Oh Flakk! Those idiots were out on a run - Traction Engines, rolling roadblocks, every damn dog in the district went crazy. Every small child fell instantly in Love with them. -- Knitnan
No matter how far science progresses, there are still pockets of obscure weirdos who go old school. It should not be shocking that many of those weirdos are Humans. Some of them crave a fictional past that misses out on all the yucky bits associated with the era in question.
The steam era is always a favourite. There's magic in steam and visible gears, in that even a casual viewer can see how the machine works. As technology increasingly becomes a black mystery box, the yearning for understandable tech rises with it. Then there's the aesthetic of valve tubes' golden light or a nixie tube digital display. They're more comfortable to many.
Even now, when there is much faster, shinier technology, there is still a visual appeal with brass, gears, amber-hued lights, and the odd smokestack. There's a healthy business involving creating aesthetic casings for extant technology. There's an even more healthy business crafting entire vessels with the aesthetic. Just the aesthetic. It's a very bad idea to be burning coal for steam in an enclosed space with limited atmosphere. In the middle of all of this, there is the Consortium of Steam.
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