The world of fiction is no stranger to the -punk suffix. Starting with cyberpunk, a science fiction subgenre centralised around the commodification and replacement of the human body to not only enhance it, but also control it, it is known for its universally dystopic setting. The vast majority are stuck in extreme poverty, with access to even bare necessities restricted to those who can afford overpriced body modifications, often leading to them being enslaved in all but name, lest those mods be taken back. Similarly, ‘Mad Max’ styled dieselpunk, body-horror focused biopunk, and even the tongue-in-cheek fantastical steampunk all have a primary message: The world has changed, what are you willing to sacrifice to survive in it?
Cyberpunk Concept Art by Richard Bagall
Yet the suffix is often overlooked, a tag to refer to a bleak, dirty, desperate setting that lacks the clean standardisation of modern living and its conveniences. Punk has always been portrayed as aggressive, angry, but ultimately impotent, the roar of a caged animal. Yet it is the roar despite its powerlessness that shows its greatest strength, something that would be stamped out by those who hold the keys to that cage, if they had their way.
Punk is an ideology of hope and self-empowerment. It declares individuality in the face of conformity, demands adaptability and self-sufficiency, and enshrines freedom; of expression, of action, of belief or ability, but most of all freedom from.
Anti-capitalism & the heart of punk
Author Ted Chiang, in his spectacular interview with Ezra Klein (which you should definitely not quickly press ctrl+A, then ctrl+C before the paywall comes up and paste it into a word document), states that:
“Most of our fears or anxieties about technology are best understood as fears or anxiety about how capitalism will use technology against us.”
Cyberpunk is ultimately about capitalism restricting access to life to those who are willing to sacrifice their own bodies, give up the one thing they have intrinsic control over, in exchange for a chance to live in any form of comfort, and the powerlessness in that contract, even despite the power it promises.
In this same vein, dieselpunk, biopunk and steampunk all create stories of dependency on technology for survival, and the adaptations individuals make to try to gain leverage over a system that ultimately only seeks to control them. Because technology and capital are two different strains of power, and both can be used to empower or disempower others depending on how they’re used.
A society where less is more than enough
Solarpunk Cityscape by Chobani
So what’s different about solarpunk? Even just in its title, the ‘solar’ element refers to ‘solar power’, but that is in itself a reference to a new, radical yet realistic shift in how we access one element of our critical infrastructure, focusing on interdependence and decentralisation. This can be applied to people through a key quality of solar panels, which is that the more of them there are, the more power they have.
Through this lens, Solarpunk can be viewed as a fresh look at how society can be structured, and the distribution of power (of people as much as energy) throughout all levels of society. The old hierarchical system of class structure, where metaphorically the relationship of the nugget of coal is individually useless without the furnace to make power of them, is no longer necessary.
Each individual contributes their own power, and is essential, but not more or less so than any other. It accepts that through decentralisation, a solar network can have some panels produce more when it is sunny in one area, yet cloudy in another, but it does not make those in the cloudy area worth less.
Pride & Liberation by by Hai Rembulan
In turn, by accepting the strength of empowered communities, and allowing them to ensure that people are supported with what it can locally provide, it rejects the idea that any over-arching state should determine the worth of its people based on their productivity. It is through reconnecting with how we create our food, our water, and by deciding amongst ourselves as a community how we're looked after that we find an understanding of worth beyond simple currency, and instead within the symbiotic relationship we have with our world.
By decoupling our notion of worth from immediate productivity, and acknowledging that it is not one person working hard but many working together that creates true results, we decouple ourselves from the shackles of belief within which capitalism places us.
Solarpunk recognises that we have achieved a technological capability that enables us to achieve what had formerly been impossible, the provision of our needs with minimal labour, and so using labour as a benchmark for whether or not we are worthy of inclusion or access to what society offers becomes not only pointlessly restrictive, but needlessly cruel.
I go into the details of what I think a Solarpunk community would look like in my (upcoming) blog post: A Solarpunk Society: Life Beyond Labour
Regrowth through degrowth
Green City by Imperial Boy
Beyond its emphasis on the change to how society impacts those that live within it, Solarpunk deals extensively with a concept that no other -punk genre focuses on: how we impact our world around us, and how we can live in a way that is not only utilising our natural world but also protecting and empowering it to thrive alongside us.
