Category: World Building

Writer Setting Guide – Y2K

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“Y2K aesthetics are so hot right now – and so is the era’s existential dread.” –  Willingham, A. J.

The kids are wearing weird pants, chunky highlights are back, and silvery, space-age silhouettes are edging their way into vogue.

Like clockwork, the 20-year fashion cycle has made the late 90s/early 2000s cool again. For us millennials, this can bring back a nostalgia for our preteen/teenage years. And for the Gen Zs and Gen Alphas, this reflects a fascination with a time in which the internet did exist—but without all the doodads that make it suck (i.e. social media and smart devices).

If you’d like to write a story in this era (because you’re a Gen Z trying to impress your friends), or you’re a crusty old millennial like me who wants to take a walk down memory lane, let’s take a journey to the Y2K era. A time when dot com fever was on the rise, people messaged their friends on AIM, listened to boy bands, and liked lots and lots of plastic shiny things.

Disclaimers:

  • Don’t write toward trends for the sake of following a trend alone because trends can always change.

  • There’s only so much I can cover. I tried to cover the basics, but I’m sure there’s a lot I missed out on. I’m not writing a book y’all.

Major Events in the Year 1999:

  • Fear of the Y2K Bug: This is the obvious one to have on the list. The world experienced a widespread fear of computer shutdowns and civilization collapse due to a potential computer programming glitch known as the “Y2K Problem.” We’ll discuss this more below.

  • Bill Clinton Impeachment Trial: Let me tell ya, it was very awkward having to hear about a particular kind of white stain on the dress of the president’s intern almost constantly. The entire news cycle was dominated by talk of that stupid dress. Fun fact! My dad took me out of school to go see the president’s impeachment hearing!

  • Columbine High School Shooting: Back in 1999, school shootings were unheard of. (Oh to be back in such times, right?). So when it happened on April 20, 1999, it was all over the news. Some people were even blaming goth rocker Marilyn Manson for corrupting the youth.

  • Launch of Napster: This is a big one. On June 1, 1999, the peer-to-peer file-sharing platform was launched, forever changing music distribution. At that time, the norm was buying and listening to CDs. Napster would eventually lead to the shift in downloading music in the early 2000s. Metallica even sued Napster in 2000 for copyright infringement.

  • Big Film Releases: The Matrix, Fight Club, American Pie, 10 Things I Hate About You, and The Blair Witch Project.

What the Heck Was the Y2K Bug?

The Year 2000 Bug, or millennium bug (abbreviated as the “Y2K” bug), referred to a potential problem in computer systems.

In the early days of computers, memory was expensive, and computers generally had less of it than they do now. In order to save space, programmers abbreviated the four-digit year designation and stored only the final two digits. For example, computers recognized “98” as “1998.” So how would computers interpret “2000”?

There was a fear that when dates were moved from 1999 to 2000 that there would be massive crashes in programs that ran banking, utilities, communications, insurance, manufacturing, government, etc. There were also fears that key devices that used computer chips would fail, including medical equipment, temperature-control systems, and elevators. (Some people even said that planes would fall out of the sky!)

The theory was that when clocks struck midnight on January 1, 2000, affected computer systems, unsure of the year, would crash and worldwide chaos would ensue. Maybe civilization itself would even fall apart!

Obviously that didn’t happen (at least not in this timeline). But that would be cool if you wrote an alternative history in which it did.

U.S. Tech Usage in the Y2K Era

(Source – Our World in Data)

Note: When people refer to the “Y2K era,” they are referring broadly to the time between 1997-2004. In this guide, my focus was prominently on the year 1999, while also acknowledging elements of the late 90s and early 2000s.

The Internet:

As you can see above, 1999 was a turning point in which internet usage started to become more common in U.S. households (it wasn’t just for nerds anymore). People began using email more (even sending out email chains that promised a curse for not continuing the chain), bidding for things on eBay, getting spam about penis enlargement pills in their inboxes (OMG you can’t believe how common that was), talking in chat rooms, sending messages to friends on AIM with abbreviations like “lol” and “brb” and emojis, searching Ask Jeeves, and many people started using websites for the first time.

(A view of AIM from 1997 – Source)

Cyber cafes also started to emerge in this era. Though it seems they were more popular in other countries than the U.S. You could also have someone using the internet at work or school but not having access to it at home.

If you’re writing a story in the late 90s, it’s also important to understand how the internet was different than it is now. People still used dial-up, the internet came on an AOL CD, and you often couldn’t be on a landline phone and on the internet at the same time (without hearing a horrifying SCREEE EE ERRGHHH noise on the phone that sounded like a dying robot). The internet was also slower. Sometimes it could take so long for a page to load that I would get up, get a snack, and return while it was still loading. Though people were also more patient about this kind of thing since the internet was still new, exciting, and full of possibility—when it was “the information superhighway” and not a doom scrolling machine.

I think it’s significant that The Matrix came out in the year 1999, because this year marked the beginning of the shift from a more analog world to a digital one, and even an almost existential worry about where this shift could take us as a species.

SOME KEY TECH DEVELOPMENTS IN THE LATE 90s

1995 – eBay is founded.

1997 – AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) is released and becomes common by 1999.

1997 – The search engine Ask Jeeves comes out.

1999 – AOL buys Netscape. Peer-to-peer file sharing becomes a reality as Napster arrives on the internet, much to the displeasure of the music industry.

1999 – BlackBerry was introduced, a groundbreaking phone that would become an iconic device of high status businessmen and Wall Street executives.

2000 – The Y2K bug doesn’t kill us all and destroy civilization— phew!

Cellphones Were “Dumb Phones”

While cellphone usage in 1999 was still uncommon and largely dumb compared to the smart devices of today, this year represented a turning point where people were just starting to use cellphones more and cellphones were gaining more advanced features. Yet I’d say it would still be extremely uncommon for a teenager to have one. It wasn’t until the mid-2000s that it became commonplace. In general, people were more likely to call their friends on a landline, or possibly message a friend on AIM. Yet in 1999, having a device like a BlackBerry was quite a status symbol for high powered businessmen.

CDs Dominate for Music and Computer Games

(Image Source)

The CD-ROM as we know it was invented in the 80s, but it didn’t go into common use until the late 80s, when people started using it for gaming and music. In the year 1990, tape cassettes were more common for music. However, over time CDs became more prevalent than cassettes, to the point that CDs were the main way to listen to music, play computer games, and use the internet by the late 90s. Though I will mention, while use of floppy disks were becoming less common by the late 90s, people were still using floppy disks for file storage or computer programs. I remember using floppy disks up until the mid-2000s.

Also, people commonly said “CD.” Not many people casually used the term, “CD-ROM.”

VHS and DVDs

If you are wondering how people watched movies at home back then, VHS tapes were still the dominant format in 1999. However, by 2003, DVDs would finally surpass VHS.

Also, going to Blockbuster on a Friday night to rent a movie was still a popular activity among friends and family. Blockbuster is definitely a part of the Y2K era nostalgia.

Y2K Era Music

The above are hits from 1999. Image from Billoard.com.

Latin Pop Goes Mainstream: Artists like Ricky Martin, Jennifer Lopez, and Enrique Iglesias brought Latin music to the forefront of American pop culture. The year 1999 was when “Livin’ la Vida Loca” became a global phenomenon. The year 1996 is when that “Ay Macarena!” song became popular, attracting the fascination of white people everywhere (Really…I think we just stopped doing the Macarena dance at weddings like two years ago lol).

The Bling Era of Rap: By the late 90s, Hip Hop started to become more commercialized and eventually morphed into the Bling Era, which would be very popular in the early 2000s. This was a time when there were a lot of rappers wearing shiny bling and there were shiny metal backgrounds on all the MTV videos. It would be easy to mistake the sets for many of these videos for the inside of a cheese grater. In 1999 we saw the release of Eminem’s “My Name Is,” Missy Elliot’s “Hot Boys,” B.G.’s “Bling Bling,” Ja Rule’s “Holla Holla,” and Nas’s “Nas is Like.”

Pop Punk: While people have been saying “rock is dead” since the late 60s, people were really saying and feeling that by the late 90s. This sentiment was caused by the meteoric rise of pop and hip hop, along with the death of grunge by the mid-90s. And yet despite that feeling, there was an emergence of many great pop punk bands that still have staying power today. These bands include Blink-182, The Offspring, Green Day, Sum 41, New Found Glory, Good Charlotte, and Jimmy Eat World.

Nu Metal: This new form of metal began to emerge in the late 90s. Though it would really experience its heyday in the early 2000s. The most popular bands were Korn, Slipknot, Papa Roach, Staind, and P.O.D. Nu metal has elements of heavy metal, industrial music, grunge, and even rap. Technically, it’s more simple on guitar than past forms of metal (rarely featuring guitar solos), and darker in nature with lots of drop D chords (for those of you who know what that means), and guitars that even feature an extra string to accomplish a heavier/darker sound. Nu Metal can include singing, rapping, growling, and sometimes even DJs to sample elements of techno. In particular, I’m very nostalgic about this form of music because it was what I listened to as a mall crawling, Hot Topic loving goth in middle and high school.

Pop Princesses: The late 90s was dominated by the popularity of pop princesses and pop divas. There were already the established stars such as Mariah Carey, Celine Dion, Whitney Houston, and Janet Jackson. In 1996, Celine Dion’s song from the Titanic was literally everywhere—you couldn’t escape it. The Spice Girls also heavily influenced pop in the mid to late 90s. However, new teen pop icons would emerge as well. Britney Spears broke onto the scene in 1999 with her debut album Baby One More Time. Christina Aguilera emerged around the same time, establishing her own powerful voice and career. Britney Spears in particular achieved massive success with her charismatic blend of teen pop and marketable image that captured the late 90s/early 2000s zeitgeist.

