Blade Runner 2049 - The Importance of Not Being Special

    This essay contains spoilers for Blade Runner 2049.

    Blade Runner 2049 is a movie I very much enjoyed (you can read my review here) but it's an interesting film for me because I realized it nicely inverts a lot of what was inherent to the original movie. I disliked The Last Jedi for having what I felt was a message that didn't fit with the Star Wars universe that is somewhat reflected in this film but worked better in the last one. Specifically, it's the somewhat family unfriendly aesop that nobody is actually important and it's the freedom of recognizing this fact which will set you free.

Corporations love telling you to be an individual by buying what everyone else is.

    The premise of the movie is K (Ryan Gosling) finds evidence of a Replicant who gave birth to a child, which his superior, Lieutenant Joshi (Robin Wright), finds to be an existential threat to their society. It also is something that appeals to corporate demagogue Niander Wallace who wants to breed a new race of Replicants, so he sends his favorite "angel" Luv to recover this child. Along the way, K starts to believe he's the Replicant child and possibly a messianic figure to his race. At the end of the movie, K is killed rescuing Rick Deckard and reuniting him with his daughter who turns out to be a corporate drone with an immune disorder.

    I didn't think much of the plot initially until it occurred to me that not only did the movie subvert the fact the protagonist wasn't the "Chosen One" but it turned out the actual Chosen One is not special in any way shape or form. Doctor Ana Stelline (Carla Juri) designs memories for the Nexus-9 Replicants but is forced to live in a bubble because of her condition. She's in no condition to lead any sort of revolution or lead her "people." In fact, she's a key point in the machinery that allows them to be produced and enslaved.

He's not looking for reality.

    Indeed, Doctor Stelline is useless even for the bad guys' desires for her. Niander Wallace wants to create Replicants who can reproduce on their own and be used to colonize the rest of the galaxy--which can't be done due to all the sensitive equipment needs. Doctor Stelline, as someone suffering a crippling immune disorder, is not the kind of Master Race superhuman which would allow that dream to come to pass. Replicant children, like real life clones turned out to be, are very likely people who suffer serious birth defects and conditions that need the technology of society to live healthy satisfying lives.

    Even Doctor Stelline's role as a symbol of human-Replicant equality is something that may not be all that threatening. While Lieutenant Joshi says it will "break down the wall", it's not like humanity has ever had much difficulty dehumanizing people that they can breed with. Mixed populations have existed throughout history and often get spit on from both sides of their heritage. They may eventually rise high but Replicants are already human in every way that matters. Adding another humanized element to them isn't going to convince most racists to stop treating them like garbage.

Wallace believes he's God and is the most pathetic of the characters as a result.

     A large part of the movie is removing the romanticism of Replicants as a persecuted minority in some ways too. Yes, they're slaves produced by the system to live and die at the hands of their corporate masters. It's a life that absolutely sucks. However, the movie takes the curious stance of noting their position is actually better than quite a few humans. The horror of human oppression against Replicants is awful but it's not limited to them. The old evils of human on human oppression haven't gone away in the slightest.

    In the year 2049, Replicants have grown in number and rights enough that Nexus-9 are allowed to live on Earth and hold jobs they're paid for. They can be killed at any time by their masters but they are considered valuable property by all but Niander Wallace (who kills humans with equal ruthlessness as Replicants). This is a sharp contrast to the destitute who are left to die in the streets or chained together in horrific sweatshop conditions. The poor thus hate Replicants even more while the Replicants see nothing in common with the destitute in their struggle for freedom.

Is being special really important?

    One of the most fascinating elements of the movie is the twisted relationship between Niander Wallace and his favorite slave Luv. Wallace calls his creations his children as well as "angels" but treats them as disposable commodities. Luv yearns for his praise and adoration like a daughter but, ultimately, isn't any more important to him than anyone else. She isn't more important or irreplaceable than anyone else and dies trying to win the affection of a man who is incapable of giving it.

    Niander Wallace has saved the world from starvation, reintroduced Replicants, and colonized six worlds but remains an ultimately impotent figure. His delusions of godhood with millions of Replicant "children" don't change the fact he's just a man. He is a man surrounded by slaves but seems to lack even Tyrell's humanity. He is only able to relate to individuals around him as master and slave, leaving him in a lonely but gilded cage.

Lieutenant Joshi thinks humans are special and Replicants aren't. She's half-right.

