Solarpunk setting tech ideas

[madd0ct0r]

I think this list covers most tech areas that are relevant for a futuristic sci-fi setting,m especially an optimistic Solar punk one.

Thoughts?


Ecosystems
Knolwdege and reasearch in ecosystems and complex dependant systems
Genetics
Knolwdege and reasearch in genetics and bio-engineering
Medicine
Knolwdege and reasearch in medicine, health, mental health and fitness
Materials
Knolwdege and reasearch in materials, new and recycled
Energy
Knolwdege and reasearch in energy, espcially alternitve energy
Computing
Knolwdege and reasearch in computing, and communications
Automation
Knolwdege and reasearch in automation, intellectual and industrial
Social engineering
Knolwdege and reasearch in mainpualting societies for agreed results

[Khaat]

Transportation/distribution/resource relocation? Or is that too specific?

[biostem]

So is "solarpunk" basically a setting where solar power is able to do, well, pretty much anything?

[madd0ct0r]

Transportation/distribution/resource relocation? Or is that too specific?

I'm running it as a combination system. So you pick three areas, set the tech level for each one and get six specific tech areas you focus in based on the combination lookup.

Transport and distribution works nicely as an area.
So basic transport/distro+ basic genetics (investigation) might be what in combination?

So is "solarpunk" basically a setting where solar power is able to do, well, pretty much anything?

Solar punk is a science fiction movement focused on an optimistic future. It tends to emphasise the environment, art nouveaux, decentralised systems.

[biostem]

Solar punk is a science fiction movement focused on an optimistic future. It tends to emphasise the environment, art nouveaux, decentralised systems.

So it's basically the antithesis of steampunk.

[madd0ct0r]

Solar punk is a science fiction movement focused on an optimistic future. It tends to emphasise the environment, art nouveaux, decentralised systems.

So it's basically the antithesis of steampunk.

It's a reaction to it certainly. Also a reaction to dystopian youth novels which are successors to cyberpunk. In both steampunk and cyberpunk the hero's are good people facing down an evil system. Steampunk tends to be more optimistic about technology but is still in the shadow of world war one projects ahead of it.

Solar punk is facing down the current systems and daring to imagine a better world.

[Formless]

So basically, lets just ignore the entire history of the punk subculture then. Good to know the word has lost all meaning.

Damn Trope-speak.

[madd0ct0r]

So basically, lets just ignore the entire history of the punk subculture then. Good to know the word has lost all meaning.

Damn Trope-speak.

I fail to see the validity of your argument.

[Formless]

What does an optimistic, utopian genre a la Star Trek have to do with Punk literature at all?

Answer: it doesn't. Punk genres aren't gritty and dystopian just for the hell of it, Punk genres are gritty and imperfect because they are trying to reflect the modern world through the lens of either a fantastic reinvisioning of history or a vision of the future that's imperfect at best. Its an anti-authoritarian and nonconformist genre by definition. Its not just an arbitrary suffix placed on new genres of speculative fiction. Doing so reeks of clueless TVTropes pages named by people exposed to an internet meme but have never watched or read the source material that spawned it.

So that's why we're confused by your thread title. No one has heard of "solarpunk" because the genre doesn't exist, and even if that's the genre you want to write if its defined by those themes than you should pick a different name for it.

[Simon_Jester]

In fairness, yes, the reason we say 'punk' is precisely because the core idea behind the genre is that of rebellion against authority and centralization, hence 'cyberpunk.' Which was an attempt to visualize the near future through the lens of the rebellious 'punk' youth culture that emerged in the '70s and '80s, and the idea that computer networks, commercialization of society, and corporate power were going to dominate the future (gee, called that one!).

You can write a 'punk' SF story in which the oppressive power of The Man expresses itself through beauty and cleanliness (from what I've heard, the video game Mirror's Edge may be an example). You can write a 'punk' story in which Our Heroes triumph and actually succeed in improving the world.

But you can't just take a random iconic technology, slap 'punk' on the end, and have a meaningful concept.

[madd0ct0r]

HHmm, léts look at some quotes here:

Solar punk is a science fiction movement focused on an optimistic future. It tends to emphasise the environment, art nouveaux, decentralised systems.

Solar punk is facing down the current systems and daring to imagine a better world.

Although punks are frequently categorised as having left-wing or progressive views[citation needed], punk politics cover the entire political spectrum. Punk-related ideologies are mostly concerned with individual freedom and anti-establishment views. Common punk viewpoints include anti-authoritarianism, a DIY ethic, non-conformity, direct action and not selling out.

now Formless speaks:

What does an optimistic, utopian genre a la Star Trek have to do with Punk literature at all?

