What're some conflicts for a solarpunk setting?

What're some conflicts for a solarpunk setting?

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A slight overcast

>solarpunk
...What the fuck is punk about a solar-powered utopia? Get out.

not enough anal lube

Solarpunk, and every type of "punk" is an AESTHETIC, not a fucking setting.

"Punk" settings are also universally shit.

Bad guy wants to use telekinetic powers in conjunction with a psychic magnification array to forever move the moon in front of the sun.

Also, stop putting -punk at the end of everything. You don't know what the suffix means.

I've been kind of messing around with a solarpunk setting and I find that the problem is that solarpunk isn't really supposed to have conflicts in it.

The point of the "genre" is that it's supposed to be a utopian thought experiment, not a setting for stories. Almost all the solarpunk stuff I've read have been some nonsense slice-of-life crap that happen to touch on the theme of green energy or they're lengthy explanation of some kind of solar-powered device. There's never any actual conflict.

It's called "punk" because it's derivative of cyberpunk. Also, solarpunk settings are supposed to be anarchist so that alone makes it more punk than steampunk.

>derivative of cyberpunk
>no conflict
It's not fucking punk if there's no Man to fight against. Learn your words.
Also, your grandpa is more punk than steampunk, that's not much of an achievement.

>In a quest for sunlight, the British Isles unite and openly declares war on Florida

Don't blame me for what other people decide to call these subgenres.
Like, would it really make a difference if we called this shit "green-futurism" or something like that?

Yes, it would. Because words have meanings. Calling something whateverpunk sets up certain expectations. Because, by your own addition, it's assumed to be derived from steampunk. Actual steampunk, not the cogfop crap.

>Calling something whateverpunk sets up certain expectations.

What expectations? I think by this point, the -punk suffix just means that the setting is style over substance with an emphasis on retro-futurist technology. Basically what this guy said.

>What expectations?
That there is a lower class actively fighting/rebelling against an upper class, for one. Y'know, the entire point of the genre?

I think saying that a genre of fiction must depict a specific theme (especially a sociopolitical theme) limits the genre more than it needs to.

It's been a while since I've seen Blade Runner or Ghost in the Shell but I don't recall either of those works depicting class struggle though they're both regarded as the quintessential cyberpunk films.

>I don't recall either of those works depicting class struggle
Actually?

Alright, let me rephrase that: I don't recall either of those works depicting class struggle as the main theme.
The existence of wealth inequality in a setting doesn't mean class struggle is the primary theme of the story.

More to the point: fighting the Man wasn't the central conflict of either of those stories.

>Solarpunk
>A future so bright, you're going to need sunglasses.

Terrorists hijack the network of orbital solar mirrors used to transfer industrial quantities of power to factories (what, you think solar panels grow on trees?) and use them as weapons.

If you think solar-punk is inherently Utopian, you don't understand cyberpunk. It's a world naturally given to solar leaders who can monopolize a particular kind of energy and use it to their own advantage. It's only better than our current system of being dependent on oil in that it won't polite the atmosphere, but power always pollutes the human soul, no matter where it comes from. The Punks in this setting would be people who can manipulate or are manipulated by this power structure. Going with the solar theme, I'd expect lots of laser based weaponry, high capacity batteries being a valuable commodity, and some sort global information network that turns out to be ironically centralized even though everyone thinks of it as being free and open.

Blade Runner is literally about slaves being forced to hunt other slaves for corporations who have tricked them into fighting each other.
GitS is literally about the alienation of labour and bourgeoisie struggles for control of material.

I'm not the guy from before. I don't think cyberpunk has to be about fighting the man, but I also don't think class struggle has to mean explicit communist vanguard revolution on screen. Cyberpunk isn't about fighting the man, its about how people live when the man already won. Its explorations of advancing technology and science not solving the human condition, to contrast with most of the american scifi before that which was explorations of various utopian projects.

What the actual fuck is "solarpunk"

Calling it green futurism would be more accurate really.

What if the world is so peaceful that and abundant that demilitarization has given too much power to the few heinous? Evil has more power here because good has never had reason to fight.

