Victorian Venus Basic Info as of 16 JAN 2016

Lol. Sure, we can do Venusian karate. Any ideas on exactly what that would be?

It's an ocean world closer to the sun than Earth is. In spite of orbital sun blockers, after 14 days of "day" it starts to get hot, like summer in Florida. At the end of the "night," it begins to get relatively cold, like winter in Florida. Having said that, the Florida analogy applies to coastal areas and unlike Florida, Venus would have some very tall mountains and ridges. In the highlands, Venus becomes more like Ecuador--where elevation above sea level is the biggest determiner of temperature and weather.

The planet spins in the opposite direction of Earth, so the majority of winds (and the jet stream) go from east to west instead of west to east. Which means the most rain will be on eastward-facing slopes, while westward slopes (such as where New Berlin is) will tend to be drier.

Does that answer the question?

Hiking through a blizzard is fine. Especially in high elevations or very high latitudes.

But yeah, this Venus probably would have a fair number of hurricanes. However, the rotation of the planet is slower, so wind speeds would be slower in general, too. Though the atmosphere is denser...still, I think the hurricane risk might not be so terrible. But the season would probably come 8 times per year...

No, probably not, but local topography can do a number of things to increase local wind speed. A blizzard is still possible...especially one with a lot of snowfall and not as much wind as what we normally think of as a "blizzard." The dense atmosphere could probably make some very heavy snow fly around more than our atmosphere would--I mean more snow in the air than you'd see here, even if not moving as fast.

Kat, it's a really great question. For Mars, I wanted to parallel a Medieval world and even include an aura of magic in that there was an era of great technology that was no longer understood. My goals for Venus are quite different.

I didn't fully explain this in my pilot story (though it hints at it) but on Venus, the technology of the past is:

1. Considered to have been rather evil. (Without actually becoming directly Amish, Venusian culture totally appropriates certain Amish ideals.)

2. Was deliberately rejected by most inhabitants of Venus after a set of horrific wars my story calls "The United Nations Wars." I.E. the tech stuff didn't just decay, it was smashed to bits on purpose or thrown into the ocean. People chose to return to simpler lives DELIBERATELY (unlike Mars, where it just happened). Venus therefore has very little tech from our times. Though it would have some.

3. But in spite of the actual greater resistance to technology than Mars at one time (where ancient tech was always mostly revered, though at times feared), the inhabitants of Venus don't think of it as magic. The education level remained higher than average on Mars and attitudes more modern. Tech was (and is) seen as tech on Venus, not as magic--but technology, especially the tech of the 21st Century and later, is broadly understood in the culture and folklore of Venus as having destroyed the world that used to exist. (This is not strictly true, in fact--the former world suffered from a collapse of culture, which was fed into by certain technologies, but I'm reporting what the people of Venus THINK about old tech, not how it really was.)

4. The cultural phenomena Venus objects to are rampant in our current culture, though I don't spell that out in my pilot story so as to not be too "preachy." So, ubiquitous pornography, a continued cycle of violent video games, transgender issues, lack of devotion to Christianity, and others are all cultural issues that these future inhabitants of Venus see as being caused by TECHNOLOGY. So tech, in their minds, poisoned the culture.

5. So for them they thought it would be better to give up all tech and live simple Christian lives in fishing villages rather risk the cultural corruption (and horrible wars and atrocities it brought) of the tech we have today. Which doesn't mean everyone became literally Amish (or similar) but they simply agreed that living a lower tech life that deliberately returned to the cultural values before the world of our times was good--no ESSENTIAL--to the continued survival of the human race.

IN regard to New Berlin being different from everyone else:

1. According to some general consensus or compact I haven't defined very well, the nations (most of them city-states) of Venus chose to not only give up their technology, but they chose to give up any technical data or information they might have on how such things worked. So they know what tech is, but have no access to any old technological designs. To some degree though they worked to preserve cultural knowledge of the past (history IS taught on Venus), including retaining a number of national characteristics of countries from our world.