    Deckard's reaction to meeting him is first fear and bewilderment but soon a kind of pity as he realizes the man has no knowledge of what it means to be appreciated as a person or do things for others. He is, in simple terms, not special despite having done more than any other human being in history because it's impossible to be special in this movie's universe. Rich, powerful, and famous? Yes. However, special implies one is different from the rest of the world and no one really is.

    This depressing message is even located in the central "romance" between K and Joi. K adores Joi, his Siri-like A.I. companion, and treats her as a real girlfriend in all respects. He brings her presents, tries to give her freedom, and holds lengthy conversations with her. However, Joi is a product produced to give their owners the experience they desire. Which, in K's case, is a constant reminder he is special and unique despite this being manifestly untrue.

Deckard is himself. Human or replicant.

    There's an interesting lesson that K gives up opportunities to forge relationships with real women like Marienette, Luv, and even Lieutenant Joshi to experience what passes for love with his machine. K tries very hard to get a special relationship from a person who is utterly devoted to him but that may simply be another form of illusion. He only really becomes special when he realizes he's not and chooses to act as an individual who is just one of many. In this case, it's the Resistance who all wish they were Chosen Ones but are truly free only when they work as one part in a far greater machine.

    I should note Joi a character who adds her own influence on this theme whether you view her as sentient or not. As a facilitator of unearned self-image, she makes her lonely heterosexual men (or homosexual women) owners feel great about themselves no matter what their actual qualities. However, if you view her as a sentient being, she also is someone who willingly sacrifices and gives to the point of self-destruction. It's perhaps why K loves her as she is someone who represents selflessness in a world completely absent these qualities (even in himself). It might be an illusion that she's a real person but her example inspired him.

He's a good Joe.

     Ironically, it is Deckard who manages to escape the prevalent unhappiness and sorrow around the film by choosing to live as a person who is completely anonymous. He identifies himself as a former cop but he makes no pretense of being anything other than a former cop and a father. Wallace attempts to transform into a Joseph figure for his mythology, claim everything about his life may have been planned, but Deckard rejects this reality. By not trying to be special, he's the only one other than K who ever escapes the system entirely.

     One area which does go against my interpretation of the film, though, is the fact Deckard rejects the Second Rachel on the grounds of her being a poor imitation of his wife. Deckard rejects the clone of her because while individuals may not be of any grand importance to the universe, they are certainly so to him. His memories and experiences with his wife would be sullied by accepting a replacement copy. In that respect, I feel for the Second Rachel because she was judged by an impossible standard and no more guilty of being there to seduce Deckard than the original probably was. So even in a movie about how we're all just cogs in an impossibly large machine refuses to argue against personal importance. Indeed, that is the only kind it seems to acknowledge exists.

A single dot in an enormous field of lights.

    Blade Runner was a movie which had the essential core of being about how we can refuse to recognize the humanity of our fellow beings. However, too often, we try to make ourselves more than we are. We make people better than others and try to raise ourselves up by putting others down. Blade Runner 2049 shows the other half of that coin. Whereas the first implored us to recognize humanity in others, the second asks us to no try and think anyone is better than anyone else. We're all just part of the multitude and that's special enough.

Top signs we're living in a cyberpunk future

To go along with everyone else's "Wait, did the world become cyberpunk and I didn't notice?" I should point out the following facts:

1. From Robocop: "OCP traditionally dabbled in not for profit industries like healthcare, prisons, and space travel."

2. Hacktivist anarchist groups out to bring down government and corporate conspiracies actually exist.

3. Underground journalists and leakers are actually the biggest threat to First World security in the opinion of the Powers That Be.

4. The FBI hired hackers to open a terrorist's phone.

5. The entirety of Enron was black comedy Frank Miller couldn't have written. For example: They fixed the California elections to put a action movie star in as governor while simultaneously shutting down half the state's power plants to create an artificial energy shortage. This while they were bankrupt from hiding all of their losses for a decade. That's some Shadowrun stuff right there.

6. The governments bailed out all the megacorps for gross financial stupidity in 2008. They refused to do the same for victims of a plague in 2020.

7. The world's largest mercenary company, G4, does a large number of the West's prison system as well as corporate security.

8. Bionic limbs created by 3D printers are real. The latter because people can't afford the metal ones.

9. News networks (take your pick) exist as for profit entities catering to the whim of their audience's bias.

10. A reality TV show star and billionaire is the former President after a guy who favored unlimited surveillance and use of assassination robots.

