Deadly Dames and Dieselpunk Dreams
February 16, 2012 1:22 PM Subscribe
What does 'dieselpunk' mean to you in a story? With our without 'AU historical elements'. I'm just looking for wild ideas and scenarios that may fit into this oeuvre, especially a set-up that sounds blindingly awesome rather than simply appropriate for the fantasy subgenre.
Background: this is a story request I got in exchange for a donation to 'Help Japan' after the disaster, many moons ago. The person wanted dieselpunk and two girls in love (optional). I know next to nothing about dieselpunk (and only steampunk by reputation), so this is a struggle. I can do Victorian a bit better than 40s-50s stuff (though not that much better, at least I read Jules Verne), so I just want to be inspired.
I'm looking for stuff like 'Victorian style dresses and evil automatons' (a description of 'The Girl in the Steel Corset' online). As further context, I did begin a 'dieselpunk' story, vaguely set in the 40s and involving two orphans in love, super-secret government research with Turing, breaking codes, hot spies and time-travel. But then, this is more huge epic and less short story.
Anyway, if anyone has ideas for classic dieselpunk they'd love to see happen, I'm all ears. I want to finally do it during Spring Break, or Bob's my mother.
Background: this is a story request I got in exchange for a donation to 'Help Japan' after the disaster, many moons ago. The person wanted dieselpunk and two girls in love (optional). I know next to nothing about dieselpunk (and only steampunk by reputation), so this is a struggle. I can do Victorian a bit better than 40s-50s stuff (though not that much better, at least I read Jules Verne), so I just want to be inspired.
I'm looking for stuff like 'Victorian style dresses and evil automatons' (a description of 'The Girl in the Steel Corset' online). As further context, I did begin a 'dieselpunk' story, vaguely set in the 40s and involving two orphans in love, super-secret government research with Turing, breaking codes, hot spies and time-travel. But then, this is more huge epic and less short story.
Anyway, if anyone has ideas for classic dieselpunk they'd love to see happen, I'm all ears. I want to finally do it during Spring Break, or Bob's my mother.
I'm not really sure there is a real 'dieselpunk' aesthetic. I mean, TVTropes lists everything from Indiana Jones to the 1989 Batman movie and Dark City, Brazil, and the 1930s parts of Watchmen. The only thing those movies have in common is a vaguely timeless '20th century' feel to them. Like they could have happened in 1940 or 1960 or 1980 (except the Watchmen stuff, which was clearly historical, but at the same time just plain, straightforward historical stuff - not really distinct from that stuff)
posted by delmoi at 2:56 PM on February 16, 2012
posted by delmoi at 2:56 PM on February 16, 2012
I was going to say that the aesthetic from Fallout has this going on, and I'm glad to see it on the TVTropes list.
I think it's a knowing and postmodern -- but enthusiastic -- look at the intra-war aesthetic and pulp stories of that era.
posted by gauche at 5:18 PM on February 16, 2012
I think it's a knowing and postmodern -- but enthusiastic -- look at the intra-war aesthetic and pulp stories of that era.
posted by gauche at 5:18 PM on February 16, 2012
For the 1940's and 1950's, consider writing uraniumpunk and electropunk.
Steampunk often asks about the outer limits about what could have been done with Victorian technology. Trying to build the Nautilus or a giant Babbage engine probably wouldn't have gone well, but it's imaginable. Then the fun is to imagine what effect technology at that level of sophistication would have had on Victorian society. Call that hard steampunk, where the aesthetic quirks are part of the signature of the genre (brass! goggles!) but they're comparatively secondary.
I find it hard to imagine super-diesel technology as having as having a comparably interesting effect on American culture 1900-1970. I'm not sure there's any such thing as hard dieselpunk, because I don't see how diesel engine science could make for interesting retro-science fiction.
