History belongs to the Victors

She had been researching on the Tinterweb and fondly reminiscing about the days when you actually had to get up and go to a library full of actual books. She liked books, very much in fact, but this whole Aetheric Net thing did make life a lot easier. Especially when she had a history to rewrite.

The research was one of the things she enjoyed the most; the careful sifting through the facts, piecing together the clues, watching as the fragmented reality came together as a coherent whole. Some times the work was slow and painful. At other times, it was exhilarating, with all of the pieces positively throwing themselves into place.

So, the game was to be set in the Empire of Steam, an age of great discovery and advance. And without the work of one man, the age would never have seen the light of day. The timeline would diverge from her own in 1834; Charles Babbage, hater of street musicians, would leave the disappointments of his difference engine behind, and with the assistance of the Countess Lovelace, would triumphantly produce his analytical engine.

Add to this the engineering genius of George Stephenson who, with the aid of the Babbage engines, has effectively created an anti-gravity steam engine. And then there's Stephenson's son, Robert and his collaboration with the greatest engineer of them all, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, at the behest of Her Majesty the Queen (Huzzah!).

And just what are the Hudson's Space Company and Jules Verne up to in the wilds of the newly formed Canada? What about that fellow Edison, with his shifty eye and light fingers? Some chap called Tesla, too, with talk of this new-fangled electricity.

Just don't get me started on what Commodore Perry found when he got to Japan...