Boy Bands: I kept the most obvious one last. The late 90s and early 2000s were THE golden age for boy bands. This was driven by the immense commercial success of bands like Backstreet Boys and NSYNC who dominated the airways (along with their mini-me’s such as O-Town, LFO, 98 Degrees). Part of their meteoric success was due to marketing, a focus on fashion/appearances, and even the fan clubs that popped up around the bands. Many of my friends at that time loved to talk about which guy in the Backstreet Boys or NSYNC they had a crush on (I of course was the weirdo who listened to Linkin Park and had a crush on Vegeta from Dragon Ball Z, so I didn’t care). Thanks to MTV and TRL, many young people were also watching boy bands on TV every day. For more info, check out a brief history of boy bands.

Y2K Era Looks and Fashion (1997-2004)

(In the image above I asked ChatGPT to capture Y2K fashion and I think it did a pretty good job. The setting at the food court is also relevant since people still hung out at malls back then).

The style in the Y2K era featured an eclectic mix of shiny metallic technological optimism with pop culture trends directly influenced by icons such as Britney Spears or the Backstreet Boys. The ideal silhouette was tight on the top and baggy on the bottom, with emphasis on showing the midriff. The ideal color palette was a futuristic shimmery, shiny, metallicness (this is a word I just made up) mixed with pop music hues of hot pink, lime green, and neon orange.

  • Fashion for Women: Low-rise jeans with a wide or flared leg, crops tops, tube tops, rhinestone/baby tees, velour tracksuits, and pants with words like “juicy” or “angel” or “princess” or “baby” on the butt.

  • Fashion for Men: Baggy jeans, graphic t-shirts, sports jerseys, and puffer vests.

  • Hair: Chunky highlights and frosted tips.

  • Makeup: Thin eyebrows (women would often wax their eyebrows), shimmery eyeshadow, lots and lots of lip gloss (you can’t underestimate how big lip gloss was!), and eyeliner was more subtle/less emphasized.

Read more about Y2K aesthetics here.

Y2K Fiction and Films

Created Recently

Y2K film (2024) – “Two high-school nobodies make the decision to crash a Y2K party. The night becomes even crazier than they could have ever dreamed when the clock strikes midnight.”

Honey a novel (2024) – “It is 1997, and Amber Young has received a life-changing call. It’s a chance thousands of girls would die for: the opportunity to join girl group Cloud9 in Los Angeles and escape her small town. She quickly finds herself in the orbits of fellow rising stars Gwen Morris, a driven singer-dancer, and Wes Kingston, a member of the biggest boy band in the world, ETA.”

10 Books to Fuel Your Y2K Nostalgia – This is a list of further books written recently, but focused on Y2K era nostalgia.

Popular Shows From the Late 90s

To understand the zeitgeist of the late 90s it’s key to watch shows like Friends and Sex and the City. Friends became popular for its timeless themes of navigating friendship (hence the name of the show), relationships, and early adulthood. It’s also experienced a re-emergence in popularity today for those who want to engage in Y2K nostalgia.

Sex and the City was also a big cultural hallmark of the time for its sex positive themes for women, which was edgy for the time. As I mentioned in my 90s Writer’s Guide, the 90s was a time in which sex positive feminism started becoming more prominent.

Popular Films

The year 1999 was when many iconic films were released such as The Matrix, Fight Club, American Pie, and 10 Things I Hate About You. While each of these films are still popular today, they also have key elements that represent something that was important at the time they were released.

The Matrix deals with greater questions about the impact of technology on reality and society.

Fight Club contends with themes of consumerism and its emptiness, masculinity or emasculation in modern society, identity crisis and alienation, and mental illness and repression.

American Pie – As I briefly mentioned in my 90s Writer’s Guide, the late 90s/early 2000s is when an era of “raunch culture” became popular, a phenomenon marked by the increased sexualization and objectification of women in the media. This can be seen in shows like The Man Show, Girls Gone Wild, and of course the film American Pie.

10 Things I Hate About You – This film is a great time capsule of teenage life in the late 90s. This includes a soundtrack that captures the pop-rock energy of the era, the fashion, the cliques and stereotypes of high school life.

Relevant Links

That’s all, folks!

If you enjoyed this guide, consider others written by Stories From Tomorrow!

Writer Setting Guide – The 90s

Game of Grunge – A Song of Rock and Hip Hop (Fanfiction on AO3)

World Building Guide for Writing Solarpunk

Here’s another article on why Y2K is hot

Y2K aesthetics are so hot right now – and so is the era’s existential dread (CNN). “The current looks scream “party,” but the vibe still whispers, “worry.” And there’s nothing more Y2K than that.”

Solarpunk/Swamp Punk Fiction World Building Guide

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Why write a story in a swamp? Aren’t they smelly places full of mosquitoes, gators, and Florida Men?

Last month I put together a comprehensive guide on the fiction genre our world desperately needs—solarpunk! A genre of fiction that envisions humanity, technology, and nature all coexisting in a utopian way.

As an add on to the previous article, I wanted to write another guide geared toward writers or gamers depicting a solarpunk world in a swamp-like, or wetland setting.

Why? I don’t know. Maybe it’s my Florida Woman side shining through? Or maybe it’s because the solarpunk genre recognizes that the beauty of the natural world takes on many diverse forms. As someone who spent summers as a child canoeing through wetland environments, I am intrigued by these landscapes full of above ground roots, alligators, colorful water lilies, and towering cypress trees.

But here’s a more indepth response to the question, Why create a story in a swamp?

  • Swamps as a Place of Refuge: Throughout U.S. history for example, swamps have been a place of refuge for both Native Americans, and run away slaves. While swamps are not ideal places to live, both of these populations found creative ways to make it work. In a solarpunk story, this could take the form of a band of anarchists taking refuge in a swamp in order to resist the corruption of a surrounding capitalist society.
  • Exotic Swamp Worlds: Given that swamps and wetlands have an exotic, otherworldly quality, they can be a great way to also create an exotic world on another planet.
  • Natural Hazards: Swamps can be a way to create conflict in a story, given their many hazards. They can be a perilous transition zone a character goes through on a journey.
  • The Darker (Sludgier) Side of Nature: Solarpunk is typically sunny and full of optimism, but perhaps “Swamp Punk” could represent another necessary side of nature, the sludgy not so pleasant side that is full of peril, darkness, death, decay, and mystery. A group of humans learning to live in harmony with a swamp, or wetland environment, could show the human endeavor to coexist, and even celebrate nature’s more macabre side, not as an evil thing, but in understanding that death and decay are necessary parts of life.

So without further adieu, here you go!

First off, does “Swamp Punk” as a subgenre of solarpunk actually exist?

“Venusian Dragon” by edenpictures is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

There aren’t many well-known “solarpunk” stories specifically set in swamps, but there are a few stories of varying genres that touch on similar ecological and aesthetic territory—lush, humid, waterlogged environments where nature is powerful and human systems must adapt.

  • The Drowned Cities by Paolo Bacigalupi: This book is YA dystopia. So it does not have the sunny, optimistic, utopian setting of the solarpunk genre. But it does touch on the themes of ecology and survival in a swamp or jungle-like setting. “In a dark future America where violence, terror, and grief touch everyone, young refugees Mahlia and Mouse have managed to leave behind the war-torn lands of the Drowned Cities by escaping into the jungle outskirts. But when they discover a wounded half-man—a bioengineered war beast named Tool—who is being hunted by a vengeful band of soldiers, their fragile existence quickly collapses.”
  • Books like A Land Remembered or Forever Island by Patrick D Smith are historical fiction, rather than sci-fi. But in absolutely beautiful and intricate language, they bring the Florida wetlands to life. These books also depict the ingenuity and courage of the Seminole Indians who built a life in the swamps, engaged in a resistance against the Trail of Tears, and then later, resisted efforts of developers to steal and destroy their land. Thematically, that is quite solarpunk indeed!
  • There are quite a few stories written in the turn of the century by the sci-fi author, Robert A Heinlein, in which he depicted swamps on Venus. As I discussed in my World Building Science Fiction – Venus guide, early pulp science fiction (1930 -1950) often portrayed Venus as a lush paradise full of jungles, swamps, Amazonian women, and even dinosaurs. It wasn’t until the 1960s that scientists discovered that Venus was super hot and that the clouds are made out of sulfuric acid.

Key Ecological Features of Swamps:

“Everglades and Turner River” by chaunceydavis818 is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

To write fiction in a swamp, one should be aware of what specifically constitutes a swamp, and what some of its key ecological features are.

A swamp is a type of wetland. A wetland (true to its name) is a very wet land where the ground is saturated in water either permanently or seasonably. A swamp is a forested wetland. This is the key difference between a swamp and a marsh. Swamps are dominated by trees while marshes are dominated by grasses and other non-woody plants. Swamps also have deeper standing water (a great breeding ground for mosquitoes and other fun six-legged friends!)

Swamps are considered transition zones because both water and land play a key role in this environment.

While I have to be careful to prevent this from turning into a Wikipedia entry, I just want to cover some basic, core features of a swamp.

Tree roots that protrude from the ground: A particularly interesting, and visually distinctive feature of swamps is that they have tree roots that protrude from the ground. These above the ground roots are an adaptation to waterlogged, low-oxygen soil, where normal roots wouldn’t get enough air to function. An example of this are the knobby looking “knees” of bald cypress trees (commonly seen in Florida), the vertical “snorkel” roots of Black Mangrove trees (which protrude out of the ground like a snorkel), the stilt roots of Red Mangroves, and the Buttress Roots (large, wide roots on all sides of a shallowly rooted tree) seen in African and Amazonian swamp forests.

Bugs and lots of them! You are probably already aware that these water logged environments make a great home to mosquitoes and dragonflies. Other common bugs are water striders (that skim or walk on the surface of water), deer flies (painful biters active in daylight), ants, termites, beetles, butterflies, moths, gnats, and a type of insects commonly called “No-See-Ums,” incredibly small, almost impossible to see sand flies that swarm in the humid air and love to bite. But while people may call them no-see-ums, you’ll certainly feel them when they bite!

