Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => VSF Adventures => Topic started by: Frontal Assault 15mm on April 09, 2012, 09:57:19 AM
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Well is there?
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Put bluntly yes. Here's one discussion to get you started:
http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=27482.0
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Initially, definitely -- but over the last ten years or so, the use of the term "steampunk" has broadened so much that many people now use it to include all sorts of things, including VSF, that it didn't refer to previously.
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Such an innocent sounding question, to have caused so much bloodshed over so many web fora! :)
The problem starts when you ask six steampunks "What is steampunk?" and you get a dozen different replies, half of them directly contradictory. For some it's all about celebrating Victorian aestheticsm, while others focus on the "-punk" and reject the Victoriana aspects.
Add to that a little fuzziness over what constitutes "Victorian Science Fiction" - is it recreating science fiction stories from the Victorian age, or taking modern science fiction elements and layering a Victorian veneer over them?
(Just for shits and giggles, mix a bit of Gothic Horror in there as well to confuse matters further. If a book has dirigibles and clockwork automata AND vampires and werewolves, is it Steampunk, VSF or GH? Or how about Planetary Romance? John Carter is an actual Victorian Science Fiction series and a major inspiration for Space 1889, yet there's barely a rivet in sight and the stories have more in common with the Sword & Sorcery genre.)
Personally I consider Steampunk and VSF to be closely related concepts, intertwined and overlapping, with fuzzy distinctions between the two. Most VSF includes Steampunk elements, and a lot of Steampunk (but not all) is strongly informed by Victorian elements. In casual usage, 90% of the time I feel you can use both terms interchangeably. Except of course on internet message boards, when doing so will likely bring down wrathful nerdrage from the peanut gallery.
I don't agree that the term "Steampunk" has itself broadened so much in the last ten years. "The Difference Engine", one of the original definitive steampunk novels from 1990, describes a world that's undeniably VSF - steam vehicles and mechanical computers in Victorian London. Granted the text focuses a lot on the social dystopian elements, which some folks consider the "pure" definition of "-punk". But steampunk has however become much more mainstream in the last ten years and I think people are more ready to use it as a label to attach to things they couldn't previously categorise.
Just my tuppence-ha'penny.
Dr V
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A very good summary Dr V :)
Yes its the punk part that is mainly dystopian.
VSF is a lot more optimistic and marvels at the wonders of science and its possibilities.
The punk aspects of steampunk focuses on how the wonders of science will subjugate and dehumanise us all.
heady stuff what?
;)
Fuzzy.
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***snippage***
The problem starts when you ask six steampunks "What is steampunk?" and you get a dozen different replies, half of them directly contradictory.
***yet more massive snippage***
Dr V
Indicating, of course, multiple answers from some, and there's no denying, self-contradiction in some. I do disagree some with Dr. V's assessment, as it appears that the term Steampunk has, in common use, spread to cover all the endeavors above. In the common vernacular, there's a sense that not a difference, but rather a refinement. VSF is a niche in Steampunk. Gothic Horror, another.
Not so much to me, as I tend to have definitions for each in mind, which are not necessarily mutually exclusive. I can use the term Steampunk/VSF, or GothicHorrorPunk, but I will see each as a mixing of elements. Unless, I'm too tired to be so pedantic, with muggles or not. :D
Doug
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John Carter is an actual Victorian Science Fiction series
What do you mean when you say 'actual?' The setting may be Victorian (I don't know, never read it), but it wasn't written during the Victorian era.
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Posted by Colonel Kane over on Frothers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFCuE5rHbPA
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Awesome!!
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Posted by Colonel Kane over on Frothers.
lol
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Posted by Colonel Kane over on Frothers.
Reminds me: I still need to finish the set of screen caps I was going to put up in the store bathroom... ;->=
Doug
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Depends who you ask.
Not a good answer but seems to be the way of it.
I quite like the phrase "steampulp" which has been bandied about.
PM
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What do you mean when you say 'actual?' The setting may be Victorian (I don't know, never read it), but it wasn't written during the Victorian era.
Good point, put it down to a momentary brain fart, The Barsoom books were of course written in the pulp era, though you could argue that A Princess of Mars in 1912 has one foot in both eras.
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Posted by Colonel Kane over on Frothers
The good Colonel does seem to rather sum up the current state of steampunk. Jeff Vandermeer and SJ Chambers note something of the same in their The Steampunk Bible: since it's devolved into a marketing gimmick and/or changed into a lifestyle, steampunk doesn't really need to have too much steam or punk these days (according to some, it never did - particularly not with the p word), nor yet does it have affinity with a specific era or culture, so the main difference between Victorian Science Fiction and steampunk would that VSF would seem to me to be more restrictive in scope.
