John Maddox Roberts

Jib, If you'll recall, in the book Alatriste carries a "slaughtering-knife" in his boot. That's the knife you saw (I haven't seen the movie but I saw a still showing that blade.) Years ago I saw a film of a Spanish bullfight. After the matador had downed the bull, a fat little guy in overalls came out and cut its throat with a knife just like that one, with a swelling, dart-shaped tip. He stabbed it in the jugular and yanked the blade upward and out. I figured back then that he was a slaughterhouse-worker and the knife was a Spanish sticking-knife, like that used in American slaughterhouses but more heavily made.

In Peterson's "Daggers and Fighting Knives of the Western World" that design is called a "Mediterranean Dirk." In early America it would have been called a "Spanish dirk." A very similar knife called a punal (tilda over the n) is still carried by Argentine Gauchos. I had one made for an early 19th century impression, only with the addition of an s-curved guard.

I asked the same question of the Spanish members of Sword Forum International after reading about it in the novel "Captain Alatriste." The narrator speaks of it as being regarded as an especially deadly weapon. The consensus was that the word just means "from Biscay." Any dagger from that region would have been called Vizcaina. The author was probably indulging in a bit of dramatizing, much as many historical authors write of the American Bowie knife as exceedingly deadly, when in fact it had no qualities or design features that hadn't been common in European knives for centuries.

That's a "pikeman's pot," a degenerate form of the burgonet mentioned in my first post, and it probably was the last form of helmet seriously worn by foot soldiers, along with the breast-and-back. They were worn as late as the English Civil War. Cuirassier cavalry continued to wear the cuirass and helmet (often a classically-inspired fantasy) right through the Napoleonic era, and by ceremonial units to this day. But armor was essentially through after the mid-17th century. The Age of Gunpowder had arrived fully.

Czech filmmaker Karel Zeman's 1958 "The Fabulous World of Jules Verne" is an eye-boggling ancestor of steampunk. He uses every form of animation and trick photography known to the 1950s and elements drawn from a number of Verne's works. It's black-and-white and looks like a period illustration come to life. The machines are outlandish but look like they could really work. I saw it as a boy back in the early 60s on tv. There are clips from it on YouTube and the DVD is available.

I did mention the cuirassier regiments that kept the breast-and-back and a helmet. Gorgets were mostly symbolic, though scale and mail epaulets continued to be used and were some protection from sabres, but for all practical purposes armor disappeared from the battlefield after the mid-1600s, only to reappear in WWI in the form of helmets, because of the great number of scalp lacerations caused by air bursts. From that time armor began to reappear. It still wouldn't stop a bullet, but in the 20th century relatively few wounds were produced by bulets, but huge numbers were caused by small bits of shrapnel, which could be stopped. In recent years body armor has come back in a big way because of the new materials like kevlar and soldiers finally have armor that is effective against small-arms bullets as well as shrapnel. But, to get back to the subject at hand (or head) the morion was one of the last of the old-style helmets worn.

The morion, along with its cousin the cabasset and the burgonet were among the last helmets used in western Europe. Helmets and all other armor died out in western Europe after the mid-17th century except for a few cuirassier cavalry units. Hats often had steel linings, but they were kept out of sight.

Oops! Missed that 'l". Sure, it can be "Flight." I've never seen a winged Valkyrie. They rode horses so, technically, it was the horses that flew, though I'm not sure that it was flying, strictly speaking, since they rode down the Bifrost bridge that linked Asgard with Midgard (Earth). The rainbow is supposed to be Bifrost made visible, and the aurora borealis was the reflection from the Valkries' shining helmets and armor. Lots of cool imagery associated with the Valkyries. None of which has much to do with steampunk. Though, wouldn't "Valkyrie" be a great name for an airship?

Nope, it's "Ride." Valkyries didn't fight, they fetched the heroic dead off the battlefields and took them to Valhalla.

A sound system opens up a host of steampunk possibilities. What would it look like? I'm for a battery of giant hailing horns (or Victrola sound trumpets?) much patched from battle damage.

My favorite exchange: Cleese (as Blind Pew): I 'ave acute 'earing. Idle: I don't care about your jewelry!

Oooh, nice! Is that a Mexican knife? You don't usually see the eage-head pommel elsewhere.

From the sound of that dust at Burning Man, those goggles could come in handy for more than just style.

Let's not forget those premier hand weapons of the 19th century - the Bowie knife and brass knuckles. I have a number of Bowies in my collection, and the Ultimate Bowie on the way - a line for line copy of the celebrated Musso Bowie, with its 14-inch, curved blade and brass-sheathed spine, knife and cutlass in one, a boarding weapon if ever there was one. And though they're pricey, Dixie Gun Works sell a double-barreled Howdah Pistol, in 20 gauge smoothbore or .50 caliber rifled, or one barrel of each. With the Musso and the Howdah, I'd feel equal to most boarding situations.