11. The fact unlimited surveillance exists and was used to help American corporations in deals.

12. The fact assassination robots exist.

13. The fact you can buy non-lethal versions of many assassination robots online.

14. A cellphone sized computer can be a weapon.

15. Phones and computers can be plugged into your head, albeit through your ears.

16. Detroit, as in Robocop 2, alas did actually declare bankruptcy. They also built a statue of Robocop because, unironically, they really wished they had one.

17. The world's eighth largest pyramid is a Bass Pro Shop in Tennessee.

18. The working class pay 95% of all taxes versus 5% by corporations when it was reversed in the Forties.

19. It's possible to buy a carbon fiber katana over the internet. Ditto mirror shades and a bullet proof trench coat--all shipped to you overnight.

20. The police now have Special Forces units in every city and many places have them driving APCs as well as tanks.

21. Social media resulted in spontaneous revolutions in several Arab countries. The crackdowns were pretty damn awful to say the least.

22. Virtual Reality is a thing with actual games being shipped for it.

23. Mass data mining occurs just to find out what you would buy from a online store and why.

24. Amazon has sold dumb AI for your house and Microsoft has done the same for your computer.

25. China is now the predominate economic power in the world due to how much leverage it has over the United States.

26. The Soviet Union may have fallen but we're back to Russians making sinister plans to take over the world, only now with computer hackers.

27. Electric self-driving cars exist but no one uses them versus oil guzzling military-looking ones.

28. The world's largest environmental disaster was paid for in fines which left the oil company fine.

29. It's impossible to tax most trans-national corporations due to their multinational nature.

30. Criminal syndicates with ties to terrorism have forced governments to treat with them.

31. Global warming has reached the point of "so obvious it's flooding cities" while corporations still foster people denying it.

32. Countries have places where there's not enough to eat or a central government but citizens possess Ipods.

33. A wetworks black ops against Iran's nuclear program was conducted entirely by hackers.

34. People have died playing video games because they didn't stop long enough to pee.

35. North Korea attacked America's movie industry with computer sabotage.

36. The fact mercenary-for-hire criminal hackers is an actual profession. They even have names based on what kind of hat they wear.

37. The fact artificial worlds people live much of their lives in are common pastimes online now.

38. The fact some postage is now being delivered by flying robots.

39. The fact individuals are still trying to make artificial islands to be lawless tax-free corporate states. Double points that these invariably become scams to bilk investors.

40. A literal "Dark Web" exists for the purposes of buying everything from drugs to weapons to hitmen. The most famous of these was run by a man codenamed "The Dread Pirate Roberts."

 41. Nestle extracted 35 million gallons of water from a California national forest during a drought to sell back to the people of California.

42. Almost all competing major brands from food to books are owned by a small number of 5-6 conglomerates. Many of these competing brands are owned by the same parent company.

43. A group of sixty hackers, librarians, and scientists gathered together all of the climate change data they could because they were afraid the President would delete it.

44. Completely artificial CGI and synthesized voice singers now exist.

45. All of this is actually right on time for 2020. Then 2020 happened.

46. The former President got in a Twitter feud with a teenage girl.

47. The assassination of a head of state's brother, North Korea in this case, was conducted under the auspices of a fake reality game show.

48. Russian hackers were pivotal to American election fraud.

49. Late night comedians are considered to be valid sources of news and journalism.

50. Quantum physicists believe reality may be a holographic computer simulation and that reality's building blocks are made of information bits. This is notable for the fact the world's 2nd best, at worst, physicist believed it to be true. 

51. Senators invested heavily on the information they gained about an upcoming pandemic, using it as an opportunity for insider trading.

52. Private corporation-run Mars colonies are not ENTIRELY as ridiculous as they used to be.
 

53. The Chinese government went to elaborate lengths to shut down a Tawainese horror game (Devotion) because it criticized their leader by comparing him to Winnie the Pooh.
 

54. Cyberpunk media like Mr. Robot and Watch_Dogs mostly takes place in the present day. Hell, Hackers did as well.
 

55. Stock manipulation of pandemic treatments was done by announcing fake cures on the internet.
 

56. A massive riot and attempt to overthrow the government was organized around a social media ap.
 

57. A major social media ap's icon is based on both OCP and the Nazi flag (which OCP's flag was based on). Yes, I mean Parler.
 

