Could a solar punk setting work? If so, how?

Technology powered by sunlight. Take steampunk and replace cauldrons with solar panels. Done.

Can you use solar power to build monolithic, oppressive conglomerates whose goal is to swallow up all life while the downtrodden masses are reduced to being controlled by their whims

If yes, welcome to punk.

Alternately, can you imagine playing some inbred nob who jumps in their little wealthy playboy zeppelin and plays at being an adventurer where everything is solar powered.

Welcome to steam.

>>51642693

Well meaning scientist released an engineered microorganism intended to clean up oil spills that ruined coal and oil reserves, collapsing the world economy. Efforts to stop global warming proved to work too well with the sudden loss of added carbon and the world is now in an ice age.

On the bright side, most days are sunny and clear.

People survive in small communities. Solar panels provide the best remaining energy source. It's considered a grave sin to destroy them, and communities will launch raids to steal them from other people and salvage them from failed communities.

Ice crawers are large tank-tred equipped machines that salvagers and traders use to move between communities. They move in the day, when their solar panels can collect enough energy to power the treads, and at night bunker down in place.

>>51642751
This is postapoc.

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Do you mean this kind of solar punk op? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solarpunk

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>>51642693
>tfw already have like three separate manapunk settings with sun as a source of power
>basically magical crystals transforming sunlight into raw magical energy which can be harnessed into a multitude of purposes

Step your game up fampai, it takes no effort or imagination to come up something as basic as this

>>51642813
This is not a real thing.

>>51642816
What the fuck. I bet this windmill wasn't drawn any worse than the rest of the submissions. The teacher has no right to rate assignments based on her political views and should be fired.

>>51642840
Lurk more.

>>51642693

Already did one. Not sharing it on /tg/ tho since I noticed alot of writers/companies outright stealing ideas from here back when we did good shit.

If you do even a tiny bit of research into what needs oil and what needs coal to function as a thing then you'll come to the conclusion >>51642751 is the best way to explain the setting but the small communities thing isn't 'solarpunk' at all.

>>51642789
I have a preference for distopian x-punk settings to ones that take a utopian bent.

At their best 'punk' stories are about disruptive technologies and how humanity deals with a new world that was created faster then people could learn to deal with it.

>>51642944
*punk scenarios are distopian by definition, but they're also the opposite of postapoc. They usually depict a society at the peak of its technological and cultural development, but with extremely low standards of living and complete lack of justice.

>>51642921
>I noticed alot of writers/companies outright stealing ideas from here back when we did good shit.
Or maybe your ideas are nowhere as unique as you think they are and people come up with something similar separately.

>>51643084

Or maybe you need to learn that since people realised that 4chan wasn't just a bastion of shitposters and some of the boards were actually creative and anonymity resulted in easily steal-able ideas that it became common to do so.

Such as Kingdom Death being an idea on /tg/ years before the actual kickstarter began.

>>51642750
Not OP, but Tank Girl managed to create fucking water punk. Solar punk doesn't sound that far-fetched.

>the ultra rich oligarchs in their cities deep underground force the wage slaves to toil under the oppressive heat of the sun so their undercities can have electricity
>pale skinned oligarchs stand in stark contrast to bronze skinned wage slaves who work the surface
>laborers crowd into claustrophobic warrens at night to eat and rest until the sun rises again
>up in geostationary orbit are the richest oligarchs and their security watch stations, ready to LOIC any dissident union or slave rebellion

>laborers can't run away very far because the ozone layer has eroded to look like Swiss cheese
>if they enter an unprotected zone the excessive UV radiation will cancerify them over the course of a few hours

>solar
>punk

The city is literally shrouded in PVs. It's a felony to walk on top of a building's roof unauthorized. 90% of the electricity being generated goes to fancy boondoggles owned by 10% of the population. Every character talks about the first time they "stole" a glimpse of natural light.

>>51643462
>Kingdom Death being an idea on /tg/ years before the actual kickstarter began
That's a whole new level of delusion

>>51643462
2004 I was working on a scifi setting where one faction has been living in isolation for generations, which has made their immune system not very adapt to the outside world. The few of them that do go out do so in protective gear and rebreathers. They're mostly seen as vermin by the others people.