This symbiosis with nature and the world around us has emerged from our recognition that we have already impacted it in ways we cannot undo, that our actions as a species have the power to destabilise an entire planet. This realisation is not a small burden to comprehend, yet it is the acceptance of this knowledge that focuses the Solarpunk ideal that we choose how we live carefully, and embrace ways that prioritise sustainability and compassion, to better juxtapose our present day reality of unsustainable, uncaring consumption.
Climate Protest from The National Geographic
All -punk stories are rooted in taking action to make change, and it is Solarpunk which I believe is most closely rooted in the reality, and history, of this.
When the original punks of the 1970s clashed with the hippies of the 1960s, both ultimately wanted the same thing (to resist a government that forced them into war and poverty for its own interests) but attempted to do so via different methods: direct action vs peaceful resistance, ignited nihilism vs compassionate hope, individuality and rejection of judgement vs community centered moral alignment.
Yet between these clashes there is an innate hope for a better world, one where people are free to express themselves, to do as they wish provided it does not harm another, and ultimately they agree on two crucial concepts: that the oppressor must be stood up to, and that the world needs to change to one that is more accepting, compassionate and conscientious.
The hippie movement of the 1960s stood up to the state draft, experimented with altered states of mind and living, and forced major changes to the rights of animals and nature. The punks of the 1970s stood up against racism and a new wave of fascist control, took property and land back from exploitative landlords and employers, and gave people confidence enough to be different in a society that demanded assimilation under threat of ostricisation.
Solarpunk Farmstead by Chobani
Solarpunk is, I believe, the marriage between these concepts, where nature and people can live together, where property and capital are secondary to the rights and needs of people, where people may present themselves however they please, because it is our individuality and creativity that makes us powerful, and that working together we can achieve incredible things. Faced with the choice of destroying the very planet we live upon, or changing how we live, Solarpunk seeks a compassionate, long term way of living.
The dystopic hopelessness of cyberpunk and its brethren is a warning, a cry of “Before it’s too late!” amidst a world of unhindered capitalism and advancement for the sake of siphoned profit. Solarpunk acknowledges that the time for warnings is over, it’s already too late, the damage has been done, but rather than give in, it is an outstretched hand, a comforting declaration that we can learn from our mistakes and still make a better world, and one where no-one, human or animal, is left behind. Where we tend to the ecosystems we depend upon rather than exploit them, and in turn, tend to the creativity and compassion that is our own true strength as humans, rather than exploit each other.
Why We Fight: For the Solarpunk Future!
When I designed Earth Rising, I met a lot of people who had no hope left for change. I feel that Solarpunk is designed to spread the same message I did when explaining the purpose of that game:
“If humanity can destabilise an entire planet by accident, think what we could achieve united and with purpose?”
I see this mindset ringing true as our world begins to change quicker than it ever has. As renewable energy cheapens at a faster rate than has ever been seen before. Where popular demand and grassroots action overcomes the propaganda and trillions in spending power that oil companies spend to prevent the death of their industry. Where people prove themselves to be more compassionate and community minded in the face of crisis even as governments prioritise their economy over lives.
These real life events prove to me that there's more to Solarpunk than fantasy, that a world of compassion and sustainability is possible, and that we have the tools, technology, and instincts to achieve it. What lies in our way is a predatory system that extorts and commodifies us, and has done for so long, that even recognising all the ways it does so can be hard to extract from our perception of what is 'normal'.
Why We Fight is set in the aftermath of a civil war, a collapse of this normality, in which people reach for comfort, safety and community wherever they can. In the long term, I hope to develop Why We Fight into a game that can allow people to create what they imagine this idealised world to look like, but with the process required to get there, not just the vision of it having already been achieved.
If you'd like to know more about Why We Fight, or join us in our playtests to refine it into the game it deserves to be, please check out its page, download our free playtest kit, or sign up for further updates below!