Dieselpunk

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Revision as of 18:14, 19 September 2017 by 76.79.153.202 (talk) (→‎Aesthetics)
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Dieselpunk is like a Steampunk, but instead of Industrial revolution we got both World Wars and period between them.

Aesthetics

If steampunk is all about brass, steam, blimps and clockwork robots, then dieselpunk is steel, internal combustion, tanks and dreadnoughts (of the naval kind, and the walking boxes kind).

Whereas Steampunk borrows the fashions and aesthetics of the Victorians, Dieselpunk's primary aesthetic is Art Deco. Anything not related to war machines will be very ritzy and flashy, and jazz to be the dominant form of music.

The overall technology level hovers around 1940: we got machine guns, cars, piston planes (and jets, but they're bleeding-edge tech that isn't found outside the military or corporations), radios and black-and-white TV sets. Electronics are something of a gray area: they exists, but not very advanced; you can expect radio, radars, alarms, simple encrypting/decrypting machines and so on, but no portable phones, detectors, transistors and computers (barring occasional ENIAC-styled vacuum tube monstruosity). In a nutshell, if it looks like your grand-granddad would like it, that's steampunk, if it looks like it belongs to your grandpa, that's dieselpunk, and if it looks like your dad used it, that's early atompunk.

Also worth mentioning that there is significant difference in mood: steampunk stories often lean on romantical side of things, adventuring with science of the future and all, while dieselpunk goes full grimdark with industrialised, automated warfare, totalitarism and nihilism; steampunk is "The Time Machine" and "20,000 Leagues Under The Sea", dieselpunk is "All Quiet On The Western Front" and "Catch-22".

Examples