In 2007 we get Mass Effect where the Quarians are a race of people who've lived in isolation for generations, which has made their immune system not very adapt to the outside world. The few of them that do go out do so in protective gear and rebreathers. They're mostly seen as vermin by the others people.

Help, Bioware has hacked into my brain!

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>>51642693
When I read the phrase "solarpunk," my mind immediately went to a setting that is either heavy into environmentalism or would seem like it to someone from our world. Now, humor me here, but it reminds me of Pokemon.

The only time industrialization comes up in Pokemon is when it's plot-important. The only two times I can remember an electricity power plant coming up, they were used as literal dungeons; and one of them led to a legendary! I only remember seeing one singular mine, and the only references we have to any kind of pollution are certain poison-type Pokemon like Muk.

On the other hand, towns are small and healthy, while cities don't feel too choked-up by pollution at all. While, yes, this is a game and those aren't direct translations to towns or cities, everything in Pokemon feels bright and healthy and the amount of countryside between each settlement is expansive and well-maintained; this is the same for the games and the show. Paved roads only really exist in the cities, and a lot of these settlements seem to be connected by simple well-worn cleared dirt paths. There are hardly any cars, and the main methods of travel include walking, biking, swimming, boating, or using your Pokemon either as a ferry or to fly somewhere.

The entire setting seems very environmentally aware (something to expect, given the Japanese and their love of the Green Aesop), and the Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald versions even featured environmental terrorists who either wanted to go full Waterworld or make the oceans effectively disappear, depending on which game you played.

That level of environmentally-friendly setting strikes me as a natural pair to go with everyone reliant on solar power; it's one of the brighter options where the transition has already happened and life goes on as normal. "Solarpunk," sounds comfy, and it doesn't get more comfy than the Pokemon world.

>>51642693
Someone built a ceiling over most of the earth to capture most of the sunlight. It's abundant energy, but most people now live in dark grimy cities that lack vegetation and might as well be underground for how little natural light gets through. Having a "naturally" lit home, much less living on the "surface" above the light-collectors, is extreme opulence.

People aren't allowed to travel above the solar panels because that would interfere with light collection and cost the corps and government valuable light-money. Most folks have never seen the sun, or else would have to either go out in a boat to see it from the areas that haven't been covered by solar panels yet, or illegally breach the surface.

>>51643479
Tank girl works for that because it's post-apoc and hydraulic empires are a historiography cliche about the early bronze age.

>>51642693
Basically, imagine a /pol/ fever dream about a totalitarian green distopia. Crazy environmentalists have taken over (thanks to a weaponized green biotechnology gimmick?). The nuclear powerplants have been shut down and little to no coal is being mined any more. Only solar panels remain. There is a lot of them around, but you can't make more because use of petrochemicals is restricted. Oh, and you can't own a solar panel. Every panel more powerful than that for your mobile phone is automatically state property and is required to supply power to the mains. As a result of all this, power is strictly rationed. A private home only gets mains electricity for a 5-8 hours a day. Everybody gets the same mains power quota. You can't buy more even when you can afford it since that would be inequality. "Grounders", groups of three to nine men, women and nonbinaries, are sent by the green dictatorship on missions to find illegal overuse, sale or production of power or the solar panels themselves.

Oh, and there is no cheap petrochemical soap any more. so everybody who isn't rich or very patient stinks.

>>51642707
The aesthetic would be shit.

>>51645624
Perfect.

>>51645624
>so everybody who isn't rich or very patient stinks.
It's really easy to make soap without petrochemicals

>>51644816
>Muk
>tfw the Sun and Moon Pokedex entry mentions that because of declining pollution, Muk are going extinct

>>51642816
What about windpunk?

>>51649392
That setting would blow.

Pianopunk

Every machine has a user interface consisting of piano keys.

>>51649876
It would also suck.

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>>51644816
I didn't read that wall of text, but how about something like green party/peace core types now regulate environmental protection on a oppressive scale, and all the links are young wanna be industrialists who just want to use the Earth's resources to get rich and climb out of the socio economic hell they're in. Also, no farming, only mass gathering plantations

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>>51650230
Before you look like an idiot, friendo, maybe you should read the wall of text.

