Plasmapunk
Posted: Sun May 25, 2008 4:52 pm
Yesterday, after delivering my IEF talk at the Balticon science fiction convention, I was chatting with a couple of fans in the hallway, while holding my styrofoam WB6 magrid model. A passer-by asked if that were some sort of "steampunk" prop.
I answered, "No, but it might be plasmapunk." All present suspected I'd just coined a term, but a quick internet search showed it already exists.
Science fiction, years ago, spawned the cyberpunk sub-genre. "The Terminator" is probably the archetype, and the basic theme is the lone individual fighting against an impersonal machine-driven system. That term has spawned many derivatives. "Steampunk" is both a genre and a lifestyle. When I'm up at my cabin in WV tinkering with solar heat, using a wood stove, and messing with my blacksmith forge or other retro technology, I'm a classic steampunk.
Most of the hits on "plasmapunk" seem to refer to a band, but I did find an interview with a steampunker that suggested a tie-in. Using his definition of "steampunk", the participants in fusor.net and talk-polywell.org are, in fact, archetypical plasmapunks. You're involved in a grass-roots DIY effort to create a new world using plasma technology. The "punk" part of the term seems to infer a certain rebellious "against-the-grain" nature of the individual participants.
http://bostodelphia.blogspot.com/2008/0 ... aking.html
A short excerpt from the interview shows a possible alternative use of "plasma":
CP: If you keep heating steam you'll eventually create plasma once you hit a few million degrees. Do you think plasmapunk is a viable future design style? If we heated you in a closed vessel to several million degrees could you make us a plasmapunk monitor?
JVS: I think "Plasmapunk" is already used by the Hemogoths . <shudder>
I answered, "No, but it might be plasmapunk." All present suspected I'd just coined a term, but a quick internet search showed it already exists.
Science fiction, years ago, spawned the cyberpunk sub-genre. "The Terminator" is probably the archetype, and the basic theme is the lone individual fighting against an impersonal machine-driven system. That term has spawned many derivatives. "Steampunk" is both a genre and a lifestyle. When I'm up at my cabin in WV tinkering with solar heat, using a wood stove, and messing with my blacksmith forge or other retro technology, I'm a classic steampunk.
Most of the hits on "plasmapunk" seem to refer to a band, but I did find an interview with a steampunker that suggested a tie-in. Using his definition of "steampunk", the participants in fusor.net and talk-polywell.org are, in fact, archetypical plasmapunks. You're involved in a grass-roots DIY effort to create a new world using plasma technology. The "punk" part of the term seems to infer a certain rebellious "against-the-grain" nature of the individual participants.
http://bostodelphia.blogspot.com/2008/0 ... aking.html
A short excerpt from the interview shows a possible alternative use of "plasma":
CP: If you keep heating steam you'll eventually create plasma once you hit a few million degrees. Do you think plasmapunk is a viable future design style? If we heated you in a closed vessel to several million degrees could you make us a plasmapunk monitor?
JVS: I think "Plasmapunk" is already used by the Hemogoths . <shudder>