If you’ve ever seen the movie Blade Runner, you know that there’s a type of fiction known as steampunk. It is a subgenre of science fiction that reimagines our world in the 19th century by adding various gadgets and gizmos to Victorian-era settings. Goggles, cogs, goggles with cogs and clockwork drones it’s all so much fun! But what does it mean for steampunk to have guns? Let’s start at the end: Does steampunk have guns? In short, yes. And no.
In general, many different types of fiction feature firearms. If you take just about any action movie from the last thirty years, you will almost certainly see at least one gun in it.
Even though steAppsperkpunk is usually set in an alternate reality where people can build unusual machines out of old materials and parts, this doesn’t mean that everyone has built their own mechanical inventions (although if you are reading this blog post then you probably have). The same way that most people don’t build their own cars or motorcycles because they need too many special parts to be made to make them usable as transportation devices. They do exist as purely recreational activities without anything practical being needed to complete them.
Does Steampunk Have Nerf Guns?
Nerf guns are a popular toy and game in the 21st century. They are made of foam instead of real bullets and are used for recreational purposes, such as target practice or playing games. Nerf guns have been around since the 1970s when they were invented by James West.
If you look at the movie Blade Runner, you should be able to find some clues about whether or not steampunk has guns. The plot of Blade Runner involves a group of bounty hunters called Blade Runners trying to track down and kill rogue replicants that have escaped from their off-world colonies into Earth’s reality. There was also a scene where one of the bounty hunters is holding a gun with an orange safety cap on it. This could be a clue that the characters in the film are using Nerf guns or something similar to them.
The plot is set in 2019, so it seems unlikely that they would use anything that looks like a Nerf gun because they wouldn’t exist yet! But if you look at other movies set in 2019, then yes many movies like Terminator 2: Judgment Day or Jurassic Park feature Nerf guns.
So we can conclude that steampunk does indeed have guns, but they might not be using any type of contemporary product as weapons. Because really? Who wants to shoot up their latest vintage watch repair kit instead? That would just be silly!
Does Steampunk Have Replicas?
The way that steampunk is usually depicted, even if people do have guns, they don’t actually use them to kill people. At least, not in the same way that we do. In the movie Blade Runner, there are replicas of old-fashioned firearms but they are only used for decoration and show. The protagonist is a bounty hunter who works for the larger society and uses his skills as a tracker to find criminals who have fled from justice.
In general, many different types of fiction feature firearms. If you take just about any action movie from the last thirty years, you will almost certainly see at least one gun in it.
Does Steampunk Have Real Guns?
But does steampunk have guns? It depends on how you define it. Guns are a big part of steampunk, particularly in literary fiction, but the fact is that guns have always been a part of the human experience. In some ways, you could say that steampunk is just an extension of this reality, where people still have to find and use weapons in order to survive.
As such, no matter what genre you’re talking about, guns will be present. No one can deny them from entering fiction because they are an inevitable part of our time period. You just have to decide how important they are and the level at which they exist or don’t exist in your story.
Conclusion
Steampunk is a sub-genre of science fiction, fantasy, and horror that typically features steam-powered technology and Victorian era-inspired settings and fashions.
Each steampunk sub-genre has its own style with which the genre is represented. The steampunk genre is often described as an “alternate history,” which means that stories within the genre are set in an alternate timeline in history. Steampunk is a genre of fiction, not a distinct genre of science fiction.
