The Papacy has released the results of scientific tests performed on some bones housed in a sarcophagus in the Vatican.

“Tiny fragments of bone” in the sarcophagus were subjected to carbon dating, showing they “belong to someone who lived in the first or second century,” the pope said in a homily carried on Italian television. “This seems to confirm the unanimous and undisputed tradition that these are the mortal remains of the Apostle St. Paul,” Benedict said in Sunday’s announcement.

Lets follow that line of scientific investigation once more, shall we?

Because the bones are between about 2000 and 1800 years old, they MUST be those of Paul. I've seen worse leaps to conclusions, but not many. They could be anyone's bones. Sure, they are from the right era but plus-or-minus-a-century is nowhere near "undisputed." It would be like finding a body in the woods of New Jersey, saying that they had been there for maybe 20 or 40 years and declaring that you thus had definitively found Jimmy Hoffa.

They would need to do better than that. And then, of course, even if those were the bones of a guy named Paul from the 1st Century, that in no way would validate or even lend support to his purported claims of a divine audience with the resurrected Jesus.

 

From: Mr. Zebulon Pike, Deadwood, Dakota Territory
To: Mrs. Hannelore West, Kingsport, Mass.
August 1878

Beloved Sister,

I know that you are fond of both reading and writing fantastical fiction and the tale I am about to tell seems taken from the pages of Sheridan's ghost stories, though with a distinctly less gothic bent and certainly nowhere near as literary as your creations.

In celebration of the grand opening of Messrs. Tobin, Pace and Bongiovi's “establishment”, a gambling tournament was hosted. It would seem that, with my automated pancake machine as a centerpiece, the so-called “House of Pancakes” was not to be merely a brothel but also a saloon and general gathering place. For all their brutality on the trail when under fire, my comrades present themselves as marginally respectable. Even so, my interaction with this event was only to keep the machine running to feed our guests.

Oh, and I am pleased to tell you that I have completed the blueberry formula. While it contains no actual blueberries and tastes almost, but not quite, entirely unlike blueberries, it is exceptionally good and is wildly popular. Huzzah for modern chemistry! I have included the formulae and recipes along with the plans for the machine itself and ask that you convey them to my patent solicitor, Mr. Siegfried Block of Post Office Square, Boston. While I have heard rumors of another pancake machine, I am sure that mine would be an improvement of magnitudes when combined with the custom batters. It is important that such things be documented and registered lest some upstart claim my superior machine as some copy of a lesser device.

Where was I? Oh, yes. The murder.

It occurred in one of the upstairs rooms reserved for “guesting,” to use a polite euphemism. It did not take long to exonerate the girl Sun Lee in the strangulation. In spite of one of their own having been mysteriously murdered, the other gamblers were not deterred from continuing their game the next night as there were large stakes to be won or lost. With Mr. Pace thus engaged in gambling and attempting to determine if one of the other gamblers was the murderer, and Mr. Tobin acting as present security for the House, it left Mr. Bongiovi and I to set out and investigate what we could.

At first, the Sheriff Bollock seemed disinclined to assist us. I suspect that our founding of a new brothel interfered with his long established business dealings with the Bella Union and Gem Saloon. Later, however, his lack of inclination turned into outright inattention. It would seem that he was under some outside influence, perhaps a drug-induced susceptibility to suggestion or mesmerism. In any case, our dealings with the sheriff and his condition caught us unawares when another murder occurred. This time, at the Gem Saloon.

Mr. Bongiovi provided the distraction while I was able to infiltrate the room of the murdered gambler to investigate. There I found papers that lead me to suspect a young card sharp named Spinner was involved, either as an accomplice or even as the murderer. Spinner's room was just down the hall and entering that room I found a steamer trunk which contained only a fine layer of soil. This immediately suggested to me the Eastern European myths of vampires and I felt sure that I had found the murderer's lair.

I improvised a fire-trap and fled out the window when Mr. Bongiovi's antics no longer held the attentions of the saloon's employees, eventually taking up an observatory position on a nearby rooftop.

It was several hours before Spinner returned and, through the window I was able to observe her arrival. Indeed, I saw that what we had thought to be a young man was, in fact, a disguised woman. This revelation was not of any significance when compared to the moment that she opened the steamer trunk and my incendiary detonated.

