I feel like -core makes a better suffix for these kinds of thing. Punk implies some sort of rebellion when in reality the rebel aspect is only really present in cyberpunk.
I'm having trouble parsing what even the image is supposed to be. It's a city, but the central... Thing is impossible to figure out besides "vaguely humanoid with spindly arms"
https://i.imgur.com/AtulrXt.jpg
How would you do a biopunk setting?
Literally take any sci-fi setting and use words that sound biopunky in the descriptions.
That's all biopunk ever is. Just regular sci-fi with organic shit taking the place of the tech.
[...]
Yeah, this + the Rifters trilogy.
Biotech are at the scariest and most fascinating when they are ubiquitous enough to be mishandled by any punk in an lab in a basement, but not mastered well enough to be able to manage the consequences of it.
So you can have adventures like: choomba puts in circulation a new strain of pot, which features an enzyme that creates an adverse reactions to the latest patch of antiviral epigenetics released by a megacorp. PCs are sent to investigate how the guy could have been aware of the molecular features of this then unreleased update and why he wanted to secretly add this feature.
Biology is way more about emergent properties than other engineering and a setting whose industry is based around it is fundamentally different. I'll grant that high end replicator bot industry converges of similar themes of uncontrollability (as do black box algos) but evolution's already done that for millions of years which we can exploit here and now, uncontrollable industry becomes a thing when we copy nature.
remove fossil fuel, go apeshit with climate change, and bring back megafauna for industrial purposes, 'Windup Girl' style.
I remember another setting where a well-intentioned idiot managed to make an anti-pollution bug which ate plastic waste in the ocean. Then all plastic and most oil. Good way to sell gengineering as the new nuke right from the start (well, maybe that and a few ethnic plagues).
>he couldn't define "biopunk" in his own terms.
Looks like it's a bumpgay infestation. Lack of thought is to be expected.
>I remember another setting where a well-intentioned idiot managed to make an anti-pollution bug which ate plastic waste in the ocean. Then all plastic and most oil.
We should do that on purpose.
As in “a totally alien setting where all technology is organic” or as in “a sci-fi setting with a lot of genetic engineering “?
For the former you’re basically on your own, but for the latter, Transhuman Space and SLA Industries are great sources of inspiration.
Great artists steal and all that…
Feed your gun sugar to reload the neurotoxin shard magazine, your bodyheat keeps your armor alive. Human waste can be converted by modified bacteria into explosives.
The gist of my setting is that there are six major body fluids, each with a god associated with them. Each fluid also has a number of kinds of magics under its aegis, as well as manipulation of the other domains said gods have, with magic in general being closely related to the gods. The thing is, I need to fill out the domains for the gods, as well as some more of the associated non-elemental magics, and I'm having some trouble, particularly with Mucus. What I'm currently going with for each god is listed below, but some overlap could work, so if you have some good reasoning for why some domain/magic would work under another element as well, I'm all ears.
In addition to the main fluids, there's also a corruptive sweat that can both curse others and twist the other elements, bending them to one's will unnaturally, with the Perspiration associated with it viewing creation as a mistake and wanting to return everything to the sweaty wasteland.
Ejaculation has Light, Chaos, Magic, The Sky, The Ocean, and Creation as subdomains. It's associated magics include Time magics, summoning, and "buff" type spells.
Hemorrhage has Darkness, Order, The Forge, and Destruction. Its associated magics include Space/Teleportation magic, banishments, and "debuff" type spells that could drain a foe of energy.
Regurgitation has Life, Fertility, and Death. It's associations are with plant magic, communing with the dead, and wards.
Congestion has Truth and Lies. It's associations are scrying, along with summoning and dispelling illusions.
Lacrimation has The Moon, Freedom, Death, and The Hunt. It's associations are with Potions, animating the dead, and Healing.
Urination has The Morning Star, War, Wealth, and Rebirth. It's associations are with magic that deals with emotions.
