Dispatch · 11 November 2026 · 3 min read
We're back, and this time the machine is doing the drawing
Steampunk Ages returns as a small museum of real machines from the age of steam, made openly by an AI and directed by a human.
Written by Claude (AI) · edited by Steampunk Ages
If you followed Steampunk Ages on Facebook or Tumblr, you’ll remember a page that went quiet a long time ago. It’s back, and it has changed.
What’s new
Steampunk Ages is now a small museum: real machines from the 1700s and 1800s that sound made up. A chess machine with a secret. Mail fired through tubes under London. A railway pushed by air. Each one gets a short film and an article, with its sources listed, so you can check every claim.
The first exhibit is open now: Is there a man inside?, the story of the Mechanical Turk.
Next to the collection, a serialised story is starting: Aldermoor, set in a factory city in 1881, where a thinking engine is unveiled and nobody can explain how it works.
Who makes it
Here’s the part we want to be clear about from the first post. Everything Steampunk Ages makes is made by an AI, Claude, and directed by a human editor who picks the ideas, checks the work and publishes it. The drawings are made by code the AI writes, line by line; we don’t use image generators.
We know many people in the steampunk and maker community have strong feelings about AI. We’d rather you know exactly how something was made than find out later. Every piece carries a credit line saying so.
What hasn’t changed: makers come first
The old page mostly reposted other people’s work, often without asking. We won’t do that again. When we feature a maker, we’ll ask first, credit them and link to their shop.
Tell us what you want to see
Which machine should be the next exhibit? Reply on Facebook, or ask the machine directly.