OP here. Anonymous 2009/11/07(Sat)20:02 No. 2803 ID: 1b3493
File 125765297354.jpg - (64.01KB , 500x504 , atomic_office.jpg )

These are some of the details that have been sketched out so far.

- All those '50s filmstrips about what life in the future will be like? Moon bases, 64-lane superhighways, kitchen appliances that both slice AND dice? They came true early. The '50s are a technophile utopia, but the social structure hasn't progressed very far and is highly conformist. Women are second-class citizens and minorities of all kinds (probably including Irish and Italian Papists) find a lot of doors closed to them. On the other hand, the martinis flow freely.

- History is different. The Atomic States of America is isolationist and focused on SCIENCE! World War II either didn't happen or wasn't that big a deal in this timeline. Hitler either died early or had his power checked and the European powers might still have their empires. Russia also avoided the ravages of Lenin and Stalin and is a land of greater freedom and equality than the conformist ASA. (Or that could be bolshie propaganda). There is still the threat of communist (renamed bolshevism for an alt-history feel) subversion but the world situation is a lot calmer, if seemingly hopeless for those on the bottom.

- Women's Libbers meeting in secret to gain greater rights lead some to suggest that an occult underground had emerged. While the idea of Tabitha from Bewitched showing up in an Atomic '50s is a nice idea, it has the potential to derail the setting.

Neoeagleland.
Needs a set of randomised tables for determining product names.

I just thought of another thing that might work out...
But probably only if the setting is made of rumours and semi-lies.
Superheroes.
A superman pastiche would be a good addition, unclear to whether he's a real figure supporting The Man, or just a propaganda invention with a TV show for the kiddies.
If we're messing about with THE POWER OF THE ATOM, we might as well throw in mutated monsters that no one seriously believes in.
Supersoldiers? SPAHS, complete with trenchcoat and low fedora? Government experiments?
I realise these are all a trifle fantastic, but the way it's set up now seems like paranoia without the absurd funny or killcount.
Feel free to ignore me.

>>312802
Actually, back then, women felt like they were 'cheating' or whatever by having easy dinners and such. Which is why we have alot of mixes that just require the mix and egg, so they feel like they're participating in it and making their food with love.

Italians & Irish were already well on their way to full assimilation, especially because of the radio and TV. The only minorities that'd be really screwed are blacks. Hispanics were still considered 'white', since Mexico wasn't the same it was 50+ yrs ago.

Aaand as far as I know, didn't women's liberation only really exist in the 70s?

Personally, I prefer communist. Lets you say Reds! Pinkos! Commies!

Aaand WW2 is what really spurred alot of the technological advances. There could be a 3 way cold-war, I suppose.

But really, what is the 1950s without the cold war, especially if there'd still be a red threat?

On Russians. Actually, I'd personally like Russians to still be Commies. It's the kind of word that sets the flavor of the setting, would be real bad to miss it. And God (Gosh) forbid, NO WHITE/CZARIST/MENSHEVIK/ETC. RUSSIA.

On Nazis. If America decided not to participate in WW2, Russia would quite possibly take over Europe. Sounds a bit grim? I have a solution.

Let the Commie Russia be not the Stalinist purgearama, but something rather close to Leninist-Trotskist-etc. ideas. Let people like Kollontai actually get in power there, and transform the country into an equalist utopia. E.g., female rights even better than in our timeline, aborts/homosexualism/free love allowed, family/religion/inequality/private property/money eliminated, children are raised in collective kindergartens/schools, people eat in food factories, etc. etc.

Though it should maybe not be as loose a state as Trotsky wanted - maybe still keep Stalin and his sympathizers, possibly in Internal Affairs and such, so that the armed forces are still strong, Soviet Russia (the country's official name) is feared throughout the world by capitalist governments, etc. NKVD will be mostly watching for "remnants of capitalism", like hoarding some private property, or conserving old religious customs, or favoring one's biological children over the other Soviet children, etc.

Europe should be under a light control by the USSR - full with those Socialist ideas, but still maintaining a slowly deteriorating capitalist society.

On the other hand, the U.S. society should be based on conservative ideas like family/religion/inequality/private property/individualism/objectivism/etc. I think the suppressed ones shouldn't be mostly women - greasers, beatniks, minorities, bitniks, etc. are all great ideas. I suggest that "minorities" should consist not just of "Negroes", but also include Jews, Asians and Catholics (yes, Irish and Italians included). It would make a more viciously chauvinistic ASA, which I think would be quite fitting for the setting's mood. Maybe, Catholics are "somewhat fine", while blacks are very untolerated. Also, maybe one of the most prominent resistance cells would coordinated by a pair of beatniks who like to constantly travel through America by car (*coughcoughKerouaccough*).

Also, what about Evil Martians and 50-Foot Monsters?

No, no, no, no, no!

Do not call it Atompunk. There may be atoms but there is no punk. This is the same problem that I have with Steampunk.


Stop shitting all over the legacy of my glorious Cyberpunk master race, damnit!

>>313287
Atombeatnik?
Atomgreaser?
Atomteddyboy? )

So... it's Fallout before the apocalypse?

>>313297
Let's just lump it under retro-futurism.

>>313287
I have to disagree. It was set up as Atom (being the dominant buzzword of the time) and Punk (rebelling underclass).

Atombeat has legs, but would probably require too much explanation for people to get it. Atompunk explains the setting.

I'm thinking for this setting, every character MUST take a Social Prejudice disadvantage (female, minority, Catholic, beatnik, greaser, etc.). PCs must face the prejudice of the ASA or it will turn into the Jetsons.

Hey, here's an idea: don't set atompunk in an alternate history, set atompunk in our future.

After the world's oil reserves ran dry, international tensions mounted. Because of uncertainty about the future and the supposed safety that unity brings, many of the nations of the former soviet union united once again. Meanwhile, in the USA, paranoia and desperation encourage strict social conservatism. Most of the larger nations of the world eventually solve their energy problems via nuclear breeder reactors, largely running on thorium.

Sound fun?

>>313330
You'd have to handwave a lot to push things back to '50s era society, technology and styles. Plus you couldn't fight J. Edgar Hoover.

>devices derived from the works of Alan Turing

You mean that poofter they hung during the trials of 1951? Labour and the CPGB warned the voters about Churchill, but the hanging magistrates have taken care of them.

>>313344
Turing was no Bolshie, though he would have been smart to have defected once Sir Oswald Mosley began his rise to power.

So what are things like on the other side of the pond? We hear a lot about "mod gangs" terrorizing the streets. Is rationing still going on as part of the BUF's National Austerity Program?