Hammocks. No, not the kind you lie in. A hammock is a slightly elevated area of dry land—often just a few inches to a few feet higher than the surrounding wetlands—that allows different types of plants and trees to grow, usually hardwoods. These areas act as ecological islands within the swamp or marsh.

Food: For those who live in or near swamps or other types of wetlands, they can eat catfish, tilapia, frogs, alligators, crocodiles, crawfish, mussels, clams, honey, snails, duck, herons, egret, or game birds. Edible plants include cattails, wild rice, pickerelweed & arrowhead (duck potato), palmetto hearts, muscadine grapes, pecans or hickory nuts, mayhaws, and swamp apples (wild crab apples).

WARNING!!!: Some fruits, like pond apples, have poison seeds. So this is obviously not a real life survival guide. Do research elsewhere if you are going to figure out what you can eat in a swamp…Yet the poison seeds could make a great source of tension in a story.

If you are curious about traditional dishes someone might make from content they have collected from a swamp, look into Cajun/Creole cuisine, or the diets of indigenous groups that have historically lived in or near swamps.

Medicinal plants include elderberry (a great immune system booster), along with swamp milkweed which thrives in clay soil and is poisonous, but has historically been used in small amounts for purging and killing parasites…once again, don’t use this article as your guide before signing up for the Florida Redneck version of the Naked and Afraid, this is for fiction only, people!

Human activities in a swamp include hunting, trapping, and fishing. However, swamps historically have had low property values compared to fields, prairies, or woodlands because they have a reputation for being “unproductive land” that cannot be easily used for human living or farming activities.

Thus farmers commonly drain the swamps next to their fields to gain more usable land for crops. Human development has often resulted in the destruction of swamps, destroying ecologically biodiverse habitats that are home to a wide variety of plant and animal life.

Real World Places Where a Swamp Punk Story Could Take Place:

“Bird in the Everglades” by milan.boers is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
  • Bayou Country USA: An ecological landscape of slow-moving rivers, swamps, and cypress groves along the Gulf. The term “Bayou Country” is closely associated with Cajun, Creole, and French settler cultural groups. The term may also be associated with the homelands of certain Choctaw tribal groups.
  • The Everglades (Florida, U.S.) A vast subtropical wetland of sawgrass prairies, mangrove forests, and slow-moving waters stretching across southern Florida. The Everglades are home to a wide array of wildlife (such as panthers, manatees, alligators, turtles, ibis, etc.) There area is tied to the histories of the Miccosukee and Seminole peoples.
  • The Okavango Delta (Botswana) A sprawling inland delta of winding waterways, seasonal floodplains, and papyrus reed beds in northern Botswana. The Okavango is a rich African ecosystem that is home to elephants, hippos, crocodiles, and countless bird species. The Okavango Delta peoples consist of five ethnic groups: The Hambukushu, Dceriku, Wayeyi, Bugakhwe, and ǁanikhwe.
  • The Sundarbans (India/Bangladesh) A mangrove forest area in the Ganges Delta straddling the border of India and Bangladesh. This region is home to dense networks of rivers, mudflats, and salt-tolerant mangrove forests, as well as Bengal tigers, crocodiles, and migratory birds. People who live in the Sundarbans include Bengali communities, the Munda, and Mahato. Life involves adapting to the region’s shifting tides and monsoon rhythms.
  • The Pantanal (Brazil) The Pantanal encompasses the world’s largest tropical wetland area. It is located mostly within Brazil, but also extends to parts of Bolivia and Paraguay. The region is home to jaguars, capybaras, caimans, giant otters, and several bird species. The Pantanal has been home to a variety of different indigenous peoples who have historically been resourceful at adapting to this semi-aquatic environment. This includes the Paiaguá “Canoe Indians”, the Terena who were accomplished farmers, and the Guaicurú.

Powerful Uses of Swamps and Other Wetlands in a Solarpunk World:

  • Anti-flooding defense: Swamps and other wetlands are a natural defense against flooding and provide great flood management. For instance, when flooding occurs, swamps are like a natural sponge that absorbs and use the excess water in the wetland, preventing it from spreading to the surrounding areas. Thus in a solarpunk story, it could be interesting to show a more advanced and empathetic humanity cultivating swamps as a defense against flooding (especially flooding caused by global warming).
  • Water, pollution, and carbon purification: Wetlands act as natural water purifiers. They filter sediment and absorb pollution. Development and agriculture contribute extra nutrients, pesticides, and silt to local waterways. Wetlands trap and filter these impurities, helping to maintain healthy rivers, bays, and beaches. Salt marshes, seagrass beds, and mangroves also play an important role in addressing climate change by removing greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing them in plants and in the soil. “Coastal blue carbon” is the term used for carbon that is stored in these coastal habitats.
  • Sustainable fisheries: If you love seafood, thank a coastal wetland for your favorite dish. Coastal wetlands are some of the most productive ecosystems on Earth when it comes to seafood. In 2018, U.S. commercial and recreational fisheries supported 1.7 million jobs and contributed $238 billion in sales. Thus in a solarpunk setting, wetlands could be a useful source of sustainable seafood.
  • Tourism, Recreation, and Spiritual Reflection: In a solarpunk world, the natural world isn’t seen a tool for human use. Humans and the natural world learn to coexist. Humans in this setting would also learn to appreciate the deep awe and beauty of a place like the Everglades. They’d find ways to explore and engage with that beauty without harming the ecosystem. This could include canoeing along quiet waterways, hiking on raised boardwalks, birdwatching among mangroves, or sitting in stillness beneath moss-draped cypress trees.

Tech, Infrastructure, Clothing, and Other Useful Items in a Swamp Punk Setting:

As I mentioned in my original Solarpunk Worldbuilding Guide, solarpunk doesn’t have to be high tech. It can often come in the form of a “low-tech renaissance,” or “cottage core.” If there is a simple, low tech way for people to live in harmony with the environment without exploiting too many resources, then all the better.

So some of these are not high-tech solutions. They are simply looking at what has worked for cultures that were historically connected to wetland areas. However, there is also some high tech thrown in here as well.

🛖 Housing and Settlement

Stilt Houses and Raised Platforms

  • Built on stilts or mounds to stay above seasonal floodwaters.
  • Found among the Bayou tribes (e.g., Chitimacha) and in Amazonian wetland cultures.
  • In the Sundarbans, people build homes on slightly elevated earthen platforms.

Dealing With Mosquitoes

  • In any wetland setting, mosquito netting will be essential for preserving a character’s sanity.
  • Mosquito-Repelling Gardens: Swamp homes could be surrounded by plants like citronella, lemongrass, marigold, lavender, and basil to create natural bug buffers.
  • Bioluminescent Bug Lures: Lights powered by algae or fungi could draw bugs away from dwellings and toward trap zones or pollinator gardens.
  • According to the Orlando Sentinel, the Seminole Indians (the indigenous people of Florida) used a variety of methods to repel mosquitoes which included throwing certain plants into a fire and standing in the smoke, rubbing gar fish oil on the skin, migrating during peak mosquito season (May and June), and potentially developed a tolerance over time.

Solar Canopy Roofs

  • Broad, angled roofs equipped with solar panels that double as shade structures and water collectors. Panels could be bifacial to absorb light from above and the reflected water below.

Rainwater Harvesting and Filtration

  • Gutter systems feed into cisterns below the house, paired with natural filtration units using sand, charcoal, and local wetland plants.

Chinampas (Floating Gardens)

  • Used by the Aztecs in swampy areas of central Mexico.
  • Constructed from layers of mud, vegetation, and reeds to create fertile floating plots.

Alligator or Crocodile Farms

  • Alligator or crocodile farms would be a way to breed and raise alligators/crocodiles for meat, leather, and other goods. In the solarpunk story, “A Field of Sapphires and Sunshine” by Jaymee Goh, published in Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Summers, a crocodile farm is used in a controversial way to dispose of bodies (great tension!).

Mound Building

  • Tribes like the Muskogee (Creek) and Mississippian cultures created large earthen mounds for ceremonial and residential use in flood-prone areas. The mounds could also be used to preserve important items from flooding, such as seed libraries or conventional book libraries.

🛶 Transportation and Mobility

Canoes and Dugouts

  • Swamps are naturally difficult to traverse by foot, so canoes built from hollowed logs or woven reeds are useful for transport. The Miccosukee and Seminole people of Florida are known for using dugout canoes in the Everglades.

Airboats:

  • Many people today in wetland areas also use airboats, which glide over the waterline. Gliding allows them to do less damage to the environment and animal life.

Solar Powered Boats:

  • Since 2016, the Indigenous Achuar people have navigated solar-powered boats along the Amazonian waters of eastern Ecuador. These boats are large canoes covered with a roof of glossy black solar panels that soaks up the bright light of the Amazonian sun. The solar panels on these boats also help power the electricity in Amazonian rainforest villages. This has been a critical way to offer development without deforestation, because the people can travel by river instead of cutting down trees to build roads.

Raised Walkways or Log Paths

  • Temporary or seasonal paths laid with logs, brush, or woven mats made out of palmetto fronds to allow foot travel across wet areas.

🧵 Swamp Punk Clothing: Materials & Features

  • Woven reeds or cattails – for belts, sandals, basket-armor, or lightweight hats.
  • Palm or palmetto fibers – used like raffia to make breathable skirts, wraps, or hooded capes.
  • Moss-dyed linen or hemp – cool, breathable plant-based fabric grown on hammocks or traded from highland zones.
  • Mycelium leather – water-resistant, compostable, and grown from fungi—used for boots, satchels, or armor plating.
  • Water hyacinth fibers – invasive in many swamp areas, but can be spun into rope, mats, or textiles.
  • Layered wraps and drapes – allow airflow while protecting from bugs and sun.
  • Arm and leg gaiters – made from waxed cloth, moss-treated fiber, or mycelium to keep leeches, mosquitoes, and swamp debris off.
  • Wide-brimmed hats and neck veils – woven from palm fronds or reed fibers, often coated in natural insect repellents.
  • Knee-high boots or foot wraps – made from sealed plant fibers, fish skin, or upcycled rubber for navigating muck.
  • Gator or snake hide for leather clothing, hats, and boots.
  • Scavenged animal feathers, teeth, and claws for decoration.

