Steampunk America before the Weights Came Crashing Down

Act 1

I dreamed about a steampunk alternate history where a steampunk American battleship-submarine, either through alliance or through loan, came steaming to the rescue of the Kaiser.

But the world was the house of my parents.

I saw the American battleship-sub do battle with a couple of Italian ships rising from the floor waters at the entrance to their bedroom–all the ships had the raw look of WWI tanks complete with truly giant rivets– and then submerged and resurfaced to fight again at the entrance to the narrow back hall on the other side of the bedroom (long since gone after the remodel 10 years ago).

Act 2

Then either the Central Powers won the war or, I am inclined to think, the American intervention led to a different peace and an alternate WWII fought by a resurgent Kaisesrreich, because the next scene was a monstrously huge WWII era German battleship with a monstrously huge crane on it in the port(!) of Paris joyfully moving this very heavy weight around on its guy wires over Paris.

Back story, which I apparently knew instantly in the way of dreams: to celebrate their victory over the Germans in WWI, the victorious French had suspended these huge cables high above central Paris and then strung a huge weight from the cables.  A huge weight like a cast iron block the size of a several story building.

Now the Germans were sliding the weight around by way of celebration and rubbing it in.

Sadle in the process of sliding it around the cables broke, the weight came crashing down into the inner harbor.  The shock destroyed the city.

Act 2.B

What followed was an apocalypse montage.  There was these suspended weights over cities all over the world that now came crashing down.  New York’s had a skyscraper built around it (almost as if it were a naturally occurring phenomena).  It’s fall was mighty.  Everything 200 miles north to Denver (!) and halfway through Denver was destroyed.

Act 3

My point of view was a portal, it turns out  (like, me observing stuff in the dream created a portal that connected to the scene of any other observation).  The American sub-battleship crew used the portal to start colonizing the prime real estate devastated in the apocalypse montage and went through to the ruins of NY to make contact with the future government in the remains of Denver