58. A massive conspiracy theory/ideology with millions of believers was started on 4chan as a fanfiction game.
 

59. Said fanfiction game's believers included two Congressmen.
 

60. A massive NSA surveillance plot was revealed by a whistle blower that later defected to Russia. Almost no one cared about this revelation.
 

61. Televised comedians are now the primary source of news for many Americans.
 

62. The ones that don't get their news from comedians get it from the internet.
 

63. The largest economic entity in Poland is a video game company.
 

64. Said video game company lost a billion dollars and rocked their nation's economy because of a bad rollout.
 

65. The former Secretary of Education, Betsy Devos, had her fortune come from multilevel marketing. Her brother, Eric Prince, has a literal private army.
 

66. Amazon is actually delivering packages with their army of flying robots.
 

67. Global warming is very probably the thing that will cause human extinction.
 

68. The blood diamond trade is gradually being replaced by the quest for lithium in human rights abuses, all so people can have cellphones.
 

69. The number of people with cellphones in Sub-Saharan Africa, the poorest region on Earth, are 3 out of 4.
 

70. There's a massive eco-friendly supercity in the Middle East that failed (Masdar City) and is now a ghost town.
 

71. The Prince of Saudi Arabia is building another one without roads.
 

72. The former President of the United States suggested we nuke hurricanes.
 

73. The entire life (and death) of Jeffrey Epstein reads like someone writing a particularly disgusting cyberpunk villain.

74. Microsoft created an AI that, within a couple of days, was violently racist and trollish due to exposure to social media.

75. Google and Facebook are companies that charge nothing because they are collecting and selling your data to make billions.

 

76. Nuclear power is a viable ecological alternative to fossil fuels because the latter have become more dangerous.

77. Henry Cain's Twitter account was continued to be used after his death by his supporters, forgetting people would notice.

78. The largest mass demonstrations in history against police brutality were the result of cellphone video.

79. Anonymous attempted to fight the Zeta Cartel and the latter threatened mass executions to stop them.
 

80. One of the Far Right's boogeymen is a nonexistent anti-fascist organization with no members, leadership, or boundaries. 

81. A data warfare service, Cambridge Analytica, was instrumental in influencing public opinion to get Britain to exit the EU.
 

82. Scalpers tried to buy every Playstation 5 and Xbox X S in the world to sell via automated purchases. It almost worked.

83. Politicians now have charity fundraisers playing video games on Twitch.

 

84. The fact internet celebrity is actually a vastly lucrative career for many.
 

85. Ditto professional video game streamer.

86. The fact Twitter claimed it couldn't ban hate speech because it would affect too many politicians.

87. 3D printed guns are actually becoming a problem. They aren't very good but they don't have to be.
 

88. The video game, Cyberpunk 2077, was made with the same corporate crunch and soulles abuse of power that it parodied. Its employees actually even called out management on it.

89. You can buy illegal drugs in online black markets and pay with cryptocurrency.
 

90. Said cryptocurrency actually is accelerating global warming and a massive drain on the world's power reserves.
 

91. There are people who are denied access to health insurance and have no choice but to buy their legal prescription drugs illegally on the Dark Web. These drugs are cheaper to buy illegally online and some people will die if they don't get them.
 

92. The richest man on Earth, Jeff Bezos, had a blackmail attempt made against him with his cellphone shared dick pics.

93. Blue and purple hair is common and that's not even remotely edgy. In fact it's standard fare at the salon.
 

94. Bio-hacking has become common enough that it has its own subculture.
 

95. There is now a branch of the military devoted to outer space warfare, however ridiculous the concept.
 

96. They used the Star Trek logo for #95. Yes, it existed beforehand but it's still best known for Star Trek.
 

97. The world premiere of many movies have since started happening on streaming services.
 

98. A billion dollar corporation, Theranos, existed purely based on a technological device that never worked or could.
 

99. A major treatment for Alheizmers is microchips in the brain.
 

100. Jeff Bezos actually piloted a giant mechanical robot while adjusting his look to be identical to Lex Luthor's.

 

101. Cyberpunk lists are flooded with things like this article, asking, "Is this cyberpunk?"

 

What is Cyberpunk?

    When deciding what sort of genre you want to write in, it's important to familiarize yourself with the kind of tropes and expectations of them. One of my favorite subgenres is also one of the most influential and, sadly, one of the ones whose roots have strayed furthest from its original source.

