![]() Dieselpunk (along with steampunk) can encompass a range of authorial voices and themes. This tends to contrast with the 19th-century Gothic themes and spiritualism that show up in Steampunk.Īs Dieselpunk is a post-modern look at the past, it is not limited to the tropes and stereotypes that characterized fiction of the day - instead, it can use these tropes to comment upon the past and reinvent it. Lovecraft, tales of Nazi occult research, contemporary expeditions to 'mystical' places such as Egypt, and early research into relativity and quantum physics have greatly contributed to the occult mystique that informs Dieselpunk. In dieselpunk adventure, occult practices are Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane, and maybe Magicians Are Wizards. Some Geographic Flexibility is to be expected.ĭieselpunk fiction can encompass the supernatural as well. #Pop up primer and phantom brigade full#Owing to its pulp roots, Dieselpunk is often very adventure-based, full of exotic locales such as Mysterious Antarctica, The Shangri-La, the Hollow Earth, etc. Fascination with military hardware, weaponry and uniforms of the early 20th century is also often in evidence and a great amount of Dieselpunk media is concerned with war, especially the Second World War and fictional variations thereof. The analogue sci-fi of Metropolis and Things to Come are closer to the Dieselpunk tradition as it stands.ĭieselpunk often focuses upon air travel and combat, including such ideas as literal " flying fortresses", air pirates, dirigibles, early UFOs, hotshot flyboy pilots, etc. #Pop up primer and phantom brigade series#Atompunk (such as the Fallout series and the comic book Fear Agent) takes inspiration from 1950s-era aesthetics and fashions such as Googie architecture and Jetsons-style technology, which typically lie outside the bounds of Dieselpunk. In fact, another Punk Punk genre label, Atompunk, was coined to describe fiction in this mode. Such technology might be secret super weapons of a villain, or Homemade Inventions by the hero or his friends.Īlthough the Dieselpunk aesthetic can overlap with Raygun Gothic, and though Dieselpunk is known for featuring Tesla technology and Wunderwaffen-style super-weapons, Dieselpunk typically does not include transistor-based technology, other electronics or atomic power. Anachronistic super-advanced technology, often of the Awesome, but Impractical variety, such as Giant Flyer, Spider Tank, Disintegrator Ray might occur. Wireless radio leads to the rise of broadcasting as an information medium. Armored vehicles and usable submarines are less common but still important innovations. The airliner is the prime example of this, but cars, trucks, tractors, and diesel-powered electrical generators are even more important in reshaping the world. Period technology encompasses everything found in Steampunk, but internal combustion and electric power in combination with new materials (better alloys, plastics, etc) makes machinery lighter, stronger, and more versatile. Man is dwarfed by his creations and things are subsumed into abstractions. World War I was still fresh in memory as the Great War, the most colossal conflict in the history of mankind. It also saw the first multinational corporations (in the modern sense), large-scale social engineering, and mass political movements. This was the age of the Zeppelin, the modern battleship and the ocean liner, the flying-boat airliner, and the skyscraper. Still, during this period steam engines were gradually being replaced by diesel engines in many areas. The life of an ordinary citizen was far deeper influenced by the oil-burning locomotive, bus, ocean liner or neighborhood power plant. To be noted: unlike the 2000s, the Diesel-powered car in the 1930s was a rare curiosity, only a single model being put into small-scale production in Germany during that age (and almost exclusively used as a taxi), but on the other side the vast majority of the population could not afford cars back then. Pollak stated that it was intended to be on the "darker, dirtier side of Steampunk" and should be considered a "continuum between steampunk and Cyberpunk." (On the other hand, noted reviewer Kenneth Hite described Children as "Not really diesel, and not really punk.") The term Dieselpunk was popularized by Lewis Pollak and Dan Ross in 2001 as the genre for their RPG Children of the Sun. ![]()
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