[OOC] Steampunk?

[Black Aeronaut]

The Galaxy Express 999 is a steam engine isn't it? Or does it just mimic one?  Been a loooooong time since I saw the anime.

The Triple-Nine’s loco looks like an old steam engine from the outside, but the inside is filled with blinkenlights and high tech looking stuff. The genre of the show as a whole largely depends on which episode you’re watching and what planet you’re on. The role of technology in our lives is a major theme; it’s definitely not not steampunk, if you get my drift.

This does have the advantage of being a source already included in the our story, via Aria.

Galaxy Express 999 is Post-Apocolyptic Raypunk.... which, in turn, features Art Deco as one of the major design influences.  And one of the big things with steam engines, just as diesel-electric engines were becoming viable, was using Art Deco to create "Streamliners".

While the Galaxy Express 999 itself isn't a "streamliner", it does have some of those design characteristics, and is also stated within the show to be intentionally anachronistic.  They also say why it is so: that most people who ride the 999 (but not all) are on their way to the Machine Planet to abandon their humanity.  So the 999 is a means to allow them to indulge themselves in their last days of being human.

Spoiler for the big plot twist

(It also turns out that these people aren't actually being made into machines - these only have their memories copied over from their minds.  What they're actually being made into are new parts for the Machine Planet itself!  This being because a part that has a human soul will serve its purpose far better than any ordinary part.)