Steam Engine

A stolen innovation heralding a renaissance of technological advancement

Though the steam engine had been invented and far surpassed during the Precursor Era, knowledge of the technology had been lost since the Cataclysm. Even those who knew that the technology had once existed knew nothing of its underlying science or the specific necessities of practical application. When a group of Merikan hobby technologists began experimenting with steam pistons and flywheels in the 980s PCE they were basically trying to recreate the machinery by accidental trial and error.

Access & Availability

Today the Union Steam and Steelworks Company holds a monopoly upon the Merikan production of steam engines and locomotives. They produce engines and rails for the Union's rapidly spreading travel network. Rail transportation will soon become a reality across all the old Zones of Skyland.

Discovery

In 983 PCE, a working pressure piston steam prototype was developed by a team of Merikan experimental engineers led by Freeman Skinner, an aspiring inventor who took inspiration from the ruins of Manhattan Island, notably remembered as the Battle of New York's primary field of engagement. Skinner had spent months sifting through the rusted rubble of battle wreckage looking for remnants of the Steel Legion's war machines. When he recovered the burned out wreck of Manfred Klinnsman's steam-powered war wagon, he set about reverse engineering it using clues gleaned from his personal library of word frags.

When Skinner's team presented their own working prototype steam wagon before the Merikan Congress, however, technoclast sentiment fueled vitriolic resentment of the machine and its creators. But certain interests within the burgeoning Union establishment secretly endorsed the new technology and courted Skinner's aid in weaponizing it for use by the Continental Army.

Although Skinner rebuffed these offers his former partners were all too willing to sell their services on behalf of military interests. Skinner was denied the right to patent his discovery while his erstwhile companions received considerable monetary compensation for their cooperation. Without Skinner's supervision, the Unionists were unable to fabricate mobile steam engines but nonetheless managed to mechanize several key industries. Their industrial edge was surely a factor in the Unionist victory during the Merikan Civil War of 986-987 PCE.