WHAT IS STEAMPUNK?
I find it a fascinating exercise in personal taste to have something you’ve always liked in a certain way fully defined. For example, I never knew I was a vampire snob until someone wanted me to watch Buffy The Vampire Slayer series. Despite their various points on why the show was great (including excellent arguments on the quality of the writing), I just couldn’t get into it…because I like my vampires as horrific, supernatural beings, where you lose a little of your sanity when you encounter one (you can tell I really like Cthulhu, right?)…and the genre twist of angst-ridden High School vampires I just couldn’t accept…something that apparently I’ve no issues with when it comes to cowboys in space because I can’t get enough of Firefly.
So how does this apply to steampunk? Well, I’ve always loved the aesthetic, I just didn’t have name for it. From the moment I saw Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaä of the Valley of the Winds 20+ years ago sitting in Scott’s house with Tony, Chad and some other friends, I knew whatever ‘that’ aesthetic was, I loved it!
Fast forward two decades and the term “steampunk” had been coined and risen enough in popularity that I had a name to apply to one of my varied “tastes.” And of course as I began working on Leviathans three years ago, I delved into the background and development of steampunk heavily, both to understand its history so I could convey it appropriately, but also to best comprehend how Leviathans fit into that aesthetic.
But that brings us back to what steampunk actually is, right? Many of you reading this will obviously be answering this already…but there’s still plenty of people just now finding this wonderful aesthetic and are interested in Leviathans, so I thought it worthwhile to dig in to provide a little bit of context.
At its core, steampunk is a subgenre of fantasy literature that includes technology powered by archaic methods (often, but not exclusively, steam) and an emphasis on hand-crafted, individually produced mechanical artifacts.
The actual application of steampunk in a medium (clothing, movies, games, literature and more) is wildly divergent. The roots of this genre revolve around the Victorian/Edwardian time frame; today’s technology seen through the eyes of the late 1800s/early 1900s, a time when science embraced the hope of the future.
The golden century of science fiction (the mid-20th century) promised awesome technological gadgets and the hope of a better tomorrow with less human misery and more triumph. Yet while today’s world has brought much of that technology into reality, the hope has vanished as our tomorrows look even darker than our today. Steampunk celebrates the concept of turning back the wheel, yet retaining the technology we love…of figuring out what went wrong and then doing it right.
In addition, the rising, broad appeal of steampunk is that it can be adapted to a variety of styles, from alternate history settings depicting “the future that might have been” of a 1900s golden age, to the dark, gritty 1960s-based Bioshock that mixes in a hefty dollop of the bleak dystopian view usually reserved for cyperpunk.
All of this has given rise to a host of “sub-subgenre” names that try and provide better frames of reference for where a particular setting/style might fall: gaslamp fantasy, weird west, dieselpunk, clockpunk, steamgoth, and so on.
In other words, I believe no single definition covers steampunk anymore; instead, it is a collage of concepts and ideas, even if the core remains the same. This type of “mix it and make it yours” mentality fits flawlessly with the “now” generation’s YouTube and iTunes mindset of taking what someone else has created and bringing your own desires to the table as you find what you like in it (the very reason we made the decision to release Leviathans under Creative Commons).
So if it’s so varied, how do you tell if it’s “steampunk?” I think you have to fall back to the old saying, “How do you tell art from pornography? I can’t define it for you, but when I see it, I know what it is.” Despite its huge variances, when you see certain aesthetics mixed in, you just know.
The following are just a sampling of movies/TVs/computer games you may have seen/played/heard of, all of which have some aspects that makes them fall into “yeah, that’s steampunk”, as I see it:
-
Movies/TV: Howl’s Moving Castle, The Prestige, The Golden Compass, Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, 9, War of the Worlds: Goliath, Warhouse 13
Computer Games: Space: 1889, Final Fantasy IX (many in the series carried the aesthetic, but it’s most prevalent here), Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends, Bioshock, Arcanum; even World of Warcraft has a touch of steampunk.
How does all of this fit into Leviathans? Only a few years ago most people would’ve used “Edwardian Science Fiction” to define the aesthetics of Leviathans at a glance. Now, however, I believe the term “steampunk” has become the de-facto nomenclature that most people are going to understand and so instead of trying to push Leviathans down into one of those sub-subgenres, we simply describe it as “alternate history/steampunk” and leave you, the fans, to embrace it in whatever way you’ll enjoy the most.
See ya next duty shift!
Randall
Also Crimson Skies?
It’s a romantic setting. The New York Times did a long, loving piece on it a while back, but it’s probably behind a paywall now.
In the near future, when actual robots do a lot of our fighting, BattleTech will also seem retro-futuristic. Parts of it already do!
Would Wild Wild West with Will Smith qualify as a Steampunk movie? I believe almost all their contraption meet the requirement. Not only that, it’s likely one of the more mainstream movies that “non” geeks have heard of or seen.
Neko-Bijin: That’s a tough one…I love Crimsons Skies…was part of the design playtesting for the FASA game, did writing on the WizKids game and played the computer games a lot…but for me it just doesn’t really fall into any steampunk style.