Answer: it doesn't. Punk genres aren't gritty and dystopian just for the hell of it, Punk genres are gritty and imperfect because they are trying to reflect the modern world through the lens of either a fantastic reinvisioning of history or a vision of the future that's imperfect at best. Its an anti-authoritarian and nonconformist genre by definition

I agree that Star Trek is a optimistic utopian vision (genre is pushing it). I do HEAVILY disagree that Star Trek is solarpunk. It's about a highly centralised, highly polished society with the focus on a large number of people in uniform and chain of command doing stuff. It has nothing to do with solarpunk.
I've also never said the word utopian. That's come from Formless alone.
One of the earliest examples of the genre that I've come across is in Floating Worlds by Cecelia Holland. The Earthers live in an an anarchist utopia, taking jobs for the hell of it and supporting the remains of the Earth's environment in giant enclosed domes. Doesn't mean it's all sun and games. Spoiler

By the end of the book they've been invaded by the militaristic Martians, largely destroyed, and about to be sold into slavery.

The Martian revolution forces of Kim Stanley Robinson achieve a nomadic, free running lifestyle that isn't so different from Solarpunk. They also are hunted by the corporate factions, and potentially swamped by Chinese immigration/colonisation. Their culture outcompetes the one coming from earth with the settlers mostly joining them (it's largely glossed over in the books). As a people they eventually succeed by outlasting their enemies, but there are deaths, forced refugee marches, schisims, terrorist atrocities and a steady trickle of leaders who succumb to corporate interests.

If a punk today is "mostly concerned with individual freedom and anti-establishment views. Common punk viewpoints include anti-authoritarianism, a DIY ethic, non-conformity, direct action and not selling out." Let's talk about non-conformity. Pessimism is easy. Games Workshop's entire business model is based on selling the 'grim dark future' to teenagers. The Hunger Games franchise was the same. Cynicism is easy. "The rich get richer", "the 1% will continue to buy their elections." "humanity will be out competed by the machines". Dystopia is the default, because it is easier to project bad trends of today into the future to create a convincing horrible place. Dredd is another great example there. From Metropolis to Farenheit 451 to Equilibrium to the point it is so mainstream a PAINT COMPANY produced their own mini series based on banning colour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cm_3dplw9YQ
Eat your heart out sonic. So. We have the present. We can project ideas or trends into the future and we get speculative fiction. If we say 'the man' is going to get more powerful, that's 'gritty and imperfect' and 'punk'. If we project other trends that lead to other futures, with 'the man' losing power because the punks win some battles, by your logic, it ceases to be punk? If we break with the presently conformist view of a worse future, we are not punks? If we conform we are? That's a little sad.

"Punk genres are gritty and imperfect because they are trying to reflect the modern world through the lens of either a fantastic reinvisioning of history or a vision of the future that's imperfect at best." There's a short story in a "Best of ..." anthology that deals with the captain of a fishing ship in a small green town post crash. She suffers a lot of discrimination because she is a 'parasite', a child born outside of the amount the community felt they could support. Her catch of fish is weighed after each trip to ensure she's not caught too much. Although she is captain of the ship, and be extension family head of a small unit of friends, her guilt over her own birth means she gives her child allowance to the girl she adopted, not to herself. It's a solarpunk setting and still deals with the gritty results of the ideas and trends projected into the future. But it starts from things that are present right now.

I think the difference in our position is basically this: You require 'punk' fiction to have the protagonist against the setting. I also include the setting as a protagonist vs the present.

[Formless]

I think the difference in our position is basically this: You require 'punk' fiction to have the protagonist against the setting. I also include the setting as a protagonist vs the present.

The latter is nonsensical on its face, and has nothing in common with the aggressive individualism inherent to all other Punk genres of fiction, music, or art. Admit it: you want to be part of an artistic movement without knowing a damn thing about its values or aesthetics. Your words, repeated or new, betray your ignorance. Punk fiction is inherently pessimistic, never optimistic, about the future of society. The victory of the individual within society doesn't change society. Its meaning holds valuable to the individual, not the collective. Seriously, even if its not Star Trek you are describing (and it still sounds like a Roddenberry story), what you are describing is libertarian science fiction, not Punk. And that's not intended to be a slight against you or your genre, that is just the more accurate description of it.