⚡ Energy

Floating Solar Rafts

  • In my article, Five Real Life Examples of Solarpunk?, I discussed the real life use of solar islands, floating solar islands that collect sunshine and convert it to energy. Wetlands areas with vast waterways, and plenty of sun exposure, could use these to collect energy.

Biogas from Anaerobic Soil and Swamp Grass

  • As mentioned above in this article, swamps and other wetlands have been often dubbed as poor areas for human development due to the fact the soil is low in oxygen, or is anaerobic. Thus, not much traditional agricultural activity can take place. However, this would make swamps a great place for a process called anaerobic digestion, which can be used to produce biogas. This is a process in which microbes break down organic matter and release methane. Methane gas can be used for used for cooking, heating, and even small-scale electricity generation.
  • Swamp grasses like elephant grass, cattails, and giant reeds are excellent resources for biogas production. They produce a large amount of biomass per unit area, which translates to a significant amount of biogas. The organic matter in these grasses is easily broken down by anaerobic microorganisms, resulting in efficient biogas production. They also don’t compete with food crops for land, making them a sustainable option for bioenergy production.
  • Compact, dome-shaped biogas collectors could be nestled near homes or community kitchens, and fueled by compost, swamp vegetation, swamp grass, or waste.

Turn Mud Into Energy! Plant Microbial Fuel Cells

  • Plant-Microbial Fuel Cells create electricity using living plants and the bacteria in the soil. As plants grow, they make food through photosynthesis. Some of that food—up to 70%—is sent out through their roots into the soil. Bacteria eat this leftover material and, in the process, release tiny electric charges called electrons. Scientists place special electrodes near the roots to collect those electrons and turn them into usable electricity.
  • Swamps are especially well-suited for Plant-Microbial Fuel Cells (PMFCs) because their natural conditions already support the key elements these systems need to work well. They are wet, which provides good electron conductivity and bacterial growth. The anaerobic soil in swamps is also great for bacterial production. See more at Turn Mud into Energy With a Microbial Fuel Cell.

Kinetic and Water-Based Systems

  • Canoe docks, fishing platforms, and suspended walkways could be outfitted with kinetic pads or treadle-powered devices that convert foot traffic and movement into usable energy.
  • Micro-hydro turbines hidden in slow-moving creeks could provide continuous trickles of power without disturbing aquatic life.

I hope you enjoyed this guide!

Feel free to comment if you feel like there are any important points I missed or should add.

If there are other solarpunk biomes you’d like me to create guides for, please suggest some.

And as always, don’t forget to share, like, and subscribe.

Five Real Life Examples of Solarpunk?

On this post, I wanted to share some potential real life examples of solarpunk to help get you inspired, and to show that these ideas are potentially possible in real life if we dare to dream big.

jbjwrites3 Comments
“Vertical Forest apartment building in Milan”
by Patrick Bombaert. CC Licensed Image.

Continuing with our Earth Month theme, I’m back to talk more about the genre/movement our world desperately needs—Solarpunk! A genre which depicts humanity, nature, and technology living in harmony. To learn more about the genre itself, check out my Solarpunk Worldbuilding Guide here!

On this post, I wanted to share some potential real life examples of solarpunk to help get you inspired, and to show that these ideas are potentially possible in real life if we dare to dream big. However, let there be emphasis on the word potential and the fact that I used a question mark in the title.

Caveat: By sharing these examples, I’m not claiming they are 100% representative of solarpunk values. Indeed we still live in a world dominated by late stage capitalism, so there are most likely flaws in these examples, as they are part of an inherently flawed system. Yet I still decided to share these because they are an example of attempts to go in a solarpunk direction.

I’m also not claiming these are the only examples. If you can think of some better ones, please let me know in the comments.

Earthships! – Where The Hobbit Meets Bladerunner

“Earthship Biotecture.” by Howderfamily. CC Licensed Image.

Described as “The Hobbit meets Bladerunner”, Earthships are a creative experiment in sustainable living. Often built from recycled materials (like old tires and aluminum cans) Earthships are created to operate off-grid, generate their own electricity, collect water, and manage waste on-site. This reduces dependence on external utilities and significantly lowers their environmental footprint. Such a structure that doesn’t depend on external resources of oversight can often function well in a more localized/anarchist society.

The Greater World Earthship Community in Taos, New Mexico, is recognized as the first Earthship community, according to Taos.org and Earthship Biotecture. It was founded near the Rio Grande by architect Michael Reynolds (the visionary behind the Earthship concept). The 113 homes in the community feature construction using repurposed items and are designed to generate their own water, electricity, and food.

For example, Earthships can have mini-hydroponic planters in suspended buckets that have added vertical growing space in the greenhouses and have yields of herbs, peppers, tomatoes, kale, beets, cucumbers, and more, allowing residents to pull their food straight off the vine if they like. Earthships can also have a composting toilet that reuses waste for a greenhouse. There may be cisterns and water distillation systems to produce clean water from rainwater sitting on the roof. Energy can be produced with solar, wind, biodiesel, and micro hydro. Just keep in mind the off the grid solarpanel systems may require a battery pack to store power, so that the power can be used at night.

To learn more about earthships, go here!

Tiny Homes, Big Impact

“Tiny House POD” by QUADRAPOL. Creative Commons Licensed Image on Wikipedia Commons.

Tiny homes bring together minimalism and sustainability, while offering a compelling alternative to traditional housing. Tiny homes are small-scale residences designed to maximize space efficiency and minimize environmental impact. They come in a variety of forms: stationary structures, mobile units on wheels, and even from repurposed shipping containers! Despite their size, they come equipped with full kitchens, bathrooms, and sleeping areas. Learn more here!

Real Life Examples of Tiny Home Communities Include:

WeeCasa: WeeCasa, located in the mountains of Colorado, offers tiny living for short-stays and vacations. The largest tiny home they have sleeps five—and all homes are equipped with essentials for a comfortable stay. This could be an option for those who want to experience tiny home living temporarily. But don’t take it from me! Do your own research.

Caravan: This is another rental option for those wanting to try but not buy a tiny home. Caravan is located in the Alberta Arts District of Portland, Oregon. All six tiny homes, ranging in size from 120-170 square feet, are constructed by local builders and decorated with Portland art, as well as fair-trade, sustainable products. Using the homes to create a circle, Caravan cultivates a gathering space for music, games, and conversation. Guests can even roast vegan marshmallows over the fire pit!

Community First Village – Austin Texas: Community First Village, Located in Austin Texas, is a collection of 140 micro homes, 100 RVs, and 20 canvas-sided cottages offering affordable, permanent housing and supportive community to the disabled, chronically homeless in Central Texas. Tiny homes on the 27-acre grounds are designed by architects from around the world and furnishings are obtained through generous donors. Property amenities include a medical facility, walking trails and gardens, outdoor movie theater, community market, wireless internet, bed & breakfast for visiting guests, and convenient access to the metro. It’s also a place for those who are hurting to heal and rediscover hope with the support of the community.

Cedar Springs Tiny Village: “Simple Living on the Lake” is the motto for Ohio’s first full-fledged tiny home community. There are up to 30 lots – some water-front. Walking paths, community gardens, a recycling program, mature trees, and close proximately to the Natural Springs Resort.

Orlando Lakefront At College Park: This is a revitalization of a 1950’s trailer park. Re-use and repurpose is totally the right solarpunk spirit! Orlando Lakefront at College Park offers permanent parking space for tiny homeowners, as well as short and long-term rentals on Lake Fairview – just outside Orlando, Florida.


6 Tiny Home Communities Inspiring Minimal And Collective Living (The Good Trade)

Green City Innovations

The Supertree Grove at Gardens by the Bay, Singapore. by Khairul Nizam. Creative Commons Licensed Image

The concept of a “green city” is one of city working actively to foster the wellbeing of its people and environment. There are many facets of what makes a city “green.” And there is still much more work that needs to be done.

Green Cities Can Have The Following Factors:

  • The availability of green spaces and parks
  • Public transportation options
  • Bikeability
  • Renewable energy options
  • Reduced carbon footprint
  • Recycling programs
  • Sustainable buildings
  • Community gardens and farms
  • Urban agriculture
  • Ethically sourced goods
  • Divesting from fossil fuels

Top Four Cities With Lowest Carbon Emissions:

  • São Paulo, Brazil
  • Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
  • Bogotá, Colombia
  • Jakarta, Indonesia

Potential Examples of Green Cities:

Notice the word “potential.” I know some of these cities may not be where they need to be on carbon emissions or ethics, but they have examples of innovations where they are trying to go in a more green direction.

Singapore: Nicknamed the “City in a Garden,” more than 40% of Singapore is covered in greenery in the form of nature reserves, parks, gardens, roadside greenery, skyrise greenery, and vacant state land.

Copenhagen Denmark: Considered one of the most sustainable cities in the world, Copenhagen has ambitious climate goals, extensive cycling infrastructure, wind energy, green roofs, and harbor water clean enough to swim in.

Reykjavík, Iceland is an example of a city where geothermal energy provides almost all of the city’s heating needs. Green City Times also calls them one of the leading renewable energy capitals in the world.

Curbita, Brazil has an extensive mass transportation system, where 60% of commuters use the “bus rapid transmit” (BRT) system. The BRT bus network of Curitiba operates like an above-ground subway. Many Curitiba bus routes have their own express lanes on highways. They have biofuel only buses along with hybrid electric buses. Curitiba also has almost 600 square feet of green space per resident, mostly in the form of municipal parks.

