Cyberpunk vs. Steampunk... which theme do you prefer?

I have no familiarity with either outside looking at google images and the like, and I find cyberpunk pretty bland and standard. Steampunk is really different and neat, and visually more appealing in every way. Wankers talking about how this shit wouldn't work in real life are hilarious. It's not supposed to be able to work in real life. Jesus Christ. It's pure fantasy. Do you need the engineering schematics for Gandalf's staff and Harry Potter's wand?

I'd rather live in steampunk and deal with steampunk shit. Fuck cyberpunk!
 
Gotta be cyberpunk. Altered Carbon, Mona Lisa Overdrive, Snow Crash ...

I haven't read a lot of Steampunk. Pedido Street Station was pretty amazing at times but I prefer the aesthetic of cyberpunk
 
EgonSpengler said:
Jesus Christ. It's pure fantasy. Do you need the engineering schematics for Gandalf's staff and Harry Potter's wand?
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I greatly perfer my alternate realities to be internally consistent. Maybe that way of putting it is more understandable?
 
whilst cyberpunk seems a cooler setting for books, films and whatnot it looks like it would be a pretty grim place to live. dirty, smelly, overcrowded, polluted, the sun never shines and it rains constantly.
 
sh1tehawke said:
whilst cyberpunk seems a cooler setting for books, films and whatnot it looks like it would be a pretty grim place to live. dirty, smelly, overcrowded, polluted, the sun never shines and it rains constantly.
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tbf bro if you had access to cyberpunk level stimulants, virtual reality and sexbots you'd have no excuse to go outside anyway
 
Damn, when I looked last night this race was neck and neck. I see that cyberpunk has since won via obliteration.
 
sh1tehawke said:
whilst cyberpunk seems a cooler setting for books, films and whatnot it looks like it would be a pretty grim place to live. dirty, smelly, overcrowded, polluted, the sun never shines and it rains constantly.
Click to expand...

There's too much variation in both Cyberpunk and Steampunk to really answer the "which world would you rather live in" question.
Sure, a lot of Cyberpunk is essentially a near future dystopia, but there's also some set in a more "Space Opera" type setting (Hannu Rajaniemi, Morgan's Takeshi Kovacs novels, Neal Asher). Although some might label this "Post-Cyberpunk".
Then there's Steam punk which is basically Victorian or Edwardian society (which would suck if you aren't one of the characters with access to this steampunk tech), some which is an American civil war era dystopia (Like Priest's Boneshaker, complete with Zombies in this case) and some which has fantasy races and an entirely imaginary world (like Mieville, although some might call this "weird fiction").

I figure most people are just voting for the genre they prefer in books, movies, TV and maybe video games.
 
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How are these even things? They're not real culture. They're imaginary culture envisioned by movies and video games.
 
EgonSpengler said:
I have no familiarity with either outside looking at google images and the like, and I find cyberpunk pretty bland and standard. Steampunk is really different and neat, and visually more appealing in every way. Wankers talking about how this shit wouldn't work in real life are hilarious. It's not supposed to be able to work in real life. Jesus Christ. It's pure fantasy. Do you need the engineering schematics for Gandalf's staff and Harry Potter's wand?

I'd rather live in steampunk and deal with steampunk shit. Fuck cyberpunk!
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Given the way some of this is written I assume it's pointed at my posts against steampunk. Working on that assumption: you've grossly misread my point. I said the the things should at least look functional. They obviously aren't, but they need to have the illusion that they could do whatever it is that they're doing. You don't get that just by putting gears and pistons on something and calling it a day. The really good steampunk art looks like you could take it down to your local machine shop and walk back out with some wondrous item. And if you don't see the obvious difference between the fictional design requirements of a wand and a mechanical item then I don't know what to tell you.

This is good steampunk. It looks like you could fire up the boiler and take it off down the road.
Russian-Steampunk-bike-4.jpg

This is not good steampunk. Why does it have both a pump and a crank? Why does it have lenses that don't focus on anything while already having a scope? Why does it have ejection ports but no magazine? Why does a weapon of war, which happens in dirty and violent conditions, have extremely fine gear sets completely exposed?
steampunk_rifle_by_3dpoke-d56dchk.jpg
 
JBSchroeds said:
Given the way some of this is written I assume it's pointed at my posts against steampunk. Working on that assumption: you've grossly misread my point. I said the the things should at least look functional. They obviously aren't, but they need to have the illusion that they could do whatever it is that they're doing. You don't get that just by putting gears and pistons on something and calling it a day. The really good steampunk art looks like you could take it down to your local machine shop and walk back out with some wondrous item. And if you don't see the obvious difference between the fictional design requirements of a wand and a mechanical item then I don't know what to tell you.

This is good steampunk. It looks like you could fire up the boiler and take it off down the road.
Russian-Steampunk-bike-4.jpg

This is not good steampunk. Why does it have both a pump and a crank? Why does it have lenses that don't focus on anything while already having a scope? Why does it have ejection ports but no magazine? Why does a weapon of war, which happens in dirty and violent conditions, have extremely fine gear sets completely exposed?
steampunk_rifle_by_3dpoke-d56dchk.jpg
Click to expand...


I can understand where you're coming though, to play the Devil's advocate, it could be argued that there is nothing inherently wrong with using gears or other such elements purely as a stylistic element. They don't have to be functional in the engineering sense if the intent is for them to be functional in the artistic sense.
 
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