    I, of course, speak of the titular cyberpunk genre. Cyberpunk influences all walks of fiction and even modern-day life but few people identify these elements as specifically from the genre anymore. In a very real way, we are living in a cyberpunk world. Nevertheless, cyberpunk is such an influential genre it created Gothic Punk (which gave rise to urban fantasy), steampunk, and numerous other builds as well as defined much of the contemporary or near-future science fiction of the past forty years.

    Author Bruce Bethke coined the term cyberpunk for his 1983 short-story, appropriately titled Cyberpunk. The etymology of the word also indicates just what it is about. Between the late 16th and the 18th centuries, punk was a common, coarse synonym for prostitute. Shakespeare, himself, used it several times and its vulgarity was part of its appeal.

    Punk music, started in the 1970s, was coined as a term for the garage bands of the day that would take on a defiant anti-establishment tone. Cyber is from the word cybernetic, which comes from the Greek adjective κυβερνητικός meaning skilled in steering or governing. Cybernetics is about technology and tools which interface with us humans.

    What does Cyberpunk mean? Bluntly, it means getting ****ed by technology. In its raw essence, cyberpunk is a view of the world which means that technology will not make life better for humanity but only give the oppressor a different means of brutalizing the underclasses. It's not necessarily a technophobic genre, far from it, but it is an unromantic view of technology's power. 

    If I may be so bold, the first cyberpunk novel may be R.U.R or Rossam's Universal Robots, a 1920 science fiction play by Karl Cabek depicting the oppression of living machines. The roots of technology not being a beneficent force but an oppressive one also shows up in Metropolis and the writings of Ardus Huxley. Huxley, in particular, gave a stunning view of a predominately clone-society ruled by worship of Henry Ford values of greed and industralization in 1931's Brave New World.

The Occulus Rift remains popular in the far off year of 2021.

    The modern conception of cyberpunk is something entirely different, however, and owes its popularity to two primary sources: the works of William Gibson and the movie version of Bladerunner. Bladerunner provided the public with the view of a used-up science-fiction future where the majority of work was performed by enslaved Replicants (androids so real they bleed, feel, and age). The majority of people were impoverished, sick, and living in the shadow of corporate ziggarauts which were deliberately modeled after those of ancient Babylon.

    William Gibson's works, particularly Neuromancer, Count Zero, and Mona Lisa Overdrive created the idea of a massive sprawling civilization which had exaggerated almost cartoonish values of materialism and addiction to technology. Despite not knowing a thing about computers, William Gibson created the hacker-hero archetype with Chase and predicted the importance of safe data transfer with the protagonist of Johnny Mnemonic.

Robocop is a hellish urban crimescape--with a cop as hero.

    Cyberpunk would proceed to become an influence on animation, roleplaying games, fashion, movies, and video games. Among my favorite of cyberpunk works include the original Bubblegum Crisis, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Hackers, the Deus Ex games, Mike Pondsmith's Cyberpunk 2020, Shadowrun, and The Matrix. There While the last straddles the line of cyberpunk and post-cyberpunk, being about a prophesied messianic figure, it still falls in the line of what the genre is all about.

    A lot of fans of the genre love the tropes without actually caring about the meaning. Cyberpunk is one of the first genres to forward style over substance. Fans of the genre often think of mirrorshades, trenchcoats, cybernetics, hacker heroes, ruthless megacorporations, epic poverty, and a general sense of doom brought about by societal collapse. This is all dross, however, for the real heart of the story. Which is man versus machine and society.

Tron's real life sections had a sanitized take on cyberpunk.

    Cyberpunk is unique in that it is very pro-technology but also extremely wary of it. Science and technology abound in cyberpunk fiction, to an almost-fetishsized level, but the number of misuses from it are astounding. On a basic level, cyberpunk fiction must believe that technology will not make the world a better place. The flaw is in the human, rather than the machine, though. If technology solves humanity's problems or makes the world better then it is probably Post-Cyberpunk or simply science-fiction.

    I've mentioned in previous articles the similarity of cyberpunk to noir fiction. In both settings, the corruption is endemic and irreversible. You may strike against the system, even score a few moral victories, but how much you may actually achieve is questionable. Any salvation the world may achieve is often through the destruction of the old without explaining what will come thereafter.

    Some cyberpunk works actually allow the machine to collapse thanks to the efforts of the protagonist, even if this usually comes with some form of cost. There is a strong anarchist sentiment to cyberpunk and it's not so much the protagonists have a better idea for how to run the world than anything would be better than the status quo. Even so, the protagonists may or may not believe in the positive ends they work toward.

