{"id":268,"date":"2008-10-07T20:06:30","date_gmt":"2008-10-08T03:06:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/?p=268"},"modified":"2008-10-07T20:11:14","modified_gmt":"2008-10-08T03:11:14","slug":"ottoman-airships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/ottoman-airships\/","title":{"rendered":"Ottoman airships"},"content":{"rendered":"

I just had a REALLY cool idea. It comes from an unhealthy combination of Girl Genius<\/a> (one of the coolest steampunk stories I’ve ever read) and too many classes on the history and humanities of the Middle East.<\/p>\n

What if blimps, dirigibles, and airships were invented in the Middle East before flying machines ever came to Europe or America? What if airships thrived and became an integral part of the culture in that part of the world, instead of declining after the advent of airplanes and dramatic disasters such as the Hindenburg accident<\/a>?<\/p>\n

How would our world be different? Would I get to fly in giant, luxurious airships? Would the Middle East have experienced a renaissance instead of the steady decline it has seen since Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt? Would Napoleon have even been around to invade Egypt?<\/p>\n

I suppose it makes more sense to think of the airship as a potential invention of the Ottoman Turks, instead of, say, the Abassid Caliphate back in the tenth and eleventh centuries. I mean, the Ottomans had gunpowder, and the age of steam wasn’t that far away. I’m not sure what technology is prerequisite for the building and operating of airships, but it seems that those are two that would go with it. After all, an airship has to have some measure of self-propulsion (steam) and a means for providing massive amounts of helium or hydrogen gas, which infers a knowledge of chemistry that is probably advanced enough to produce something like gunpowder. Then again, I’m not an Engineer and I really don’t know.<\/p>\n

But how cool<\/em> would that be?? Ottoman airships, decorated in all the ornate arabesque patterns and inscriptions of the mosques of those ages. Emperors, princes, sultans, caliphs, and oriental courtiers all in their luxurious flying palaces. Turkish merchants and warlords commanding fleets, caravans, and armies of the air. A renaissance Europe dominated by these fearsome dirigible armies, then mastering the technology on their own and turning against their Turkish and Arab conquerors. The Age of Discovery, not by sea, but by air, as intrepid explorers such as Columbus, Magellan, and Vespucci commanded their expeditions by airship and discovered the New World from their dirigibles.<\/p>\n

I love<\/em> airships. The next novel I write (after I’m finished with the three I’m working on) will probably be a steampunk fantasy. Will I use this idea? I have no idea. It sounds more like speculative fiction than pure fantasy, but who knows?<\/p>\n

Whatever it is, I think it’s a really<\/em> cool idea! What do you think?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just had a REALLY cool idea. It comes from an unhealthy combination of Girl Genius (one of the coolest steampunk stories I’ve ever read) and too many classes on the history and humanities of the Middle East. What if blimps, dirigibles, and airships were invented in the Middle East before flying machines ever came… Continue reading Ottoman airships<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[],"tags":[52],"class_list":["post-268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-story-ideas","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iXK-4k","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}