What exactly is the difference between cyberpunk and sci fi?

>>54073489
There is no difference. Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction.

I swear, this board sometimes...

>>54073517
Yeah but would you call steampunk sci fi? They're both supposedly in the same genre as well

>>54073551
Yes, steampunk is science fiction. Of course, it's such a poorly defined "genre" that seems to rely purely on superficialities instead of a set of grounded core rules, and it often strays straight into Fantasy, but even then science fiction and Fantasy are joined at the hip. Most bookstores where I live put them on the same shelves.

Or did you mean that cyberpunk and steampunk are in the same genre? Because they're kind of not. Steampunk was named that in order to lift on the success of cyberpunk, despite not actually sharing its established core themes. In essence, the people who claim steampunk should emphasise the "punk" part are trying to retcon the genre, even though it would make it better in a lot of the cases.

>>54073489
Sci Fi is a form of speculative fiction regarding how advanced technology affects society. Cyberpunk is a genre about 'Punks' (that is, social outcasts who oppose established authority structures) in a setting with advanced technology.

There is a lot of overlap and a lot of Cyberpunk things are also sci-fi.

>>54073621
If I remember correctly, the first examples of steampunk literature were written by authors known for their cyberpunk works and dealt with many of the same themes.

Cyberpunk is a subtheme of sci-fi, made to contrast the then dominant glorious space operas with shiny chrome ships, bravely
exploring the unknown and using wacky future technology. Cyberpunk often has a lot of dirt, in the visuals as well as in the people. The
widespread use of futuristic drugs is almost always present, and the main character is someone in the polluted base of a corrupted
metropolis, or something of that sort.

>>54073711
Steampunk began as a genre about the working classes in a sci-fi version of the industrial revolution, dealing with many of the same issues as Cyberpunk as a result. Unfortunately many people didn't consider british working class people 'cool' so the genre adapted to focus more on the weird machines and aristocratic victorian-style fashions (and lost any reason to be called -punk in the process).

>>54073711
Nope. I looked it up because I used to have a similar conception, but they're not related at all and it's basically just the naming convention. The key to the genre is the Victorian setting, not a working class cast.

>>54073489
Next you're going to ask for the difference between D&D's heroic fantasy and fantasy.

>>54073489
Science fiction is speculative fiction in which the divergent setting conceits have a vaguely technical-sounding rationale rather than being entirely handwaved away as magic.

Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction in which divergent vaguely technical setting conceits are used to explore dystopic extrapolations of present social problems.

At the time, cyberpunk was about high technology and wealth disparity being used to oppress the lower classes. It passed out of the cultural zeitgeist because, at some point, reading cautionary tales about things that had already happened just gets too depressing.

>>54073621
>>54074094

As >>54073711 said, steampunk exists because Gibson/Sterling wrote the Difference Engine, which is basically a Gibson novel set in Victorian England. One of Gibson's major influences in his cyberpunk works was a book on the Victorian underclass.

>>54073489
If you'd ask me what defines cyberpunk I'd say
>dystopian near-future (20-50 years from now)
>antagonists are part of a conformist and corrupt establishment
>protagonists are outsiders (outlaws, minorities, or counter-culture)
>shades of transhumanism
>human-integrated cybernetics are ubiquitous

>>54073489
>most sci fi is set in the far future
Is that even true?

>>54073489
It's a loose definition, but some recurring elements are often dystopian settings and strong overtones of transhumanism. The genre sprouted up during the early Information Age so there's also often a lot of emphasis on things like the internet, surveillance, etc.

A key aspect that no one's touched on yet is the "punk" part, which again the description is fairly loose but most works of "whatever-punk" can be characterized by their distinct themes of rebellion or anti-establishment ideas, usually with some big dispassionate "the man" playing an antagonistic role.

none of these are hard rules, and something might fit the themes of cyberpunk without matching any of the aesthetics, or vice versa.

>>54073489
bump

File: GITS game ad.jpg (391KB, 516x692px) Image search: [Google]

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>>54083586

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>>54073551
>They're both supposedly in the same genre as well

>>54073489
I'd like to add that cyberpunk rarely focuses on space travel and exploration, which is often a central theme in scifi. It may be mentioned and exist in the setting, but the focus is mostly on local society and local problems ("Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion...").

It doesn't just tell stories about technology, but about the problems it brings about and the people struggling with it.

>>54077643
>steampunk exists because Gibson/Sterling wrote the Difference Engine
That's not true at all.

Also OP was either an idiot or a troll, based on >>54073551

>>54073489

Cyberpunk wasn't a genre (like, i dunno, chivalric fantasy). It was a wave, tied to a specific society and a specific time.
It was about some fears about the impact of society of "hard" capitalism, less power to the state, destruction of the middle class, the impact of technology and the struggle to mantain it relatively free.

This is why cyberpunk is dead. The corps won (but I guess they weren't THAT bad in the end), the punks lost hard, the world might be gone worse or better but surely it didn't go into the ecological apocalypse we tought it was doomed for, and we don't give a fuck that you're probably reading me through Chrome (jesus, even the name is kinda ironic now, isn't it) on an handheld machine that Gibson wouldn't not have even dreamed of.

