Task 1 - Research Document

Steampunk is a sub-genre of science fiction that features steam-powered machinery, especially in a setting inspired by industrialized Western civilization during the 19th century.

 Steampunk works are often set in an alternate history of the 19th century's British Victorian era or American Wild West, in a post-apocalyptic future during which steam power has regained mainstream use, or in a fantasy world that similarly uses steam power.

Steampunk perhaps most recognizably features retro-futuristic inventions that people in the 19th century might have imagined them, Such technology may include fictional machines like those found in the works of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, or the modern authors Philip Pullman and Scott Westerfeld, Other examples of Steampunk contain alternate history-style presentations of such technology as lighter-than-air airships and analog computers.

Fantasy Steampunk settings abound in table top and computer role-playing games. Notable examples include Bioshock infinite, Myst, Guns of Icarus, Dishonoured and Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends.