A short story for the insert of a computer game called Age of Steam

Year: 2015

Imperialism and Nationalism taunt the world, and Europe sits on the brink of war. Countries are fighting over trade routes and rights to trade with far flung regions in the east and beyond. The industrial revolution has been and gone, this is the age of steam and a time where populations are amazed by the vast mechanical marvels ferrying people and carrying war. Leaders bow down to engineers, and those with the imagination to go beyond what has been done before are classed as heroes.

The railways have spread across Europe like a cancer, from the sleepy harbours of France and Germany to the industrial container ports of the Siberian coast. Like the blood in flowing arteries steam locomotives and their ever lengthening trains of coal, grain, iron ore and people breathe life into the lands they traverse, feeding the hungry foundries and workers as they race to dominate and secure victory in the never-ending war of trade, using any advancement in technology edge forward to remain the leader. 

The railways feed the navies and fleets of ocean going vessels that take the products and successes of a nation beyond the boundaries of Europe fuelling national pride, firing up envy and releasing anger among the competing countries of Europe. The desire for absolute dominance is leading Europe to war, with governments prepared to do whatever they must to secure trade and retain lucrative contracts for the raw materials and finished goods they have fought hard to earn. 

Slowly but surely the transport routes on land and sea are becoming targets of espionage and underhand tactics designed to divert or gain control of lucrative trade routes, bridges are blown up, men are held to ransom and tensions rise. There is a need protect these routes and this can only be done though dominance in the skies above and with a machine like no other. 

A new and deadly weapon has emerged as the only way to secure the trade routes on the ground. So technologically advanced and so mechanically magnificent the Zeppelin is a machine and vehicle the likes of which have never been seen before.  Spectacularly massive, beautifully fearsome and impressively versatile these gas-filled balloons are taking over the skies of Europe with devastating effect. 

Built at first in secret and then unleashed on an unsuspecting world, people stood in awe and cowered in fear as the first of the zeppelins took to the sky casting cold shadows on the ground as they obstructed the sun’s warm rays. Bigger than anything seen before these ships of the air required the elite of the elite to design and construct them, improve them and above all fly them. Every nation wanted their own flying ships to protect their cities, people and ground transport and to attack others who took from them or so they make take for themselves. These airships were both tools of war and tools of peace.

Europe was waking up to a new dawn and a new day where valuable cargo could be flown to anywhere in the world from anywhere in the world, where transport could be protected by escorts of flying gunships and enemies could be destroyed in almost silence from a height where they were almost unseen.  Innovation in weaponry where Zeppelin would fight Zeppelin or destroy a factory from above the clouds, creativity in freight transport and mastery of flight and flight technology to extend and improve flight would now define supremacy in Europe. Dominance of the sky would ensure dominance of the sea and the land and those who embraced the advancement of technology without fear of failure would remain supreme, controlling trade, conquering nations and securing pride.