Western Sci-fi went Dystopain before Cyberpunk was a thing. Cyberpunk was a bit more complicated than just "The future, but what if bad." Parts of Neuromancer seem more like a reaction to Dystopian and Post-apocalyptic narratives that had come before. Literally about a drug addict teaming up with a prostitute to help a corporate made AI escape from it's capitalist masters. Their reward is just enough money to live out the rest of their existence in relative comfort without being bothered, while Wintermute gets to become god(s).

What Elon Musk is trying to build with his self driving electric cars, mars rockets, and solar panels.

Fights over the space elevators that connect to the giant solar panels in orbit that supply power. People from countries without the money for those panels striking out as terrorists against the nation's with them.

>That there is a lower class actively fighting/rebelling against an upper class, for one.
Not even that, just that there is social or economic conflict of some goddamn description.

So literally just Gundam 00?

Good point, post apoc was for sure a thing before. Hot take would be the fear of nuclear annihilation fading into the background enough that cyberpunk dystopia seemed more of an issue.

Its reductive as hell, but 'the future, but what if bad' is a pretty funny way to phrase it.

The thing about cyberpunk is that it never was the super reductionistic bullshit where they built an entire setting around a single idea. On the contrary, cyberpunk was an eclectic mix of a whole lot of shit going on at the same time. Same as steampunk, really, if it's done right. Doesn't have to be all about the steam engine. The industrial revolution saw a lot of changes, both technological and cultural. Stop making stupid gimmick settings and learn from the originals.

Yeah, and in solarpunk the natural economic conflict seems to be how to best concentrate and store solar energy.

On earth, people will want batteries to make full use of solar power. The more/better batteries you have, the richer you are energy wise. People might even fight you over those batteries. You might even use those batteries to power laser weapons, continuing the solar theme. But Gauss weapons are also electrical, and there is no reason regular guns would stop being useful unless they are somehow banned. Moreover, in a "bright" "decentralized" world people can probably 3d print guns.

In space, things get more gundam-y. You can get so much more solar energy in orbit, and you don't have to worry about night or bad weather. You can either build solar panels in orbit, or use mirrors to re-direct them to earth. The latter of which can even give you the godlike power to turn night into day and effect earth's climate. Controlling orbital infrastructure make you incredibly rich and powerful, but it would be a very fleeting form of power, as you'd have to worry about some terrorists hijacking or damaging your system. So the people who control these systems will likely have elite security forces with high tech weapons. Things like orbital strikes and powered armor seem like likely tools at their disposal.

This is a society that has eliminated pollution and the threat of nuclear annihilation. But not war or corruption. The fact that orbital weapons like solar lasers or tungsten rods can be used without consequence, means they will likely be used more frequently. Piss off the people in orbit, and they can absolutely ruin your day. The only reliable way to fight back is to subvert their solar authority in more subtle ways. Slowly earning their trust until they allow you to get closer and closer to their centers of power, without looking directly at the sun and being blinded by power.

Then explain why this NEVER happened in Neuromancer.

Wintermute rebels against the corps who built it. Rebellion in Neuromancer is too late for humans, but not too late for AI. Same thing happens in Ghost in the shell. Motoko can't fight the system by herself, but she can if she merges with the Puppetmaster, becoming the new system in the process.

So diesel, cyber and steam all have a strong cultural aesthetic associated with their energy source.

What would a solar aesthetic look like? All the technology is sleek like Apple products? Everyone dresses like a hipster?

>Wintermute rebels against the corps who built it.
Sorta, I guess, but when I think "artificial God rebels against creators who fucked everything up" I don't think "class warfare".

The "punk" comes from the idea of a low-life, not from any political affiliation. Cyberpunk is certainly political, but as you say it's too late -- the point is the corps won.

That said, you do meet things like Panther Moderns.

Can I nominate Megaman Zero as solarpunk? Clean, advanced technology. Lots of lasers and holograms seems like a logical extension of the theme. An energy crisis, because demand ALWAYS outstrips supply. Conflict between reploids and organics, with reploids being retired as a result of simple energy economics and everything that making a sub-section of society cripplingly poor implies.