What *is* she advertising?

    The movie version of Johnny Mnemonic has Johnny struggle against his own extreme selfishness versus a larger social good. Despite the near-apocalyptic nature of the threat, Johnny has to be dragged kicking and screaming toward any positive end. Because of the noir sensibility, cyberpunk heroes tend to be loners and rebels. The flaws of these individuals are as intricate to realizing the setting as their merits. Decker, the protagonist of Bladerunner, is an individual who hunts Replicants for a living despite their apparent humanity. Case in Neuromancer is addicted, physically, to the internet.

    To live in the general dystopian worlds of cyberpunk and come away unphased will feel inauthentic to all but the most deft of writing. Genuinely noble souls, like Robocop's Alex Murphy, are often chewed up and spit out by the world--forcing them to rebel because society won't allow them to be good.

    The villains of cyberpunk are typically part of the establishment. They need not be actively malevolent but enforce a status quo which oppresses and dehumanizes. Corporations are a favorite villain in the medium, representing the unchecked growth of greed and profit better than almost any other group. They are not the only sort of villains which can serve as cyberpunk foes, however. Corrupt governments, organized crime, and even mad scientists are all viable enemies for cyberpunk stories.

I find the fact he's smoking the most terrifying part of this.

    Paul Verhoven's Robocop created one of the
most perfect cyberpunk villains in the despicable megacorporation Omni Consumer Products (OCP). Omni Consumer Products destroys the life of noble police officer Alex Murphy, feeds off the misery of Detroit's population like a parasite, and ruins more lives via its business policies than "normal" criminals could ever hope to match.

    OCP's not an uber-efficient evil empire, though, but a bloated fat dragon whose members are so obsessed with their bottom line they're actually incompetent. OCP does as much damage through cost-cutting as they do through any plans which work. This is embodied by the robot ED-209, which is at once highly dangerous and pathetic. The cool efficiency of many science-fiction villains is absent from cyberpunk as not even the cause of evil is immune to the slow decay of the world.

Cyberpunk in the arcology of 2017 Silicon Valley.

    While the genre was most famous in the Eighties, Reagan economics combining with new trends in globalism as well as mechanization, the world has actually become far closer to the globally integrated but poverty-stricken vision scene in the writings of many writers. Computers are ubiquitous, data is taken from us everywhere, and the wealthy are in bed with the ruling class--so only some things are changing. This means cyberpunk is more relevant now than ever but less distinct from daily reality.

    The Watch_Dog video games and popular television show Mr. Robot are both distinct cyberpunk works about rebels fighting against the corruption of the world around them with computer knowledge. They also take place in the quote-unquote real world. Contemporary society is something fully capable of hosting cyberpunk stories now. My own Agent G series is base around how the modern day ends up becoming a chrome and mirrorshades dystopia.

    So what is the appeal of cyberpunk? In a very real way, it is the allure of raging against the machine. An individual may not be able to make the world a better place but he might be able to strike against the oppressor. Everyone loves a rebel and cyberpunk is an excellent way to exaggerate existing trends before sending your protagonists against them.

What is Steampunk?

    Since I have some extra time today, I thought I'd talk about one of my favorite lesser-known genres. Like urban-fantasy, Steampunk is one of the creatures which has grown up in recent years as a counterbalance to more traditional science-fiction and fantasy storytelling settings. But what is Steampunk?

    Honestly, a lot of people don't know as there's been complaints that all you have to do is place some gears or clockwork on an object to make it part of the genre. Part of the reason for this ambiguity is steampunk began as a contrast to William Gibson's brief popularity as the originator of the 'cyberpunk' style of science fiction.

    K.W. Jeter (Morlock Night, the Infernal Devices) apocryphally coined the term in a letter to Locus magazine:

    Dear Locus,

    Enclosed is a copy of my 1979 novel Morlock Night; I'd appreciate your being so good as to route it Faren Miller, as it's a prime piece of evidence in the great debate as to who in "the Powers/Blaylock/Jeter fantasy triumvirate" was writing in the "gonzo-historical manner" first. Though of course, I did find her review in the March Locus to be quite flattering.

    Personally, I think Victorian fantasies are going to be the next big thing, as long as we can come up with a fitting collective term for Powers, Blaylock and myself. Something based on the appropriate technology of the era; like 'steam-punks', perhaps.

