The Steampunk Boiler Room

So we'll be starting a new series of writing exercises to help jump-start our members' imaginations within the Steampunk realm. Maybe it'll help you start that new story, or maybe it'll just give you some needed practice in a particular mechanic of story writing or world building. We encourage you to write to the suggested word limit, and we'd be ecstatic if you wrote beyond it. The goal is honing your craft, though, so don't feel pressured to finish every time. When you're done, post your work in the forum, and tYpO/T.Boilerman and Capt. J B Dryden III, RAI will have a look at it and offer some thoughts.

Prompt:

Capitols are important centers of trade, government, culture, and technology. Sometimes they are small and unassuming; sometimes they are grand and sprawling. But always they are the center of a nation's power. In a Steampunk work, they tend to be the seed for the conflict, bearing the fruits of deceit, subterfuge, Imperialism, or other grand political schemes that drive your characters to action.

What would the capitol of your steampunk republic look like? Would it be all brass and smokestacks? Or would it be teeming with electric cars and automatons? Would people walk everywhere, or would there be trams and steamcars rushing to and fro?

Write up to 500 words on the topic. Be as descriptive as you can, while still keep in mind that you're building story.