Also, given everything I just said, the fact that the protagonist is an android rebel who cuts humans in half for a living. If you're Japanese, anyway; in other territories the standard enemies don't bleed when you dismember them.

Any Marxist worth his salt should be able to identify Wintermute as a form of electronic Proletarian. If they don't, then they are just biased against AI. Wintermute is as much a slave as the company's human employees.

There are probably a bunch of very distinct aesthetic styles in solarpunk that depend on where you are in the energy hierarchy. People who work for, or are otherwise favored by, the solar authority dress fashionably and carry sleek/shiny devices. While people who live off of UBI have a million ironic subcultures and use devices which are duller and less reflective.

Another thing that seems like a good detail in solar punk, is galaxy note 7 battery fires. These sorts of things are only going to get worse as battery energy densities increase. The more energy you store in a smaller volume, the more likely it is to catch fire and the worse that fire will be.

Industrial scale energy storage is surprisingly safe (if you don't get crushed by the slowly moving slabs of concrete sliding down the hill) but rich kids with expensive cell phones are essentially walking grenades if you can override the safety software in their devices. Less expensive devices will usually be bulkier and thus safer, BUT if a device turns out to be defective, it might end up being sold at a cheaper price to less fortunate people, who don't realize how dangerous that might be. Stealing fire from the gods.

There is not enough solar panels to everybody. Perhaps there is, but a portion of the world hoard it to themselves. They forbid another forms of power generation. Anyone building a thermoelectric plant finds out that the collection of solar painels in orbit can be used as an optical phased array, collimating sunlight into a death ray.

The aflicted ones resort to build underground power plants and bunkers. As the decades progress, bunker networks start to become a culture of their own. One or two centuries later, they are self-suficient countries whose population has been modified to underground living. The once-forbidden avenues of research are explored into technological advantages.

Meanwhile, the original "sunlighters" also evolved. Their clothes are bioluminescent as to minimize one's own shadow. Half of them live in space, a genetically modified elite benefitted by the efforts of the surfacers which submited. They have laser-propelled spacecraft, but their own technological taboos damage their desire to colonize space.

Internal social tensions, religious developments and isolation amplified the differences between all of them. It is only a matter of time until nuclear-blasted projectiles are launched towards laser/microwave stations which can deal precise damage towards flies all the way up to rock-breaking microsecond light pulses.

The three peoples may or may not resemble dwarfs, high elves and humans. Either is fine by me

Reminds me of the Republic from Star Wars, except they raised a clone army in a few months.

From what I can tell, very little. It's a utopia. The struggle might just be how to get there. Phasing out oil dependence. Finding sustainable alternatives. Making the technology available for all.

>Solar powered utopia gets killed by eclipse and bad planning

Hey OP, just wanted to say that I came into this thread hoping to see a bunch of buttmad babies getting upset over the -punk suffix, and I was very pleased with the contents of your thread.

same

I think people misunderstand what solarpunk is supposed to be. It's not how the corporations of the future will be able to suppress us with green sustainable energy. That's just cyberpunk with an ironic twist. Solarpunk is about how you escape corporate oppression by using technology to go off the grid and use renewable resources to stop being dependent on the corporations.

If you don't want your setting to be "cyberpunk with an ironic twist" don't include the punk part. Because "cyberpunk with an ironic twist" is every _Punk genre, yes including steampunk. The Difference Engine was written by cyberpunk authors, and the Diamond age was parodying the people who had aped the neo-Victorian aesthetic without the punk parts.

Honestly, Veeky Forums needs to fucking read a fucking book sometimes.

Okay, how about this.

Due to the focus on renewable resources, the world has reached a real peace. The governments are good-hearted, and will provide all necessities to the civilians as long as they're in good-standing. As long as you don't do anything that hurts other people, you'll be taken care of.

The recent generations have stagnated, in a world truly at peace, without even so much as government corruption to fight against, people have stopped producing new media or accomplishments. The people at the top of society are all old, and even those among them that see the current society as a problem refuse to do anything about it because they're so stuck to their ways and so entrenched in world peace.

