down by sustained cannon fire.

1870's: Russian Tsar marries one of the one of the Queen Victoria's daughters, cementing a powerful relationship between the two countries. For years now, marriage into the great Dynasty of Royal England has been an objective of many Royal families, many countries across the globe. Poverty is non-existent in the British Isles, there are few low-grade jobs and most of England's society is middle class. England has a wealthy and prosperous community eager to share its wealth with the world in exchange for a protectorate role. Leisure time for the great middle-classes becomes the new industry, nearly everyone has more leisure time than ever before in any previous point in history. People need only work a half-week and job sharing becomes commonplace. England's role is seen as protector and believes their civilized rule has a responsibility to uphold moral rights of all its Christian English subjects. The newly Christened "Atlantic States of America" engaged in protracted Gorilla War using captured military equipment that Thomas Edison reverse engineered British Technology. Many on both sides suffer tragic losses as the war drags on for years.

1880's: Captain Bigglesworth is the first man to orbit the globe. Submit or perish is the new order, Queen Victoria's famous speech "join us or suffer the consequences" is delivered. The War intensifies and the British public grow weary of the fighting. President Lincoln and Queen Victoria establish a cease fire and the British forces retreat to the Mississippi Line.

1885: The British Space Service begins with its base at Manchester. H.R. Haggard, Dr. Heckle and The Mariner, undertake an exhaustive year long journey to the Moon. The moon has been declared a Sovereign British Territory but the return journey is beset by difficulties. Barely alive, the intrepid voyagers limp back to orbit. The Indian born Mariner becomes the scapegoat and disappears into the Oceans aboard his submarine...

1886: Construction begins on Trafalgar station, an orbital space station the size of Piccadilly Circus. Nicola Tesla discovers the Aether streams, navigational shortcut using Solar Particle tides between planetary bodies. A journey to the moon is now reduced to hours.

1887: Work on Lunar Colonies begins. Rumours of odd occurrences and unsettling incidents are dispelled by the Ministry of Truth.

1890: Trafalgar Orbital Station is destroyed, Science Pirates become the newest threat to the Empire. The ex-patriot "The Mariner" is one of the most hunted Science Pirates on the high seas. Robur the Terror operates out of the Carpthianias and attacks British merchant dirigibles. Suspected American collusion with pirates instigates a block aid of the Americas.

1892: New construction begins in space on Victoria Orbital Station which is designed after Prince Albert's Crystal Palace. Construction on the moon uncovers massive underground caverns.

1898: Victoria Orbital Station is completed, a large section of the station is a military installation as Captain Bigglesworth now conducts a campaign on Science Pirates in orbit.

1899: During a speech at the Crystal Palace to launch the AetherNET, the Queen is attacked in a devastating explosion. Her Majesty survives, in spite of reports of terrible injuries, speaking from Victoria Orbital Station, she claims good health. President Lincoln is attacked in a proposed reciprocal attempt but he survives. Britain and America is on a knife edge. Last minute negotiations are to be held aboard the Olympia, the first tourist vessel to journey to the moon. First manned mission to Mars is lost with all hands. A world mourns.

The World History of 1899-1902:

The ramifications of the Maiden Flight of the Olympia cast its dark shadow across the frontiers of space and politics. The mighty British Empire has been shaken to its hull plating with the realization that it's heavenly head of state was a floating brain in a jar. Martial Law was declared within the Empire. Full military deployment on the streets kept order as her Royal Highness solidified her position of power.

An uprising in the Dark Continent was quelled by the Victoria Orbital Station's deployment of the SkyCracker: A top secret Tesla designed weapon that launching blots of energy from space with pinpoint accuracy at the earth below. During a Science Pirate raid of Victoria Orbital Station, SkyCracker was used upon England in retaliation, resulting London becoming a smoking crater. The German Zepplin orbital fleet brought Victoria Station back under control, a decision that the world has come to regret.

The verdant Tea Fields of India and China have been reduced to ash, the remaining American Free States have been cremated, it's surviving population forced into space to join the renegade Science Pirates. An Iron fist of oppression has crushed personal freedoms, and any resistance to the Queens Agenda is met with resolute aggression, SkyCracker, ready to lay a barrage of death anywhere on the planet.