Konig: Yes, yes that absolutely is a steampunk style movie…I just happen to not really like it at all, so didn’t want to promote it as ‘something to go see if you like steampunk’.
Nope, CS never was Steampunk it always was tongue in the cheeck (Beagle Active Probe) 30s Pulp Fiction and I really think its end as a boargame came just when it really started. The Clix-CS never got anywhere and only the computer games did it right.
BTW, Randall, do you have the Air Race book that was planned to go into production and never made it due to the plug pulled on Fasa?
Yup, I’ve got it on my shelf somewhere.
Also got my copy on the shelf and if anyone ever decides to bring us back CS I will be the first to apply for playtesting.
Still mssing 2 or three of the flyers produced, since they never made it to my shore and I will probably have to DIY those planes that never went into production.
Randall, this is your game (though one that I am eagerly awaiting) and I agree that referring to it as steampunk casually categorizes its genre such that you can quickly characterize its aesthetics while pitching it to new players, but I think “Edwardian Science Fiction” provides a much fuller, though also brief, description.
Exactly what constitutes these various genres is far from settled, but my thoughts on the matter (and I admit I am no literati) are that they all speak to some particular element of the story, or setting, and many of them can be combined resulting in the various “sub-genres” that you reference. While a phrase like Edwardian Science Fiction (or the more prevalent Victorian Science Fiction) suggests the real world era in which the fictional “twist” exists, the exact nature of that twist is still undefined. It could be the addition of horror elements, the prevalence of magic, or the existence of steam-driven technology – i.e. steampunk. These twists can also exist on their own, forming the core of what makes a setting unique. Warmachine is a good example of this, as its the steam-driven technology, far beyond what is found in a normal fantasy setting, that defines its uniqueness.
This is why I think steampunk alone doesn’t do the Leviathans setting justice. While there is some advanced technology in the setting, its not of a particularly steampunkish nature. The guns the leviathans fire are still typical deck guns of the historical era, with nary a steam cannon or similar contraption in sight, and while the boats are steam-driven, they’re no more so than their water-based contemporaries. Instead, what makes Leviathans unique, and frankly so cool, is that you guys have taken the simmering hostilities of the early 1900s and fueled that fire with the introduction of the leviathan.
Whichever way you guys describe the game though, I’m still really looking forward to it. I just couldn’t resist jumping into the discussion – or more accurately “dragging myself into the discussion” based upon the text wall I just created.
I have to agree, to me Leviathans is far from the usual steampunk. I like to call it an “Alternate History”-game. Especially since you take care and have a look at the real world ship designs ind incorporate them in the airship-design while competing product lines simply put on the ships what they think makes them e.g. american (battleships with steamboat look).
First, Alex, no worries about your ‘wall of text’…I love these discussions.
And you’re right that the term steampunk only lightly applies to Leviathans. In fact, when we first started developing Leviathans, and even our first forays into showing it off, that term never really came up. However, as we started hitting conventions, demoing the game and showing off Doug Chaffee’s brilliant ship illustrations, inevitable every other person that walked up to talk to us about the game and the look would toss out the steampunk term.
In fact, I remember two years ago at Gen Con we had a clear HML Leviathan carved out of a block of acrylic to show off and I was surprised (in a great way) at the number of steampunk costume-wearing people (including far more woman than I expected) stopping to ooh-ahh over the miniature. And last Gen Con, once again, numerous such theme-clad individuals played the game, talked to us and so on. And when I demoed the game at Steamcon II late last year, the response was immense.
So while it’s ‘light’ by comparison with a lot of other universes, flying ships with the copper tubing on their sides still fits into almost anyone’s definition of “steampunk.” (i.e. falls into my definition above that if you describe Leviathans to someone they might not say steampunk, but as soon as they see those ships, that’s usually the first word on their lips.) So we didn’t mind simply starting to use the term ourselves.
But of course, as you mention, the universe is much more than that and we’ve tried very hard to create a unique, alternate history setting that’s far cooler and more robust than just the initial visuals portray…and considering how awesome the visual are…
Of course, there are hints at some more more traditional steampunk-style contraptions out there…the Americans in particular are rumored to be working on some new, secret weapons…will they enter the game…well, we’ll just have to wait and see on that one…
If they are in the same line as some CS contraptions I am very fond of them
.
Nausicaä Valley of the Wind is honestly more “dieselpunk” than steampunk. WW1 technology taken to extremes. though like most of the Miyazaki films, it’s aesthetics were all over the place.
for what most people would consider “steampunk”, try Steamboy, which is sort of a quintissential steampunk adventure, with most of the popular elements.
Leviathans, while certainly steampowered, is really more dieselpunk is aesthetic, given it’s timeperoid. steampunk is more of a late 1700′s and early to mid 1800′s aesthetic. dieselpunk is late 1800′s on, more or less. generally once you hit the 1950′s your past the common aesthetic influences of dieselpunk, and even then, you don’t see much 1920′s or later in the popular stuff. (post 1950′s aesthetics work better with the “retro” and “rocketpunk” stuff..)
The Vision of Escaflowne.
That is all.
“the future that might have been” it is a matter of how you could deal over it besides I got some good point of view of this blog that even me love to revisit you blog. Keep it up!