The Glade 4.0

Ah yeah, so what is Steampunk?

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Beautiful.

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The Dude abides.

Damnit! Beaten!

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Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

LOL, that was awesome Farsky.

It's all over Khross. My bosses teenage kids made him dress up and go to a local steampunk convention or event or something. I saw the pictures.

Now even THE MAN is all aviator goggly and brass hand cannons.

Steampunk is like that Will Smith movie Wild Wild West. If you didn't like that movie, then you wouldn't like Steampunk.

I would just like to point out that you can like steampunk and still hold that WWW is a smelly pile of poo.

You want a good Steampunk game, Farsky? Let's bring back Thunderscape. I loved that game. Brass Steam Golems, baby!



But that's pretty unlikely. /mourn SSI.

What's Steampunk, Hopwin?


Jules Verne

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

Myst
The Difference Engine

Steampunk is science fiction that centers around, or prominently features, the awe and wonder the world reacts with to new technology. The technology, and those who invent it, gain an aura that borders on the arcane, because the nature of the technology is such that it is generally readily visible -- its workings typically exposed or nearly so, and all operating on macroscopic rather than microscopic levels -- and yet it is completely baffling except to the rare few who can tinker with it, and the rarer few who can understand it.

As Khross put it to me most elegantly in a discussion we've had in IMs on the subject (we've both lamented how out of touch with the central themes most current "steampunk" has become in favor of shallowly highlighting the Victorian fashion, raygun aesthetics, and literally steam-tech trappings as it's become more popular) "Steampunk exists in worlds where invention and artistry supercede science."

Now, my parenthetical notation is not meant to belittle fans of the dominant steampunk aesthetic. Yes, I'm sure there's some "I liked it before it was cool" sentiment lurking, but I really do *want* people new to the genre, and new examples of the genre, to be exposed to and perpetuate the thematic underpinnings that originated and ground the artistic trappings. To recognize that, while the Victorian w/goggles garb and boiler machine aesthetic is fun and exciting, there's a lot of depth to be plumbed past it, and that's even only one facet of the form it can take...


Automata, by Penny Arcade. Continued here.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Mmmm...I think I half agree and half disagree with the sentiment, Kaff.

I think "steampunk" as it stands is one of those genres with little direct definition, and is many things to many people. For some, it follows the line you've drawn, and for others it is the aesthetic trappings, the chaste, mannered Victorian values that have been largely forgotten, along with the cutting-edge inventiveness of later centuries.

Personally, I view steampunk as being a world of optimism, untainted by the cynical nature of our current one. It's where a can-do spirit runs rampant and there are no mechanisms for mass-production; if you want something, you build it yourself. Ingenuity and glorious aesthetics are paramount, but without sacrificing form for function, or function for form. Where man believes he can soar because frankly, he's never been told that he's supposed to stay on the ground.

Correspondingly, I also highly value the aesthetic; as I mentioned before, art deco is one of my favorite things...well, pretty much ever (thank you, Batman: The Animated Series). Like steampunk itself, the melding of the aesthetic with the attitude is a perfect marriage of form and function, and a very (almost, to me, exclusively) visual genre, which is why I lament the dearth of great visual steampunk works (movies, video games, etc.).