You're suggesting a dystopian idea when the entire point of the post you're responding to was "when you say solarpunk, my mind jumps to comfy settings; the Pokemon World is one of those settings and here's why."

>>51642750
Highlander 2

>>51650299
Punk settings should by definitely not be comfy unless the revolution is won.

>>51650328
Before we get too mired in "what *punk means," I'll specify that I jumped to the conclusion of "punk has moved on from the 'all stories include punks of that society,' meaning to the 'all stories include either an aesthetic or tone implied or directly stated through the societal aspect being noted,' meaning, and is therefore effectively a tag to indicate aesthetics and tone."

With that in mind, yes, a punk setting can be comfy. I'm assuming you're going with the "all stories include punks of that society," angle in which case whatever bro, have fun with making solar panels evil. Makes it feel like you just want to lash out at something for its own sake.

>>51650328
Why shouldn't there be a comfy steam punk?

>>51650584
>I want to be able to pretend lord Milton Milton, 3rd baron Milton, gentleman adventurer is the people's hero

Megacorps build massive underground mega cities and use the majority of the surface for high tech solar arrays and powerstations.

People are forced off the land and undeground below where they are controlled via access to energy and essential vitamins in the absense of sunlight.

>>51642693
reddit.com/r/SolarPunk

>>51642693

Yes.

By buying the Sun, and adding a tax to the people that use it.

>b-but no one can buy the Sun!

Although quaint, the spirit of punk lies in there.

>>51643717
Don't be fucking ridiculous.
Bioware just tapped to alternative timeline where you wrote up and published stuff based on your ideas and stole them form there.

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>>51645081
>Explaining the joke

>>51650118
Running it would be a breeze though.

https://www.imzy.com/solarpunk

Doesn't everything in Five Star Stories run with solar power?

Yep
>Clean. Very clean. Austistically clean on the surface. Don't want to risk dirt build up on your panels, everything is sterile and life is only permitted in designated areas
>Light based weaponry. Laser guns. Shiny reflective armor.
>The rich live in hovering habitats for maximum solar energy with genetically engineered plants for aesthetics.
>The poor live underneath in the darkness of a blanket of eternal smog, working factories to produce goodies and habitats for the wealthy. Natural light is a privilege, not a right.
>Light based computers as opposed to electrical ones, bright holograms everywhere.
>A dyson sphere is under construction. Despite all that energy, it's almost solely for the benefit of the wealth. The sun itself is in danger of being covered up.

>>51642693
Wait, didn't we have that one setting where the sun broke into pieces that fell to the world, and humanity became nomads who fight each other over the fragments?

That sort of fits.

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>>51642693

Desert planet.

Everything is covered in solar panels. Everything. Solar is the only available energy source, and future-tech is an energy hog. So you have soldiers in power-armor (the plates are solar panels, too much damage and you run out of power) Crazy half-naked barbarian raiders (with implanted solar panel tattoos to power their cybernetics) and wandering techno-druids who herd genetically-manipulated plant/animal hybrids with electric plugs that the druids 'nurse' their tech on.

Alternatively, dark world.

Rare are the breaks in the cloud layer that lets light shine through, nomads follow the instructions of the forecasters to find those rare rays of light, unpack the panels, and absorb as much power as they can before the clouds close again. And without power, the machines they need to survive won't run.

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>>51642813
jesus christ, look at that retarded bullshit. if something was ever manufactured by a bunch of far-brained imbeciles to look 'cool' this is it

>>51654410
I came here to post something like this. Look at Mirror's Edge for both asthetic and government inspiration, and maybe Signapore.

>>51654913
>find those rare rays of light,
Make those scoring hot, so that you couldn't simply remove the cloud layer even if had the power to do it because it would fuck the climate and fry everyone. However, it also means you can get a lot of mileage from the few rays that get through.

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Reminder to build enormous orbital elevators for electricity

>>51645624
>Everybody gets the same mains power quota.
Hardly Punk if the rich aren't cheating the system somehow, Anon.

>>51649392
What is Nausicaa

I wrote a short story in college about a race of mole people who would sail out of their underground caves on solar fishing boats to catch rays of the sun in nets. Sunlight would only fall from the sky after a storm broke the thick cloud cover, and the vast majority of the "caught" light went to illuminate the homes of the wealthy or grow crops.. of course in this sunlight was an actual substantive material you could catch in a net and haul around in barrels.

