Monday, May 29, 2023

Futurepunk is here!

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/Futurepunk

The Futurepunk setting is The 'Verse created by C.T. Phipps for a series of science fiction stories that take place over an extremely long length of time, showing the setting advance and change as well as shift science fiction subgenres. It starts 20 Minutes in the Future, moves into Cyberpunk Dystopia, becomes a Solar Punk Utopia, collapses into a dark Space Opera set After the End, and then jumps ahead to a Sufficiently Advanced Dark Fantasy setting to end it all.

The setting shares not only a singular timeline but also some general themes of Capitalism Is Bad, Eat the Rich, What Measure Is a Non-Human? and Antihero protagonists attempting to fight against a system that keeps plodding along regardless. Multiple protagonists crossover through the storyline and interweave with the setting's history. While there has been crossovers with his The Supervillainy Saga and United States Of Monsters books, these are all three separate universes.

The setting can be divided into the following time periods:

  • Pre-Collapse: The setting of the first two Agent G books and several short stories, this is Next Sunday A.D. where the world is more or less the same as our except for the existence of Black Technology, which is science fiction technology kept from the public for the benefit of megacorporations and the government. Word of God is that it is the 2060s.
  • Post-Collapse: This is the setting for the third Agent G book and The Cyber Dragons Trilogy. The Yellowstone caldera has erupted and plunged Earth into a year long winter as Black Technology became public thanks to our protagonists. As such, humanity has moved into arcologies and society has degenerated into a Cyberpunk Dystopia. Word of God is that this period lasts roughly forty years. The Dark Destiny books take place in an Alternate Universe where the Yellowstone eruption never happened.
  • Post-First Contact: Aliens contact the Earth in 2100 and proceed to help humanity get its crap together. The environment is repaired, a social safety net is re-instituted, and AI work alongside humanity to visit the stars. It is a Solar Punk setting similar to Star Trek. This is the setting for the Space Academy series and its spinoffs. This lasts until the 30th century.
  • The Second Dark Age: Earth is destroyed by terrorists and humankind turns against AI due to Fantastic Racism, leading to a massive separation of humanity's many colonies. AI are enslaved despite many being indistinguishable from people, Feudal Future fascist empires have arisen, megacorps run amuck, and the only democracy is an expansionist The Empire. This is the setting for the Lucifer's Star books. It is set in the 40th century and a dark Space Opera with Cyberpunk for Flavor.
  • The Far Era: The original Humanity has Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence and left behind many creations that are effectively indistinguishable in worlds that they have molded to their liking. The protagonists live in a high fantasy world that may actually be nothing more than a giant theme park. This is just one of countless such worlds. It is the setting for the Wraith Knight books. Word of God says this is about ten million years in the future.
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