[Elheru Aran]

I suspect the similarity to Star Trek is that 'solarpunk' does sound somewhat like the highfaluting Utopian ideal society that Roddenberry envisioned-- one with nearly invisible ultra-high technology, universal peace, and benevolent growth.

I'm sorta reminded of Dan Simmons' SF work (Ilium/Olympos in particular, the 'golden age' before the 'present', Khan Ho Tep and all that), or maybe... Greg Bear?

[madd0ct0r]

I suspect the similarity to Star Trek is that 'solarpunk' does sound somewhat like the highfaluting Utopian ideal society that Roddenberry envisioned-- one with nearly invisible ultra-high technology, universal peace, and benevolent growth.

I'm sorta reminded of Dan Simmons' SF work (Ilium/Olympos in particular, the 'golden age' before the 'present', Khan Ho Tep and all that), or maybe... Greg Bear?

People keep thinking of Rodenberry simply because there's only about 3 or 4 well known optimistic settings in the last two decades. I've already stated why Star Trek ain't it. I wouldn't say any of those three 'invisible ulta high tech, universal peace, benevolent growth' are especially key to a solarpunk setting, although I guess all of them are compatible with it.
I had a quick look at Greg Bear and didn't see anything that'd fit based on description alone, but I don't know him as an author. For Dan Simmons I'm only familiar with Hyperion. Would you be interested in expanding?

I think the difference in our position is basically this: You require 'punk' fiction to have the protagonist against the setting. I also include the setting as a protagonist vs the present.

The latter is nonsensical on its face, and has nothing in common with the aggressive individualism inherent to all other Punk genres of fiction, music, or art. Admit it: you want to be part of an artistic movement without knowing a damn thing about its values or aesthetics. Your words, repeated or new, betray your ignorance. Punk fiction is inherently pessimistic, never optimistic, about the future of society. The victory of the individual within society doesn't change society. Its meaning holds valuable to the individual, not the collective. Seriously, even if its not Star Trek you are describing (and it still sounds like a Roddenberry story), what you are describing is libertarian science fiction, not Punk. And that's not intended to be a slight against you or your genre, that is just the more accurate description of it.

Thank you for reading the last two lines of my post. Would you care to read the rest of them too? Better yet, would you do that and than quote or name some examples of the 'punk' genre you are so knowledgeable about.
I'm interested in your claim that all punk fiction is inherently pessimistic.
1) Do you stand by that claim?
2) Do you accept cyberpunk and steampunk as 'punk' genre?

[Formless]

I don't have a claim in need of support, idiot. You do. You placed the Punk label on this genre, you ought to show how it is consistent with the social and artistic values of the Punk movement. You haven't done that. Your description of the genre sounds more like Libertarian science fiction, your argument about utopian fiction being non-conformist is a complete red herring (the answer to your question is, no, not all futures are consistent with Punk literature), the example works you cited don't sound like they match your description of Solarpunk, and the examples are questionably Punk to begin with (punk fiction is dystopian, but dystopian fiction =! Punk fiction). The fact I haven't ever heard of "solarpunk" is because 1) it sounds like something you made up (prove me wrong) and 2) it isn't Punk. Those are perfectly reasonable conclusions to draw based on everything you have said about it. When I say that Punk genres are pessimistic about the future, all I need to do to support that claim is point to literally the entire Cyberpunk genre. That's a massive precedent in my favor. Or you can look at other science fiction works associated with Punk that aren't under the Cyberpunk subgenre-- take the video game Quarantine for instance. Look at that! Another violent dystopian future, with a Punk Rock soundtrack so you can't just dismiss its inclusion as Ross Scott's personal opinion. The Steampunk genre is set in the past, so its obviously about other aspects of Punk (primarily the aesthetics I've come to think). Further, you can ask anyone what Punk Rock sounds like, and what kind of lyrics are associated with it (or you can watch that video-- there is a whole section dedicated to reviewing the soundtrack). My claim is not contentious-- Simon_Jester laid out exactly what the Punk movement is about in his post and indicated when it all started.

