Hite's Law: "All Change Points, from Xerxes to the last presidential election, create worlds with clean, efficient Zeppelin traffic. Changing history may produce Zeppelins as an inevitable by-product, much as bombarding uranium produces gamma rays. Often, the quickest way to tell if you are in an Alternate History is to look up, rather than at a newspaper or encyclopedia. From this premise, it is not outside the realm of Plausibility that our history between 1900 and 1936 was, in fact, an Alternate History. It would, at least, explain a lot."
— Kenneth Hite, "An Alternate-Historical Alphabet," January 14, 2000
The Doctor: So this is London.
Mickey: Yep.
The Doctor: Your city.
Mickey: That's the one.
The Doctor: Just as we left it.
Mickey: Bang on.
The Doctor: And that includes the zeppelins?
Mickey: [looks up] What the hell? [...] Okay, so it's London with a big international zeppelin festival.
Mickey: Yep.
The Doctor: Your city.
Mickey: That's the one.
The Doctor: Just as we left it.
Mickey: Bang on.
The Doctor: And that includes the zeppelins?
Mickey: [looks up] What the hell? [...] Okay, so it's London with a big international zeppelin festival.
Airships need cheap but reliable workers to act as gasbag riggers, a culture which doesn't place too much emphasis on speed (or at least places higher emphasis on extreme luxury), and a lack of well-publicized accidents, which in turn requires a combination of luck and captains with the sense to avoid storms and refuse unwise orders. They can make better use of low power-to-weight engines than can heavier-than-air craft, so a world in which internal combustion engines are slow to develop and steam survives might well feature more airships. In short, airships are indeed a good fit for a world of steampunk culture and technology.
“Could just be a close parallel, then.” Davies grinned. Victorian parallels weren't generally too bad.
“Quite likely. Though the drone picked up a lot of coal combustion byproducts at high altitude...”
“Guess that may be why,” Davies said, looking past Macleod and up. Macleod turned, and then allowed himself an audible sigh. A small airship was chugging gently across the sky, emitting black smoke from two long exhaust pipes. A coat of arms was clearly visible on the side; crossed wrenches on a golden pentagon...
“Great,” Macleod muttered. “One of those timelines”
“Quite likely. Though the drone picked up a lot of coal combustion byproducts at high altitude...”
“Guess that may be why,” Davies said, looking past Macleod and up. Macleod turned, and then allowed himself an audible sigh. A small airship was chugging gently across the sky, emitting black smoke from two long exhaust pipes. A coat of arms was clearly visible on the side; crossed wrenches on a golden pentagon...
“Great,” Macleod muttered. “One of those timelines”
"Why did humans stop traveling in blimps? Who cares if one exploded horrifically a century ago? Get over it and bring back the fucking blimps."
— Korvo, Solar Opposites