    —K.W. Jeter

    Cyberpunk was very clearly defined by William Gibson as a near-future dystopian style of fiction designed around the idea of being mankind literally ****ed by technology. Steampunk would, by its literal definition, be the Victorian equivalent and there has been numerous works written in this regard. After all, the 19th century is the hey-day of imperialism and the culmination of technology's rapid advancement during this period was the Great War.

Not period appropriate attire.

    From my own flirtations with the genre, however, it's not necessarily the case. While my favorite Steampunk works use the classicism, racism, and sexism of the period to tell interesting stories about today--a lot of fans are more interested in the romanticism of the period. The idea of gentlemen inventors and a period of time when the world still had unexplored regions.

    In short, Steampunk is retro-science fiction set in the period of time from the 17th to early 20th century with Victorian England and the Wild West being the most common settings. Variants on Steampunk include fantasy worlds resembling the Industrial Revolution and post-apocalyptic situations where humanity has returned to an earlier but still technological level of development.

    Retroactively, Jules Verne and H.G. Wells are the fathers of this style of science fiction. While they were simply writing for their time, the two men laid the foundations for all future imitators. Amusingly, given the heavy amount of social satire both men put into their writing, you might suggest they were the kind of individuals to focus on the 'punk' element themselves.

    Not all period pieces during this time are Steampunk--only those which are deliberately anachronistic technological advances. Cowboys vs. Aliens doesn't have steam devices but comments on American Imperialism. The Guy Richie Sherlock Holmes movies with their radios and Great War forehsadowing qualifies. Likewise, the Wild Wild West movie is a badly-made but accurate example of how the setting's conflicts work.

Frankenstein is one of the original steampunk creations.

    Why do Steampunk, though? The answer is multi-fold: it's a road-less traveled, there's a lot of values dissonance which is easy to exploit for drama, and it's a time-period when romanticism clashed heavily with grim reality. A man might build an airship capable of circumnavigating the globe but he's still surrounded by a society where other races are second-class citizens. We also know much of the downfalls of industrialization, even as we reap its benefits.

     Those interested in writing Steampunk should choose what exactly they wish to say about the time-period and/or modern situations. It's entirely possible to write surface Steampunk, making use of the concepts of it without actually getting too in-depth on the ramifications of the technology involved but I think this is a poor use of the genre. Part of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea's fun is Jules Verne's examination of what the electrical submarine does--specifically, provides an unstable man with unlimited ability to murder the rest of the world's sailors. A similar effect is resulted from Robur the Conqueror's airship.

      Despite this, writers should not constrain themselves from going all out when creating their alternate Early Industrial settings. While examining the consequences of one element is good, you can also create a wholesale fantasy-land of clockwork and coal-powered devices. Realism has no necessary relationship to the genre and should never stand in the way of a good story. The Time Machine, after all, is a tale which uses travel to distant centuries in-order to examine the issues of class in the 19th century. Besides, if giant transforming robot-trains are wrong, I don't want to be right.

    Oddly, I don't recommend attempting to address the racism and sexism of the time in-depth unless you have a very deft hand. Not only does it tend to suck the joy out of a subject, the levels of it could vary from place-to-place and even person-to-person. Still, ignoring it is likely to feel inauthentic to readers. Acknowledging these issues and drawing from them helps keep the setting believable even if you're running around with steam-powered replacement super-limbs. As one commentator said, "I can buy a gigantic mechanical spider. I can't buy a racism-free 19th century America."

Wish we had these now.

    Steampunk highlights a period which I term to be "The Age of Transition." In a very real way, the Industrial Revolution up until the Great War represented the period where Old Ideas clashed with the New. Everything from the way war was conducted to travel to the way people interacted changed due to the development of technology. Whether you curse the past world or long for it, Steampunk is about these two ways of looking at the world colliding. I consider World War 1 the end-point for any historical Steampunk story because it's when the horrors of modernized warfare eradicated any remaining romantic notions of chivalry, monarchy, invention, or warfare.

     Take note writers have been known to combine steampunk settings with other genres as well. Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magic Obscura examines what happens when a bog-standard fantasy setting of dwarves and elves hits the Industrial Revolution. Likewise, Japan's Sakura Taisen takes a romanticized view of 1920s Japan to have a troupe of actresses fight demons in steam mecha.