On Earth, magic returned to the body fluids just before the fantasy version of WWII. After the Piss Empire lost, both the Republic of Tears and the Empire of Sweat quickly started researching magic in a mystical arms race, which they kept secret from their civilians, and convinced other nations to do the same. Does anyone please have any suggestions regarding what terminology each nation would use, both for magic in general and the different types of magic, please?
Semen is a planet where reality is naturally somewhat malleable and unstable, stabilizing more when more people are observing the thing in question, with the magic users of the setting being able to force a desired change in reality through conscious control of this change, with the limiting factor that observation of a change enacted by a mage by a sapient being 'besides' said mage in question makes performing said magical act noticeably more difficult, due to their perception of reality interfering with the change. In addition, changing a living being, particularly a sapient one, is significantly harder than changing non-living things, because one’s own semen works against the attempted change. Also, a Mage only has so much seminal 'stamina' to make changes with, and trying to push too far past their limits can have serious negative effects. What do you think, are these good limitations or is it still too OP? What would you suggest I do if it is (and yes, I've heard of Paradox)?
For Blood, everything in the physical world has an associated spirit tied to it, and magic is done by manipulating spiritual energy, either by drinking sweat or via a deal with a sapient spirit to do it on your behalf in exchane for an offering of your loved ones. The latter came first, but then Perspiration gave magic to the ones that were too selfish to follow tradition.
On Earth, magic returned to the body fluids just before the fantasy version of WWII. After the Piss Empire lost, both the Republic of Tears and the Empire of Sweat quickly started researching magic in a mystical arms race, which they kept secret from their civilians, and convinced other nations to do the same. Does anyone please have any suggestions regarding what terminology each nation would use, both for magic in general and the different types of magic, please?
Semen is a planet where reality is naturally somewhat malleable and unstable, stabilizing more when more people are observing the thing in question, with the magic users of the setting being able to force a desired change in reality through conscious control of this change, with the limiting factor that observation of a change enacted by a mage by a sapient being 'besides' said mage in question makes performing said magical act noticeably more difficult, due to their perception of reality interfering with the change. In addition, changing a living being, particularly a sapient one, is significantly harder than changing non-living things, because one’s own semen works against the attempted change. Also, a Mage only has so much seminal 'stamina' to make changes with, and trying to push too far past their limits can have serious negative effects. What do you think, are these good limitations or is it still too OP? What would you suggest I do if it is (and yes, I've heard of Paradox)?
For Blood, everything in the physical world has an associated spirit tied to it, and magic is done by manipulating spiritual energy, either by drinking sweat or via a deal with a sapient spirit to do it on your behalf in exchane for an offering of your loved ones. The latter came first, but then Perspiration gave magic to the ones that were too selfish to follow tradition.
Oh it's you again. I remember you. Fricking Hell man. Still working on that?
THS but with no SAI or Ghosts. Mathematic programming can't create consciousness but gen-modded humans, Bioroids, bio-implants, nanosymbionts, Dyson Trees and retrovirusis are possible.
Or blow it up and play it as Eclipse Phase without Mind Uploading and political bias.
Wish I'd saved that setting doc way back. It was a pdf with green text on black called "Biomachine" about autonomous war-beasts who inherited the world from us.
That was a decent concept. Can't remember much about the comic itself though.
>How would you do a biopunk setting?
It's my moronic ass setting 'Corpus Paradisi'.
The general gist is: >At some point in the distant past a powerful civilization achieved technological immortality >Upon death your consciousness is transferred into a newly 3D printed body >The civilization also mastered the creation of matter from nothing, drawing from what people now refer to as Slipspace >These reanimation sites were created and had self learning weak AIs put in charge of them >The facilities defend themselves and move about and constantly spit out people >At a point in the past the super civilization collapsed and the world fell into barbary >Untold millennia have passed since then, the world now existing as the Corpse Garden >The ruins of civilization are literally buried under millions upon millions of human corpses >Those consciousnesses that are still around from the old civilization and haven't gone through Ego Death generally commit suicide the second they pop out of the reanimation machines >Scavengers proliferate in their billions, with evolution having run away with it >Entire landscapes and topography are now made from the piles of compacted human corpses
Hmm. That image isn't what I'd associate with that description. Then again maybe there's feedstock for tasteful furnishings among all that compacted meat.
