"What kind of sci-fi is this?" Topic

No pictures no, hehe, but i wonder what they are called the settings that are in the future but with to different extent historically inspired equipment. Is it simply steampunk?

Deiselpunk, cyberpunk…

If it is high tech gear probably cyberpunk.

If the ladies wear their corsets on the outside it is steampunk, otherwise it is alternate history.

"Steampunk" tends to be the catch all but that usually means a sort of Victorian look.

FOr the "WW1 in space" look, I've seen Dieselpunk used.

Steampunk is set in the 19th century past.

Dieselpunk is early-mid 20th century.

Punkpunk is alternate 1970s with more corsets.

Alternative History is when the future is set in the past, such as Victorian Science Fiction. Things like what if the Victorians discovered a why to travel in space (Space 1889).
Or what is WWII didn't end and everyone made robots (Dust, Weird WWII, …)

If you are talking about the future, but they have items that look very much like a past era, it is a branch of Space Opera called Retro Future or Retro Sci/Fi, this would include things like FallOut, with its 1950s inspired future items and Space Opera, with swords, or Maschinen Krieger, (SF3D) with its armored suits that look like they came from WWII Germany.

I thought "set in the future with historically inspired equipment" was called WH40K?

You bet your Orkey Kettenrad--or your Attilan Rough Riders--it is!!

Yeah, steampunk xix century (i think that wargamers are the only who use "victorian Scifi"). Dieselpunk for first half of xx century (what happened to old good pulp?), retropunk or atompunk for 50s and 60s, and i have even seen a term for 70s,80s scifi movies like alien, fornicapunk or something like that

Arghh! Brain hurting, brain hurting,

Lacepunk-1700's
Steampunk-1800's
Dieselpunk-WW1-WWII
Turbopunk/Atompunk-'50's
Stuporpunk-'60's
Discopunk-'70's
Stockpunk-'80's or Big Hairpunk…
WhatWereWeThinkin'punk-'90's
Buttonpunk-2000+
Post-Apokpunk-2016+

Why did "punk" become the suffix to denote genres?

It denotes worn out,lived in, lower class society 'genres'

Glenn – 80's ish?

It originally had meaning in cyberpunk as being high-tech future but reclaimed and repurposed by the streets.

It doesn't really mean anything now.

Well 'punk' is generally meant to be ahistorical or an aberration of an established setting with possible fantasy elements usually on the grittier side of things. Victorian/Wild West -> steampunk, 20's and 30's pulp and gangsters -> diesel punk, 50's and 60's atomic age – > atompunk

FreddDredd originally asked, "… i wonder what they are called the settings that are in the future but with to different extent historically inspired equipment."

The phrase speculative fiction has been bounced around as a catch all that would fit.

Well, VSF should REALLY be called scientific romances.

As for punk meaning games, I've never gotten that impression. People tend to refer to our games as Steampunk only from the the costumes they see, not from assuming 'meaning game'.

We then make comments about the lack of visible corsets, of course.

Doug

I'd agree with Zircher, that the -punk genres are subgenres of broader fields, though I'd emphasize more that to be really punk, there needs to be a real dystopian attitude in the story/game/movie. I'd also say that scientific romances are a subgenre of VSF, specific to those written at that time. If I wrote a story of Sherlock Holmes fighting Frankenstein's monster, that'd be VSF; if Verne wrote it, it'd be scientific romance, if Frankenstein was on the payroll of Queen Victoria's secret police and the steam-powered monster was going to enslave the working poor of London so they could build skyships more profitably, that's be steampunk.

Very interesting conversation!

So I don't think the various 'punk' settings are exactly what the OP was after. Generally to my mind, 'X-punk' usually means fiction (in whatever form) set IN the appropriate time frame. So a game (or whatever) set in an alternate WWII is 'dieselpunk', but a game set in a future world where one side has tanks that look like Tiger tanks because Tiger tanks are COOL is more properly Retro-Futuristic. So to whit-

Something-Punk: The Victorians develop space travel and it's 1899 and the Great Game continues on Mars!
Retro-Futuristic: It's 2899 and Victorian opulence is IN. Brass fittings and silk tophats everywhere as the various Corporate-States compete on Mars.
Alternate History: The Victorians invented space travel in 1899 and colonized Mars. Now in 2016 decolonized Mars is the site of another dust-up that the US and Russia are on the opposite sides of.

Now this still isn't totally clear cut, particularly since most X-Punk settings are implied Alternate History as well. But that's generally how I classify it.

-Will

>Discopunk..

<chuckle>

I differentiate between Dieselpunk and Pulp. To me, Dieselpunk is gritty and dirty, like a world in which WWI never ended, while Pulp is all shiny Flash Gordon-esque rockets and cities that look like they grew directly out of the 1939 New York World's Fair. Although I guess Pulp would also include Indiana Jones and High Road to China adventures, so maybe Flash Gordon and Crash Corrigan would be more Rocketpunk or Atompunk.

I hate "punk" as a gaming term. Nothing but corsets and rivers.