Steam, Gears, and Control:

Why Steampunk Is Really About Power

Steampunk is often mistaken for an aesthetic—goggles, brass gears, airships drifting through sepia skies. But at its heart, steampunk has always been about control.

Who controls the machines. Who controls knowledge. Who is allowed to rise—and who is meant to remain ground-bound.

In traditional steampunk worlds, technology is not neutral. It amplifies hierarchy.

Those who understand the systems—engineers, Ascendants, navigators, clockmakers—shape reality itself. Everyone else lives inside the consequences.

That tension is what makes steampunk enduring.

It isn’t nostalgia for the Victorian era. It’s an examination of what happens when innovation outpaces ethics, and when progress is governed by those who believe order matters more than people.

In The Aether Compass, this theme is central. The sky is regulated. Routes are sanctioned. Storms are written into existence by those with authority to do so. But true disruption doesn’t come from louder engines or stronger machines—it comes from individuals who can listen rather than command.

Steampunk thrives in the space between obedience and resistance. Between the blueprint and the flaw no one accounted for.

That’s why its stories linger.

Because beneath the gears and steam is a quiet, dangerous question:

What happens when someone refuses to operate the way the system demands?