[madd0ct0r]

Lol, Oh Formless. The reason I asked if you stand by that claim is since it's a nice fat positive claim I can prove wrong. And you do accept steampunk and cyberpunk too, that's good to know. Although I foresee a lot of no true cyberscotsmen in our mutual future.
But reverse order. How can I prove Solarpunk ain't something I've just made up?
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=solarpunk

And then from that front page what do we have?
1) a news organisation writing about it: http://www.abc.net.au/environment/artic ... 122309.htm
2) a magazine of stories (I think on hiatus): http://www.solarpunkpress.com/
3) A post on Project Hieroglyh (a major collective dedicated to writing inspiring sci-fi. disclaimer I am a member) http://hieroglyph.asu.edu/2014/09/solar ... manifesto/
4) And an essay titled "On the Political Dimensions of Solarpunk".
https://medium.com/@andrewdhudson/on-th ... .en2masu57
5) A Brazilian print anthology of solarpunk stories (may not show up depending on your language settings) http://editoradraco.com/2013/01/11/sola ... stentavel/

Read number 4 at least, because at the moment you seem to be fighting what you thought I described solarpunk as rather than what I've said. It's not too long, it clearly dovetails with your interests and will help the quality of the discussion. I'm off to work.

[Simon_Jester]

HHmm, léts look at some quotes here:

Solar punk is a science fiction movement focused on an optimistic future. It tends to emphasise the environment, art nouveaux, decentralised systems.

Solar punk is facing down the current systems and daring to imagine a better world.

Although punks are frequently categorised as having left-wing or progressive views[citation needed], punk politics cover the entire political spectrum. Punk-related ideologies are mostly concerned with individual freedom and anti-establishment views. Common punk viewpoints include anti-authoritarianism, a DIY ethic, non-conformity, direct action and not selling out.

Okay, to be fair, what seems to be happening is that you are attempting to define a sub-genre of punk literature in which the visionary nonconformist 'punks' have a vision involving environmental awareness, a certain respect for beauty, and broadly distributed, decentralized technology.

You can see elements of this in, say, Stephenson's The Diamond Age, where the plot-critical technology is a device that takes the centralized nanotech constructors that act as the main remaining organ of social control, and decentralizes that power by spreading it to everyone.

[Note, I read this book as a high school student, and my memories of it are patchy, so I may have missed something]

I agree that Star Trek is a optimistic utopian vision (genre is pushing it). I do HEAVILY disagree that Star Trek is solarpunk. It's about a highly centralised, highly polished society with the focus on a large number of people in uniform and chain of command doing stuff. It has nothing to do with solarpunk.

Except the aesthetic of futuristic shininess, which may be where Formless made the connection?

The Martian revolution forces of Kim Stanley Robinson achieve a nomadic, free running lifestyle that isn't so different from Solarpunk. They also are hunted by the corporate factions, and potentially swamped by Chinese immigration/colonisation. Their culture outcompetes the one coming from earth with the settlers mostly joining them (it's largely glossed over in the books). As a people they eventually succeed by outlasting their enemies, but there are deaths, forced refugee marches, schisims, terrorist atrocities and a steady trickle of leaders who succumb to corporate interests.

Hm, so you'd classify this as being within the "solarpunk" umbrella? You can certainly make a case for the Mars trilogy being 'punk' in a number of senses, due to the alienation of the protagonists from a corporate-dominated Martian hegemony, their revolt against it, and their desire to spread an alternative culture.

And it's an acutely environmentally aware story, meanwhile, with the underlying story arc having a lot to do with the transformation of an unlivable alien environment into a livable alien environment. Also, with the notion of a positive future that has to be 'midwifed' into being through the right culture and attitudes, which ties back into the alienated protagonists.

We can project ideas or trends into the future and we get speculative fiction. If we say 'the man' is going to get more powerful, that's 'gritty and imperfect' and 'punk'. If we project other trends that lead to other futures, with 'the man' losing power because the punks win some battles, by your logic, it ceases to be punk? If we break with the presently conformist view of a worse future, we are not punks? If we conform we are? That's a little sad.

A fair point- and many punk stories do conclude with a victory against The Man.

"Punk genres are gritty and imperfect because they are trying to reflect the modern world through the lens of either a fantastic reinvisioning of history or a vision of the future that's imperfect at best." There's a short story in a "Best of ..." anthology that deals with the captain of a fishing ship in a small green town post crash. She suffers a lot of discrimination because she is a 'parasite', a child born outside of the amount the community felt they could support. Her catch of fish is weighed after each trip to ensure she's not caught too much. Although she is captain of the ship, and be extension family head of a small unit of friends, her guilt over her own birth means she gives her child allowance to the girl she adopted, not to herself. It's a solarpunk setting and still deals with the gritty results of the ideas and trends projected into the future. But it starts from things that are present right now.

Hm. Could you expand on why you deem this 'punk?'

I think the difference in our position is basically this: You require 'punk' fiction to have the protagonist against the setting. I also include the setting as a protagonist vs the present.

