Contributors:

Ram, Lunar, Hiaen, Hydria, Eels, Blue, Wafflez, Willow

Part 1: Trams and Railcars

Lunar: What if public trams existed in DH2/DOTO haha jk, unless?

Ram: Is that not what those big ol' "BAHM BAHM" things on rails are in the first mission [in Dunwall]?

Hiaen: If there are railcars then they have all the technology to make tramways

Ram: I know they're for transporting whale oil and stuff but I thought they were used for public transport, too? I feel like they should be, it'd make sense. They're not any different from railways, in essence

Lunar: Also they have the technology to make?? submarines?? So trams or public transport like that shouldn't be hard!

also I love the [individual] cable cars [in Karnaca] but seriously how often are they used??? like is it restricted??? because theres a public station before Emily arrives to Addermire?

Ram: I suppose if there's an entire station for them then maybe it's not really restricted, just expensive for a ticket? Or maybe they're not restricted at all and Emily just always happens to turn up on a slow day

Lunar: I have so many questions on how railcars work. is there only one destination?

Ram: I think maybe it's kind of like trains, in that they follow one rail and can't turn, so how they go down different routes is the rails shift

Hiaen: Maybe the railcars [in Karnaca] are used only for places that are particularly difficult to access, and only for small groups of people? The ones we see in DH2 are to go to Addermire (in the middle of the sea + a priority only for patients and doctors), and to go to Jindosh's Mansion (built on a cliffside + only for Jindosh and his rich customers). Apart from that, the rails we see could be used for tramways, and have a complex network that we simply don't see in-game

Additionally, the rails to Addermire and Jindosh's Mansion are built in places where it's kinda hard to build rails (sea and cliffs), so we can imagine only light vehicle can drive there (so railcars and not large tram cars)

Eels: I do like how your explanation hiaen fits right in with the social stratification in Karnaca, as the duke really has no inclination to put social benefits like public transport in for the lower classes. With the private consumer railway stuff presumably being developed in the time since dh1, it makes total sense it's limited to the rich and powerful in Karnaca and/or niche situations where things are hard to get to

Ope i just realized i missed the part about having a network we don’t see

Hiaen: No no you're right, we all went "railcars are unpractical and would be expensive for the general population, maybe there are things we don't see?" and didn't realize at all that Luca Abele was an asshole who most likely doesn't give a shit about building infrastructure for the population

Hydria: i remember there's a tooltip on loading screens about the railcars, i think it says they're for "nobles(?) and friends of luca abele.” idk if nobles is the word it uses but its rich-people-of-some-kind-i-think

Part 2: Beyond Railcars

Blue: do they have steam trains/locomotives in the dishonored universe?

Hiaen: They do have the technology necessary But I don't remember any mention of a train in-game

Hydria: there are those “trains” of carts ig? not actual locomotives really but

Lunar: They use boats as the main source of transport tho

Hiaen: Normal in an empire that's essentially an archipelago

Blue: yeah butthats between isles, along the rivers. i could imagine trains though say from travel within the isles - like across gristol, serkonos. i can imagine trains for long distance travel

Hiaen: Two things that could explain the absence of train:

1) it's kinda hard to judge the size of the islands from the map, but judging by the reduced number of notable cities there's a chance they're pretty small, so geography might not work for trains

2) trains at this time were upper class things, and in dishonored the rich seem alright with carriages do they might not want to invest in trains

But it's. Purely extrapolating

Jacob: I WAS THINKING ABOUT THE SIZE OF THE ISLANDS AND WHAT NOT

Considering it is an island nation it makes sense to focus more on sea faring vessels than land faring ones

Wafflez: Yeah but how do people move between cities-- Gristol's pretty big for example

I can't remember but maybe there was some info on that in the daud book because he was going all over the place and being followed?

Blue: yeah but like also. britain is a small island nation, but has a very rich history of trains and locomotives. britain is tiny, comparatively. like, so many grand bridges in br*tain were built for the trains and stuff

so idk i can imagine them in gristol at the very least. They accerlate land-based transport of raw materials - the trees felled in the forests, stones from the quarries, but latterly providing a fast way to travel for those able to afford. as as the isles advance, and the high and mighty need to travel more, trains make sense

Wafflez: Tyvia is likely to get them much later I feel like? Bc ew it's not the capital and has less cities

Hiaen: I could see them in tyvia, because trains are easier to keep warm than a carriage. If anyone's gonna have issues with train it's serkonos, because if the rest of the island is anything like what we see in the game, the geography is a railway engineer's nightmare

Blue: mm but if its a method of transport that makes sense - AND if gristol wants some raw materials transported across the isle - they'd probably invest

karnaca probably wouldn't - plus its still quite "wild" - by which i mean lots of trees in close proximity to the city and stuff

Wafflez: I just want cool Empire of Isles where they have like bridges connecting islands and stuff

Hiaen: Consider: zeppelin in serkonos. To adapt to the mountains

Hydria: they have At Least One Diving Bell but even then that fucked up right

Blue: OH THE DIVING BELL YES!! OH related to bridges as well but the concept of like. how they would build the deep supports for bridges, leading to works often contracting the bends -> sokolov studying the phenomenon

Lunar: Isn’t the Jessamine a submarine?

Willow: I think the hunley was built during the civil war, so that plus advanced tech in dh universe could lend itself to cool ass submarines

Hiaen: No it’s a warship. Ironic that they'd make any ship for Jessamine's memory given the public money expenditure of that kind of thing...

Lunar: Ironic that they’d make a warship for Jessamine’s memory when she was a pacifist

Blue: tbf they were probably gonna build the ship regardless and just named it after her. its. quite common 2 name ships after like royals and stuff i think. threes a model of it

and schematics in game, i think the model is in the tower, in the room u wake up in after the coup

looks like a passenger ship

not a war ship so many cabins, exposed

Willow: Yeah definitely a passenger ship

Hiaen: A fuckbig one, too. Also uh. Anyone knows what "ISS" stands for here.

Willow: If uss was united states ship judging by what my dad told me, it might be imperial state ship