My meatscape's a little more obtuse since cosmology's all about Pangu/Ymir/primordial-giant-du-jour dying and rotting into the world while everyone in that world eats their way back to retroactively becoming that giant. On the surface most things work as you expect them to but reminding the inanimate that it was and will be flesh is a terrible idea. The stuff sticks around like fallout and the last waring godkings made such a mess that the age-old tradition of cannibalism is now frowned upon.
>It was a pdf with green text on black called "Biomachine" about autonomous war-beasts who inherited the world from us.
This sounds pretty based, does anyone else have it please?
>How would you do a biopunk setting?
It's my moronic ass setting 'Corpus Paradisi'.
The general gist is: >At some point in the distant past a powerful civilization achieved technological immortality >Upon death your consciousness is transferred into a newly 3D printed body >The civilization also mastered the creation of matter from nothing, drawing from what people now refer to as Slipspace >These reanimation sites were created and had self learning weak AIs put in charge of them >The facilities defend themselves and move about and constantly spit out people >At a point in the past the super civilization collapsed and the world fell into barbary >Untold millennia have passed since then, the world now existing as the Corpse Garden >The ruins of civilization are literally buried under millions upon millions of human corpses >Those consciousnesses that are still around from the old civilization and haven't gone through Ego Death generally commit suicide the second they pop out of the reanimation machines >Scavengers proliferate in their billions, with evolution having run away with it >Entire landscapes and topography are now made from the piles of compacted human corpses
That is actually how I planned on ending my campaign, it's a villain campaign where everyone is working for a lich who wants to collapse the entire universe into one singular organic entity filled with the souls of every single creature.
No more death. No more pain. No more entropy. Only order.
Really we should be thanking him.
I've been wanting to do a mech setting where nearly all large-scale technology is organic. It's facilitated by the discovery of a substance with similar structures to DNA that can easily be "programmed" and grown into living tissues. Players are Pilots that straddle the line between Engineered Lifeforms (ELs) and humans because the gene-marker that allows them to integrate with the bio-mech Vessels can't be inserted into existing humans so they have to be grown from birth to have it.
Currently there's an ideological war going on between factions. The Foundation for the Rights of Engineered Lifeforms campaign for protections for ELs and believe the mass decommission of EL soldiers after the last war was needlessly cruel. The Orthodox Church of the Soul of Man think that only natural-born humans have souls and ELs are just machines undeserving of rights. The Cult of Ascendance think that ELs are the next evolution of mankind, and are known for permanently sealing volunteers inside Vessels. And then the Order of Purity takes the Orthodoxy's teachings further and believe that ELs of every kind are abominations to be destroyed.
Non-ideological factions include the united Galactic Government, which are the main peace-keeping body across the systems, the Trade Houses which are standard mega-corporations and merchant guilds, and the Nomads which have chosen life out in space on colony ships rather than get involved in planetary politics.
High-velocity seed shooters as gun analogues, clouds of pollen that do funky shit but are usually highly flammable, fungal/plant symbiotes that alter both the physiology and psychology of their host over time(gigantism, aggression, tentacles and the like).
Also giant insect larva that morph into a variety of useful things with the correct epigenetic marker and feedstock, body-hijacking parasites(plants, insects, cephalopods).
If Cyberpunk is about megacorporations, Steampunk about the tragedy of the commons, and Solarpunk about rebuilding after the apocalypse? Biopunk ought to be about the downfall - about worrying whether your neighbors/politicians/police have been replaced by pod people, about society's underbelly becoming a festering pustule of anarchy and mutation, and about food shortages as traditional agriculture collapses in the background.