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>>51642750

>>51657634
That's the exact opposite of solar punk.

>>51658795
>The Man opressing masses with the use of Sun
>Opposite of solar punk
I'm not sure you understand the concept of punk genre aside le ebin mohawks/cogfop

>>51645624

>What is pears soap

>>51650584

Because that already is most of steampunk?

Be creative. You have the revolutions of 1848, The Communist Manfiesto, the Anarchists in Russia, the African, Asian, Arab, Indian, and Latin peoples fighting off the Europeans and literal corporations, you have the Paris Commune, Anarchists shooting presidents, the gilded age, the rise of unions and the trust busting and Theodore Fucking Roosevelt.

>>51658891
Then how exactly is the evil cooperation benefiting from solar power without the sun?
Poking holes into the shield?

>>51642750
The epa?

>>51659407
>The only guys around with access to Sun
>hurr how do you profit
Are you insane or just baiting?

>>51645624
>Soap requires petrochemicals
It's literally fat mixed with sodium hydroxide. How fucking stupid one must be to not know that?

Also
>Green utopia
>No nuclear power
Let me guess - Greenpeace told you that?

And if you want to go really green, you build wind turbines, since they require 1/10 of the tech and are much cheaper, not to mention not toxic in production and without need for strip-mining of rare materials.

>>51645624
Yes, because soap totally isn't made out of lard, vegetable oil or just any fucking fat you can get.

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>>51642693
Pic related

>>51659689
That's not a solar punk setting if you can just substitue solar energy with any other source of energy and it has the same aestetics.
>the city only depends on solar power
>the city only depends on nuclear power
>the city only depends on wind power
Where is the optical difference if the the power source is outside the city but everything looks the same?

>>51659831
>It doesn't count!
>Because I say so

Keep trying. Also, if you seriously think that Sun only provides energy for solar panels, you are some sort of special kind of idiot.

I mean - do you even heat?!

>>51642751
So catastrophe with better understanding of tech

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Mirai Shōnen Konan. Miyasaki's underrated tv series.

It's about solar power ultimately, and the world setting it's really ad hoc.

>>51659863
Ghiblidrones are cancer.

Every single thing by that hack is overrated in the extreme.

>>51659880
Ahh a healthy reminder that /tg/ no longer posesses taste

>>51659915
Different anon, but he's right. Out of entire stable of Ghibli, only maybe Mononoke Hime is worth watching at all. Everything else is pure, unfiltered shit, which also happens to be cringy as fuck in the same time.

>>51659915
>heh I only liek good animes such as Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle
>the rest is garbage for children
Never mind that all of Miyazaki's productions are exactly the fucking same, that they're all for children, and that they're all uncreative anti-culture.

But sure, you keep praising this zipperhead minstrel dancing in whiteface for the Western mainstream.

>>51659407
Or just slap solar panels on top of the shield, so they're the only one able to harvest sun's power

>>51659969
10/10, solid bait

The trouble with solar punk as a concept is that most punks are based on some thing involving a scarce and controllable substance, the sun is neither baring unnatural circumstances

>>51659969
>>51659960
>tfw you were a child when these hit your tv
God I'm old

>>51660093
Limited photovoltaic efficiency and available surface area, or a fantastical unusual climate, might still make it fit.

A different sort of interesting thematic fit might be combining solar energy and water filtering to set up nuclear fusion. Make the futuretech really power hungry.

>>51659364

Yeah Steampunk is 99.999% actually just "Steamfop".

Upper class arseholes most bothered by their appearance and having tales to regale their high society chums with.

>>51657195
The rich aren't doing it on a massive scale (but they try, hence the "need" for Grounders). The people at the top of the dictatorship, though - why, they have as much energy available as they want. They can use it however they want, as long as it's for the good of the environment and the nation.