Freiburg, Germany is Europe’s “solar city.” Vauban is a city district in Freiburg in which the majority of homes run on solar energy generated on-site, mostly in the form of rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) panels (as well as a supply of bioenergy). Some of the homes are are “plus-energy buildings,” meaning the extra energy from plus-energy buildings can be sold back to and used by the local electricity grid.

Vertical Gardens- Going Green at New Heights!

Vertical garden located next to the Caixa Forum in Madrid, by Laurago. Creative Commons Image.

Vertical gardens are an iconic image of the solarpunk world. And they also exist in real life! As urban areas grow more dense, there is an increasing need for sustainable, eco-friendly architecture that lowers CO2 emissions and integrates spaces for growing fresh produce. Thus vertical gardens have gained attention for their potential to transform urban environments. These are structures that incorporate vegetation into the facades of buildings (the exterior face or front of a structure).

In addition to looking cool, these green towers offer tangible benefits to both city residents and the environment.

The advantages of vertical gardens include:

Energy Efficiency: Vertical gardens help with insulation and can cut down on energy use in a big way. One study showed that green facades can reduce heating and cooling needs by up to 30%. Plants act like natural shade and help regulate temperature, so buildings don’t have to rely as much on AC or heating systems.

Improved Wellbeing: Living near greenery just makes people feel better—it’s been shown to reduce stress and boost overall happiness. In fact, folks who live close to vertical gardens report a 15% jump in well-being. Plus, these green walls help quiet things down in noisy cities by cutting noise levels by 5 to 10 decibels. So they’re good for your mood and your ears.

Environmental Benefits: Vertical gardens are like natural air filters—they soak up pollution and CO2 and give us back fresh oxygen. They also help cool things down; studies show green spaces can drop local temps by up to 2°C, which is a big deal for fighting the urban heat island effect. And as if that wasn’t enough, vertical gardens also help manage rainwater by soaking it up, which means less runoff and less strain on storm drains.

However, despite their many benefits, there are some challenges.

Maintenance Costs for these vertical spaces can be higher than traditional gardens.

Not Always Compatible With Older Structures: It may also be hard to apply these vertical gardens to older buildings, requiring the construction of new buildings—which goes against the solarpunk ethos of reusing and recycling what already exists.

Climate: Not all climates are suitable for vertical gardens. In climates with extreme heat or cold, the costs of maintaining these gardens would become very high.

Green Gentrification? When sustainable innovations are super expensive and only accessible to the wealthy, it leaves lower-income communities out of the picture. This is often called exclusionary sustainability—or “green gentrification.” Indeed we’re seeing some green gentrification now with vertical gardens. Because of their high cost, and the fact that they work better on newer buildings, they are difficult to access for low-income folk.

Vertical Farming in Low Income Communities:

Above I mentioned the problem of green gentrification. However, there has been discussion about using vertical farming to help low income communities. Indeed, in places like Milwaukee and New York City, vertical gardens are being planted in low-income communities in order to combat the problem of food deserts, address food insecurity, create job opportunities, and fund sustainable agriculture.

Currently there is a cost barrier because the upfront cost to implement these gardens are high. In the low-income communities, they often need grants or other forms of financial aid to make these projects happen, which doesn’t quite fit into the sustainable or DIY solarpunk world.

However, there is hope that as the technology to create these gardens gets better, the costs will decrease, and access will hopefully increase.

Vertical Farming in Low-Income Communities (Green.org)

Famous Vertical Gardens:

Vertical forest high-rise buildings in Milan. “Bosco Verticale.” Creative Commons Image.

Bosco Verticale, Milan, Italy: One of the famous vertical garden projects out there is the Bosco Verticale—or “Vertical Forest”—in Milan. Finished in 2014, these two residential towers are packed with around 900 trees, 5,000 shrubs, and 11,000 plants across 20,000 square meters. Designed by architect Stefano Boeri, the towers have brought birds and other wildlife into the city, boosting local biodiversity. They also do some serious environmental work—soaking up about 30 tons of CO2 each year and producing 19 tons of oxygen. Fun fact: the apartments are also super pricey and often owned by celebrities and soccer stars, thanks to their prime location and the cost of maintaining all that greenery. While the environmental benefits are great, the lack of affordability and access doesn’t quite fit into solarpunk values.

One Central Park, Sydney, Australia: One Central Park in Sydney was constructed in 2014. This residential building features a lush green design by world-famous botanist Patrick Blanc. It’s got over 35,000 plants covering half the building’s exterior. Thanks to all that greenery, the building uses about 25% less energy and stays noticeably cooler during those hot summers down under.

Nanjing Green Towers, China: The Nanjing Green Towers in China were designed by Stefano Boeri Architetti (yup, the same guy behind Milan’s Vertical Forest). These towers are home to over 1,100 trees and 2,500 cascading shrubs. Together, they soak up around 25 tons of CO2 every year and pump out about 60 kg of oxygen a day. That’s a solid boost for cleaner city air and local biodiversity.

Oasia Hotel Downtown, Singapore: Singapore’s Oasia Hotel Downtown is unique. The 27-story facade is wrapped in over 21 different plant species, creating a biodiversity rich green space that supports birds, bugs, and all kinds of urban wildlife. The greenery helps keep the building cool and cuts down on energy use. It’s an example of why Singapore is called a “City in a Garden.”

Vertical Gardens: On to New Heights (Solarpunk Cities)

Solar Islands – Floating on Sunshine

Floating solar panels in Walden, CO. Free public domain image from the U.S. Government.

Solar islands are essentially floating solar farms. Instead of taking up land, they’re installed on lakes, reservoirs, ponds, or even oceans They can consist of:

  • Floating structures (plastic pontoons or other buoyant materials)
  • Photovoltaic panels mounted on top
  • Anchoring and mooring systems to keep them in place
  • Underwater cables to transmit power to the grid or nearby facilities

Why Build Solar Islands?

  • Efficient use of space. They are a potential solution for densely populated areas with little available land. They free up land for agriculture, housing, or nature.
  • Improved Solar Panel Efficiency. The cooling effect of water can boost panel performance by preventing overheating.
  • Reduces Water Evaporation. They are particularly useful on reservoirs in hot climates—the solar panels can help conserve water by shading it.
  • Less Ecosystem Disruption. Compared to land-based solar farms, they often require less environmental disruption.

However, there are currently some limitations. Floating solar farms need to be installed in areas with weaker tides and better weather, confining their roll out to certain areas.

Where Are They Being Used?

Netherlands – Proteus – Sun-Tracking Floating Solar Island. Designed by SolarisFloat, Proteus is a circular floating solar island that tracks the sun to maximize energy absorption. “It chases the sun like a flower,” says Solaris Float. This innovative design enhances efficiency and represents a world-first in floating solar technology. (Source)

Singapore – Sembcorp Tengeh Floating Solar Farm. Spanning 45 hectares with over 122,000 solar panels, this facility is one of the world’s largest inland floating solar systems. It generates enough electricity to power about 12,500 households annually. (Source)

Japan – Yamakura Dam Floating Solar Plant. Kyocera TCL Solar developed this floating solar power plant on the Yamakura Dam reservoir in Chiba Prefecture. It is capable of powering around 5,000 households (Source).

India – Seven Solar Power Plants to Note. I’m going to share an article that will discuss seven large floating solar power plants to note in India. Read more here.

Related Stories From Tomorrow Content:

If you enjoyed this article, feel free to check out the following below.

World Building Guide for Writing Solarpunk

A guide to those interested in writing or learning more about solarpunk.

Solarpunk Ireland, Druids, Celts – Art and Worldbuilding Ideas

This is a collection of digital art and ideas that captures the vision of a solarpunk Ireland, along with images of a futuristic world inspired by the ancient Celts.

Solarpunk Spain & Al-Andalus – Art and Worldbuilding Ideas

This is a collection of digital art and ideas that capture the vision of a solarpunk Spain, along with images of a futuristic Al-Andalus from an alternative timeline in which the Moors were never thrown out.

“The Spider and the Stars” – A Review of a Short Story About Insect Farming

A new, controversial idea for saving the climate has been getting press lately: Insect farming. Check out the article above to read more.

World Building Guide for Writing Solarpunk

jbjwrites4 Comments

Happy Earth Month!

In honor of Earth Month, I wanted to put together a guide for the literary genre our world needs right now. Solarpunk!

Right now we’re living in an era where it’s hard not to feel gloomy. The term “doom scrolling” is popular for a reason.

But what if instead of using our mental energy to doom scroll, we used our imaginations to conceive of a better future, where nature, technology, utopia, and human compassion came together to build a better world, a brighter world full of hope and optimism.

Enter Solarpunk. Solarpunk is a literary and artistic movement that envisions a sustainable future interconnected with nature and community. Contrary to the tech and capitalist heavy themes of Cyberpunk, Solarpunk imagines a world where we’ve evolved beyond hyper consumerism, and we have learned to live with nature in harmony. For this reason, Solarpunk is not just a fun read, but it’s often a call to action in our world to build a better future.

The term “Solarpunk” was coined in 2008 in a blog post titled “From Steampunk to Solarpunk.” The term combines the words “solar” and “punk”: “Solar” represents a world more reliant on solar energy, but the connotation of the word can also evoke a bright and sunny world full of vibrant colors and optimism. The word “punk” alludes to a grouping with other fiction subgenres, such as cyberpunk, dieselpunk, and steampunk; it also refers to a DIY (Do it yourself) counter culture.

(The above image is creative commons licensed and can be found here)

Impactful Quotes About Solarpunk:

“Dystopian stories surely have a place, as a warning, but sometimes I feel like I’ve been warned enough. I want to know what to do in the face of despair, to not only avoid being crushed, but to reach for brighter skies. In times like those, I look for books that are part of an expanding genre — and a growing social movement — a counternarrative that has infused my days with hope. More and more lately, I find myself reading solarpunk.”

