A creative trekkie who seems to love steam powered machinery as much as he loves the Star Trek movies and series proceeded to create a steampunk phaser and tricorder.
Flo Svensson, the German (despite his Scandinavian name) trekkie in question, confronts us with a dilemma: are the phaser and the tricorder from the future or from the past? Judging by their function, which is yet unmatched by modern devices, one could say that they have been invented by humans from the future. The steampunk design, on the other hand, would lead people to think that they are from a couple of centuries ago. These redesigned pieces of technology are definitely something Sherlock Holmes would use. The classic Sherlock Holmes, as depicted in Arthur Conan Doyle’s books and maybe in Guy Ritchie’s flicks, not the modern one as re-imagined by Steven Moffat.
Unfortunately, the steampunk phaser seen in the above and below pictures is nothing more than a concept design. As much as we’d like to see such steampunk devices in real life, Flo Svensson has only created these as an exercise.
The steampunk tricorder is stripped of the digital display and all the other more modern-looking switches and buttons. All of these are replaced with toggle switches, push buttons and an analog display.
Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock from Star Trek: The Original Series would have definitely enjoyed using such devices while visiting the Earth in the 1800s. A monocle would be optional, but black suits on which a steampunk version of the Starfleet’s logo is pinned would have been more than jaw-dropping. Why Captain Kirk from TOS? There a few episodes there that included time travel. In the recent Star Trek movies, all the action takes place in a futuristic world, while TOS also had a touch of past times.
In fact, better than dressing only Captain Kirk and Spock in Victorian clothes, the entire crew of U.S.S. Enterprise should be in this outfit. That would definitely be a change from the future-filled stories of J.J. Abrams’ flicks.
Additional pictures of these two unique steampunk gadgets are available on the DeviantArt profile of Flo Svensson. Now that we went down this road, I’m terribly curious of how a steampunk starship Enterprise would look like. We are more likely to see such steampunk gadgets in Doctor Who nowadays, rather than in Star Trek, but this effort should not pass unnoticed.
If you liked this post, please check the Star Trek phaser and communicator for geeks, and these cool Star Trek gadgets and toys.