Because of the power rationing this corner of the world is a pretty dark place at night, but the halls of the countless Big Government ministries are as bright as day. Some wanderers even use them as a beacon for navigation. The public servants employed there are awful workaholics, you see. The worst thing is, unlike the far more bearable cynical corporate bosses and mafiosos of cyberpunk, most of them are true believers. (Former Grounders stand out as an exception, but they're rare. Grounder is typically a dangerous dead end job that you can be drafted for if there isn't enough volunteers.) They actually think their grand projects are for the greater good and totally worth it. Just ask one of older ones about The Moon Heat Beam.

>>51659712
>Let me guess - Greenpeace told you that?
Oh yes it did. That's the whole point. You seem to have missed the "/pol/ fever dream" angle.

>>51648539
>>51659345
>>51659712
>>51659792
Please stop spreading lies about old regime soap. We all know perfectly well that making it was an oppressive and environmentally harmful enterprise that depended on nonrenewable resources. Worse yet, the product itself was toxic and probably the second most common cause of autism in babies after vaccination. Our soap substitutes are better for you in every way.

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>>51659880
Future boy conan, it's an extraordinary show, story it's solid, and it wraps up perfectly.

If you can stomach 70's anime aesthetics it's great, one of the best even.

>>51659847
>It's totally solarpunk, despite we never ever see any solar technology, because I say so.
Are you just pretending to be retarded just to start a fight?
There is no point in any form of punk if the form of technology is completely isolated and you only get told second hand that said technology exists.

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This is so much like my Horus heresy/40k setting its unreal.

Gist is basically:
>Planet at L1 in binary star system.
>Always daylight
>Planet is covered in solar panels extending from the equator outwards. ttheyre suspended in the sky on massive pillars/towers, blotting out almost all sunlight.
>Two major forges at each pole sucking up the energy, one traitor one loyalist.

How I;d alter it for this setting is:
>Make power some kind of currency/drug analogue, where everyone needs it to survive because idk theyve implants/suits that need it. Black market trade of battery packs or something
>gaps and channels in tthe solar panels leave corridors tthatt allow solar powered vehicles to travel and as trade route between the two polar cities.
>Solar towers along the trade routes are well defended and you cant steal energy
>make expeditions into the darker areas to leech energy and chrge batteries
>Government controls flow of power, in the cities youre rationed out via outlet sockets you plug into, outside cities nomadic towns move around leeching enrgy from towers to charge huge batteries to last the trip.

I even have ideas for tthe foot soldiers of tthe BBG, who go out into 'The Dark' to hunt down the power thieves. Pic related.

>>51648371
Just like steampunk.

>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

The underlying theme would be something like how excessive positivity to the point of being phobic of negativity can be evil.

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>>51642693
>Steampunk has cogfop
>Le funneh maymay 1880s faux-British gentleman with le top hat with le cogs on top of it that serve no purpose
>It's full of Americans who try and fail to sound upper class British

>Solarpunk has panelfop
>Le funneh maymay 1990's faux-Bronx gangster with le backwards cap with le solar panels on top o fit that serve no purpose
>It's full of white people who try and fail to sound black

To be honest, I'd say it's an improvement.

>>51642693
Combine it with Steampunk. Keep the aesthetics and steam power of Steampunk, but use Solar power for most of the energy production. Solar Power already has uses for boiling water, and producing steam pressure. The real world applications of combining steam technology and solar power technology is stupidly easy enough as it is. So just layer Solar punk (and to a lesser extent wind power) on top of Steampunk. Hell you could even make it more silvery and aluminum/steel based, too. If you really wanted it to be "but different".

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>>51649392
>windpunk
Yes. We had that

>>51642693
It could work. Less steam punk, more cyberpunk.

Just cyberpunk with Google, Facebook, Apple and internet companies as the megacorps, instead of Sony, Semp Toshiba and other electronics companies. Executives wearing jeans and sneakers instead of suits, PC/SJW culture inforced on everybody, with all positions filled by quota except for the very high ups, like CEOs.
An extra heap of 1984 Big Brother for every MegaCorp. Less cameras everywhere but every iPhone is spying on you at all time, and the obligatory Google Glass filming all you do. Everything you do must be logged in the companies own social network.

The working class are still fucked, disillusioned overworked and told it's all for their own good. The executives are way more open about being degenerates, since being a pedo or furry is just another gender. Middle management is even more bloated than normal cyberpunk, but with less bureaucracy and more identity politics.