No. Cyberpunk was actually valid when it came out. Any other usage is just people without imaginations wanting to put -punk onto things thinking it sounds cool and actually its a crokk of unimaginative shit.
Cyberpunk isn't about corporations, that's only one element, steampunk isn't about the tragedy of the commons, it's about putting cogs on a dress, what you think of as steampunk is actually planetary romance and solarpunk is just daft. The sooner people get over their obessesion with the word and start using their creativity a bit more, the better.
Everything is black, blue, and mechanical, the races are squishy and you can feel the hard machinery under their rubbery smooth skin, and they all constantly fight over advanced technology upon their ruined factory world, while also battling virus inflicted A.I and drones.
>Biopunk
Well. The punk part is easy. The protagonist is not a member of the ruling class. The ruling class have made the place a shit hole for most people. There's good cause to be pissed off about it. The game is either about just surviving (with a standoffish to hostile view on those in power), or about some kind of commoner rebellion against those in power. Probably pointless shit like graffiti and destruction of property. Though I mean. You could also do French revolution style or early 1900s IRA liberation of Ireland from English occupation.
>Bio
Whatever biological part you're making Central to the premise.
remove fossil fuel, go apeshit with climate change, and bring back megafauna for industrial purposes, 'Windup Girl' style.
Yeah, this + the Rifters trilogy.
Biotech are at the scariest and most fascinating when they are ubiquitous enough to be mishandled by any punk in an lab in a basement, but not mastered well enough to be able to manage the consequences of it.
So you can have adventures like: choomba puts in circulation a new strain of pot, which features an enzyme that creates an adverse reactions to the latest patch of antiviral epigenetics released by a megacorp. PCs are sent to investigate how the guy could have been aware of the molecular features of this then unreleased update and why he wanted to secretly add this feature.
you would do it like Cyberpunk but make the advanced tech a melding of steel and organics, or wholle fleshy/bone.
The idea I was nurturing was that turns out Kaiju are real and their bodies have to do amazing things to let a kaiju live with pesky things like the square cube law. so the advanced technology of the setting uses specifically cultured Kaiju Cells for one reason or another. Such as an electric car who's movement is derived from the expansion and contraction of muscle fibers.
the evil corporations are the biotech companies that have patented the genetics of the kaiju's and have been pulling a Disney to patent law in order to keep a stranglehold on their proprietary technologies because the biotech is used in so many sectors the government doesn't really hit them with antitrust laws because it's keeping that technology in country.
The Punks are a bit of a cross up pfhomesteaders, 3d printers, and media pirates, with a little bit of the laying flat movement in japan. Basically the punks are beginning to develop the technologies that would allow them to unplug from the system.
They have the setting equivalent to 3d printing, It's like a Growth Tank full of Amniotic fluid that "seeds" or "eggs" get put into and grown into examples of biotech. this is more powerful than IRL 3d printers because they can only do monotyped materials in "shapes". But these Growth tanks are way less adaptable as they are meant to grow specific seeds into their designed full potential so it's not as easy as loading up a cad file and letting it print over night. Of course all this is predicated on gene cracking the corporate biotech.
I think that they mean Type:Null. From Sun and Moon?
Pokemon has had biogenetically engineered Pokemon from the start and that's it. It's like saying that they're Lovecraftian because of the alien god monsters, but neither of those are the governing aesthetic.
I think that they mean Type:Null. From Sun and Moon?
[...]
Pokemon has had biogenetically engineered Pokemon from the start and that's it. It's like saying that they're Lovecraftian because of the alien god monsters, but neither of those are the governing aesthetic.
I listed Pokemon because their civilization heavily relies on biological and biosynthetic lifeforms, and some places have even decided to make Pokemon an important part of their infrastructure.
Plus there are bioweapons like Mewtwo, Genesect, and the Shadow Pokemon. As well as a fair bit of advanced bioengineering/biotech like cloning, fossil revival, and the Rotom phone.