I've written a few alternate history novels myself, so this is right up my alley. My future is determined. My steampunk persona is ---- Bushrod Pennypacker, late of the CSN raider Brazos, post-bellum newspaper publisher in the Republic of Texas, now with a price on my head in that republic due to an unfortunate duelling incident involving an Austin politician, now Boarding Specialist First Class. From your map, it looks like the town where I live in New Mexico is part of Texas, and I substantially grew up in Texas, where my family goes back before the War Between the States.

How about steam-powered repeating cannon? I believe development was in the works before Krupp made it obsolete with smokeless shells and hydraulic recoil-absorption. You already have steam and it's lots cleaner than black powder. Also, you'll need a calliope. Mississippi riverboats had them, and it gives you one more rating - musician. What does she use for lift? If hydrogen, those firearms could get a bit chancy. Helium is safe, but it means you don't dare offend Texas. The only place that produced it in quantity from natural sources was, (and I think still is), the area around Amarillo, in the panhandle.

I have an original Royal Navy boarding pike, but it probably dates from Napoleonic times, well after the GAOP. It's about 8' long and has a small, bodkin point, triangular in cross-section with a longish socket and langets. The amazing thing is, the socket fits precisely flush with the shaft and the langets are inletted. The wood-to-metal fit is incredible. You can run your thumbnail across it and you can't feel where the wood and the steel meet. It's like it was made by a master gunsmith, yet these were cheap weapons in their day. It has a small steel buttcap, likewise inletted, and a peg of the shaft protrudes through it so that the pike can be grounded without marring the deck and it would sit firmly in a rack. I bought it at Waldhorn's Antiques on Rue Royale in New Orleans in 1972. Cost me all of $25 (a serious sum for me back then.) They'd just bought up a load of stuff from a big Tower of London auction. I had $25 to spend and it was the pike or a regimental talwar in a khaki-covered scabbard. I chose the pike because I'd just been reading the Hornblower novels and I knew that talwars were available elsewhere, but I'd never laid eyes on a real boarding pike. I've never regretted the choice.

Thanks, CG! I'm taking it from that second picture that the Scots Bonnet is considered correct for the GAOP?

According to Bernal Diaz the arms and legs of sacrificed humans were cut off, cooked and eaten. It sounds grotesque but undoubtedly was a religious practice (though providing some high-quality protein as well.) Some claim that it was Spanish propaganda, but I doubt it. Diaz himself describes the condition of Tenochtitlan at the end of the seige that destroyed it, and says that every room left standing was absolutely stuffed with corpses of the defenders and their families, yet the few still able to fight were starving and emaciated, despite the abundance of flesh. To them, eating the flesh of people who had not been properly sacrificed was as repugnant as cannibalism to us. If the Spanish were propagandizing, why not claim that the Aztecs were unredeemable cannibals to the end? The Aztecs had a culture so alien to ours that in some ways they seem like people from another planet, yet it had limitations and taboos as strict as any of ours.

How about the Scots bonnet, sometimes referred to as a "flat cap"? They're mentioned (on land) as far back as the early 17th century. The familiar blue bonnet was the Scots standard, but flat caps were worn in other parts of Europe as well. Is there evidence for them at sea in the GAOP?

Were those dangling ornament things also sometimes called "tags"? I remember reading "The Three Musketeers" as a boy wherein a central plot device was Milady de Winter stealing two of the duke of Buckingham's "diamond tags." Originally, they were part of a set given by Louis XIII to his wife, Anne of Austria. She secretly gave two to Buckingham and de Winter was charged by Richelieu to steal them so he could accuse Anne of being unfaithful to the king. I remember wondering what in the world a diamond tag might be.

My Loyalist cutlass for a crowded scrimmage on a heaving deck littered with fallen timber, rope and loose cannonballs, My smallsword from Godwin for polite duelling, my old Del Tin swept-hilt rapier for sheer swagger, a Bowie for the real down-and-dirty. I've commissioned a sword of my design named Three Moons from John Lundemo, one of the best swordsmiths working today. It's sort of a two-handed scimitar, a deluxe item that's going to cost a good chunk of my income for some time to come. When that's paid off, I'm commissioning a custom cutlass from John. It will be the ultimate pirate chief's cutlass, elegant and deadly at the same time. I love the sharp and pointies.

Ooooh! When does we see the blade? And we wants a full account of the process, too.

Cap't Midnight: Some fine work there. What's the chance of buying a few of those scrap sawblade pieces from you? New Mexico barely has trees, much less sawmills. I do have a Dremel, though, and a number of projects I'd like to try out.

How cool! That'll give me bragging rights at the writer's conventions. "Hah! Keep yer Hugos and Nebulas and Edgars and Silver Spur awards! I gots me a cannon named fer me!" They'll drool with envy.