The corps have another new weapon to use against dissent, the social mob, that can attack deckers in cyberspace or cause riots in the real world.

On the good side, less polution and more clean energy.

>>51659969
I don't only like Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle. I also like such films as Akira, Grave of the Fireflies, Paprika and a few others. the rest is garbage for children.

>>51642693
As somebody who has never played mirror's edge, mirror's edge seems to be similar to this concept. Nice bright, white, sanitised world, where you play an underground courier on the run from Da Man.

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>>51661292
>>51662905
Watch the Norwegian movie "The Bothersome Man". It's exactly what you described.

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>>51642693

If Baksinsky art inspired post apocalyptica earth in 2.224.000 ad. where only sentient androids reside worshipping bloated red SUN as a god who gives the spark of life (energy) to them and they fight tyrannical rouge split personality AI overlord counts as SOLARpunk then maybe... maybe.

rate if want
but no bully pls

>>51659880
>>51659960
>>51659969
I'm a little late here, but here's the (You)s you so desperately craved.

>>51654410
>The poor live underneath in the darkness of a blanket of eternal smog
Where does the smog come from?

>>51662905
>quotas
>silicon valley
kek, no, they don't hire your white ass because h1bs come cheaper and just as educated.

>>51649392
I love it

>civilization in tall, steep mountains and cliffsides, very windy
>Buildings and homes built directly onto the cliffside, with some villages built around level areas
>water from mountain springs
>lots of bridges and wind-powered moving platforms connecting places
>large windmills everywhere
>windmills are always going at full capacity, powering a series of cogs and pullies
>said cogs and pullies have lots of access ports that can be plugged into by mechanical devices and engines for power
>access points are capped to rotate at a steady speed, but if enough people are tapped into the same windmill on a day with slow wind it might start to lag and slow down
>gliders are a common, if dangerous form of transportation, as are grappling hooks
>sky bandits are common, soaring into the city using gliders and grappling hooks, then dissapearing into the clouds to go to their cave hideouts in the mountains
>there's a great deal of mining, digging into the mountains they live on to extract ore, and build tunnels connecting everyone

If you want you could even give them primitive batteries to store power, which you would probably need for grappling hooks and the like.

Holy fuck I'm in love with this setting.

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>>51663562
I picture something sort of like Zephyr Heights from Pac-Man World 3 (severely underrated game, everyone always talks about Pac-Man World 2, but practically no one knows that 3 even exists.)

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>>51642693
>Could a solar punk setting work?

I was thinking yesterday about a novel I read a decade or so ago, about a sort of post-apoc world. I don't remember much about it except the central location was an island city. One of the characters had to make a trip, and there was this nanotech tree that grew bicycles using sunlight, so they had to wait around a couple of days for this tree to finish growing a bike before they could continue.

Anyone know what I'm talking about?

>>51642693
Solarpunk is left culture taken way passed the natural extreme.

>>51663562
I'm thinking more about this, the one big question I suppose there is, what do these people do for food. You could hunt mountain goats and the like I suppose, and there are some vegetables that do well in these types of environments, potatoes and the like, but they'd still probably be in pretty limited supply. They could always trade for it I suppose, not EVERYONE has to live up in the mountains, there could be people living down below in the narrow valleys, canyons, and rivers, and they could trade with people living in flatter country.

Lumber would be a bit of an issue too. Not that there wouldn't be any lumber in the mountains, but it would be pretty limited, particularly compared to the need. You need wood for windmills. Though you could still trade for this.

I guess both of these could just be part of the setting though. Power, alone with stone and metal, are in abundant supply. Elaborate mechanical devices and contraptions, and a surplus of power to make it all work, but food is fairly scarce and limited, and wood is a valuable material, especially in the form of large beams of lumber.

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>>51662464
It's real!

>>51643717
Or Biowear read a history book at some point

>>51642693
solar panels are tiles
sun moves across the board
while sun is above your tiles you are able to do actions
etc

>>51642750
The approach I'd take is that your Big Fossil Fuels conglomerates have a monopoly on energy and the government in their pocket to keep alternative energy down and everyone under their heel. The disenfranchised are driven to the illegal underground solar power movement to get the electricity they need to live and run their small businesses and warm the slums etc.