This doens't mean you can't have your GITS sheaningans*, or go to a darker side of transhumanism to stay on something similar to that, but simply that you will NOT have cyberpunk again. We live in that future now, hell, we lived in that future 15 years ago.
We can't go back to Verne's vision of the future either, no matter how steampunk might be nice, but at least in that case we're distant enough from how people viewed the real world (or their scifi) that we can distinguish OUR worldview from theirs, something I don't think we can really do with cyberpunk and 80s shit.

*=and GITS was pretty much not cyberpunk even back then.Cyberpunk was about fighting the man, Motoko, Batou and the others ARE the man.

>>54073489
Cyberpunk is science fantasy with modern tropes as its basis. Compared to something like Star Wars which is science fantasy with classical sword-and-sorcery tropes as its basis.

>>54086751
Why does Bato have the Unyuu face?

>>54073517
Then you can still ask what the difference is between cyberpunk and mainstream sci-fi. Which these days is also a very blurry line.

>>54087097
>the world might be gone worse or better but surely it didn't go into the ecological apocalypse we tought it was doomed for
... yet.

Does Cyberpunk require a dystopian flavor or feel to it? I can't think of an example that doesn't, but my knowledge about these things is limited.

>>54087376
>Cyberpunk is science fantasy
No
>modern tropes
What even are those

>>54087423
If the world isn't in the shitter, then how can it ever be "punk"? You need wealth disparity, oppression, dehumanisation, and all that. So yeah, cyberpunk is inherently dystopian.

>>54087097
If you can run a game of rocketships and rayguns that feature the USA vs the USSR in space, you can run a cyberpunk game. Retrofuturism is a thing.

>>54087472
Can you have Sci-Fi in a dystopian setting without it being cyberpunk then?

Because if so, the presence of dystopian themes is the differentiating factor.

>>54087419
>>54087419

You could certainly do ecopunk or ecocaplypse shit, but the problem is that
a) we don't have the exact same fears about the world's ecology
b) the other part of the cyberpunk future are the past anyway

>>54087535
>Because if so
*Because if not

Fuck.

>>54077643
Except you're totally wrong, and it's K.W. Jeter who came up with the term to describe his own work and that of two other writers. All of which looks to be typical steampunk garbage.

>>54087535
I don't think all dystopian fiction is cyberpunk, but all cyberpunk is dystopian. It's a particular flavour of dystopia.

>>54087509
>Retrofuturism is a thing.

More specifically, it's its own genre. One that something like steampunk, frankly, belongs to. But that's just the thing. Retrofuturism is a form of selective nostalgia, and not the angsty futuristic fear that cyberpunk represents. It's impossible to have that fear, and the message attached to it, because it has all already happened.

And that's exactly why all cyberpunk we see today is a romantic view on its core values. It's all just regular life with cooler gear and well-defined enemies. But most of the edgy shit that people do in cyberpunk would be fucking impossible to do in real life.

>>54087771

This.

>>54087097
GitS is cyberprep

>>54087875

What?

>>54073489
Cyberpunk is about exploring human emotion while "sci-fi" is garbage about aliens and waifus

>>54088039
The aliens ARE the waifus, you philistine.

>>54088039
There is no human emotion more worth exploring than our desire to bone alien waifus.

>>54088025
If punk is fighting the man, and the Major works for the man against lowlives and rabble rousers, then what is the opposite of punk? The

>>54088149
>>54088149

I guess.

>>54088039
you meant 'human condition' not emotion

besides sci-fi is about today's fears and hopes not aliens and waifus

pulp and space opera is about aliens and waifus

>>54073489
>What exactly is the difference between cyberpunk and sci fi?
grime, wires, vacuum tubes m spunk and neon lights

>>54087439
Tropes involving modern things. Post-modern plot contrivances, tropes revolving around AI and computers and shit. Figure it out yourself. Also, cyberpunk is blatantly science fantasy. Cyberware is stupid and unrealistic, as are most depictions of "cyberspace" etc. Its fine, because it serves as a device in the story, in the same way that an Xwing does in star wars. Neither is well fleshed out from a technical perspective and just does whatever it says on the tin.

>>54087771
>It's impossible to have that fear, and the message attached to it, because it has all already happened.
That's far too hasty. It's not a binary thing. It's not like it wasn't then and it is now. It was happening then and it is still happening and it will be happening in the future. Things got worse but they're also still getting worse. There's plenty left to fear, don't you worry.

>>54073489
A few things define cyberpunk:
>aesthetic and thematic cues taken from the noir genre (the gritty, sprawling metropolis, the lone investigator in trenchcoat, the dark secrets of the upper class, the general pessimism, etc...), with the occasional weeaboo aesthetic
>a generally urban setting full of mundane details, in contrast to the exoticism of space exploration
>themes and concerns cherished by the countercultural left of the time: corporations taking over, DUDE DRUGS LMAO, the perversity of consumerism and mass media, police as violent enforcers of the Man, etc... The protagonists tend to be in the position of being directly active in these conflicts, often as rebels and outcasts, but occasionally the perspective is flipped and the protagonists become either law enforcement or corporate mercenaries
>technology is at least as much of a threat as it is an opportunity. The threat can be social (with new forms of oppression) and/or existential (especially over what constitutes reality or human nature, or the self)

What if I just told you Cyberpunk was Sci-fi with hard drugs in it.

Either the author has done hard drugs, or the story features hard drugs as a plot point. Cyberpunk needs one of those.

>>54088351
But they're getting worse in different ways from cyberpunk, that no cyberpunk author ever thought of.

>>54088093
This man speaks the truth.
Ignore him at your own peril.