Why aren't megacorps as big a part of Steampunk as they are of Cyberpunk?

I think the biggest issue with Steampunk is that it is less unified than cyberpunk in what people are trying to do with it.

With Cyberpunk, both fiction and games, there seems to really be mostly two main thrusts -- either fight the systems of oppression and dehumanification established in the setting as the primary foil; or just showcase the the system by having someone rattle around inside it, often doing some get-rich-quick scheme that allows them to interact with all the levers and facets and moving pieces of the society (which can, sometimes admittedly, just end up being characters running around on whatever adventure with metal limbs and mirrorshades or the like).

With Steampunk, some fiction/games are having the protagonists working against a major power structure like imperialism, a specific government, a robber baron, etc. Others are exploring the lost island of whatzit. Or defeating local powerful individual Baron Von Funnyfacialhair (who doesn't represent much of anything in particular of real life power structures) while racing steam-powered hexapod carriages through the cobbled streets of gaslamp LondoPariPraguNewYoik. The lines between Steampunk and the more fantastical cliffhanger adventures was never well established and people have not limited themselves to (direct or indirect) political allegory in what they use the medium to do.

Reynard said:

This link seems pretty typical of sites explaining the origins of the term: What is Steampunk — Definition, Origins, and Examples

What I find interesting is that no real mention of the "punk" aspect is discussed. It is all aesthetic with Steampunk, and apparently has been from the beginning.

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That seems a bit harsh of a framing. Yes, the genre is not defined by a given aspect like the "punk." However, it has theme, tone, setting, and premise as well as aesthetic.

Mind you, we're talking about a form or style of art. It very well could be defined exclusively by aesthetic qualities and that wouldn't be a mark against it. No one (well, few) complains that Bebop, the Lindy Hop, or Minimalism are mostly defined by their specifics of their artistry.

Umbran said:

Why not? Because steampunk is a reaction to cyberpunk, not merely a time-shifted mimic of cyberpunk.

Cyberpunk is about the existential crisis of loss of individuality. Cyberpunk has the ultimate antagonist being the faceless corporate totality, and the individual is (often hopelessly) raging against a machine they are already a part of. Even when the characters are part of an underclass that has "fallen through the cracks", it turns out that underclass is again merely a corporate tool.

Steampunk turns that around, and puts the focus on the individual - steampunk at its best still rages against injustices, but the sources of injustice typically have faces, and the individual makes their own machine (both literally and metaphorically) to combat it.

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Some steampunk definitely does -- the proto-steampunk authors like Jules Verne and H. G. Wells certainly were up to their writing desks in political allegory. I'm not sure I'd limit 'steampunk at its best' to only include those that do, though. If a style or trend is not defined by its relationship to a social movement, I'm not sure I think fidelity to a social cause is necessary for it to be great. If there's a steampunk series that is strictly a really fun adventure, I'm all on board for it.

Gradine said:

The biggest issue is that a lot of time steampunk settings and stories forget that the word includes "punk"

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We did this recently here. I very much doubt it has anything to do with forgetting, so much as other creators in the genre do not have the same requirements or priorities for it. Which is to say they didn't forget, they know and don't care.

Willie the Duck said:

We did this recently here. I very much doubt it has anything to do with forgetting, so much as other creators in the genre do not have the same requirements or priorities for it. Which is to say they didn't forget, they know and don't care.

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Ah. A distinction without a difference.

Gradine said:

Ah. A distinction without a difference.

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If that's how you feel about the matter, more power to you. To me, 'I didn't do the thing you wanted me to have done because I'm ignorant of it,' is hugely different from, 'I didn't do the thing you wanted me to have done because it was never my goal.'

Willie the Duck said:

If that's how you feel about the matter, more power to you. To me, 'I didn't do the think you wanted me to have done because I'm ignorant of it,' is hugely different from, 'I didn't do the think you wanted me to have done because it was never my goal.'

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I find that in most cases the difference shrinks significantly the deeper you try to dig into the why it was never the goal

Willie the Duck said:

If a style or trend is not defined by its relationship to a social movement, I'm not sure I think fidelity to a social cause is necessary for it to be great. If there's a steampunk series that is strictly a really fun adventure, I'm all on board for it.

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This isn't about genres in general. It is about something carrying the "-punk" moniker, specifically.

While I am okay with stuff intentionally defying artistic convention calling it self that, a lot of folks find art that isn't defying both art and social convention in some way to be trying to steal glory, and I can respect that, too. Thus the "at its best" - that is when steampunk is its most "-punk".

Indeed, there are other names for related genres that aren't necessarily gung-ho about raging against some machine - gaslight romance, gaslamp fantasy, and Weird West fiction, for example.

It isn't like genre definition is neat and tidy, in any event.