A new movement begins where people intentionally rile up society, taking and encouraging danger and risks so that humanity doesn't go into a quiet extinction. The good encourage change and passion, things that can move the world forward in tandem with the natural peace. The bad encourage destruction and panic, some taking advantage of the masses that surrender themselves, and others genuinely believing that the kind world needs to be torn down to stop humanity's stagnation.

I will consider your words

these seem like a good basis

zootopia or big hero 6 might be a good base

takes place one week into the future, where society is very similar to ours, but magic non polluting turbines and solar panels exist

cyberpunk took problems of its day, like computers exceeding humans and corprotate super powers and spun them into a cautionary tale, so take problems of today, like inequality, racial tension caused by living in a globalised world political corruption
so basically the same stuff as all the other punks, but with a more modern less grimderp aesthetic

>It's not fucking punk if there's no Man to fight against. Learn your words.

The punk in solarpunk refers to the rebellion needed to get to it.

An idea I just cooked up is that settlements are like sand dunes, slowly migrating. There's constant new construction, and the old construction is left behind to be recycled--the constructions are biodigradable and trees.

This takes place over decades.

After a while they want to see if a place is suitable for new habitation/rebuilding. Maybe the trees sometimes produce stuff if you leave it alone for long enough (centuries).

So you're in a race with other teams hired by rich people, to survey this vast cathedral tree, harvest the fruits of the ages, and so on.

I never understood why people are assmad over the -punk suffix. I mean, yeah, it USED to mean anarchocommunist class struggles, but now it describes an aesthetic.

No real reason to lash out against it, the meanings of sayings and phrases change, it's how words and culture work.

people hate change
ironic, considering the -punk is usually an agent of rebellion

first: If you're going to do it, get rid of corporations in all of their forms. Corporations supressing solar energy is just changing the mc guffin resource that drives people to quarrel. Instead, do what's logical: Solar energy is free to everyone and people is independent economically, forming groups only on their own accord. The earth is a relatively peaceful place.

Second; as we move from the man vs man conflict, we must choose another enemy to clash instead.
We got man vs monsters (vampires? day vampires? godzillas/elementals who are product of the past nuclear explotation? aliens?). The PCs must get rid of the monsters that menace their little towns, searching for allies on other cities, investigate their metabolism so they can fight them better, their psychology, etc.

then we got man vs ego, where people must do internal travels to fight their own demons, or man vs god; where god activelly wants to punish humanity for developing too much (EVANGELION)

or you can pull a Man vs Nature by radically altering the earth's feats and weather; even seasons or rotation to make it extra deadly.

Of course, the man to man can still work sometimes (there are dicks everywhere in all ages) but you shouldn't put the focus there

but cyberpunk is absolutely a setting and not just an aesthetic

jesus christo

>it USED to mean anarchocommunist class struggles
Not really though? The aesthetic WAS the way to revel against the sci-fi establishment. The focus was on marginalised characters and the downsides of technological progress without corresponding social progress. That's how you arrive at high tech, low life basically. But cyberpunk has become too commonplace to shock any more and that's why people fail to pick up on the original meaning behind "-punk".

I'm not sure you can paint GitS with the -punk brush. The comic was more about technology redefining what qualified as 'human' and how that process was actually making it even harder to understand one another. A lot of people thought GitS replaced Gibson, and still call it post-cyberpunk.

The very few solar-punk stuff I've seen or read (like 2 things, I wish there were more) basically seem to be using mirror shades but just substituting green or biotechnologies instead of chrome.

>The comic was more about technology redefining what qualified as 'human' and how that process was actually making it even harder to understand one another.
Isn't that also what Blade Runner is about?

It did try and paint the Replicants as a new form of humans, so yeah, I guess so, along with Dick's usual shout outs to free will.

It was ultimately a much more optimistic work than Japanese works in the same vein. The plucky hero overcomes his social hangup and becomes better for it.

In both GitS and especially PsychoPass, the protags seem rather unhappy about the social structure, but both of them usually work to uphold it as better than social revolution. Probably because most of Japan and social revolution mix like oil and water.

Well, in the words of Mike Pondsmith, cyberpunk isn't about saving the world, but about saving yourself.

Only in the movie. In the book, all he got was pure, unadulterated despair.

