Cyberpunk vs Steampunk

[Jimmy Magnusson]

I'm not an expert on either genre, but I saw this quote from Wiki's article on Steampunk:


As to your specific questions, I can't give specific answers. However, if you want to see an example of steam-powered AI playing a significant rôle, try looking at Perdido Street Station by China Miéville (which is, to be honest, something of a genre grab-bag, but also excellent, IMHO). It certainly has plenty of "dystopian elements".

To quote a somewhat famous reviewer:

How exactly does a steam powered gun turret differentiate between friend and foe? I wasn't aware that boiled water could form allegiances.

Now a steam powered gun doesn't bother me if it's done with self-awareness from the author (because it's a cool gun) rather than a dead serious attempt at creating one.

 

[Ursa major]

It it's the right sort of gun, perhaps it has a "vapour eyes" setting.

 

[Toby Frost]

A mighty pun, sir!

 

[thatollie]

I must apologise to the thread creator for my previous comment. Occasionally I'm too enthusiastic to get my point across that I don't think it through properly. While my point had some truth, it engenders a poor storytelling ethic.

I've had some time to think about it and I've come up with a question to put to the forum. If you can come up a good story from a subject, doesn't that mean you already know a bit about it?

 

[Sparrow]

I've had some time to think about it and I've come up with a question to put to the forum. If you can come up with a good story from a subject, doesn't that mean you already know a bit about it?

The devil's in the details.
When I encounter a story that happens to touch on subject matter I know pretty well, and the writer plays fast and loose with it, I usually just put the book down. I need a world, even a fantastical world, to be consistant and logical. So no, you can't have a world running on steampower and at the same time a character with a laptop computer. Even if you put a bunch of victorian brass fitting on the computer, it won't win me over.

That said, check out this guy's work... it really is quite beautiful.
http://steampunkworkshop.com/lcd.shtml

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

That said, check out this guy's work... it really is quite beautiful.
Steampunk Flat-Panel LCD Mod | The Steampunk Workshop

A friend directed me to that website a year or so ago, and I've been lusting after something like that computer ever since.

I think the point that some of us are making is that some things are incompatible -- they require different world views for instance, as well as different levels of technology. But I would modify that a bit to say that if you do combine them you need to have a mighty good explanation and a mighty convincing rationale behind it. You can't just throw them together because you think it would be cool, or because you think it would suit the kind of story you want to tell.

However, looking at this part of the first message

1. Is it possible for both a culture of steampunk and a cyberpunk culture to exist within close proximity of each other? If not, what would be a good distance ( in relative terms) in which they could exist?

I think you could manage it. Because right now, right in the midst of our technologically advanced society, there is another society that chooses to function at a much earlier level of technology, and has continued to do so for a long time, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Think Amish.

So if your Steampunk society has some very strong religious, ethical, or philosophical objections to the beliefs and the lifestyle of the Cyberpunk society, and if you can work out what those are, and make them a real part of your plot, examining all of the consequences past and present within the world of your story (instead of just dropping them in as an explanation and leaving them untouched afterward), and if you do this thoughtfully and skillfully ... it's possible you could make it work.

The big question is whether this might not involve more time and effort and research than you were planning to put into it.

 

[goldhawk]

I think you could manage it. Because right now, right in the midst of our technologically advanced society, there is another society that chooses to function at a much earlier level of technology, and has continued to do so for a long time, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Think Amish.

So if your Steampunk society has some very strong religious, ethical, or philosophical objections to the beliefs and the lifestyle of the Cyberpunk society, and if you can work out what those are, and make them a real part of your plot, examining all of the consequences past and present within the world of your story (instead of just dropping them in as an explanation and leaving them untouched afterward), and if you do this thoughtfully and skillfully ... it's possible you could make it work.

The big question is whether this might not involve more time and effort and research than you were planning to put into it.

What if oil was rare rather than abundant? No gasoline, no diesel, no natural gas, and plastics are very, very expensive (they can be made from plant oils but rubber is cheater). Coal would still be king.

 

[J-WO]

Go to some places in the far east and you'll see rickshaws and laptops on the same street- that's as wide as the steampunk-cyberpunk divide, technologically speaking. You'd just need a society with extreme financial differences between social strata. Plus what goldhawk just said.

 

[Noob1ett]

thatollie, I understand the focus on the actual story, and to tell you the truth, this is giving me the most problems, because I feel that my story isn't good enough for me to be happy with such. Its either too broad, or too complicated for me to work with at this time. So i'm trying to refine/focus on my story while I work on defining the universe (I've gone so far as to put my story into space I went so crazy) in which I tell my story.

One other question: A plotline i'm pushing wants to use relics of a bygone age (ww2, mainly ships) in the future. would it be easier to use a re-imagination of our current world, or place these relics believably into my own created world?

 

[Toby Frost]

Are we talking technology or aesthetics? It's entirely possible that a society might have an interest in a historical look but be far more advanced in technological terms than the source that inspired it. The Victorian medieval/Elizabethan interest and the Georgian neo-classical look could be examples. In that way you certainly could have a brass laptop, but no, it would not be powered by steam.

As to technology that's much harder. The problem really is that, in modern Earth conditions, the internal combusion engine is better than the steam engine, and hence powers cars. Alter the setting, or the criteria of "better" and suddenly things may change.

 

[goldhawk]

Are we talking technology or aesthetics? It's entirely possible that a society might have an interest in a historical look but be far more advanced in technological terms than the source that inspired it. The Victorian medieval/Elizabethan interest and the Georgian neo-classical look could be examples. In that way you certainly could have a brass laptop, but no, it would not be powered by steam.

A laptop is too small to be steam powered; it would be clockwork. Only the big mainframes would be steam powered.

As to technology that's much harder. The problem really is that, in modern Earth conditions, the internal combusion engine is better than the steam engine, and hence powers cars. Alter the setting, or the criteria of "better" and suddenly things may change.

Cars would be powered by the Stirling engine or steam-turbine/electric hybrid or even by Telsa coil.

 

[Noob1ett]

as of this moment, untill I put more manhours into thinking about it (who knows when thats happening) its all about geographical location and aesthetics. My world is a "post-apocalyptic" rendition of where we currently live, but it involves tetonic changes, sea level changes, etc to bring it where I want it.