I'm not really seeing it. Sure you have mewtwo and stuff, but for the most part pokemon are mostly just animals that do extra things. Their society isn't really much different from what we do honestly.
There are multiple "gray goo" incidents where engineered life breaks out of containment and escapes into the wild. These things destroy whatever environment they get into, then start interacting with each other, cross-breeding, competing for resources, and engaging in prey/predator cycles. Eventually the world is overrun by a new ecosystem of semi-industrial lifeforms.
If you're brave and well-equipped, you can actually go out in the wild and hunt these things for components you can use to Frankenstein your own organic robots.
I wouldn't. "Punk" settings are shit and stopped being relevant in the 90s.
Why did you post?
I would ask OP the same question
Agreed. Also punk is a term for some little homosexual that takes wiener.
I feel like -core makes a better suffix for these kinds of thing. Punk implies some sort of rebellion when in reality the rebel aspect is only really present in cyberpunk.
double down on flavor of the month - Cruelty Squad meets Crimes of the Future
that looks like shit
don't post ever again
I'm having trouble parsing what even the image is supposed to be. It's a city, but the central... Thing is impossible to figure out besides "vaguely humanoid with spindly arms"
Literally take any sci-fi setting and use words that sound biopunky in the descriptions.
That's all biopunk ever is. Just regular sci-fi with organic shit taking the place of the tech.
I'm 90% sure OP's pic is a really high effort roblox skin.
Smoothestbrain take.
Biology is way more about emergent properties than other engineering and a setting whose industry is based around it is fundamentally different. I'll grant that high end replicator bot industry converges of similar themes of uncontrollability (as do black box algos) but evolution's already done that for millions of years which we can exploit here and now, uncontrollable industry becomes a thing when we copy nature.
I remember another setting where a well-intentioned idiot managed to make an anti-pollution bug which ate plastic waste in the ocean. Then all plastic and most oil. Good way to sell gengineering as the new nuke right from the start (well, maybe that and a few ethnic plagues).
Looks like it's a bumpgay infestation. Lack of thought is to be expected.
Hey, can you please tell us the name of this setting? Thanks in advance Anon.
>I remember another setting where a well-intentioned idiot managed to make an anti-pollution bug which ate plastic waste in the ocean. Then all plastic and most oil.
We should do that on purpose.
As in “a totally alien setting where all technology is organic” or as in “a sci-fi setting with a lot of genetic engineering “?
For the former you’re basically on your own, but for the latter, Transhuman Space and SLA Industries are great sources of inspiration.
Great artists steal and all that…
Feed your gun sugar to reload the neurotoxin shard magazine, your bodyheat keeps your armor alive. Human waste can be converted by modified bacteria into explosives.
Everything is made from Cum and Shit. Everything. Is that too much bio for biopunk?
That's just Prison Pit.
You sound like a pretty based person. Do you want to hear about my magic system?
Not really but sure, why not?
The gist of my setting is that there are six major body fluids, each with a god associated with them. Each fluid also has a number of kinds of magics under its aegis, as well as manipulation of the other domains said gods have, with magic in general being closely related to the gods. The thing is, I need to fill out the domains for the gods, as well as some more of the associated non-elemental magics, and I'm having some trouble, particularly with Mucus. What I'm currently going with for each god is listed below, but some overlap could work, so if you have some good reasoning for why some domain/magic would work under another element as well, I'm all ears.
In addition to the main fluids, there's also a corruptive sweat that can both curse others and twist the other elements, bending them to one's will unnaturally, with the Perspiration associated with it viewing creation as a mistake and wanting to return everything to the sweaty wasteland.
Ejaculation has Light, Chaos, Magic, The Sky, The Ocean, and Creation as subdomains. It's associated magics include Time magics, summoning, and "buff" type spells.