2. New Berlin was the only city-state that deliberately cheated on this accord. They kept records of EVERYTHING from the past in extreme detail--which implies they have some high-powered computer archives hidden away somewhere. Some other locations wound up accidentally saving pieces of records of old tech--so they have information on some things, but it's spotty and incomplete. (That's how Tellus and Tethys know how to build carbon-fiber composites, but still rely on basic airship designs given to them by New Berlin.)

3. But even New Berlin went into hibernation for a while, not deciding to USE all it's secret knowledge of the past until a function of the orbital system that's part of the terraforming of Venus failed (the panels that were designed to provide light to areas of the night side of Venus). Once that happened, they decided Venus needed to return to technology in a big way--just as long as it doesn't go "too far."

4. But having come out to use their technology, New Berlin is doing so with a fanatical zeal, not only advancing their own technology, but spreading it around to other city-states and areas as well, convincing them that all of Venus can become technological again--just as long as the tech doesn't go "too far" and the culture remains deliberately Christian, i.e. Victorian.

5. Weirdly New Berlin does not think it's enough to imitate the tech and values of the past. They do bizarre things like copy old uniforms, fashions, government systems, and even have forced their citizens to all speak German, as they reason should be the case for a city named "New Berlin" (though in fact the city was named for New Berlin, Wisconsin, not Berlin, Germany). But there are inconsistencies and gaps in what they actually do. So some old 19th Century black powder cartridge-using rifles are reproduced exactly as they were--while what would have been gas-burning lamps in the streets burn alcohol, a WWII era half-track is reproduced but made to operate under steam power...and jets first used in actual Germany not until WWII, patrol the skies.

6. New Berlin has approved some diesel and other powered engines, but they are rather fixated on steam-technology. They will look for a steam-driven solution to a problem if possible.

7. The rest of Venus has a variety of attitudes towards tech as well as various national groups. Both Tellus and Tethys who I mention in my pilot story (which culturally lean American/British) are accepting of the goals of New Berlin to advance tech but not "too far"--they just don't want New Berlin to dominate everything about them. Some other city and nation states in competition with New Berlin will also exist--but New Berlin is quite technologically dominant at the beginning of my story.

REGARDING THE FUTURE OF VENUS. I'm looking for other writers to flesh out the culture of Venus, to think of things I would not think of, to make it "round." You have a lot of room to play in on an ocean world planet with lots of isolated cultural areas and I'm also even open to changing the basic underlying details of the story world if anyone can make a good case that I should do so. But I do have some long term plans for the planet:

1. New Berlin is deliberately trying to rebuild a space program with regular travel through the Solar System (while holding off on many other technologies--they will never allow Venus to have an Internet, for example). They see this as essential to keeping their planet alive. And they will succeed.

2. New Berlin will have some sort of war or conflict with the rest of Venus, but this will eventually be resolved, perhaps when the character I created as a New Berlin pilot in my story (Baron Von Artemache) becomes the Kaiser. All of Venus will be more or less united in some kind of alliance, eventually.

3. A future book will feature "The Mines of Mercury"--Mercury will also retain some features of the past, but in different way than either Mars or Venus. An additional volume called "Evil Eden Earth" is likely. (Earth, once nuked and highly damaged, rebuilds with a biologically-engineered and sinister intent). The evil future Earth will decide the rest of humanity needs to become part of its empire. They decide to invade Mars as being the "easiest" to control. Venus will rally to Mars' defense. So bioengineered Earth creatures will surge attack the knights and bird riders of Mars, while Venusian airships and steam-powered tanks roll in to help...(Mercury will be on the fence in the conflict at first, but at a decisive moment, will help defeat the forces of Earth).

Does that clear things up? Any more questions?

I have to say I'm getting pretty excited by the possibilities of the long-term arc you have planned Travis.