Ripping off the Victorian British Empire

[Agemegos]

Kirk was (loosely) based on Hornblower.

He was--but very, very loosely. Hornblower was skinny, socially inept, personally insecure, racked by guilt and lack of confidence, and bitterly cynical. Kirk was robust, suave, and confident to the point of smugness. Hornblower was an extreme introvert, Kirk a marked extrovert; Hornblower a bookish nerd, Kirk a fist-swinging jock. When some-one needed thumping, Kirk thumped him, but Hornblower said "Brown! Thump that man!" If Kirk ever got into a duel he would have won it whatever the weapons: Hornblower chose "pistols at one yard, only one pistol to be loaded", figuring that he converted certain defeat into an even chance. Hornblower was soft-hearted, but he had a first-class mind and nerves of steel, and when the going got tough his veins ran with iced water.

I figure that Kirk (or maybe Pike) was pitched as being like Hornblower either by or to someone who hadn't actually read their Forrester, and that the basis was soon forgotten as Kirk took on a life of his own.

 

[Agemegos]

Don't think the idea of a Victorian lady-killer is strange either. The connotations of the word "Victorian" is mostly about how they compared with modern times.

And even that is based on hostile representations penned in the 1920s. There was plenty of rip-roaring between 1837 and 1901, and not just in the American West either. Read about the Victorians in Kipling, Conan Doyle, Mark Twain, and Rider Haggard: their contemporaries knew them better than their children did.

 

[Agemegos]

In the interests of Traveller, I am trying to rip off the cool parts of the Victorian British Empire.

The single most important thing about the Victorian Period is that it was a time of expansion and development, a time in which new states, colonies, and countries were carved out of the wilderness and other empires' territories, a time when new technologies were developed, new cities and new industries were built. It was a time of opportunity perhaps unparalleled in history: unless of course you were a member of one of the peoples being expanded among instead of one of the peoples doing the expanding. There were open frontiers, rapid growth, and lots of paths leading upwards. Birth and bureaucracy weren't even the main paths to wealth, success, and social consequence, let alone the only ones. That's very different from the Imperium in most OTUs.

 

[Angelis_Mortis]

I can't Help thinking of the North West Frontier in early Victorian India. East India Company officers travelling, Mapping and forging treaties. European Traders trying to make money. constant border raids from the Afgans and mountain bandits. Missionaries spreading the word. local wars between villages over just about anything. punative missions into the hills every year by the army.
It was very much Britain's version of the wild west for well over 40 years, Just read some Kipling, he came along towards the end of the troubles in India, but was still a place of constant strife and the occasional rebelion.