Quote Source: How solarpunk helped alleviate my existential dread

A new movement in SF that examines the possibility of a future in which currently emerging movements in society such as green movement, Black Lives Matter movement, and certain aspects of Occupy Wall Street coalesce to create more optimistic future in a more just world.

Quote Source: Cultural Elements in World-Building of Solarpunk Short Stories

Solarpunk with Capitalism is just greenwashed cyberpunk.

Quote Source: Reddit Post

Solarpunk Ethos:

The ethos of Solarpunk represents a world that has evolved beyond material capitalism.

It is a world in which knowledge sharing and resource sharing are encouraged. Technology has an open-source model.

The focus of this genre is often on local communities rather than globalism. Businesses often have a worker-owned model.

Popular Themes:

The following themes are popular in the world of Solarpunk.

  • Environmentalism
  • Renewable energy and sustainable tech.
  • DIY (Do It Yourself), ingenuity, localized resilience
  • Social justice
  • Feminism
  • Optimism
  • Historically marginalized communities, such as BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ folk are highlighted. Non-Western cultures are also highlighted
  • Animal rights
  • Localism over globalism, decentralization
  • Long term designs over built in obsolescence
  • Eco-anarchism and eco-socialism
  • Post capitalist, post scarcity societies, universal basic income, anticapitalism, anti-greenwashing
  • Antiwar

Artistic Inspiration:

  • The artistic genre of Solarpunk often uses the Art Nouveau style. Art Nouveau, which means “new art” in French, is an international ornamental art style that flourished from about 1890 to 1910, characterized by flowing, organic lines, floral and plant-inspired motifs, and a focus on integrating art into everyday life. “In particular, Art Nouveau became an aesthetic touchstone for solarpunk…not only because of its penchant for earthy, organic forms, but also because it’s both ornate and approachable, according to Rosie Albrecht, editor of solarpunk zine Optopia (source)”
  • The Solarpunk aesthetic also makes heavy use of bright colors and is often inspired by Studio Ghibli movies, particularly Castle in the Sky and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.
  • 1800s age-of-sail/frontier living (but with more bicycles)
  • Jugaad is a concept of non-conventional, frugal innovation in the Indian subcontinent. It includes innovative fixes or simple workarounds, solutions that bend the rules, or resources that can be used in such a way. It is considered creative to make existing things work and create new things with meager resources.
  • Stained glass windows used as solar panels.

Solarpunk Fashion

  • Sustainable
  • Thrift clothes
  • Recycled uniforms and armor
  • A love of nature shines through (flowers, animals, plants)
  • Practical
  • Includes diversity of cultures

Ideas for Tech:

When thinking about how tech functions in a solarpunk world, it’s not merely enough to slap some solarpanels on a roof and call it a day. Technology does not exist in a vacuum. We must also consider how it’s used and extracted by the culture of the society it exists within. For instance, under an imperialist-fascist state, solar panels do nothing to change the exploitative relationship between humans and the planet. Plundering the natural world and using abused workers to create electric batteries or solarpanels is not solarpunk.

So technological solutions within a solarpunk literary world must be integrated into ideas of humane relations with our fellow human beings and the planet. Solarpunk also isn’t always high or low tech. It depends upon the context and the culture it exists amongst. Much like our current world, the applications of the technology could be extremely diverse.

Solarpunk isn’t “anti-tech”, but it doesn’t romanticize technology either.

Two criteria for uses of solarpunk tech are the following: Is it equitable Is it sustainable?

Examples of solarpunk tech:

Below I’m going to generate a collection of ideas you can expand upon in your own stories. I’m not claiming the list is perfect. I’m sure there are ways that some of the items here could potentially be used in an exploitative way if it gets in the wrong hands, but such is human nature. Humans are gonna human. If anything, that could be a great source of tension in your story.

⚡️Energy Tech

  • Transparent Solar Panels – integrated into windows or even wearable fabrics.
  • Personal Wind Turbines – compact vertical-axis turbines for urban rooftops or balconies.
  • Algae Bio-reactors – used on buildings to generate energy and purify air.
  • Piezoelectric Flooring – captures energy from footsteps in public spaces.
  • Smart Energy Grids – decentralized and powered by community-run solar or wind co-ops.
  • Kinetic Batteries – store energy generated from human motion (e.g., walking, cycling, or dancing) for personal or community use.
  • Hydro Projects – small-scale, ecologically sensitive water turbines and current harvesters used in rivers, streams, or coastal flows to produce clean energy.
  • Wind Farms – large-scale turbine networks strategically placed on land or offshore, managed by local cooperatives or bioregional councils.
  • Solar Arrays – fields or rooftops lined with solar panels, often community-owned, that feed into local grids or energy commons.
  • Biogas Fuel Systems – anaerobic digesters convert organic waste (like food scraps or manure) into methane-rich biogas, which can be used for cooking, heating, electricity, or as vehicle fuel—closing waste loops and providing clean energy in both rural and urban settings.

🌬️ Low-Tech Renaissance

A redditor brought up a great point that my guide leaned toward the high-tech side of the genre, but that solarpunk can also be a return to low-tech. A return to low-tech doesn’t mean regression; it means refinement. Solarpunk societies embrace tools and techniques that are sustainable, repairable, and human-scaled. These technologies are rooted in harmony with the earth and designed for long-term care rather than short-term gain.

  • Sail & Ship Networks – Instead of high-emission air travel, long-distance journeys could rely on ships that sail across the ocean.
  • Windmills & Waterwheels – Time-honored energy sources could make a comeback, quietly powering villages, artisan workshops, and micro-grids. Designed with elegance and ecological sensitivity, they are living symbols of regeneration and place-based resilience.
  • Village Tailors & Community Cobblers – Clothing and shoes may no longer be mass-produced but crafted with skill and care by local artisans using natural fibers and recycled materials. Fashion becomes personal, circular, and expressive of shared values.
  • Open-Air Workshops – Community workspaces powered by pedal, solar, or hand tools offer locals the means to build, mend, and make with intention. From bicycles to furniture, goods are created to last—and meant to be passed down, not thrown away.
  • Slow Roads – Pathways made for carts, bicycles, walking, and animal companions invite slower travel and deeper connection. These routes are dotted with rest stations, food gardens, and communal gathering spaces.
  • Craft Guilds & Apprenticeships – Knowledge transmission happens face to face, generation to generation. Skills like blacksmithing, herbalism, fermentation, and textile arts are cherished as both livelihood and culture.
  • Off-Grid Sanctuaries – Healing retreats and study centers located deep in forest clearings, deserts, or mountain valleys rely on low-tech tools, local foods, and deep ecology to support recovery from burnout, grief, and disconnection.

🚜 Agriculture & Food

(This art is from The Lemonaut, who has made their art piece ‘A Solarpunk Tower‘ available for public use.)

  • Vertical Forest Towers – skyscrapers covered in trees and gardens for food production and air purification.
  • Smart Permaculture Systems – using sensors and AI to manage polycultures and water flow.
  • Hydroponic & Aeroponic Wall Gardens – growing food in apartments, on balconies, or on public buildings.
  • Mushroom-Based Packaging & Materials – biodegradable and grown locally.
  • Community Food Printers – 3D-printing meals from organic, local paste materials.
  • Biotech Gardens – genetically tailored plants grown for specific nutrients, climates, or medicinal properties, often co-designed with local healers or AI.
  • Clean Water Silos – vertical reservoirs that collect, filter, and store rainwater for irrigation and drinking, often integrated into garden infrastructure.
  • Ecogrid Interfaces – digital dashboards that allow communities to monitor soil health, water usage, crop readiness, and pollination data in real time.
  • Purification Plants – decentralized, eco-engineered water purification facilities that use layers of sand, charcoal, aquatic plants, and engineered microbes to clean greywater and storm runoff for reuse in agriculture and homes.
  • Harvester Titans – towering, solar-powered automata that tend and harvest large-scale vertical farms and biodiverse fields with delicate precision.
  • Pollination Drones – gentle, bee-sized drones that assist in crop pollination in balance with natural pollinators, guided by AI to avoid ecosystem disruption.
  • Cannabis and Hemp Systems – widespread cultivation of hemp and cannabis for sustainable textiles, biodegradable plastics, building materials (like hempcrete), oils, medicine, and soil regeneration—integrated into closed-loop agricultural and industrial systems.
  • Shift to Plant-Based Diets – many solarpunk communities could emphasize vegetarian or vegan lifestyles to reduce land use, emissions, and animal suffering, while celebrating culinary creativity and plant diversity.
  • Insect Farming – small-scale, ethical insect farms could provide high-protein, low-impact nutrition and compostable byproducts, used in community kitchens or food printers with minimal environmental footprint. (For more on solarpunk about insect farming, check out this story here).

🚲 Transportation

  • Solar-Electric Bikes – charge themselves while parked in the sun.
  • Hyperloop-like Community Transit – ultra-efficient intercity tubes powered by renewables.
  • Maglev Cargo Drones – clean, quiet deliveries between green rooftops or decentralized hubs.
  • Glider Roosts – launch and landing platforms for solar-gliders and personal winged transport, often built into cliffs, towers, or floating pads above green cities.
  • Shared Mobility Pods – electric, autonomous, and summoned via a community-run app.
  • Mass Transit – high-capacity, clean-energy transportation systems (like electric trams, solar subways, and suspended railways) that connect neighborhoods, eco-villages, and bioregional hubs with seamless accessibility and zero emissions. Mass transit is more ecofriendly than individual transit because more people are using the same vehicle, reducing waste.
  • Mobile Homes and Nomadic Lifestyle – compact, solar-powered dwellings on wheels or tracks that allow people to live nomadically while minimizing ecological impact; often shared among communities, artist collectives, or seasonal workers and parked in rotating eco-zones with resource-sharing hubs. A nomadic farmer lifestyle (if carbon free) could be more ecofriendly, as farmers aren’t using the same land over and over, and giving it a chance to replenish itself.

