Dieselpunk + Steampunk Culture
Jet engines and nuclear power in Dieselpunk settings?
Hi all.
A while ago I made a thread about Dieselpunk novels and to plug my own novel that I'm writing (which I would be writing more of if I hadn't been contracted to write a how-to book), and when thinking over the setting I've created. Just for a ref, I'll link my other discussion.
http://www.dieselpunks.org/forum/topics/dieselpunk-novels-my-project
That being said, the timeline of the war I've been creating would span 20 years, and as you'd expect in a massive war of epic proportions, the technology would start off with your typical World War 2 weaponry and technology, but would finish off with a sort of late Vietnam era/mid 70's military technology. All with secret weapons and lots of deliciously fantastic machinery that we all know and love, of course. Society might not progress all that much since basically the entire world is so consumed by the war that most people are interested in pulling through it than making massive social experiments (though change does occur, it is generally a necessity of the war than any thing else. Also, 20 years of wartime austerity does tend to do things to people).
But the question that bogs my mind is that when the phase of the war starts to shift away from piston-powered prop aircraft and towards jets, and submarines and ships go from steam/diesel turbines to have some nuclear capacity, what does that leave my setting with? Naturally, I have seen dieselpunk artwork showing jet powered cars and the like, but I'm thinking if it would be Dieselpunk at that phase or not?
Though I did come up with some ways of keeping the themes going, for example, while missiles were developed, the countermeasure technology was so effective that aircraft would still rely primarily on their guns to fight with the missile kill only being occasional, and the use of nuclear weapons is averted by the fact that uranium is fairly rare and significant deposits of it are discovered only AFTER the war has been concluded. But thorium was much more common place, and it was the primary radioactive used. The great thing about thorium is that not only does it produce much more energy than uranium, it is also much less dangerous and its byproducts cannot be used to create nuclear weapons.
But once again I ask the question, once my setting shifts towards that level of technology, would it become more atompunk or still have a lot of dieselpunk left over? This question has been in mind for quite some time, and then I got the idea of making the whole history of the setting a string of 'punk' settings. Hey, it could be fun if I'm gonna write novels in it for the next 30 years. :p
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Larry on -
Most science fiction does this. In the Trek spin offs they coined the term "technobabble" for creating fake science to fit a story. "The Heisenberg Compensator malfunctioned with the chronitons particles ionized the subspace relays." I don't know what the hell I just wrote but it sounded good. :D
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Permalink Reply by Joshua Spencer on -
I think as long as the aesthetic is kept any technology is sensible, especially if the story spans over many years. Had our involvement in WWII lasted as long as the Vietnam Conflict, who knows what we would have come up with....
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Permalink Reply by Cap'n Tony on -
And you can fix ANY problem, whatever it is, by "recoupling the phase inverters". ;)
Larry said:Most science fiction does this. In the Trek spin offs they coined the term "technobabble" for creating fake science to fit a story. "The Heisenberg Compensator malfunctioned with the chronitons particles ionized the subspace relays." I don't know what the hell I just wrote but it sounded good. :D
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Permalink Reply by Salim Farhat on -
And if that doesn't work, then reversing the polarity on the energy flux modulator magnetos will do the trick!
Cap'n Tony said:And you can fix ANY problem, whatever it is, by "recoupling the phase inverters". ;)
Larry said:Most science fiction does this. In the Trek spin offs they coined the term "technobabble" for creating fake science to fit a story. "The Heisenberg Compensator malfunctioned with the chronitons particles ionized the subspace relays." I don't know what the hell I just wrote but it sounded good. :D
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Permalink Reply by Larry on
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LOL! Exactly! The key is the quality of the story. If you create a believable universe, good characters and a well written story then the readers won't care about explaining the tech.
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Permalink Reply by Komissar Hass on -
Yes, this is difenitely the fundamental part. For example, right now the "alternative history" stories are rather popular in Russia, most of them placing a person from our days to the WWII (with some exceptions - WWI, Russo-Japanese etc.), and it is rather common situation when extremely detailed "rivets" and calibers, and other technical specifications of the era are given, while the story itself is absolute unbelievable nonsense with dull characters.
Larry said:LOL! Exactly! The key is the quality of the story. If you create a believable universe, good characters and a well written story then the readers won't care about explaining the tech.
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Permalink Reply by Dan G. on -
FULLY AGREE! The ~ Story ~ is ALL. Been reading Sci-Fi for far too many decades to care whether the ship flies do to Cavorite, Ion Drives or Ensorceled Daemons. LOL
And if those universes are locked into a certain level of Tekno-Fantasy, that is fine by me to. I fined that this makes them very "comfortable" to return to time and again.
But I do have to admit that I'm more than a bit fed up with those WWBF Steampunk universes that feature a plethora of steam powered laptop Babbage Machines with holographic displays and fully autonomous steam and/or clockwork "Geisha". (What is it with some of these writers and their infatuation with making it with Toasters anyway?) LOL
Larry said:LOL! Exactly! The key is the quality of the story. If you create a believable universe, good characters and a well written story then the readers won't care about explaining the tech.
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Permalink Reply by O. G. Vodoun on
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In speculative fiction, it doesn't matter whether you shift from Deiselpunk to Atompunk... yet.
There's no danger of conflict for marketing - the overall genre will be Science Fiction.
If you are striving to create a fictional world with an alternate timeline that is distinctively Dieselpunk rather than Atompunk, you simply extend the years that diesel-powered machines were used - nuclear power was discovered later (or never) because the extrapolations of diesel power were much more devastating. I think radioactive anything is pushing into Atompunk (doesn't matter whether it's uranium or thorium).
But, remember that Steampunk often blends in a bit of Clockworkpunk.
A Dieselpunk story could have elements of Steampunk, Clockwork and Atompunk. It's all a matter of focus. If diesel power has the focus, it's Dieselpunk.
Since it's speculative fiction, the genre-punks don't have to follow the realworld timeline. Your world could develop from Dieselpunk to Steampunk to Atompunk to Clockwork, depending on depleting resources, apocalyptic events and degrading tech.
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Permalink Reply by Salim Farhat on
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It will still be primarily dieselpunk. The whole nuclear powered thing would only be a minute part of the world towards the later stages of the conflict. There might be one or two nuclear powered submarines, but that's hardly enough to drown out the hundreds (if not thousands) of diesel-boats out there. Just one example.
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