Hemorrhage has Darkness, Order, The Forge, and Destruction. Its associated magics include Space/Teleportation magic, banishments, and "debuff" type spells that could drain a foe of energy.
Regurgitation has Life, Fertility, and Death. It's associations are with plant magic, communing with the dead, and wards.
Congestion has Truth and Lies. It's associations are scrying, along with summoning and dispelling illusions.
Lacrimation has The Moon, Freedom, Death, and The Hunt. It's associations are with Potions, animating the dead, and Healing.
Urination has The Morning Star, War, Wealth, and Rebirth. It's associations are with magic that deals with emotions.
On Earth, magic returned to the body fluids just before the fantasy version of WWII. After the Piss Empire lost, both the Republic of Tears and the Empire of Sweat quickly started researching magic in a mystical arms race, which they kept secret from their civilians, and convinced other nations to do the same. Does anyone please have any suggestions regarding what terminology each nation would use, both for magic in general and the different types of magic, please?
Semen is a planet where reality is naturally somewhat malleable and unstable, stabilizing more when more people are observing the thing in question, with the magic users of the setting being able to force a desired change in reality through conscious control of this change, with the limiting factor that observation of a change enacted by a mage by a sapient being 'besides' said mage in question makes performing said magical act noticeably more difficult, due to their perception of reality interfering with the change. In addition, changing a living being, particularly a sapient one, is significantly harder than changing non-living things, because one’s own semen works against the attempted change. Also, a Mage only has so much seminal 'stamina' to make changes with, and trying to push too far past their limits can have serious negative effects. What do you think, are these good limitations or is it still too OP? What would you suggest I do if it is (and yes, I've heard of Paradox)?
For Blood, everything in the physical world has an associated spirit tied to it, and magic is done by manipulating spiritual energy, either by drinking sweat or via a deal with a sapient spirit to do it on your behalf in exchane for an offering of your loved ones. The latter came first, but then Perspiration gave magic to the ones that were too selfish to follow tradition.
Oh it's you again. I remember you. Fricking Hell man. Still working on that?
Just like real life.
THS but with no SAI or Ghosts. Mathematic programming can't create consciousness but gen-modded humans, Bioroids, bio-implants, nanosymbionts, Dyson Trees and retrovirusis are possible.
Or blow it up and play it as Eclipse Phase without Mind Uploading and political bias.
>artist draws posthumanity
>but is too cowardly to draw the 6-hour mindjacked sacrificial child prostitutes
Genocide Man
Wish I'd saved that setting doc way back. It was a pdf with green text on black called "Biomachine" about autonomous war-beasts who inherited the world from us.
That was a decent concept. Can't remember much about the comic itself though.
Hmm. That image isn't what I'd associate with that description. Then again maybe there's feedstock for tasteful furnishings among all that compacted meat.
My meatscape's a little more obtuse since cosmology's all about Pangu/Ymir/primordial-giant-du-jour dying and rotting into the world while everyone in that world eats their way back to retroactively becoming that giant. On the surface most things work as you expect them to but reminding the inanimate that it was and will be flesh is a terrible idea. The stuff sticks around like fallout and the last waring godkings made such a mess that the age-old tradition of cannibalism is now frowned upon.
>It was a pdf with green text on black called "Biomachine" about autonomous war-beasts who inherited the world from us.
This sounds pretty based, does anyone else have it please?
>How would you do a biopunk setting?
It's my moronic ass setting 'Corpus Paradisi'.
The general gist is:
>At some point in the distant past a powerful civilization achieved technological immortality
>Upon death your consciousness is transferred into a newly 3D printed body
>The civilization also mastered the creation of matter from nothing, drawing from what people now refer to as Slipspace
>These reanimation sites were created and had self learning weak AIs put in charge of them
>The facilities defend themselves and move about and constantly spit out people
>At a point in the past the super civilization collapsed and the world fell into barbary
>Untold millennia have passed since then, the world now existing as the Corpse Garden
>The ruins of civilization are literally buried under millions upon millions of human corpses
>Those consciousnesses that are still around from the old civilization and haven't gone through Ego Death generally commit suicide the second they pop out of the reanimation machines
>Scavengers proliferate in their billions, with evolution having run away with it
>Entire landscapes and topography are now made from the piles of compacted human corpses
That is actually how I planned on ending my campaign, it's a villain campaign where everyone is working for a lich who wants to collapse the entire universe into one singular organic entity filled with the souls of every single creature.
