Does Steampunk have to be fully geared up?

[Lady Rayna Keller]

Don't ask me where this discussion came up because truthfully I do not remember but I do know it got me wondering what others think.   I know we each have our own styles, ideas, etc. so this is a just an inquiry into your thought process as an individual.   For me less turned out to be more because it fit my personal style and personality.

So with that being said:

In your opinion does Steampunk have to be all geared up?

Meaning does it have to be all gears, metal, guns, goggles, etc. or can it be simple with a few touches of gears, metal, goggles, etc. or is it a mixture of all things combined?

[Lady Brielle Serra]

I feel like anything along the spectrum works :) I tend to mix period accurate touches(steel boned corset, Victorian silhouette jacket, skirt and boots) with a few gears on an accesory or two(on my skirt hikes, for example), with my corset peeking out(visible corset seems to be something that makes it steampunk rather than just period accurate victorian). That is what my outfit looks like right now, I would also love to do a completely period accurate victorian outfit as well as a guns and gears post apocalyptic punk'in look.

I guess my point is, it can be as subtle or in your face as you want it to be :)

[Arabella Porter]

     my character, Arabella, doesn't have any gears or clockwork or much metal that adds to her story besides the airship. I believe that steampunk is not only a genre, but a setting. It's a background for its own media and culture. The industrial elements, I think, are very creative uses to emphasize that during the 19th century, the advancements in technology were so important and so large that when you maximize it and alternate history in steampunk (which is the more advanced version of the 19th century) the importance of the industrial revolution becomes visible even in aesthetic. In some variations of steampunk, automatons are part of the 19th century. how can this not change culture in such an exaggerated alternate history?  

     That being said, I return to my earlier point which brings me to mentioning that I see steampunk as a setting for its own media, that alternate past. There doesn't have to be industrial elements but maybe even just advances in culture or the idea of revolution. Some people apply this in a very subtle manner. I use some of my own, obviously amateur writing as an example. It's not much to read but in one of my first blog posts, a cop gave some forensics work to Arabella and they turned out to be dactylogram samples (finger print work) which wasn't an accepted form of identification in the world of forensics until at least the 1920's or early 20th century. Sometimes Thomas Dunning gives her blood spatter samples which is again, historically inaccurate considering that in the 19th century, the most you could do with a blood sample on a crime scene was identify that it IS in fact, blood. some of the characters in my blog have hair that's dyed blue or pink.  That's not industrial but it is very steampunk because it is written for a time when it wasn't even thought of and turned norm. 

     To take some more professional works, Jules Verne…. In 20,000 leagues under the sea, The Nautilus, Captain Nemo's submarine is VERY steampunk. This is a work that was written in the 19th century but has taken this idea of fighting against normal society, creating your own world that in the time period, would never exist. Now, this comes to the argument of "Well, technology and industrialism is crucial to making Jules Verne's classic a work of steampunk because without the Nautilus and the technology that captain Nemo has used to isolate himself from the rest of the world, there would be no story."  My argument to that is that the steampunk element in this does not have to do with what the technology is, but when the technology is being used creating an idea of revolution and that rewriting of history. 

    That's why time travel is such a prominent area of Steampunk;  because the idea of time travel is going back in time from a modern point of view and looking at the way of the world before then which is another aspect that I think is very important to the steampunk concept. We're looking at the 19th century and rewriting, redrawing, rebuilding, rereading, replaying, remaking it with a modern point of view. 

     so to summarize this goddamn essay (novel if you really want to joke), I think that although the industrial aesthetic and gears and goggles and metal is a very creative way of presenting the steampunk idea, I think that it's the idea of historically inaccurate technological and cultural advancement that really stamps the punk on steampunk. 

    To quote a panel leader from The Wandering Legion of Thomas Tew at AAC 2010, 

    "If it's historically accurate, it's not steampunk."