🎓 Information & Education

(More artwork from The Lemonaut. This piece is “A prosthesis maintenance day at the hackerspace“)

  • Community Mesh Networks – free, decentralized internet not reliant on big corporations.
  • Augmented Reality for Nature Education – overlaying info on plants/animals/eco-systems in real time.
  • Digital Seed Libraries – sharing open-source genetic data and growing guides.
  • Localized Learning Pods – tech-enabled home or neighborhood schools with flexible, community-based curricula.

🏛️Architecture & Infrastructure

  • Green Cities – urban areas designed around nature rather than over it, featuring dense canopy cover, integrated food forests, rooftop gardens, car-free zones, and buildings that act as part of the local ecosystem.
  • Green Avenues – wide, plant-lined boulevards that prioritize pedestrians, cyclists, and wildlife over vehicles, with integrated water channels, edible landscapes, shaded walkways, and solar lighting.
  • Vertical Gardens – living walls and stacked growing systems that provide food, purify air, and insulate buildings, often integrated into homes, schools, and public spaces.
  • Living Buildings – structures made from bioengineered materials that self-heal, grow, and clean the air.
  • Solar Paint – coats walls/roofs with light-absorbing nanomaterials.
  • Water-Harvesting Facades – designed to collect and purify rain or fog water.
  • Bioluminescent Pathways – glowing moss or engineered plants that light walkways at night without electricity.
  • Guerrilla Gardening – grassroots planting efforts in abandoned lots, roadside medians, or neglected corners of the city—transforming forgotten spaces into thriving gardens and biodiversity pockets, often without official permission.

🏘️ Eco-Architecture & Local Tech

  • Earthships – off-grid homes made from natural and recycled materials, with built-in water harvesting, passive heating/cooling, food growing, and waste systems.
  • Localized Material Tech – using regional materials (e.g., adobe, bamboo, volcanic rock, clay, algae) for construction, tech housing, and tools—optimized by AI to ensure durability and ecological harmony.
  • Modular Green Micro-Hubs – plug-and-play, solar-powered pods used for mobile clinics, education, or maker spaces, built from local biocomposites.

🌳 Integration with Nature and Forests

In solarpunk societies, nature is not something to be tamed or walled off—it is home, teacher, and ally. Landscapes are cultivated with reverence, cities and ecosystems coexist, and human responsibility is rooted in reciprocity and regeneration.

  • Land Conservation – expansive zones of protected wilderness co-managed by local communities, scientists, and indigenous caretakers, often monitored with eco-drones and supported by regenerative land use practices.
  • Integrated Forests – forests designed in collaboration with local ecosystems to blend food production, wildlife corridors, spiritual spaces, and climate resilience into the heart of every city, village, or biome.
  • Ranger Stations – solar-powered, earth-integrated outposts where ecological stewards live and work, tending forest health, assisting with wildlife care, and offering eco-literacy education to travelers and residents.
  • Food Forests – layered, self-sustaining ecosystems of edible plants, fruit trees, herbs, and fungi that mimic natural forest systems while providing abundant nourishment for humans and wildlife alike.
  • Coppicing and Pollarding – traditional woodland management techniques revived for sustainable timber, fuel, and craft material harvesting—encouraging long-term tree health and biodiversity while maintaining human-nature reciprocity.

♻️Waste & Circular Economy

A focus on extending the life span of tech, or utilizing waste, will be key in a solarpunk society, rather than the planned obsolescence we have in our current consumer society.

  • Smart Composting Toilets – odorless, clean, and turns waste into garden fuel.
  • AI-Driven Material Recyclers – neighborhood hubs that auto-sort and repurpose everything.
  • Upcycling Fabricators – small home devices that remake broken objects into new tools.
  • Blockchain for Zero-Waste Supply Chains – transparent tracking of materials from source to product to reuse.
  • Repair Garages – community-run workshops where people fix appliances, clothing, furniture, and tech together, sharing tools, knowledge, and skills to extend the life of every object.
  • Nuclear Reclamation Zones – long-term environmental healing projects that use biotech, fungi, and solar-powered robotics to detoxify and restore areas damaged by nuclear waste or meltdown sites, turning them into future sanctuaries or research gardens.
  • Ocean Plastic Harvesters – elegant marine drones and floating fungi rafts that collect microplastics and waste from the ocean, breaking them down into usable materials or feeding them into offshore bio-processing stations for reuse in construction, textiles, and tools.
  • Upcycled Tech Nodes – tech made from e-waste and scrap, locally repaired or refabricated using open-source designs and local knowledge.
  • Solar Forges – community workshops using intense solar reflectors to melt and reshape metals or glass without fossil fuels.
  • Biodegradable Tech Shells – devices (like phones or tools) made with organic exteriors that decompose safely once obsolete.
  • Repurposed Ruins – abandoned buildings, infrastructure, and industrial sites creatively transformed into gardens, homes, maker spaces, or cultural centers—honoring the past while reclaiming space for regenerative community use.

🤖 Tech & Robotics

In a solarpunk world, technology is decentralized, open-source, and designed for harmony with nature—not profit. Robotics and digital tools serve communities, not corporations, and often integrate with biology, local materials, and ecological systems.

  • Tech Markets – open-air or digital marketplaces where inventors, tinkerers, and communities exchange custom tools, code, micro-devices, and repair parts; often local, open-source, and governed by mutual aid.
  • Bot/Machine Shops – cooperative workshops where communities design, build, and maintain helpful robots and devices for farming, energy, caregiving, and exploration. Often part of neighborhood maker hubs or education centers.
  • AI Companions – emotionally intelligent digital beings trained to support mental health, creativity, memory-keeping, and spiritual reflection. Designed with ethical boundaries and community oversight.
  • Mycelium-Based Processors – living fungal circuits that process data slowly but sustainably, used for long-term ecological modeling, local computing, and communication with environmental systems.
  • Caregiving Robots – gentle, adaptive machines designed to assist the elderly, children, or those with disabilities in daily life, programmed with kindness, cultural sensitivity, and open-source ethics.
  • Nature Monitoring Drones – small, quiet aerial or aquatic drones that help track soil health, forest regrowth, air quality, and pollinator movement—designed to observe, not disrupt.
  • Trash Sorter Bots – helpful home or community-level bots that automatically sort waste for compost, reuse, recycling, or repair, integrated with circular economy platforms.
  • Collaborative Exosuits – lightweight robotic exoskeletons used for farming, building, or caregiving—shared through community tool libraries for people who need a little extra strength or mobility.

🦠Symbiotic & Regenerative Organisms

  • Engineered Plant-Partners – crops adapted to local conditions that also fix nitrogen, purify air, or glow softly at night.
  • Living Walls & Roofs – genetically enhanced mosses, lichens, and vines that clean pollutants, capture water, and self-regulate temperature.
  • Bioluminescent Organisms – light-producing algae or trees replacing street lamps and interior lighting in public areas.
  • Bio-Integrated Wearables – skin-safe sensors grown from bacteria or fungi, used for health tracking or plant-human communication.
  • Mycelium Neural Nets – fungal-based computing systems that process information like a natural brain and interface with environmental sensors.
  • Biocircuitry – genetic “wiring” for low-energy devices, potentially replacing silicon-based tech with self-growing organic materials.

⛏️Ethical Resource Extraction

In a solarpunk society, even the most industrial processes are reimagined to honor the Earth. Resource extraction is rare, deliberate, and done with maximum respect for ecosystems, often guided by indigenous wisdom, systems thinking, and community oversight. Extraction methods are low-impact, decentralized, and deeply integrated with land healing practices.

  • Agromining – the use of hyperaccumulator plants to draw metals like nickel or zinc from the soil; once harvested, metals are extracted from plant matter, creating a closed-loop alternative to traditional mining. Agromining can also be used to remove heavy metals and toxins from polluted ground, healing the land as it produces usable resources. Though less common today due to higher costs, solarpunk communities invest in it for its ecological benefits.
  • Biological Prospecting – using fungal networks, soil bacteria, and deep-rooted plants to detect mineral concentrations underground without destructive drilling.
  • Geothermal Access Wells – small-scale, carefully drilled wells that tap geothermal energy or access deep-earth minerals using low-impact, community-approved tech.
  • Robotic Micro-Miners – autonomous, solar-powered bots that extract minerals from abandoned waste piles, tailings, or post-industrial ruins rather than virgin ecosystems.
  • Salvage Rights Collectives – community-led groups that reclaim and process materials from old tech, ruins, or infrastructure—essentially mining the past instead of the planet.
  • Crystal Harvest Sanctuaries – ceremonial zones where rare minerals (like quartz or lithium) are harvested by hand in slow, respectful ways—often paired with offerings, story-sharing, or rituals to maintain balance with the Earth.

☁️ Sky Tech

  • Solar Blimps & Dirigibles – slow, serene airships for travel and cargo, powered by solar panels and algae biofuel; low-impact and panoramic.
  • Wind-Surfing Drones – lightweight transport or delivery drones that glide on natural wind currents, needing minimal propulsion.
  • Sky Gardens – floating platforms or tethered aeroponic systems that grow food and purify air high above dense cities.

🌍 Climate Control

This section may be controversial, because humans “controlling” the climate goes against the ethos of humans living in harmony with nature. However, this could also be a source of tension in the story, such as in the story ‘Weather Duty,’ by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.