Electropunk, now we're talking! There's so much craziness in the real life story of how we got the power grid ("The War of the Currents") that you hardly need to add to what actually happened to tell a story of two fisted science. Edison actually electrocuted an elephant to prove a point. Tesla invented so much that it's almost halfway plausible when electropunk authors can credit him with everything from teleporters to a Tunguska death ray (caution: it's become cliche). You could tell me a story about how these enemies became reluctant allies against Westinghouse's plot to take over the world. Hear the dynamos of their crude mechas hum as they storm a giant concrete fortress hidden deep beneath Niagara Falls. (aesthetics: suits, civilized middle-class manners, concrete, steel, machines that spark and pop, hope, ambition, everything on a grand scale.)
"super-secret government research with Turing, breaking codes, hot spies and time-travel."
Sounds great, but I agree that it sounds pretty broad for a short story. Maybe you could pick just one bit of tech to hypertrophy and see how much fun they can have with that. The girls should be having fun. Electropunk engineering is all about grandeur and wonder.
Uraniumpunk would be quite a bit darker. A Colder War might be a good guide. Suspicion and fear prevailing. Fission has made works of Godlike power possible (e.g. Operation Plowshares, the plan of revising the Earth's geography by knocking the Panama Canal down to sea level) but it's a devil's bargin. That power literally contaminates everything it touches, and the possibility of armageddon is always lurking in the background. A possible plot: The Russians have built a Super Orion, a nuclear bomb powered spaceship that weighs 8 million tons and flies at 0.1c. They're intent on interstellar colonization, but in its flight path out of Siberia it will irradiate half of Japan. Can your spy-team stop it in time? Would they want to?
Two girls in love in a uraniumpunk world would probably be mentally preparing themselves for an On The Beach scenario.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 6:09 PM on February 16, 2012 [2 favorites]
Steampunk often asks about the outer limits about what could have been done with Victorian technology. Trying to build the Nautilus or a giant Babbage engine probably wouldn't have gone well, but it's imaginable. Then the fun is to imagine what effect technology at that level of sophistication would have had on Victorian society. Call that hard steampunk, where the aesthetic quirks are part of the signature of the genre (brass! goggles!) but they're comparatively secondary.
I find it hard to imagine super-diesel technology as having as having a comparably interesting effect on American culture 1900-1970. I'm not sure there's any such thing as hard dieselpunk, because I don't see how diesel engine science could make for interesting retro-science fiction.
Electropunk, now we're talking! There's so much craziness in the real life story of how we got the power grid ("The War of the Currents") that you hardly need to add to what actually happened to tell a story of two fisted science. Edison actually electrocuted an elephant to prove a point. Tesla invented so much that it's almost halfway plausible when electropunk authors can credit him with everything from teleporters to a Tunguska death ray (caution: it's become cliche). You could tell me a story about how these enemies became reluctant allies against Westinghouse's plot to take over the world. Hear the dynamos of their crude mechas hum as they storm a giant concrete fortress hidden deep beneath Niagara Falls. (aesthetics: suits, civilized middle-class manners, concrete, steel, machines that spark and pop, hope, ambition, everything on a grand scale.)
"super-secret government research with Turing, breaking codes, hot spies and time-travel."
Sounds great, but I agree that it sounds pretty broad for a short story. Maybe you could pick just one bit of tech to hypertrophy and see how much fun they can have with that. The girls should be having fun. Electropunk engineering is all about grandeur and wonder.
Uraniumpunk would be quite a bit darker. A Colder War might be a good guide. Suspicion and fear prevailing. Fission has made works of Godlike power possible (e.g. Operation Plowshares, the plan of revising the Earth's geography by knocking the Panama Canal down to sea level) but it's a devil's bargin. That power literally contaminates everything it touches, and the possibility of armageddon is always lurking in the background. A possible plot: The Russians have built a Super Orion, a nuclear bomb powered spaceship that weighs 8 million tons and flies at 0.1c. They're intent on interstellar colonization, but in its flight path out of Siberia it will irradiate half of Japan. Can your spy-team stop it in time? Would they want to?
Two girls in love in a uraniumpunk world would probably be mentally preparing themselves for an On The Beach scenario.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 6:09 PM on February 16, 2012 [2 favorites]
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Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
Red Alert
posted by michaelh at 1:34 PM on February 16, 2012