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... so the main difference between Victorian Science Fiction and steampunk would that VSF would seem to me to be more restrictive in scope.
Which is what I was saying, though apparently not so clearly. lol
But, I will say, again, this is the view from outside our hobby, not mine personally.
Doug
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I would say that all steam punk is VSF, but NOT all VSF is necessarily Steam Punk.
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According to my investigations, women classified as Steampunk are less modest than women classified as VSF :)
Steampunk men often strike me as slimy Oscar Wilde wannabes dipped in gadgetry. Scoundrels of a minor sort, nowhere near the likes of Mr. Hyde, Dorian Gray, or Moriarty.
Not intending to pass judgement on Steampunk, I enjoy the genre- immodest dresses, guns with many barrels, contraptions, sword canes, brass and rivets- but above all the inventiveness and DIY attitude of its fans.
We host a massive high school "Art Day" at my school each year, and we did a Steampunk theme last year. It was great fun. I dressed as Van Pelt from Jumanji. The students and high school art teachers went nuts with their costumes.
Seriously though, I miss the days when Victorian era inspired coolness was just that, without labels and classifications.
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The funny thing is that the works originally identified as "steampunk" -- novels by K.W. Jeter, James P. Blaylock, and Tim Powers -- weren't exclusively about the Victorian period either. The Anubis Gates is set in the Regency period and the modern day, for example. Jeter was just making a little riff on the term "cyberpunk".
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sight and the stories have more in common with the Sword & Sorcery genre.)
... wrathful nerdrage...
I have to steel this quote.
lol
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I perfer the answer "yes and no, now lets have a cold one, put up our feet and discuss it at length" myself ;)
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Its "Bespoke" vs "Off the Rack"
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I would say that all steam punk is VSF, but NOT all VSF is necessarily Steam Punk.
Really? I'd have said if anything the opposite is true.
Consider a story or game set on a fantasy world, with airships and steam powered leviathans and people bouncing around in clockwork-powered armoured suits. That would be Steampunk, but it wouldn't be VSF.
(I struggled for a long time trying to come up with an example of VSF that isn't Steampunk. The closest I can think of is something like an undiluted War Of The Worlds, where apart from the Martian invaders, everything else in the world is standard real-world Victorian-age technology, with no -punk about it)
Dr V
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A good exchange of opinions on TMP, more than a year ago:
http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=225536 (http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=225536)
From which I quote this definitive difference:
In VSF women wear corsets under their clothes, in SP they wear it over their clothes.
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... an undiluted War Of The Worlds, where apart from the Martian invaders, everything else in the world is standard real-world Victorian-age technology, with no -punk about it)
Dr V
But if you look at Well's "The War in the Air" there are plenty of inventions and concepts that to a Vistorian would have seemed very outlandish and futuristic - monorails, clockwork fliers, air-armarda's, derigibles that launch their own fighter escorts. Almost stemapunkish but from a very notable VSF source.
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Really? I'd have said if anything the opposite is true.
Consider a story or game set on a fantasy world, with airships and steam powered leviathans and people bouncing around in clockwork-powered armoured suits. That would be Steampunk, but it wouldn't be VSF.
(I struggled for a long time trying to come up with an example of VSF that isn't Steampunk. The closest I can think of is something like an undiluted War Of The Worlds, where apart from the Martian invaders, everything else in the world is standard real-world Victorian-age technology, with no -punk about it)
Dr V
Have you ever read Edgar Rice Burroughs?
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Strangely enough Jules Verne wrote a book about a dystopian future, ruled by commerce with towering glass skyscrapers, gas powered cars, a Telegraphic Internet, Highspeed trains and computers.........in 1863. So Verne was a Victorian Science Fiction Writer ( a REAL one) writing what a lot of people consider steampunk themes...... Go figure.....!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_in_the_Twentieth_Century
PM
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Strangely enough Jules Verne wrote a book about a dystopian future, ruled by commerce with towering glass skyscrapers, gas powered cars, a Telegraphic Internet, Highspeed trains and computers.........in 1863. So Verne was a Victorian Science Fiction Writer ( a REAL one) writing what a lot of people consider steampunk themes...... Go figure.....!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_in_the_Twentieth_Century
PM
I read that one only a few months back. You forgot to mention "Colour Photography" which has rendered painters and artists obsolete!!! He even envisaged a concept somewhat similar "Skype". Even more interesting was that telecommunications was the most powerful force on the planet.