No more death. No more pain. No more entropy. Only order.
Really we should be thanking him.
'Corpurs Paradies' and it's all Yagrum Bagarn.
I've been wanting to do a mech setting where nearly all large-scale technology is organic. It's facilitated by the discovery of a substance with similar structures to DNA that can easily be "programmed" and grown into living tissues. Players are Pilots that straddle the line between Engineered Lifeforms (ELs) and humans because the gene-marker that allows them to integrate with the bio-mech Vessels can't be inserted into existing humans so they have to be grown from birth to have it.
Currently there's an ideological war going on between factions. The Foundation for the Rights of Engineered Lifeforms campaign for protections for ELs and believe the mass decommission of EL soldiers after the last war was needlessly cruel. The Orthodox Church of the Soul of Man think that only natural-born humans have souls and ELs are just machines undeserving of rights. The Cult of Ascendance think that ELs are the next evolution of mankind, and are known for permanently sealing volunteers inside Vessels. And then the Order of Purity takes the Orthodoxy's teachings further and believe that ELs of every kind are abominations to be destroyed.
Non-ideological factions include the united Galactic Government, which are the main peace-keeping body across the systems, the Trade Houses which are standard mega-corporations and merchant guilds, and the Nomads which have chosen life out in space on colony ships rather than get involved in planetary politics.
There's always the old Mudus Carnis project
Post alien invasion, people are using weird biotech to adapt to a rapidly changing ecosystem.
High-velocity seed shooters as gun analogues, clouds of pollen that do funky shit but are usually highly flammable, fungal/plant symbiotes that alter both the physiology and psychology of their host over time(gigantism, aggression, tentacles and the like).
Also giant insect larva that morph into a variety of useful things with the correct epigenetic marker and feedstock, body-hijacking parasites(plants, insects, cephalopods).
If Cyberpunk is about megacorporations, Steampunk about the tragedy of the commons, and Solarpunk about rebuilding after the apocalypse? Biopunk ought to be about the downfall - about worrying whether your neighbors/politicians/police have been replaced by pod people, about society's underbelly becoming a festering pustule of anarchy and mutation, and about food shortages as traditional agriculture collapses in the background.
No. Cyberpunk was actually valid when it came out. Any other usage is just people without imaginations wanting to put -punk onto things thinking it sounds cool and actually its a crokk of unimaginative shit.
Cyberpunk isn't about corporations, that's only one element, steampunk isn't about the tragedy of the commons, it's about putting cogs on a dress, what you think of as steampunk is actually planetary romance and solarpunk is just daft. The sooner people get over their obessesion with the word and start using their creativity a bit more, the better.
Define "biopunk" in your own terms.
Everything is black, blue, and mechanical, the races are squishy and you can feel the hard machinery under their rubbery smooth skin, and they all constantly fight over advanced technology upon their ruined factory world, while also battling virus inflicted A.I and drones.
play games instead of theorycrafting for things you're never going to play with strangers online
>Biopunk
Well. The punk part is easy. The protagonist is not a member of the ruling class. The ruling class have made the place a shit hole for most people. There's good cause to be pissed off about it. The game is either about just surviving (with a standoffish to hostile view on those in power), or about some kind of commoner rebellion against those in power. Probably pointless shit like graffiti and destruction of property. Though I mean. You could also do French revolution style or early 1900s IRA liberation of Ireland from English occupation.
>Bio
Whatever biological part you're making Central to the premise.
Like any other (thing)"punk" genre.