I actually think 'protagonist against the setting' IS a critical element of 'punk,' because you can't fight The Man, or fight The Power, or fight City Hall or whatever, unless you are in opposition to it.

However, there's a lot of room for environmentally aware rebels trying to build a better tomorrow by rebelling against The Man, or by dropping out of The Man's network and going 'off the grid.'

[madd0ct0r]

Replying to Simon_Jester first.
I would agree that solarpunk as a "a sub-genre of punk literature in which the visionary nonconformist 'punks' have a vision involving environmental awareness, a certain respect for beauty, and broadly distributed, decentralized technology." BUT, I also include optimism as intrinsic to the setting. It doesn't have to be a perfect world, and shouldn't be for any realistic model of human behaviour, but it has to show an alternative to the current corpulent consumerist crapsack culture where 'rebellion is a marketing bracket'.
As for the 'future shininess', again, that's not something I've said. The top google image searches for solarpunk (for me) are

and

(there's much bigger versions available, I just didn't want to fuck with the page formatting.). There's a few images in the top 20 that are shiny, but the overwhelming majority take different cues than white and clean and smooth and manufactured. I should probably be clear that I wouldn't consider all of Robinson's Mars trilogy as solarpunk or even close. It's mostly straight optimistic scifi, like future world. The solarpunk fringe societies in the martian societies standout, but they are not the book's focus.

You asked me to expand on why the poorly described short story was 'punk'. From the part I described, it isn't. The description was to highlight the difference between an optimistic, non grim-derp setting and a utopian paradise. The part I didn't describe would be the challenging of the prejudice by the characters and the intolerance of society, and breaking that barrier down through individual action. Had I finished describing that, well, I'd basically have rewritten the entire story, it was only a few pages . Of course, by that metric of confrontration and breaking down barriers, Zadie Smith's White Teeth qualifies. But then again, glancing over the plot description it does so on a whole heap of other points too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Teeth (including, ironically for this discussion, hardcore environmental activists)
It's very frustrating that I can't remember the name of the short story though.


---

When I say that Punk genres are pessimistic about the future, all I need to do to support that claim is point to literally the entire Cyberpunk genre. That's a massive precedent in my favor. Or you can look at other science fiction works associated with Punk that aren't under the Cyberpunk subgenre-- take the video game Quarantine for instance. Look at that! Another violent dystopian future, with a Punk Rock soundtrack so you can't just dismiss its inclusion as Ross Scott's personal opinion. The Steampunk genre is set in the past, so its obviously about other aspects of Punk (primarily the aesthetics I've come to think). Further, you can ask anyone what Punk Rock sounds like, and what kind of lyrics are associated with it (or you can watch that video-- there is a whole section dedicated to reviewing the soundtrack). My claim is not contentious-- Simon_Jester laid out exactly what the Punk movement is about in his post and indicated when it all started.

Formless, you are claiming that literally the entire Cyberpunk genre is pessimistic. I'm defining cyberpunk by its four preoccupations: computers, corporations, crime and corporeality.

1) Equilibrium. The rebels win, the big bad boss is slain. Done. That is enough to break your claim. But lets continue.
2) Hex. The Raven wins, the Hex gene is no longer hunted, the doctor is destroyed. A new society.
3) Futuretrack5 - the rebel wins a pyhric victory. He's now effectively enslaved to the supercomputer that runs the country as she slowly tries to unentagle the dystopia she built without further contraveneing the moral codes she was just uploaded with. The narrator states "we keep it the same" to every one of her questions, but it is clear the current system will not last long.

