As you may have noticed,
nixonshead has been working on more TTL
Star Trek renders! The
Artemis/
Ares design you see in the illustration above (properly an
Olympus-class frigate design) is a wholly original creation of his, though scrutinized by myself and
e of pi. You'll be seeing more of them in the next few days, including proper schematics of the
Artemis, and comparisons with the
Enterprise refit model used in
The Next Voyage. He may also have a few more surprises in store...
Please let him know what you think of his design and his images! He worked really hard on them and he deserves some feedback from my readers
It might be the nature of such things - when I think of my childhood, one of the things I remember as important to it is a Yugoslavian animated series made between 1967 and 1978. Evidently some things just stick around to have great influence on children far beyond their making.
Indeed - and
Grouchio mentioned one such property earlier:
Looney Tunes. Only now are the original cartoon shorts becoming hard to find on the tube - for nearly a half-century, they defined the childhood of multiple generations. I find it fitting that many of my oldest readers, born in the 1950s, and my youngest, born in the 1990s, are united by their shared memories of having watched Bugs Bunny (and Tweety, or the Road Runner, or whatever their incarnation of the show was called) as children.
Thank you for the link to those delightful posters, Your Imperial Majesty! And to be honest, I'm rather curious as to how those critiques read...
In our universe steampunk came about as an extension of cyberpunk. Perhaps in this universe it's the opposite and it progresses from fantasy first and when played out for the better part of a decade only then is cyberpunk created as a reaction.
To be honest, I was thinking more of the Japanese aesthetic - fantasy with technological bells and whistles - and since Japanese cultural influence is now just beginning to reach the West ITTL, that might have an impact. I'm reminded of the early
Final Fantasy games, in particular.
IV/II had airships, tanks, robots, giant mecha, spaceships, and lunar bases -
VI/III was straight-up steampunk. Of course, one wonders how much Western cyberpunk/steampunk trends influenced Japan in return.
I'm not sure if the triggers for steampunk are as strong in TTL either--there is a nostalgic, When Great Men Bestrode The Earth Having Extraordinary Adventures feel to it in reaction to the modern sense that Big Things can't be built anymore and everything is decided by little grey men in committees who say it isn't cost effective. What with TTL having more megastructure projects and a generally more optimistic mood to it, the triggers are weaker. I'm sure there will be a different 'retro reimagined' setting that becomes popular, but I'm not sure what. 1920-30s dieselpunk, perhaps (as seen in the cartoon TaleSpin in OTL for instance).
With a lot of artdeco features? Perhaps spawning metropolis fanfic? metropunk?
Yeah, that's a good comparison. Kind of like the Tim Burton Batman style in some ways.
I like this idea. Not to mention that the first two
Indiana Jones movies were set in the interwar period, of course. And I have a general affinity for 1920s-30s art deco anyway, because it's so strikingly reminiscent of the Golden Age of Hollywood. It's also an era with some mystery and romance to it in general. My only concern is that it's a bit of a leap from medieval-based fantasy to a nearly-modern setting with advanced technology - one doesn't strike me as evolving naturally from the other.
I think the Professor was considering a somewhat earlier Metropolis than Gotham City. More Fritz Lang than Tim Burton.
Welcome aboard, su_liam! As Nigel says, the art design for
Batman was influenced by a combination of Art Deco and Tim Burton's "house" style, based heavily on German expressionism. This combination is sometimes referred to as "dark deco" and was also used (though streamlined) in the 1990s animated series.
I wonder if the paranormal is a possible subject for SF tv series at this time ITTL. There was a short-lived BBC Series called
The Omega Factor that was made in 1979 in OTL. Maybe it could have a longer run ITTL.
Okay, now be honest - are you trying to get me to rescue
every short-lived genre show on British television in this era?
Hmmm. Would -punk even be used in TTL? What could be used instead?
Well, the -punk suffix comes from the focus on lowlifes and the nihilistic atmosphere common to many cyberpunk works (with steampunk and dieselpunk having the same "cool, edgy" vibe to them). Mid-century works with the same attitude came to be known as
noir, of course, so if cyberpunk does emerge ITTL, I imagine it might be called "cyber-noir". The problem is, that term wouldn't really fit a more optimistic genre - perhaps the "-tech" suffix? If we're going for interwar, it could be "dieseltech" or "decotech", Victorian Era would be "steamtech", and pre-industrial would be "geartech" or maybe "siegetech". "Tech"
was a popular suffix in the OTL 1980s, after all.
The Professor said:
Paranormal could be a possible way to go to appear less SF derivative.
Perhaps the Omega Factor would indeed be an earlier X Files
The Omega Factor is brilliant. I am super please you brought it up as this as I think it would be better suited to the escapist atmosphere of this TL.
Well, gentlemen, if all three of you are sold on this notion, then I will surely have to consider it when the time comes to revisit British telly!