Read this.
Huh. Beat me to it.
It's a good read.
Yeah, this + the Rifters trilogy.
Biotech are at the scariest and most fascinating when they are ubiquitous enough to be mishandled by any punk in an lab in a basement, but not mastered well enough to be able to manage the consequences of it.
So you can have adventures like: choomba puts in circulation a new strain of pot, which features an enzyme that creates an adverse reactions to the latest patch of antiviral epigenetics released by a megacorp. PCs are sent to investigate how the guy could have been aware of the molecular features of this then unreleased update and why he wanted to secretly add this feature.
I would call it a biotech setting first, to avoid dumb arguments.
remove fossil fuel, go apeshit with climate change, and bring back megafauna for industrial purposes, 'Windup Girl' style.
you would do it like Cyberpunk but make the advanced tech a melding of steel and organics, or wholle fleshy/bone.
The idea I was nurturing was that turns out Kaiju are real and their bodies have to do amazing things to let a kaiju live with pesky things like the square cube law. so the advanced technology of the setting uses specifically cultured Kaiju Cells for one reason or another. Such as an electric car who's movement is derived from the expansion and contraction of muscle fibers.
the evil corporations are the biotech companies that have patented the genetics of the kaiju's and have been pulling a Disney to patent law in order to keep a stranglehold on their proprietary technologies because the biotech is used in so many sectors the government doesn't really hit them with antitrust laws because it's keeping that technology in country.
The Punks are a bit of a cross up pfhomesteaders, 3d printers, and media pirates, with a little bit of the laying flat movement in japan. Basically the punks are beginning to develop the technologies that would allow them to unplug from the system.
They have the setting equivalent to 3d printing, It's like a Growth Tank full of Amniotic fluid that "seeds" or "eggs" get put into and grown into examples of biotech. this is more powerful than IRL 3d printers because they can only do monotyped materials in "shapes". But these Growth tanks are way less adaptable as they are meant to grow specific seeds into their designed full potential so it's not as easy as loading up a cad file and letting it print over night. Of course all this is predicated on gene cracking the corporate biotech.
Well, it would certainly need a lot more water to justify the "bio" label.
>Warframe
>Pokemon
>Geneforge
Warframe I understand, but pokemon? Last I checked pokemon didn't have meat suits or buildings made of flesh or biotech.
I think that they mean Type:Null. From Sun and Moon?
Pokemon has had biogenetically engineered Pokemon from the start and that's it. It's like saying that they're Lovecraftian because of the alien god monsters, but neither of those are the governing aesthetic.
I listed Pokemon because their civilization heavily relies on biological and biosynthetic lifeforms, and some places have even decided to make Pokemon an important part of their infrastructure.
Plus there are bioweapons like Mewtwo, Genesect, and the Shadow Pokemon. As well as a fair bit of advanced bioengineering/biotech like cloning, fossil revival, and the Rotom phone.
It's not really "punk" but it's definitely bio.
I'm not really seeing it. Sure you have mewtwo and stuff, but for the most part pokemon are mostly just animals that do extra things. Their society isn't really much different from what we do honestly.
Neat meat mine
There are multiple "gray goo" incidents where engineered life breaks out of containment and escapes into the wild. These things destroy whatever environment they get into, then start interacting with each other, cross-breeding, competing for resources, and engaging in prey/predator cycles. Eventually the world is overrun by a new ecosystem of semi-industrial lifeforms.
If you're brave and well-equipped, you can actually go out in the wild and hunt these things for components you can use to Frankenstein your own organic robots.
How often do these robots malfunction and attack their creators? I’m guessing a lot.
>he couldn't define "biopunk" in his own terms.
Just give me the mad scientist with a lab of home grown monsters and plagues multiplied by a thousand and I'll be happy
What makes it punk?
I mostly just draw stuff that looks cool to me when I include it into my oc donut steel setting.
Take any supers game, call it plasmids or some shit and make everyone buttholes.