IanKH
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I read that one only a few months back. You forgot to mention "Colour Photography" which has rendered painters and artists obsolete!!! He even envisaged a concept somewhat similar "Skype". Even more interesting was that telecommunications was the most powerful force on the planet.
IanKH
Is it a good read? I've heard mixed reports. Some love it, others say it feels unfinished.
PM
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Don't forget Robida http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Robida (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Robida)
http://www.gloubik.info/livres/robida/robida-vie-electrique.html (http://www.gloubik.info/livres/robida/robida-vie-electrique.html)
http://www.gloubik.info/livres/robida/robida-guerre-au-20e-siecle.html (http://www.gloubik.info/livres/robida/robida-guerre-au-20e-siecle.html)
http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Le_vingti%C3%A8me_si%C3%A8cle/Partie_I/Chapitre_1 (http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Le_vingti%C3%A8me_si%C3%A8cle/Partie_I/Chapitre_1)
No many rivets, but steampunk nonetheless!
His future was quite dystopian at times.
A minor but interesting point is how he used the bicycle rider dress [baggy breeches and socks, under a very short -for the time- open skirt] -by then almost futuristic, and a mark of a new degree in women emancipation- to illustrate 'active / equal to man' women of the future:
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/80/Robida_vingtieme_siecle_p363_1.jpg/160px-Robida_vingtieme_siecle_p363_1.jpg)
(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4QfNLjPi3yc/Tq0BN2UdOyI/AAAAAAAAAnw/6yxgfKV11Yo/s1600/robida+le+vingtieme+siecle.JPG)
(http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Fichier:Robida_vingtieme_siecle_p379_1.jpg)
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/Robida_vingtieme_siecle_p413_1.jpg)
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Have you ever read Edgar Rice Burroughs?
Only the first three Barsoom books, to be honest I found his writing not to my taste. But yes, Barsoom could be seen as VSF without Steampunk, though I personally feel Sword & Planet stories are more a part of fantasy than SF.
But if you look at Well's "The War in the Air" there are plenty of inventions and concepts that to a Vistorian would have seemed very outlandish and futuristic - monorails, clockwork fliers, air-armarda's, derigibles that launch their own fighter escorts. Almost stemapunkish but from a very notable VSF source.
Which just shows how fuzzily intertwined the two genres are. But it doesn't make War Of The Worlds Steampunk. Unless we're also going to say "The History Of Mr Polly" is too.
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I now believe that this thread re-proves 5that any genre, case in point, is to the beholder what he perceives it to be and to another, it will not meet the first persons criteria. And, any given milieu, while in current vogue, is a constantly evolving living thing, so, Papa Midnight had it right to start with, depends on who you ask!
Ne cest pas?
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Agreed 100%. It depends on who you ask, when you ask it and in some cases what context you ask it in.
Honestly, I've seen the same arguments over the years regarding Space opera vs Sci-Fi, Sword & Sorcery vs Fantasy, Hard vs Soft Sci Fi... and so on ad nauseam. Most things in real life don't entirely fit into neat little categories. Real life is a fuzzy amorphous glob of stuffness.
Dr V
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Another differentiation of the two is that VSF mentions and uses formations of colonial troops overcoming masses of "native" forces while using good manners and stalwart courage. Steampunk typically is a group of adventurers armed with their steampunk weaponry overcoming the arch villain type while traveling is strange contraptions and looking very stylish in their adornments.
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Another differentiation of the two is that VSF mentions and uses formations of colonial troops overcoming masses of "native" forces while using good manners and stalwart courage. Steampunk typically is a group of adventurers armed with their steampunk weaponry overcoming the arch villain type while traveling is strange contraptions and looking very stylish in their adornments.
I think that might be one of the cleanest delineations I have personally seen.
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When it all comes down to it I don't really care for any distinction. I'm neither here no there on the whole issue. I just like the period and all the possibilities that go with it. But if (as some see it) VSF leans more toward a non-distopian future then I'm in that group.
I like to think of the whole genera as: "The past as it could have been if the future had arrived a before tea."
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Another differentiation of the two is that VSF mentions and uses formations of colonial troops overcoming masses of "native" forces while using good manners and stalwart courage. Steampunk typically is a group of adventurers armed with their steampunk weaponry overcoming the arch villain type while traveling is strange contraptions and looking very stylish in their adornments.
VSF doesn't necessarily include colonial troops vs natives. It's just that most of the 19th century figures out there are historical colonial troops and many VSF gamers start by adding steampunk elements to forces they already have.
