How Much Do You Care About Novelty?

[Paul Farquhar]

Space: 1889 was initially published in 1989, and it didn't "take off". It was cancelled by GDW in 1990 because it was a commercial failure. Sorry.

It may not have been a commercial success, but it was influential. It was certainly my introduction the the Steampunk genre*. I've never read The Difference Engine or seen Wild Wild West (was it ever on TV in the UK?), but I know Space 1889.


*However I was a big fan of Doctor Who, which had elements that could retroactively be identified as steampunk, before it was a thing.

Secondary control room, 1976:

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I don't find "slippery slope" arguments entirely convincing: "One minute you are wearing a top hat, the next you are sending children down the mines". Especially not in the pre-social media days of the 1990s. Maybe some people? But then, should the steampunk genre be avoided, because it might potentially lead some people to romanticise the past? Or would the romanticisation happen anyway, just hung from a different peg? And what about D&D? The pseudo-medievalism of early D&D is straight out of Scott's Ivanhoe, but is still fetishized by some players. Was the satanic panic right all along (but for the wrong reason)?

I think I made a pretty clear delineation.

Whilst D&D's whitewashing of what has often been essentially colonial violence or even reminiscent of genocide can be troubling at times (and certainly has drawn people who love those things into the hobby), the fact that it is consistently about pure fantasy settings, not the real world, keeps it from getting into deep water.

Likewise steampunk - if steampunk sticks to fantasy settings, it's okay - it's when it starts rewriting history and whitewashing historical figures and nations and so on that it gets into what I regard as a bad place.

If you can't see what I'm saying (which is different from agreeing with it), I don't think that's on me. I've been pretty clear.

Your grandparents in London would have had it much worse. But these people are gone now. It falls to us to remind people.

My grandparents were actually in the North and Southern Scotland and the grandfathers were in protected jobs, so they didn't have it as bad as Londoner, but they lived in a country that was basically weeks from destruction for years, so they knew how it was. As did various great-uncles etc.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

If you can't see what I'm saying (which is different from agreeing with it), I don't think that's on me. I've been pretty clear.

It sounds to me like you are critiquing a whole genre (and cosplayers) because of a rare edge case. I can't think of any examples of steampunk that whitewashes real world history*. I can think of plenty of historical novels (and TV shows) without SF or fantasy elements that do that.

*Unless you count Queen Victoria and the Holy Grail, a 1985 adventure for Golden Heroes in which Queen Victoria is awakened from cryogenic deep freeze in order to protect the Holy Grail from Morgan Le Fey (who changes into a dragon in the climactic confrontation)?

My grandparents were actually in the North and Southern Scotland and the grandfathers were in protected jobs, so they didn't have it as bad as Londoner, but they lived in a country that was basically weeks from destruction for years, so they knew how it was. As did various great-uncles etc.

It must of been difficult for those in protected jobs. My mum's big brother was on active service with the Desert Rats. He was a truck driver in the catering corps but still managed to get shot in the backside. I assume he was prone at the time.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

It sounds to me like you are critiquing a whole genre (and cosplayers) because of a rare edge case.

I think the cosplayers disturb me quite a lot because as a whole, they continually adopt the attire, epithets, mannerisms etc. associated with the oppressors and exploiters of that era, without any apparent recognition that they are doing that, instead seeing it as cutesy, which frankly it is not!

As for edge case, I'm criticising that specific case (i.e. set in the real world and/or using real historical figures), and maybe that is an edge case, I haven't done the kind of comprehensive survey of the steampunk genre that I'd need to confirm/deny that!

I can think of plenty of historical novels (and TV shows) without SF or fantasy elements that do that.

For sure. But generally those periods aren't also worshipped by people who think the past was "better". Like, we didn't get "Elizabethan Values" or "Restoration Values", did we? We got "Victorian Values". Maybe it's just unfortunate for the poor cosplayers that they like the same aesthetic as a bunch of creeps, but for me that's still concerning.

Just to really boil it down, if nothing else, what I think is genuinely "problematic" is the almost complete lack of awareness among a lot of steampunk aesthetic fans that they're mimicking the attire/epithets/mannerisms etc. of people who were, for the most part, "the bad guys".

