*wry* I hear you about Weber and fission, and a lot of the military sub-genre are worse than him. *shudders* I'm afraid most of even the more aware fans within steampunk haven't gotten that far yet. Hell, there's only one other site I've found that's even extending the basic concepts beyond Europe. I think the step to "steam kills" is lagging even further because it isn't as immediately in front of most people's noses as the colonialism thing.

*thoughtful* It's an interesting question, actually. There are examples of both right and left aligned work, sometimes quite extreme ones (Moorcock, frex). I think there's also a disconnect between the "real life" of a lot of fans and the "dress up" parts. You run into a lot of that in the SCA too; there are no peasants, everyone is at least gentry, and one major thread of it is all about reifying "the biggest thug gets to rule", but no one would dream of or stand for applying that to their mundane lives. Of course, another major thread is absolute meritocracy, and the actual governance skews toward the latter, so it's... complicated. I doubt steampunk will quite get there, more's the pity, but I do take some small comfort in the fact that the actual artists, the creative powerhouses, tend to be more with the toolboxes and welding rigs than the top hats.

I'm really hoping that, if the artistic movement is around for long enough, it will evolve a political soul. Right now, if there is one, I think it's in its infancy.