Stampede schrieb:
Will there be a heavy emphasis on rebelling against a corrupt system or set of institutions?
Interesting question. I will be talking about this somewhat in my next Dev Notes, but I'm happy to give a bit of a preview.
First, I'm a strong believer in factional variety in game settings. We have worked hard to create multiple nations that are unique but equally interesting. You can see a little of that work in the map that we have teased already. From a political standpoint, many of these nations might consider one or more of the others corrupt or evil - some with justification and some merely because of prejudice (racial, religious, or otherwise). Because they are all human political institutions, they have all made decisions that are morally questionable, and this certainly leads to conflict.
On a more personal level, we are also playing up an aspect of the Victorian age that does not often get highlighted in steampunk settings: the anti-industrial movement. Writers like Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman still exist in our world, and we have entire nations that resist all technological advancement or at least some aspects of it. It is still a time of racism, and we have even introduced an additional focal point for such prejudice in the free-thinking automaton. "Toms" are considered by many to be abominations in the eyes of God and are often treated as bad as or worse than the Chinese, Irish, or African Americans of the time.
So the short answer is that there isn't necessarily a single institution or even set of institutions that is clearly evil or corrupt, but there is certainly a lot of rebelling against perceived evil and perceived corruption. The dystopian effect comes from the many opposing ideas about who or what is corrupt.
Steamscapes is definitely steamPUNK rather than steam romance or gaslamp fantasy.
Does this answer your question?