It's a bit like plantation weddings in the US, if you're aware of those (especially as many of the same people benefitted from slavery). It's gross and a little "hmmm" to me.

I don't think I've got much more to say about it honestly though.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I think the cosplayers disturb me quite a lot because as a whole, they continually adopt the attire, epithets, mannerisms etc. associated with the oppressors and exploiters of that era, without any apparent recognition that they are doing that, instead seeing it as cutesy, which frankly it is not!

Not my experience of cosplayers at all. The one I knew who was a cospunk steamplayer was also into Star Trek, with all the humanist values which come with that. I've also met pirate cosplayers who are definitely not in favour of murder, rape and pillage. But that's definitely a slippery slope argument you are putting forwards (which can really be used to disparage just about anything).

I haven't done the kind of comprehensive survey of the steampunk genre that I'd need to confirm/deny that!

Maybe if you were to put forward some specific examples of the kind of whitewashing steampunk that you describe your case might be more convincing?

Maybe it's just unfortunate for the poor cosplayers that they like the same aesthetic as a bunch of creeps

The thing about the Victorian period is that things got so bad that some people started to notice and try and do something about it. And they dressed just the same as the creeps. It's not the clothes that are evil (excepting the 1980s).

 

[Umbran]

It was certainly my introduction the the Steampunk genre*.

Personal experience is personal, and does not speak to what happened among the millions in scifi fandom overall.

Bestselling novel by some of the hottest authors of the time trumps niche RPG that quickly got cancelled in terms of influence.

I've never read The Difference Engine or seen Wild Wild West (was it ever on TV in the UK?)

Allow me to Google that for you - yes Wild Wild West was on the ITV network starting in 1968. It fell off the rerun circuit there by 1980 or so.

*However I was a big fan of Doctor Who, which had elements that could retroactively be identified as steampunk, before it was a thing.

Perhaps. But also note that it is fair for a British source to do Victorian reference without automatically considering it steampunk.

 

[Umbran]

Canceled after a dozen additional items, and made a profit, per Marc and Frank.

Not enough to stay in print a third year, though.

And it's seen 3 different reprints since. Plus ports to 3 other game systems released commercially.

THATS No failure.

Mind the gap - of decades. The original games rules have stayed pretty dormant, which is fine, because they weren't great rules, to be honest. The setting saw some action with a Savage Worlds campaign 20 years after the original game was cancelled. Clockwork Publishing's treatment of it (under yet again another rules engine) didn't come out in English until 2014.

We are talking about influence in the 1980s. 21st century approaches need not apply.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

We are talking about influence in the 1980s

Really? Because my experience was steampunk didn’t go mainstream until the 90s. Personal experience, sure. But my feeling is it was much discussed within its little fandom bubble until it started to appear in other media.

 

[billd91]

So long as it’s long enough ago that there is no one left alive who remembers what it was really like people will romanticise it. These days there are people romanticising the 1940s for goodness sake!

Sure they do - but it's all pretty selective exactly what they romanticize. Cities burning, families displaced and separated, rationing, the threat of German invasion (plus actual American GI invasion)... lots to not feel nostalgia for.

On the other hand, a sense of national unity and purpose in defiance of a horrific evil? A rare time in which the British nation could, unusually, be unequivocally the good guys in the conflict? Of course people romanticize that, particularly in comparison to <waves his hands at the world around him> all this!

The same is true over here in the US. People pick and choose the things they hold up and romanticize and overlook the downsides of everything else associated with those things. And let's just say there are lots of downsides. But like the recognition that there's no such thing as fully ethical consumption in capitalism, there's also no such thing as fully ethical pride or enjoyment in one's nation or history or literature or art, etc. There are warts everywhere.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

On the other hand, a sense of national unity and purpose in defiance of a horrific evil? A rare time in which the British nation could, unusually, be unequivocally the good guys in the conflict

Also romanticisation. “Nothing like as bad as the other guys” doesn’t make you good. In particular, Churchill’s success was founded on being an utter ruthless bstd (whilst complaining of only two bottles of champagne per day). And unity? A myth.