Poll: Steampunk as a sub-genre...

[The Infamous Scamola]

Why do people keep on reffering to Bioshock as steampunk? It isn't! It just has an Art deco style to it.

[small] Surely it being set in the victorian age, the old timey music and the whole steam thing, would suggest it was steampunk? [/small]

Except it wasn't: Bioshock was set in 1960, Rapture was built in 46', most of the music is music from the 30s, the whole city is decorated in Art deco style, which was very popular from the 20s until the beginning of the second world war, the whole bioshock world is based upon the dystopian writings of 20th century authors like Ayn Rand and George Orwell.

There is nothing steampunk in Bioshock.

[small]Steampunk doesn't neccesarily have to be victorian, just oldish and have lots of brass machines and pipes, rust is good too. Goggles also help. Hell if everything that was steampunk was victorian, there would be no steampunk.[/small]

First off, why are you typing all of your posts in small?

Also, Victorianism has loads to do with the steampunk genre, the whole steampunk subculture is based on books by Jules Verne and H.G. Wells.
Saying that steampunk is just a bunch of oldish pipes and goggles is a vast oversimplification.

[sup] I didn't say it didn't have anything to do with the victorian age, I meant if everything steampunk was set in the victorian age, then there would be no steampunk.[/sup]

Ok, name one piece of Steampunk fiction that isn't based in the Victorian era or some similar time period.

Also, I would like to make you notice that wikipedia does not list Bioshock as Steampunk.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_steampunk_works#In_video_games

 

[BlindTom]

How can you ask somebody to name a steampunk work of fiction that fits certain parameters when you're in the process of arguing about the parameters in which to define steampunk?

 

[Neosage]

Why do people keep on reffering to Bioshock as steampunk? It isn't! It just has an Art deco style to it.

[small] Surely it being set in the victorian age, the old timey music and the whole steam thing, would suggest it was steampunk? [/small]

Except it wasn't: Bioshock was set in 1960, Rapture was built in 46', most of the music is music from the 30s, the whole city is decorated in Art deco style, which was very popular from the 20s until the beginning of the second world war, the whole bioshock world is based upon the dystopian writings of 20th century authors like Ayn Rand and George Orwell.

There is nothing steampunk in Bioshock.

[small]Steampunk doesn't neccesarily have to be victorian, just oldish and have lots of brass machines and pipes, rust is good too. Goggles also help. Hell if everything that was steampunk was victorian, there would be no steampunk.[/small]

First off, why are you typing all of your posts in small?

Also, Victorianism has loads to do with the steampunk genre, the whole steampunk subculture is based on books by Jules Verne and H.G. Wells.
Saying that steampunk is just a bunch of oldish pipes and goggles is a vast oversimplification.

[sup] I didn't say it didn't have anything to do with the victorian age, I meant if everything steampunk was set in the victorian age, then there would be no steampunk.[/sup]

Ok, name one piece of Steampunk fiction that isn't based in the Victorian era or some similar time period.

Also, I would like to make you notice that wikipedia does not list Bioshock as Steampunk.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_steampunk_works#In_video_games

[small]Well first I would go for the obvious choice, Bioshock. But seeing as you call that art-deco, some of the things from your wikipedia list, FFVI, Wild ARMS or Arcanum perhaps?[/small]

 

[The Infamous Scamola]

Why do people keep on reffering to Bioshock as steampunk? It isn't! It just has an Art deco style to it.

It has steam-based stuff doesn't it though? Like the whole city is powered by underwater volcanoes, and I'm pretty sure all the turrets are steam-powered...

That still isn't enough to make it Steampunk though.

 

[BlindTom]

To me those guys were DRIPPING with steampunk. Though to refer back to the OP that would place it quite firmly in a fantasy setting.

That said I seem to remember they built a lot of stuff that surpasses us with their sexy clockwork, giant mechanical behemoths etc.

I suppose Steampunk bridges the gap between science fiction and fantasy with a (fairly) coherent artistic style.

 

[The Infamous Scamola]

Realistically Bioshock does take a lot from the steampunk style. It's not really Neo-Victorian (in fact to describe Bioshock I'd call it Objectivist Art Deco Steam-Biopunk) but it still uses elements of steampunk. I could understand why people call it that, because it's very hard to define.

I think the correct definition is Biopunk, you're right.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biopunk#Computer_and_video_games

 

[Crudler]

I went for Sci-fi, it just seems a bit more like that to me.
I really do like the whole Steampunk theme though. I have an unhealthy obsession with anything Napoleonic or later and by god show me a Victorian Gentleman's outfit and I will be overjoyed, hence why I also like Steampunk.

 

[IxionIndustries]

I believe that Steampunk is Sci-fi, since most of it's origins are from sci-fi novels and movies.
It focuses on technology that is at it's basic mechanics, but can achieve things that were generally not possible.
Kinda like the Fallout universe. It's basically what would humanity be like if our culture and technology took a different path in history.

Also, it draws from real world examples, such as the Victorian clothing, and the machines and such do not function "Just by magic".

 

[WolfLordAndy]

I'd say it is a sub-genre of Sci-fi. As effectively its historical science fiction of a sort. Its what would have been science fiction before they discovered electricity!

But I agree with various comments that Sci-fi is a sub-genre of Fantasy, with Fantasy itself being nothing more then a sub-genre of Fiction.

Stories
>Fact
>>Historic
>>>Different time periods, etc
>>Science
>>>Physics, Maths, Biology, etc
>>Biography
>>>Writers, Artists, Musicians, Politicions, etc

>Fiction
>>Crime
>>Fantasy
>>>Magic
>>>Sci-Fi
>>>>Steampunk
>>>Historic
>>>Superhero


I'm sure theres hundred more "genres" that could or couldnt be argued, but this is the general structure as I see it.