Space is the British Empires newest industrial resource, and at it's heart is the reculsive and massive Aethersquids. Creatures, of a nebulous and valuable attribute, have been discovered gently drifting between planetary bodies, within the passages termed the Aetherstreams, a Navigators Nightmare of fluctuating energies, and eddies of turbulence. Passages that reduces the journey of a vessel from months to hours, experienced whalers and space-faring hands have flocked to the Moon's New Squid stations to reap in the rewards that the lucrative squidding industries have to offer. A dangerous and life threatening endeavour only the most fool-hardy or courageous undertake.

Many Secrets of the moon are now revealed to all, a sentient race of insect-like creatures that have made the lunar caverns their ancient homes. When the first Colonists arrived, the creatures were threatened and planned their own attacks on the British interlopers, through a method of implanting a larvae parasite within the brain of a human host. The larvae would then have control of the human's motor skills and cortex! The Selenites, as they have been called, were revealed aboard the Olympia, and in one of her last gestures of honorability recognized the treaty of the Selenites in exchange for the bodies of the Queens many political prisoners. This species of underclass are specially marked, and the larvae form can take on the experiences and knowledge of the human host. When Dr. Hekyll, the surgeon aboard Olympia, was arrested and charged with treason, he was one of the first to be a legalized Alien implant, thus retaining his position aboard ship. Illegal Alien implants, unregistered and unwanted are not tolerated by the Ministry of Truth, and prestigious bounties are offered for their recovery. Meanwhile the Queens agitators and opponents find themselves in deep space, with an Alien parasite crawling into their brain stem.

The moons resources have also turned a bountiful profit, mineral wealth for those bold enough to face the challenge of the harshest environment imaginable. The Lunar Colonies have become a rough frontier town, barely held in check by the Queen's Imperial forces, and carefully watched over by the various intelligence communities, The Ministry of Truth, and Blackwatch.

In spite of assurances by the Royal Space Navy, travelling through the Aether is a very hazardous undulating. Many ships have been lost outright, never heard from again. Others have turned up months later, devoid of fuel and of inhabitants. These ghost ships have shivered the imaginations of the population, whist others declare that it is simply Science Pirates plundering the space lanes. The esteemed Spiritualist Madam Zusoka has been investigating the Aether lanes, searching for lost souls seeking resolution. The Royal Science Academy is conducting their own experiments, is the very nature of quick efficient space travel threatened??

The sister ship of the Olympia, "The Titanic" has recently vanished. No survivors, no wreckage. No final telegrams. It has been conjectured that this is the last straw for Majestic Liners. Ever since the Queen nationalized Bloody Scarletts Munitions foundries, Sir James Scarlett has been prompting his fiancée, the unsinkable Matilda Brown to walk down the aisle to save his fortunes. The Olympia has also become a shadow of its former proud self, forced to become a passenger ship for all classes of society. The Olympia has also been 'nominated' to be the test ship for Charles Babbage's new bio-mechanical navigation device, a most dubious honour.

The population is harangued constantly by a stream of propaganda, frightening its citizens of threats to the Empire from within and from outside. These threats have lead to the Royal Academy of Sciences on virtual shut-down. Scientists and leftwing researchers are constantly monitored. All Academy members must take a loyalty oath, some with more vigour then others, and the noble ideals of the Royal Science Academy have rotted away.

Social pressures are felt beyond the elite citizens of the Empire, as a rumoured Death Squad (nicknamed by the shrinking free media as "Big Sister") is operating on the explicit orders of the Queen. Despite these threats, there is a growing undercurrent of resistance, fanned by the Renegade Science Pirates. Their leader, the formidable Science Pirate, Robur the Terror, has eluded capture many times, most notoriously after the events of the maiden flight of the Olympia. The news of the Empire have reported numerous successful engagements with the Pirates in orbit, but no evidence of this propaganda exists.

The mighty British Empire, under a dark cloud of oppression faces an uncertain future. It's lubricant of choice, tea, diminished and rationed. The Celestrial Tea fields are now a sterilized wasteland.

It's seat of power, the once great Metropolis of Londontown, a blasted ashen ruin, and with it the remaining Royal family members, and Governing Powers, the houses of Parliament.