     It's also possible to include Steampunk elements in settings which are not actually of the genre. TSR's Dragonlance setting added flavor to Gnomes by making them capable of creating Industrial Age devices, merely ones too dangerous for common use. Likewise, Firefly is a science fiction series which thrives on adopting 19th century values, clothing, and attitudes to provide contrast.

     It should be noted steampunk has inspired other retro-future settings as well. There is now "Dieselpunk" covering the 1920s and Flash Gordon meets Pulp futurism as well as "Clockpunk", highlighting the introduction of unimaginable inventions into Renaissance or earlier time-periods. I suspect this will continue as the spirit of adventure will always find new settings for the introduction of machines. In this respect, Daedalus of the Icarus wings and mechanical bull was the first Steampunk hero.

Yeah, it's kind of like that.

    In the end, Steampunk is a a style which can be done easily but doing it well is another matter entirely. The Industrial Revolution was a period which changed human history forever, taking mankind into a new age of development. Capturing that feel of excitement and terror is a daunting prospect. For that, a person needs to have the most elusive quality any writer can possess: a well-told story. Once you possess that, everything else will fall into place. Is Steampunk the genre for you? Only you can tell and if it is, perhaps you'll be one of the defining authors which shapes it.

     Thanks for reading!

What is Noir?

   Film Noir is a style of movie popular during the 1940s and 1950s whereas criminals exist in a world of deep shadows and moral ambiguity. Literally, Noir translates from French as black and that is the essence of the thing. Darkness both figurative and literal is the nature of Noir and anyone who wants to create an example of the genre needs to embrace it in all of its forms.

     It's a genre which has older roots still in the Pulps and Detective stories of the previous decades. The term "Private Eye" actually comes from the Pinkerton Detective Agency, which got its start in the Old West for example. Noir arose from the fading romanticism of Westerns to the cynicism of the Great Depression.


    While critics would argue with me over the definition, I believe Noir isn't limited to crime pictures and is more a sensibility than a genre. Cyberpunk is, essentially, science fiction Noir. The Western can be Noir once stripped of all its romanticism. You could even, theoretically, create Medieval Noir though I can't think of any examples off the top of my head.

    The first thing one should do when creating a Noir piece is to strip it of normal heroism. This is harder than it sounds because most writers naturally try to make their protagonists a little larger than life and admirable. Noir heroes, by nature, have to be either extremely flawed or bad people who just happen to better than the alternative.

    Occasionally, an author may subvert this by creating an honest cop or hero figure but this morality has to be distinctly at odds with the way the world works. In Sin City, Hartigan is an honest cop in an over-the-top parody of a Noir city. His honesty and nobility result in horrific personal consequences for himself and others.

    This doesn't mean that the story can be lacking in heroism period, it just is something that needs to be handled carefully. Noir protagonists are often motivated by greed, lust, anger, and revenge as much as higher motives. When they do something genuinely noble, it should be with great reluctance. Take Rick from Casablanca. The ending wouldn't be nearly so powerful if not for the fact he has adamantly resisted doing the right thing throughout the movie.

    Moreover, the hero isn't just the person who is lacking in heroism. The entire world has been drained of brightness. The world is corrupt and there's no real hope of it getting better. The sense of decay and corruption afflicting not just the protagonists but everyone in the world is a major part of what makes Noir work.

    Another quality that is depressing is that the victories are personal ones as opposed to societal ones. It's impossible to root our corruption in City Hall, but you might be able to save someone from being murdered by the Mayor's goon squad for example. The events of the Noir-themed Bladerunner have no impact on Replicant slavery but allow Decker to achieve a bittersweet victory.

    Authors may or may not choose to make the bleakness of the setting an environmental one. Urban sprawl, endless rain, and nighttime are typical of Film Noir for a reason. I'd argue that the affect of Noir can be achieved with environments not normally associated with it as well.  

    Mad Max successfully manages to create a Post-Apocalypse Noir through the inherent banality of highways and their surrounding environments. Max Payne is a Noir video game set against the worst snowstorm in New York history. Amusingly, Los Angeles is a setting for many successful Noir because the glitz and sun of the region is a deliberate contrast against the sleaze underlying it.

    Noir is a sensibility where there are no easy answers, endings are never completely happy, everyone is flawed, corruption is rampant, and mankind is never going to be any better than it already is. The trick is understanding this doesn't make life not worth living. Noir heroes continue to muddy through life, trying to find answers, even if they're not to be found.

    Maybe it's why the genre is so successful. We've all felt like that from time to time.