Personally I moved to VSF gaming to get away from colonial gaming, when I was feeling a little uncomfortable about it immediately after 911 and all my games since have been set in England. GASLIGHT co-author Chris Palmer does the American Civil War by GASLIGHT.
But you may be onto something vis a vis the VSF stiff-upper-lip and the Steampunk peacocking.
Dr V
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Only the first three Barsoom books, to be honest I found his writing not to my taste. But yes, Barsoom could be seen as VSF without Steampunk, though I personally feel Sword & Planet stories are more a part of fantasy than SF
A lot of the literature classified as "steampunk" is also de facto fantasy in that they only pay lip service to plausibility of the technology/science.
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A lot of the literature classified as "steampunk" is also de facto fantasy in that they only pay lip service to plausibility of the technology/science.
Or just have plain old magic.
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By the bye, has anyone noticed the silence from the OP since asking the original contentious question?
May I say it's been nice having this discussion, with lots of differing opinions, yet still having things remain so friendly and civilised (compared to the same discussion elsewhere) LAF is definitely becoming one of my favourite places to talk gaming on the internet.
Dr V
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Or just have plain old magic
Indeedy. The term steampunk is also sometimes associated with sheer industrial fantasy settings like Bas-Lag of China Mieville or Iron Kingdoms of WARMACHINE. I'd tend imagine largely for marketing reasons.
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To start with let me just say that I am indebted to this wonderful article (http://steampunkscholar.blogspot.co.uk/2010/08/history-of-steampunk-by-cory-gross.html) it's not the first time that I've read it and I would recommend it to anyone who wanted to explore the history of Steampunk, the blog where it is hosted also has a number of wonderful posts on the topic of defining Steampunk.
One of the primary distinctions that I would make between Steampunk & VSF is that Steampunk is unashamedly anachronistic, drawing design elements and ideas from a range of era's (historical and fantasy) and applying a veneer of Victoriana whilst Victorian Science Fiction essentially retains a historically accurate depiction of that period, whilst also allowing for a few what if's.
Perhaps the primary example of the difference between the anachronistic nature of Steampunk and the historical accuracy of VSF is in the aesthetic of each genre. An extreme example of the anachronistic steampunk aesthetic for instance being the gorgeous Dystopian Wars models, the whole range takes design elements from a large swathe of history, but perhaps one group of models that stands out are the Federated States of America naval models which combine paddle-wheel steamers and post-dreadnought battleship designs and add rivets for flavour. Now as much as I love the Dystopian Wars miniatures I think it's a real shame that they don't have a more historically accurate aesthetic, the pre-dreadnoughts of the era were beautiful vessels with real individual character and a unique design language that was fashioned by the technological limitations of the period, for my own purposes a VSF version of a pre-dreadnought battleship would retain that same design language, mixed armaments, low freeboards, large superstructures & tumblehome but would have an appropriate science fiction weapon, say for example a heat ray or an electric cannon or perhaps even better just have it be the real article and just fight what if scenario's.
As for the is Steampunk more dystopian than VSF argument I would say that it would be difficult to argue that, as mentioned previously H.G. Wells "The War in the Air" hardly presents a utopian future nor does "War of the Worlds" in fact I'm struggling to think of a single utopian world in VSF.
Just my two penneth anyways.
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Indeedy. The term steampunk is also sometimes associated with sheer industrial fantasy settings like Bas-Lag of China Mieville or Iron Kingdoms of WARMACHINE.
Man do they hate it when Steampunk is used to explain the Iron Kingdoms setting. Iron Kingdoms is Full Metal Fantasy. Just sayin. :-)
Grimm
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Is it Strawberry-Vanilla swirl or Vanilla-Strawbery swirl?
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Is it Strawberry-Vanilla swirl or Vanilla-Strawbery swirl?
VERY well put! ;)
BTW, all Zebras are white with Black Stripes.
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A lot of the literature classified as "steampunk" is also de facto fantasy in that they only pay lip service to plausibility of the technology/science.
Do you really think Jules Verne, his impressive academic-sounding computations notwithstanding, paid more than lip service to plausibility of the technology/science when he send men to the Moon in a huge howitzer shell? The same for Wells with his Martians emerging from crashed shells.
And, are bipedal warwalkers VSF or steampunk? Bipedal walk is an extremely complex process, a permanently controlled fall, requiring a myriad of sensors, numerous auxiliary engines to switch, rock and roll part of the weight (quicksilver in ballasts?) when the body stands on one leg only... To the point that even to-day we could not build a functional one. Besides, the concept is an insult to common sense: a contraption on only two legs is terribly vulnerable, to use it on a battlefield is plain silly, 3 pairs of legs is probably the minimum and four the optimum...
