Anyways, here's my two cents: you need to be willing to make some stuff up. One of the things that makes Steampunk so delightfully coherent as an aesthetic is that it's riffing off a more or less realistic time period and is quite selective about what it adds (good Steampunk, anyway...). The fact is that the Victorians did like clockwork whatists and they did have a wonderfully sexually repressed culture that led to all sorts of weird eroticisation (is that a word?) patterns and they did have a fascination with the baroque. Put all that in a blender with goggles (more or less) and you have Steampunk. With Latin American Steampunk, the problem is that history has presented you with less of a coherent basis. Unfortunately, the Latin American countries were crushed under the European heel at that point and history and never had the chance to develop their own motifs without interference
( ... )
I really like the idea of colonial Mexico using steampunked Spanish technology to fight back. There's more concrete history and folklore to work with (Emiliano Zapata, Father Hidalgo, Zorro, Adelita, I'm sure I could find more if I worked at it). I saw a really cool steampunked mecha on Deviantart that was based on conquistador armor, but that would be too much work. More subtle forms of subversion could be steampunked crosses or Aztec calendars. (Reclaiming indigenous symbols would be a form of cultural resistance - it certainly is today; my cousin strongly considered getting an Aztec-themed tattoo when he went to college.) And, of course, this lets me use steampunked rifles and bandoliers. (I'm sad to see the jackhammer-stake go, but maybe I can use it in another costume.)
Thanks for the commentary; this feels much more solid than the ideas I was getting before.
I know the traditional weaponry of Argentine gauchos was things like whips and bolas. Those are also completely unpowered.
How about a steam-powered bola launcher? In Perdido Street Station, there was a bizarre weapon called a sting box which was sort of a cross between a stun gun and a bola. It employed electricity for the stunning and "metaclockwork" for the rotating mechanism.
Oooh, this is really cool! Do you know what you're going to do with it when you have it?
How about this for the explorer/scientist issue: One concept in european steampunk is combining science and magic. But a lot of the idea behind those archetypes are rooted in the european culture of science. What about using the latin culture of science? Like, are there any images of scholarship, maybe?
Are you talking about just traditional Mexican and Central American influences, or anywhere Mexicano-influenced in the 19th century?
You could easily chuck in Tex-Mex as well for work. Would that count? Could you put little flashy metal bulbs at the end of a bolero? Remember, boleros are more South American, rather than North. Leather boots and belts, similar to the awful but cool fashioned western steampunk movie 'Wild Wild West'. Except nix Salma Hayek as a can-can girl, that didn't help thing where you're going.
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Anyways, here's my two cents: you need to be willing to make some stuff up. One of the things that makes Steampunk so delightfully coherent as an aesthetic is that it's riffing off a more or less realistic time period and is quite selective about what it adds (good Steampunk, anyway...). The fact is that the Victorians did like clockwork whatists and they did have a wonderfully sexually repressed culture that led to all sorts of weird eroticisation (is that a word?) patterns and they did have a fascination with the baroque. Put all that in a blender with goggles (more or less) and you have Steampunk. With Latin American Steampunk, the problem is that history has presented you with less of a coherent basis. Unfortunately, the Latin American countries were crushed under the European heel at that point and history and never had the chance to develop their own motifs without interference ( ... )
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I really like the idea of colonial Mexico using steampunked Spanish technology to fight back. There's more concrete history and folklore to work with (Emiliano Zapata, Father Hidalgo, Zorro, Adelita, I'm sure I could find more if I worked at it). I saw a really cool steampunked mecha on Deviantart that was based on conquistador armor, but that would be too much work. More subtle forms of subversion could be steampunked crosses or Aztec calendars. (Reclaiming indigenous symbols would be a form of cultural resistance - it certainly is today; my cousin strongly considered getting an Aztec-themed tattoo when he went to college.) And, of course, this lets me use steampunked rifles and bandoliers. (I'm sad to see the jackhammer-stake go, but maybe I can use it in another costume.)
Thanks for the commentary; this feels much more solid than the ideas I was getting before.
Reply
How about a steam-powered bola launcher? In Perdido Street Station, there was a bizarre weapon called a sting box which was sort of a cross between a stun gun and a bola. It employed electricity for the stunning and "metaclockwork" for the rotating mechanism.
Reply
How about this for the explorer/scientist issue: One concept in european steampunk is combining science and magic. But a lot of the idea behind those archetypes are rooted in the european culture of science. What about using the latin culture of science? Like, are there any images of scholarship, maybe?
Reply
You could easily chuck in Tex-Mex as well for work. Would that count? Could you put little flashy metal bulbs at the end of a bolero? Remember, boleros are more South American, rather than North. Leather boots and belts, similar to the awful but cool fashioned western steampunk movie 'Wild Wild West'. Except nix Salma Hayek as a can-can girl, that didn't help thing where you're going.
Reply
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