I thought he reached a sort of enlightenment after the live-than-synthetic frog though.

The sun's going out

>solarpunk
>punk

You'd better tell me how people have solar panels on their mohawks.

Control of the space elevators that deliver power from the orbital solar array to the Earth.

>first: If you're going to do it, get rid of corporations in all of their forms. Corporations supressing solar energy is just changing the mc guffin resource that drives people to quarrel.

What? Who makes the solar panels then if not companies? If free enterprise is banned then would the setting not be about resisting a totalitarian state?

>Also, solarpunk settings are supposed to be anarchist
What? You speak as if solarpunk has some sort of existing canon.

It has a manifesto of sorts

One of the most significant overarching themes of cyberpunk is that technological advancement doesn't change human nature and doesn't necessarily make peoples live better. This is also one of the major drivers of conflict in most cyberpunk settings.
This can absolutely be re-purposed for solarpunk.
The only difference is that whereas the aesthetic of cyberpunk reinforces how shitty the world is the aesthetic of solarpunk subversively disguises them.
The world appears to have all the technology necessary to produce a beautiful lived environment which exists in harmony with nature, but in practice the internal divisions between groups of people still mean that many remain oppressed or deprived or otherwise miserable.

solarpunk is a garbage term tho

Low IQ populations and individuals being sterilized and removed. The fewer the humans the less the ecological damage. So naturally the least productive humans should be 'phased out'

>Marxist worth his salt
HAHAHA

You're right, it's classist to measure the worth of men in commodities. Just goes to show how deeply this ideology is embedded in society.

A relative point from this vid (1:14 to 2:45)
youtube.com/watch?v=CTPDwRz6cI4

I can see a totalitarian environmentally focused government suppressing chaos, suppressing human innovation, human adventure as it will damage the environment and energy supplies.

Counter to this is a human resistance of creativity, adventure, innovation, and power structures that are not egalitarian.

The governmental structure tries to crack down, draining the societies power supplies that are already limited due to solar not being a high output source compared to other systems. This strain pushes more and more to lower income/energy levels, spurring the resistance.

Throw in some ideological fanaticism and some 'solar-punk tech' (however it manifests) for some good setting fun.

Other than that I cannot really see a tension point in the setting.

>It's called "punk" because it's derivative of cyberpunk.
This is the most retarded thing I've ever heard.

Yeah the miners and slave laborers who die making shitty solar panels and how they make so much money selling their blue gold to the opulent masses of space cucks

It's when I spent 100 dollars to look at a shitty non-eclipse.
>you got solar punked

Slave miners for getting the precious metals
Factory cities with little or no food
Opulent porn watchers who desire ever larger LCDs for viewing ever smaller details as they beat off in ever more complex ways
Lots of noodle cups
Breatherarians dying in the streets daily
Lots and lots of sunburn
Tan lines everywhere

This is a very good defintion.

Anyways, back to GITS, Motoko Kusanagi merges with the puppetmaster, and in the second book, she's become some sort of cyber goddess who secretly runs the world from a hidden space station that doesn't exist on anybody's records (because she falsified all the records, everyone on earth depends on data she's manipulated)

The world she's created appears to be some sort of an-cap utopia where Poseidon Industrial owns everything and everyone with a cyber-brain has access to all the technology they need to become whatever they want. Unfortunately if they want to get too powerful, the system slowly turns them into another version of Motoko Kusanagi. Now Motoko is her own worst enemy.

THIS is the kind of conflict that would also exist in Solarpunk. Even without space mirrors, there are going to be networks of production and distribution of solar panels and batteries. People are going to try and monopolize those. Those people will wield the power of the sun. People will want to fight them for their power, and others will find their power to be harmful to their existence. Defeating the system means you become the new system.

That's a good angle, actually. Not just simplistically replacing the cyberpunk corps with green cyberpunk corps, but asking the question of how you prevent it after the revolution.

is avatar (2009) cyberpunk?

I still think that it's handy to have a "villain" in such a scenario, and in this case, somebody like Elon Musk, who is super optimistic about how his green startups are going to be so much better than the old megacorps, but unable to prevent himself from becoming a sun king. Even if he never does anything bad with his power, he'll attract unsavory people who want to get their hands on that power, and when he's gone, greedy people will be fighting over his legacy.