Your group of rag tag activists are working to disrupt the fossil fuels companies and provide a safe haven for wanted pv researchers and expose the corruption in government and keep their solar farms hidden and just generally hoon around in their silent black home built electric cars with their lights off at night.

>its a "tg doesn't understand the etymology of cyberpunk and what the genre and it's derivatives are supposed to explore" episode

>>51642693
Kaladesh?

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>>51670659
but pokemon is basically cyberpunk but without the cyber right??

>>51649392

Every nation is a variation of the Neatherlands?

>>51661292
This sounds like the kind of world Harlan Ellison's A Boy and His Dog would be set in if written today.

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>>51662464
>>51664761

>>51663562
I think you are on to something here, though reliable unless overloaded mechanical access ports powered by cogs and pulleys seem a little too implausible over even moderate distances. Maybe have pneumatic/hydraulic pipe circuits instead, or just plain electrical power?

>>51664057
>what do these people do for food
Catch birds with nets and trade.
>Lumber would be a bit of an issue too
Again, lots and lots of trade. Flying caravans? They'd have to be something of a merchant people to build a civilization up there.

>>51670966
>"Anything that can be done to a rattata can be done to a human being." –Prof. Sterling
It would be very easy to take Pokemon in a "high (bio)tech, low life" direction.

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>>51671393

>>51674121
What?

>>51674237
I think that scope has a solar panel on it to charge the battery.

>>51674283
Oh. That's pretty cool.

>>51671473
electrical power could definitely work.

But I don't think that cogs and pullies are necessarily that unworkable. I mean I'm picturing a great many windmills all over the place. Quite a few to a mountain, and several in canyons, connecting mountains. Under bridges and whatnot.

Something I was thinking about for large scale batteries, storing excess power from the windmills. There's a name for these, but I forget what it is.

The basic principle is that you have a very tall tower, or a well really, with water at the bottom. Then, towards the top, you have a tank for storing water. You use excess windmill power to raise bucket after bucket after bucket of water up from the bottom of the well to the tank. Then, when there's not enough wind power to go around, you release some of the water from the tank, which goes through a watermill, giving you some juice. I think the greeks or romans used these, it's a nice, low tech way of storing a lot of power. Like I said, I'm pretty sure there's a name for these, but I forget what it is.

But it seems like the type of thing they would have in this setting. Even with electricity, I picture pretty primitive batteries and wiring, nothing that would be efficient for really large scale and long term power storage, this seemed more practical, and fitting of the setting. You could have these located in the centers of mountains, tall shafts, with several of the main windmills connected directly to this.

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>>51649392

You might be onto something

>>51642693
With an awful lot of glass.

And weaponizable solar installations in orbit

>>51642813
That's actually pretty cool and nice.

>>51656026
t. Rufus McEwing

>>51642693
"Technology Punk" of any kind is actually sort of missing the entire point of the literary genre that inspired them.
So basically what you're looking for is a visual aesthetic and nothing else, and since it's a visual aesthetic that doesn't exist you aren't actually looking for anything at all.

>>51674652
That sounds pretty deep.

>>51675657
He's not wrong. If science-fiction and cyberpunk mean anything, it's the exploration of the effects a new technology, or a different development of said technology, has on society, nature, and the self, good or bad (with x-punk focusing mostly on these techs taken to their negative extreme). This is why terms such as space opera, gaslight fantasy, and other more negative terms developed: those are terms for an aesthetic people want to give to their works rather than a certain way they are trying to approach their story and what they explore.

This is why most of the ideas here, maybe except for the wind guy, are terrible: they are trying to jam in solar panels without actually considering the effects they have on the whole rather than some plot device.

Or put another way: if you could remove the tech and replace it with whatever else and not change the story significantly, you are using that element as set dressing or a falcon.

>>51642840
>The Windmill isn't white, it's black and brown implying racemixing produces white power.

>>51676184
How I see it, the setting world require light absorbing crystals and mirrors. LOTS of mirrors.

>>51642693
By making it realistic in that it will never provide enough energy. Start rationing electric to those who can pay for it.

>>51678299
You didn't understand a word I said, did you?

>>51663424
Smog machines.