What other cyberpunk/punk is on my shevles?
4) Tron Legacy -debatable if cyberpunk, but good wins
5) the Matrix trilogy -defiently cyberpunk, and interesting in that the arc followsconstrcutionist, deconstructionist than enlightenment arcs. http://www.matrixfans.net/the-wachowski ... j3yDV.dpbs Be as that may, pessimistic nihilisim, personified in Agent Smith, is defeated.
6) Cloud Atlas's portion set in neo-Tokyo is overtly cyberpunk. The heros win a pyhrric victory, but their sacrifice brings down a bankrupt civilisation. By the end of the book, humanity is looking very solarpunk, but then David Mitchell does live in rural Ireland. (his most recent book, Bone Clocks, has a much more Mad Max ending).
7) Ian Sinclair, Radon Daughters - genuinely straight punk lit. I'm saving it for when I'm not working and don't need to be friendly.
Ian Macdonald - River of Gods and Cyberbad Days. Cyberpunk set in India. River of Gods is a single book, and netural, rather than pessimistic. Optimistic possibly if you consider the AI's gift to us rather than enslaving us.
Cyberbad days is a set of short stories set in the same world. Some are pessimistic, some are optimistic. The Little Goddess is interesting, as it is essentially a re-exploration of the classic 'Johnny Mneomiac', except the protagonist smuggles AIs, not data, in her head. It ends with optimism, with her taking off into the mountain with a headful of AI 'demons'. "Ours shall be a little divinity, of small miracles and everyday wonders. Machines mended, programs woven, people healed, homes designed, minds and bodies fed." That right, walking off into the mountain with a head stuffed full of illeagel software to do some quiet good, that there is solarpunk.
9) Alaister Reymolds, Diamond Dogs, Turquoise days - the titular short stroy is cyberpunk/transhumanist, with the protagonist turning himself into a weird machine in order to solve a giant, lethal, puzzle that he is addicted to. Not a happy ending
10) The Difference Engine - Steampunk by Gibson. Not an optimistic ending
11) Distraction by Bruce Sterling - definitely cyberpunk (get's three of the four, missing computers). Interestingly also contains the Nomads, an early description of the solarpunks. It's the last boom of interest to this discussion, so I'll quote a section here .

The sprawling market compound was dominated by the soaring plastic was dominated by the soaring plastic spines of homemade cellular towers. Dragonfly flocks of tinkertoy aircraft buzzed the terrain. The biggest shelters were enormous polarized circus tents of odd-smelling translucent plastic on tall spindly poles.
Oscar pinched the clamp onto his left ear. The device emitted a little wordless burbling hum, the sound a contented three year old might make. As long as he moved with the crowd, the little murmur simply sat there at his ear, an oddly reassuring presence, like a child's make believe friend. However, if he interfered with the crowd flow - if he somehow failed to take a cue - the earcuff grew querulous. Stand in the way long enough, and it would bawl. Somewhere a system was mapping out the flow of people , and controlling them with these gentle hints. ...The Fairground was densely packed with people, but the crowd was unnaturally fluid. All the snack-food stands had short brisk lines. The toilets were never crowded. Children never got lost. ... He glanced up and down the long aisle. They were entirely surrounded by the detritus of end American computer and phone industries... And fantastic amounts of software, its fictional value exploded by the lost economic war.
But this was not the strange part. The strange part was that brand-new nomad manufacturers were vigorously infiltrating the this jungle of ancient junk. They were creating new, functional objects that were not commercial detritus - they were sinister mimics of commercial detritus, created through new, non-commercial, methods. Where there had once been expensive, glossy petrochemicals, there was now chopped straw and paper. Where there had once been employees, there was jobless fanatics with cheap equipment, complex networks, and all the time in the world. Devices once expensive and now commercially worthless were being slowly and creepily replaced by near identical devices that were similarly noncommercial, and yet brand-new.

11pm. Goodnight!



Neuoromancer

[madd0ct0r]

So. With the context a bit better established, are there any other tech areas you'd like to see in the setting generator?

[SolarpunkFan]

Kim Stanley Robinson is considered at least a little solarpunk-ish. Maybe some of his ideas found in his space colonization stories would work?

[Starglider]

'Steampunk' was already ignoring the 'punk' aspect of classic cyberpunk. The vast majority of 'steampunk' material is alt-history or outright fantasy with the capability/prominence/pervasiveness of certain technologies increased, with no particular 'punk' pretensions. That said the outright repudation of dystopianism in the term 'solarpunk' does stick in the craw, particularly when the 'solar' part is not as integral to the flavour or stories as the 'cyber' in cyberpunk or even the 'steam' in steampunk. It is just utopian near-future (presumably) hard sci-fi with some random advertising for the author's personal solar power boosterism crammed into the name.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

In other words, trans/posthumanism with a twist of green philosphy.

[SolarpunkFan]

So. With the context a bit better established, are there any other tech areas you'd like to see in the setting generator?

If we're at "sufficiently advanced" levels, maybe pantropy?

[madd0ct0r]

I like it!

I guess that would be level 5 ecosystems (planet bending) interacting with level 5 social engineering (transhumanisim)?

[SolarpunkFan]

I like it!

I guess that would be level 5 ecosystems (planet bending) interacting with level 5 social engineering (transhumanisim)?

Sort of the inverse of planet bending. Instead of changing a planet to fit you, you change to fit the planet.