Indeed steampunk can be characterized as further away from 'historical reality' than VSF. Visually -a Victoria's boy in red with pith helmet remains VSF even with a respirator, but turns steampunk if squeezed into steam-powered armor. But the main difference is *cultural*, at the level of the social status of women. In quasi-historical VSF women are submissive daughters and housewives almost without civic rights, concealing (most of) their hair when outdoors, most of their body under baggy clothes &c... as in to-day islamic countries. A few freaks may be doctors, nurses, teachers, writers of artists, nothing ever more 'active'. In most steampunk settings the activities and dresses of women show they are perfectly equal to men, and are for generations since it's a a deeply ingrained sociological feature.
(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-aTL29Babl3A/UC1m0P5oQrI/AAAAAAAAEBo/6WyEOEpzzNM/s1600/%25E2%2588%2586E%25CC%2582%2540%25E2%2584%25A2I%25CC%2582.jpg)
Foundry Victoriana (http://wargamesfoundry.com/historical_ranges/collections/victoriana/victoriana/?sector_id=31) can be used in VSF games, Ax faction (http://www.axfaction.com/#!shop) "female Ned Land (http://a3.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/406131_443589568996979_922262368_n.jpg)" is steampunk.
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Steampunk science and technologies are 'weird', i.e. 'extremely advanced' with regard to the historical Victorian ones. Such difference could not have happened in a few years, at least two generations is more likely. This places the 'time of divergence' from 'our' timeline very early in the 19th C., with Cugnot's fardier (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas-Joseph_Cugnot), Jouffroy's Pyroscaphe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyroscaphe) , Bushnell's Turtle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtle_%28submarine%29), Fulton's Nautilus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nautilus_%281800_submarine%29) and the Mongolfiere had evolved to fully functional machines by Napoleonic times, while the works of Leyde, Franklin, Volta... already had practical applications. Then, the progresses of sciences and technologies being auto-catalytic, the rate of divergence from 'The Real World™' increased constantly. As a 'butterfly effect' everyday life was changed, with deep consequences on the society.
On the other hand VSF sciences and technologies are far closer to 'historical' ones, meaning that the divergence from 'our' timeline is far more recent (1850?): such recent and limited differences had not yet impacted on the society.
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Do you really think Jules Verne, his impressive academic-sounding computations notwithstanding, paid more than lip service to plausibility of the technology/science when he send men to the Moon in a huge howitzer shell? The same for Wells with his Martians emerging from crashed shells
I don't think I mentioned Verne or Wells at all. It's true that neither of those esteemed gentlemen (certainly the former) did their math properly, but AFAIK it wasn't until the early 20th century that firing manned projectiles was shown to be impossible in practice and one would almost like to say in principle.
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I don't think I mentioned Verne or Wells at all. It's true that neither of those esteemed gentlemen (certainly the former) did their math properly, but AFAIK it wasn't until the early 20th century that firing manned projectiles was shown to be impossible in practice and one would almost like to say in principle.
Well, strictly speaking it's not totally impossible. There is this particularly infamous episode (http://rickpdx.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/launchingpig-e35.jpg)
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Sorry for being pedant bait :P
As per the context, I meant "to Earth orbit and beyond".
Germans IIRC were trying to build a type of "slow acceleration cannon" as late as during WWII that theoretically could provide for less g forces but the prototype wasn't succesful.
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Germans IIRC were trying to build a type of "slow acceleration cannon" as late as during WWII that theoretically could provide for less g forces but the prototype wasn't successful.
More recently, the Iraqi Project Babylon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Babylon) to put a satellite in orbit.
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Sorry for being pedant bait :P
As per the context, I meant "to Earth orbit and beyond".
Germans IIRC were trying to build a type of "slow acceleration cannon" as late as during WWII that theoretically could provide for less g forces but the prototype wasn't succesful.
Oh not to worry, I just couldn't pass up an opportunity to link that picture again.
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I've heard that VSF is where the ladies wear dresses with their corsets on the insides. Steampunk is where the ladies were pants with their corsets on the inside.
I prefer to think of Steampunk as what we think the Victorians would have wanted the future to be. & VSF is what the Victorians actually wanted the future to be.
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This thread has been going for a while now and I've commented previously.
The basic difference is:
VSF is the pursuit of the Victorian vision of where science could lead.
Steampunk is about stitching cogs onto a top hat.
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And now I think its time to close this thread.