Unexpectedly, I began taking gunfire from out the windows of adjoining rooms. It would seem that our murderess had accomplices. We had exchanged a few rounds of ineffectual gunfire when a singed and quite angry Miss Skinner leapt from the room, across the alley to the adjoining rooftop where I was. She no longer appeared as a young woman, or even as a disguised young man but as a demon, with ashen skin, fangs, claws and even wings upon her back. I now had to contend not only with an enraged vampire at close quarters but also with two gunfighters shooting at me from across the way. Several .41 caliber projectiles from my pistol found their mark in the creature's chest but failed to slow it down. My efforts to deliver a fatal shot to the head missed their mark. Finally, still taking pistol fire from the hotel windows, I activated the conflagrationator concealed in my cane and unleashed it's chemical inferno.

The flames were spectacular, disgorging with power and range to fill the one room across the alley, setting my one assailant ablaze. The cone of combustion washed across another room and sent the other gunfighter reeling. Though he was only singed, he was no longer firing at me. Lastly, I turned the nozzle upon Miss. Skinner and at point blank range, the last of the discharge seared away flesh.

Badly injured, she fled to the street but did not go far as Mr. Pace came upon the scene and, with a few rounds from his Winchester rifle, brought her down. I put the miserable wretch out of its misery with a a buckshot round to the back of the skull.

Things have calmed down significantly. The surviving accomplice has been taken into custody and is apparently revealing everything in an attempt to avoid the hangman's noose. Mr. Pace has returned to his gambling tournament and looks to be making a tidy profit. Having had a murder in our establishment seems to have dampened enthusiasm during our opening week but the favorable reputation of “The Infernal Pancake Machine” seems to be offsetting that slow start. I have set up a makeshift laboratory in a laundry next door and have found some interesting things from Miss Skinner's dissection.

I am developing plans for an arc lamp which, when enhanced with hydrogen gas, should be even more effective against similar solatopic beings than my conflagrationator was. (I am still displeased with that name. Pray, come up with something better.) I will send you plans for that as well once they are complete and successfully tested in addition to some others. I have built a narrow-gauge mine engine that runs on compressed air rather than a tradition external combustion steam engine. This will aid the local miners where highly combustible coal dust and gases is a significant hazard.

Stay well and be sure to write to me. I look forward to hearing how things are transpiring back home.

Your ever loving brother,

Zebulon

 

At Marcon, Louis Nicoulin showed me a take on a steampunk lightsaber that inspired me to construct my own device. When I built my walking stick, I had wanted to add an electrical sword component, much like Agatha Heterodyne created in the Phil and Kaja Foglio webcomic "Girl Genius." While the sword cane idea didn't pan out, with Louis's brilliant idea of using a telescoping magnetic pick-up tool, I was quickly off on a steampunk lightsaber design, or rather, a Teslatronic fencing foil.

Teslatronic fencing foil

The first thing was replacing the single magnetic tool with two telescoping radio antennas. Two of them turns the thing into a Jacob's Ladder sort of device. Oh, if only I could get electricity to arc between the two electrodes but that is way beyond what could be safe and handheld. I also wanted to bend the ends to match the way the tips are on Agatha's swords but I found that the alignment didn't stay the way I needed them to so I bent them back.

The grip is a wood dowel wrapped in leather. The front end is a PVC plumbing connector with a bike gear inside. The rear end is some more plumbing with a piece of gutter mesh on a core rod from a lamp. I need something more inside the chamber. Something that lights up. Some vacuum tubes would be good. I added the copper wire and connectors on the side of the grip because I wanted it to be more busy. More steampunky. It also looks inherently dangerous because it's clearly something that should carry some high voltage current but it is right next to where the operator's hand goes.

I want to add a connector at the back end so that I can run a cable to an off-hand generator as is in "Girl Genius". That would be a hand held box with moving parts and flashing lights. Large Tesla coils have an alternator that consists of a rotating disk with contacts that ark brightly and loudly with extremely high voltages. They look a bit like a Wimshurst Machine on steroids (at least, that what it looked like at the Science Center when I worked there). I'm not sure that would look quite right so now I'm thinking of a more traditional generator looking device but without the enclosing (and concealing) magnets. It would look a bit like a rotary engine but with two rotating in opposite directions with strobing lights inside to simulate arcing electricity. For the cable from the generator to the foil, I think a braided plumbing hose as is used for faucets would look good. Most of the ones I see on line have been chromed but I'm sure I can find one in the original, uncoated brass.

A sound effect would be good. Those greeting cards that allow you to record your own message might work. I could remove it from the card and record the sound of arcing electricity to play as a continuous loop either in the foil or in the generator.

(Crossposted at Steamfashion)