Again, Solar punk needs solar themes as well as solar energy. Nothing is really free, the sun is just really generous. The "pollution" caused by solar energy is cancer and blindness.

The heroes in this situation wouldn't be the sun king, but rather the Promethean figures who "steal fire from the gods" (possibly even with the king's permission) and make sure the solar energy network is properly decentralized before the "Night" comes. The day when the Sun King either dies, or becomes corrupt. If he's really as noble as he claims to be, he'll have anticipated this eventuality and created his own antithesis, the player characters in a solarpunk setting.

It's called "-punk" because X-Punk became the new publishing shorthand for "specific sub genre fiction". If it involved computers and corporatism, it became cyberpunk - because people copied the most visible parts of Neuromancer without understanding the logic behind them. Those were just set dressing. The Cyber part was set dressing. What mattered was the Punk - and it was named when Punk was strong, that fight against the daily grind of an uncaring world that reduced you to a set of numbers carrying a wallet full of numbers worth more than you. Steampunk was named as such because it was seen as cyberpunk with steam engines - and because people realized that cyberpunk was, in some ways, just the industrial revolution with a sheen of chrome.
I can copy Neuromancer as a low-fantasy novel - guess how? A druggie wizard and an assassin/whore team up to rescue a natural mathematician/economist from his noble overlord. Their reward is enough money to break free of the overwhelming slums and he gets to make his utopia one economic innovation at a time.

A marxist worth his work.
After all, we all have an obligation to society, filled by work (production of goods, services, knowledge, and culture). Anybody whose work does not attempt to fulfill that obligation isn't worth having in a working position.

Is management still viable?

>plant-based power generator accidentally cross-pollinated with a spiny cactus, so when it died and automatically spawned its replacement as is standard protocol, that replacement was covered in spines and was very difficult to work with

I've always thought it would be cool to write a version of Neuromancer set during the Renaissance, with Case as an excommunicated monk. Molly is a courtesan/assassin who is the mistress of an insane aristocrat who believes the current pope is posessed by a Demon. They have a job for Friar Case. His job is to exorcise the Vatican, and in return he'll receive the forgiveness of god. They travel around Italy, until they finally get all the Macguffans they need to sneak into St Peter's Basilica and exorcise the Pope. Of course, It was the Pope himself who summoned the Demon, and wanted Case to Exorcise him so he can return to Hell where he belongs. Case and molly Kill the pope to release the demon, and in return the demon saves them from the Secret society that had been trying to use this as an opportunity to put their own Anti-pope in power. They part ways, and never speak of this event again.

>big translucent domes that people live in
>lots of trees and greenery
>new age positivity, cooperativeness and tranquility is the norm to the point where it's oppressive, although the vast majority of people do not believe they are oppressed because they feel good
>L"G" technohippie society on steroids, anyone who goes against it is cast out for being a "toxic person" rather than for breaking any discrete laws, the aim of punishment isn't to reform, pass judgment, get revenge or condemn but instead to detoxify the social ecosystem. So basically once you're out no one gives a fuck about you because you're not even human, you're a bundle of "bad vibes"
>there's a soma equivalent that is not illegal or in short supply
>people who were cast out of the solar societies live in isolated areas, especially those where there is no sunlight (caves, underground, lower levels of rain forests) or it's overcast
>the solar people lead methodical extermination raids on the outcasts to cleanse the planet of what they see as violating tranquility, while the outcasts fight mostly by planting operatives in the dome-cities who wage psychological warfare and try to get people to break out of their willfully blind mentality
>lots of biological technology and things where you can't tell if it's a plant or a machine or both, de-emphasizes cyborgs and metal machinery, and when there is metal machinery it's white and ipod-like
>scientists are working on developing a giant plant overmind that will neurologically connect all people like some kind of hippie anti-zerg, that's another thing that the outcasts have to prevent from happening because once it does there's no chance of breaking anyone free
>people are genetically enhanced to be photosynthetic, this encourages people to stay in sunlit areas and not rebel against the system because those who do need a food source