Steampunk!

[Dryope]

o_o Aishabe, what have you unleashed! There's alot of squabbles between the lifestylists and the genre fans over what's "really" steampunk. There's unsurprisingly a big DIY streak in both, but seriousness over this varies.

Genre: Generally you ask "what if the Victorians (or frequently Edwardians, timelines kinda squish together) had more advanced technology" and run from there. Alternate history, dystopian societies, time travel and space exploration by the British Empire are popular. You'll get people arguing over whether something is gaslamp fantasy or retrofuture scifi or dieselpunk or whatever alot if you stray too far from the norm, but really anything goes. The juxtaposition of elegance with aggression or beauty and the beast is the part of punk that manifests itself the most here.

Lifestyle: Know how to fix everything, prefer older technology to the new, if they mod something it had better actually be functional (as opposed to the cosplayers, whose motto is "it doesn't have to be functional, it just has to look cool"), very serious about the socio-political implications of punk and are probably the steampunks asking "where's the punk in steampunk?" They generally get annoyed when there are steampunk gatherings and people show up in character or with stupid props because to them those people aren't taking it seriously.

Here is the best link for all things steampunk:
http://brassgoggles.co.uk/brassgoggles/

Now out, out fellow steam enthusiasts! Come out and talk to meeee. X3

[Scaramouche]

Know what's funky? Imagine where our civilisation might be today if Rome hadn't fallen.

Consider, on the Nemi Ships (40 AD) they had rotating objects mounted on ball bearings, 1500 years before Da Vinci was said to have invented them. They had double-action hydraulic pumps. They had heated floors. They had hot and cold running water.

And to build the things, Roman engineers had to drain a lake. To do that, they started digging tunnels in toward each other from two sides of a hill, a tunnel about a mile long I seem to recall, and the two tunnels met exactly in the centre, due to the expertise of Rome's surveyors and engineers.

Imagine where we might be today if not for that Dark Age.

[Tenjen]

Not to mention the supposed 2000 years worth of history, techonology and philisophical designs lost when Alexandars library went down.

I've seen a lot of Steampunk, but not really folowed any specific series. Just seen wallpapers and snippets.

I did see the Steam Boy movie.

Are there any live action Steampunk movies?

The league of extraordinary gentlemen movie had some aspects of steampunk. But wasnt a true blue Steampunk movie as such.

[Bear]

I think that LoEG is about as steampunk as Hollyweird is going to get without some serious bribery and mental kicking to go make a good movie.

The world needs more Steampunk!

[NobodySpecial]

You'll get people arguing over whether something is gaslamp fantasy or retrofuture scifi or dieselpunk or whatever alot if you stray too far from the norm, but really anything goes.

Reading this line made me remember that all humans come with an endless supply of pigeonholes.

[harbino]

For some odd reason I can see Steampunk being made into a film... I haven't read it, I have only read the basic plot on Wikipedia...

[tilde]

The league of extraordinary gentlemen movie had some aspects of steampunk. But wasnt a true blue Steampunk movie as such.

It's not high art, but I definitely found LOEG entertaining. What would you add/take away in order for it to be considered a "true blue steampunk" movie?

[Dryope]

You'll get people arguing over whether something is gaslamp fantasy or retrofuture scifi or dieselpunk or whatever alot if you stray too far from the norm, but really anything goes.

Reading this line made me remember that all humans come with an endless supply of pigeonholes.

haha, it's so true. I just shove it all under "steampunk" because it's easy. It's too much of a pain to try and explain all the subgenres/related genres and nobody can agree on the definitions of those either most of the time. >_>;

I don't watch many movies, unfortunately, so I can't help you there. Anime-wise you have Last Exile and Sakura Taisen (yay for the obvious ones), manga I personally would include Toto! which I happen to love alot for a shounen series. =p The Hakushaku Cain series is popular amongst the steam-set, although it's universally agreed upon it is not very steamy.

[Arantor]

Off-topic for a moment: Google Earth now has a rendering of Ancient Rome - http://earth.google.com/rome/

Just saw the thing about Rome above and this reminded me.

[Bear]

One thing I love about Steam-punk, no matter what angle you take it from, its one of those wondering 'what if?' kind of situations where you can do pretty much anything you can imagine within a given setting.

As has been pointed out already, if we didn't have the Dark Ages, Romes Technology was far in advance of what we had for hudreds of years afterwards, if Rome hadn't fallen, our technology would be even more advanced then it is now at this day. Heck, you have to wonder too what the world would have been like if alot of ancient civilisations hadn't fallen. Look at the origional 7 wonders of the World... if they had that technology back then, what wonders would we have now if they were still with us?

Back to the point.. its why Steampunk appeals so much.. the retro-futuristic technology, the great design rather then the mass manufactured. Even if you go into or away from the sub genres there as so many possibilites and different lines of thought and 'What if?' you can take with it.

[Pneumonica]

Totally. Steampunk is the ultimate retromod.

But my way is the best way. I've said it thrice, and what I've said thrice is true.

[Bear]

Exactly! Now if I wasn't broke and could afford the awesome steampunk PC I saw...

[Dryope]

ohhh, was it one of Von Slatt's? I am so sure those are out of my price range. They're stunningly gorgeous, though! =D He's uber-talented. I don't have the skills to even begin thinking about modding a computer in any way shape or form. For anyone who has not heard of Jake Von Slatt:
http://steampunkworkshop.com/

[Bear]

I think it might have been one of his... it had a 'clockwork' tower case with it though but the keyboard was defiantely similar. I know that its defiantely out of my power range and I'd never be able to build an all on one like he's done. People need to build more retro-futuristic and steampunk devices.

[Dryope]

Maybe it was one of Datamancer's...Curses, the steampunk mods aren't the area I'm most familiar with. ^_^; They look cool and I admire them but I can never remember who did what.
http://www.datamancer.net/ I think Von Slatt doesn't do commissions though so it must be Datamancer. My bad, they both do the keyboard/computer mods but that doesn't mean I should get them confused like that.