Gradine said:

Makes it hard for the genre to present itself as anti-colonial, for a start

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Yeah, this is a huge issue.

I’m sure there are as many definitions of steampunk as there are people, but for me the commonest thread seems to be riffing off Victorian science fiction (Verne most notably). So we have lots of references to the Nautilus, the Baltimore Gun Club, Around the World in 80 Days (not actually sci-fi mostly but pushing the frontiers of technological development), Facing the Flag, and so on. We have a world where all these things can and do happen at the same time. Add in Martians, tripods, Cavorite etc as wished.

Some of Verne is slightly anti-colonial (Nemo is an Indian prince who seeks vengeance against the English, at least initially; the Baltimore Gun Club start out as gun enthusiasts but become a military-industrial complex who want to conquer and colonise and must be resisted) but of course, as a loyal citizen of imperial France, especially one who chose the wrong side in the Dreyfus affair, Verne was totally on board with colonialism most of the time. And that’s reflected in his writing and thus in a lot of steampunk. Even AtWi80D, which is arguably an exploration story not involving conquering other countries, clearly takes place with a colonial backdrop and is made possible by colonialism.

Gradine said:

Makes it hard for the genre to present itself as anti-colonial, for a start

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Most of human history has a hard time presenting itself as anti-colonial.

But, in fact, Steampunk doesn't have much of a problem, because there is a difference between discovery and conquest. Your steampunk hero may go somewhere new, but they don't take it over. They just learn things.

kigmatzomat said:

This era is full of individuals who made a difference.

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Yep. Heroes and villains are individuals. We'll get to that in just a sec.

kigmatzomat said:

It was a time of hand-crafted goods. No, wait, it was the era of mass production.

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Oh, ye of little nuance.

The industrial revolution can be seen as having worked in stages. In the first stage, materials (like textiles) are mass produced, but final products, like dresses, are still made by individuals. Mass production of finished products is accomplished by gathering many individual craftspeople, as machines are not sophisticated enough to do it. And, in this fist stage, the machines that do that producing are often one-off designs and builds themselves that require constant tending by engineers.

It is in the (literary) Diesel- era that we start getting machines that build machines - what with Henry Ford's assembly line starting in 1913.

kigmatzomat said:

Well, I guess I can agree that the megacorps were artisinal.

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I reads like you're trying to be contrary and snide, but you undercut yourself in getting it right. For each of those cases, you find an individual who is actually the genius/mastermind, and driving force behind the power. That power is not assumed to be able to survive the individual. So, yes corporate power in the steampunk genre is artisanal

Meanwhile, today, in more the cyber-era, most of us cannot name the leader of more than a handful of the Fortune 500 companies - maybe Apple, Google, Tesla, and Disney, and that's about it. The rest of them we don't bother, because they are ultimately interchangeable, replaceable, without individual identity we can discern. The corporation has in this genre advanced to the point where it clearly is bigger than its leader.

On further thinking about it, it doesn't really matter if steampunk is anti-capitalist or whatever. The true defining feature of cyberpunk (of which steampunk is basically a subgenre according to Jeter) is that it is about technoshock. And steampunk can do that.

Does most steampunk? I don't know. I am not particularly well read in the genre. But a lot of cyberpunk forgets that part too and is just Satan's, trenchcoats and jacking in.

jian said:

Yeah, this is a huge issue.

I’m sure there are as many definitions of steampunk as there are people, but for me the commonest thread seems to be riffing off Victorian science fiction (Verne most notably). So we have lots of references to the Nautilus, the Baltimore Gun Club, Around the World in 80 Days (not actually sci-fi mostly but pushing the frontiers of technological development), Facing the Flag, and so on. We have a world where all these things can and do happen at the same time. Add in Martians, tripods, Cavorite etc as wished.

Some of Verne is slightly anti-colonial (Nemo is an Indian prince who seeks vengeance against the English, at least initially; the Baltimore Gun Club start out as gun enthusiasts but become a military-industrial complex who want to conquer and colonise and must be resisted) but of course, as a loyal citizen of imperial France, especially one who chose the wrong side in the Dreyfus affair, Verne was totally on board with colonialism most of the time. And that’s reflected in his writing and thus in a lot of steampunk. Even AtWi80D, which is arguably an exploration story not involving conquering other countries, clearly takes place with a colonial backdrop and is made possible by colonialism.

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Apparently Nemo was originally envisioned as Polish striking back at the Russiam Empire, but his publisher baulked as France and Russia were allies at the time.

Nemo stripped out the overt anti-imperialist details and later switched Nemo to Indian prince, since sticking it to the English was alright ....

Talking India I do recall a fantasy novel set in India which featured Steampunk Jaganatha (Juggernauts) - I cant remember what it was called however