  • Moisture Balloons – large, solar-inflated aerial devices that collect humidity from the atmosphere and release it as gentle rain over arid or drought-stricken areas.
  • Climate Satellites – orbital systems that monitor weather patterns, carbon levels, and ecological shifts in real time, guiding adaptive land use and early warning systems for natural disasters.
  • Habitation Domes – sealed or semi-sealed environments that maintain ideal living conditions in extreme climates (desert, tundra, post-industrial zones), incorporating regenerative agriculture, water cycling, and passive energy systems.
  • Cloud Seeding Drones – eco-safe drones that deploy mineral-based compounds to encourage rainfall in areas affected by prolonged drought, coordinated with local weather councils.
  • Forest Fire Prevention Nets – sensor-equipped mesh systems strung through high-risk areas to detect early signs of heat, smoke, and dryness, releasing moisture or alerting ground teams.
  • AI-Guided Climate Modeling – advanced simulations that blend indigenous knowledge with real-time environmental data, helping communities adapt agriculture, construction, and migration to shifting climates.
  • Thermal Buffer Zones – areas designed with plant layers, wind tunnels, and reflective surfaces to cool urban heat islands and stabilize microclimates.

🌐 AI & Adaptive Systems

This is another section that may be controversial. Today many people in humanist spaces are against AI because of the exploitative way it is being created and used. However, keep in mind that this is the use of AI within the framework of our exploitative, capitalist society. In a more humanist, egalitarian society, AI would be utilized differently.

  • AI Ecosystem Managers – constantly monitor soil health, water use, and plant life; advise communities on how to optimize their local ecosystem.
  • AI-Designed Buildings – use natural principles (biomimicry) and local materials, designing structures adapted to microclimates and community needs.
  • Companion AIs – spiritual/creative collaborators rather than productivity tools—helping people write poetry, tend gardens, or maintain emotional well-being.
  • Community Memory Archives – AI-curated oral histories, recipes, indigenous knowledge, and collective dreams, accessible in every neighborhood.

🧬 Medicinal & Healing Tech

  • Gene-Sharing Seed Banks – containing both heritage crops and newly bred species resistant to climate extremes and rich in nutrients.
  • Personalized Herbal Bio-Synthesizers – small, AI-assisted devices that grow, extract, and combine medicinal compounds on demand.
  • Adaptive Immuno-Gardens – plants engineered to detect airborne viruses and release natural immune boosters into the air.

🤝 Governance & Community Tech

  • Solar Credits & Energy Sharing Apps – neighbors can trade extra solar power peer-to-peer.
  • Consensus Decision-Making Platforms – decentralized apps that help communities vote and prioritize projects.
  • Time Banking Apps – track hours of community service as currency.
  • Augmented Co-Design Tools – AR/VR platforms that let citizens collaboratively design parks, buildings, etc.
  • A reddit user pointed out that rather than having a tech heavy solution, people in a solarpunk setting could even go back to a much more participatory democracy, as was practiced in Athens. See a YouTube video about it here.

⚖️Ethical Frameworks

  • Cooperative Genetic Commons – open-source genetic blueprints maintained by communities rather than corporations, respecting indigenous and ecological wisdom.
  • Consent-Based Biodesign – ecosystems and species are “consulted” (through observation, AI translation, or ritual) before engineering is done, emphasizing harmony over domination.
  • Biotech Literacy Education – every citizen understands the basics of bioethics, systems biology, and ecological interdependence.

For another list, check out the comprehensive picture Reddit user “OtherAtlas” put together. You can see their original post here.

Sources of Tension Within a Solarpunk Setting?

This video here by the Cleric Corner examines great questions about how to create compelling stories and world building within the Solarpunk setting.

  • Combating ecological threats
  • Competing views on how to get to utopia
  • Competing world views (i.e. a solarpunk society versus a cyberpunk society)
  • Contrasting ways of life
  • Two different solarpunk communities with competing views
  • Threats of greenwashing (pretending to be ecofriendly for publicity while engaging in destructive ecological practices

Alternative Social Structures to Modern Capitalism?

Solarpunk worldbuilding is an amazing place to explore reimagined social structures—especially ones rooted in equity, care, cooperation, and ecological consciousness. Below is a list of social structures that could govern (or gently guide) a solarpunk society, branching off from anti-capitalist, anti-patriarchal, and post-work themes. This could be useful food for thought in your stories or RPGs.

🌿 Post-Capitalist Economies

(This piece is Solarpunk Community Center by The Lemonaut)

  • Gift Economies – goods and services are shared freely within the community, based on need and mutual care.
  • Time Banking – time is currency; people earn hours by helping others and trade those hours for services (e.g. teaching, healing, repairing).
  • Resource Cooperatives – decentralized, worker-owned orgs manage energy, food, housing, and tech infrastructure.
  • Solar Credits & Energy Commons – people trade solar power or other renewable energy units in a localized, non-profit grid.

🚩Eco-Anarchist & Eco-Socialist Structures

  • Autonomous Bioregions – communities are organized by ecological regions (watersheds, forests, coastlines) instead of national borders.
  • Anarchist Syndicates – non-hierarchical collectives that handle specialized functions like healthcare, education, and resource distribution.
  • Eco-Councils – rotating representatives chosen by consensus to manage common resources, guided by ecological science and local knowledge.

🏘️ Localism & Systems Thinking

  • Resilient City-States – urban hubs surrounded by regenerative agriculture zones; decisions made at the local level with inter-city cooperation through federations.
  • Holonic Governance – nested systems of decision-making (e.g., family pod → neighborhood circle → city assembly → regional council), where each level handles only what it must.
  • Community Circles – regular gatherings where people of all ages deliberate local issues, share meals, and reconnect.

♻️ Reuse Economy

(This piece is a solarpunk tailor workshop by The Lemonaut)

In a solarpunk society, reuse isn’t just a personal habit—it’s a cultural and economic cornerstone. By building systems that prioritize second lives for objects, communities reduce waste, foster creativity, and deepen respect for the natural world.

  • Circular Education Initiatives – community programs that teach skills in repair, composting, material science, and conscious consumption, often tied to local schools or makerspaces.
  • Reuse Marketplaces – local platforms or town-square-style events where people trade surplus tools, parts, furniture, or salvaged materials, fostering a vibrant sharing culture.
  • Thrift Stores – secondhand shops embedded in community ecosystems, focused not just on resale but on upcycling, repair, and storytelling behind reused goods.

♀️ Anti-Patriarchy & Feminist Structures

  • Matriarchal or Matrilineal Societies – wisdom, inheritance, and leadership pass through maternal lines; power lies in care, relationship-building, and communal memory.
  • Queer Communal Families – chosen families and multi-parent households are common; care and parenting roles are distributed.
  • Feminist Tech Stewardship – technology is evaluated not by profit or scale, but by its capacity to nourish, liberate, and reduce harm—especially for women and marginalized people.

🌀 Spiritual & Indigenous-Inspired Model

  • Council of All Beings – decisions are made in ceremony that invites members to speak as animals, plants, rivers, ancestors—honoring the rights and voices of all life forms.
  • Dream Governance – dreams, intuition, and spiritual insight play a formal role in guiding decisions, often through dreamers, poets, or seers.
  • Elder Circles – wisdom keepers, often elders or tradition-bearers, hold space for long-term thinking, remembering histories, and resolving disputes with ancestral and ecological awareness.

🌻 Post-Work & Liberated Labor

  • End of Wage Labor – automation, AI, and biotech reduce the need for grueling labor, allowing people to choose meaningful roles instead of jobs.
  • Care Networks – caregiving (for people, animals, and land) is honored as sacred work; often rotated communally with full societal support.
  • Ritual-Based Rhythms – daily life is shaped by natural and seasonal rhythms rather than a clock; work is occasional, purposeful, and often celebratory. People celebrate the seasons, along with the lunar and solar cycles.

Alternatives to Policing & Prisons in a Solarpunk Society

🕊️ Transformative Justice

  • Community Accountability Circles – when harm occurs, the person who caused harm, the person harmed, and trusted community members meet in facilitated circles to process the event, name the harm, and co-create a plan for repair.
  • Restoration Hubs – peaceful, garden-like spaces where people come to reflect, learn, and heal after causing or experiencing harm. These are staffed by trained mediators, counselors, elders, and spiritual guides.
  • Conflict Weavers – respected community members who specialize in de-escalation, mediation, and long-term relationship repair; they’re trained in communication, psychology, and cultural traditions.

🛠️ Systems of Prevention & Repair

  • Harm Prevention Teams – nonviolent, trauma-informed groups trained in crisis intervention, mental health first aid, and de-escalation; called upon in emergencies instead of police.
  • Accountability Apprenticeships – individuals who’ve caused harm may be mentored by elders or former wrongdoers in regenerative roles (e.g., farming, healing, community service) to re-earn trust and learn care-based values.
  • Circle of Needs Assessments – when community tensions rise, councils use systems thinking to identify unmet needs behind behavior—like hunger, grief, or isolation—and build communal solutions.

🌱 Abolitionist Principles in Practice

  • No Prisons, Just Pathways – instead of incarceration, people who’ve done harm are invited into long-term, immersive programs focused on therapy, skill-building, ancestral reconnection, and spiritual healing.
  • Restorative Memory Gardens – places that honor and remember harm that has occurred (such as intergenerational trauma or ecological devastation) as part of collective healing and learning.
  • Public Truth-Telling Ceremonies – storytelling and ritual where people speak openly about harms they’ve caused and received, witnessed by community with compassion, not condemnation.

🧠 Rebuilding Social Safety Nets

  • Universal Care Networks – wraparound systems that support people before crises happen, including housing, mental health care, food sovereignty, and community mentoring.
  • Early Signal Monitoring – AI and local data cooperatives track rising stress factors (like hunger, isolation, air quality) and alert community responders before harm escalates.
  • Neighborhood Guardians – rather than enforcing rules, these gentle figures provide protection and support by building relationships, noticing tensions early, and facilitating trust between groups.

Recommended Viewing and Reading for Inspiration

Jessica’s Note on Recommendations Below: I’m not trying to compile a list of every Solarpunk anthology, novel, or movie below. That would take too long. Here is just a sample selection of a few to help give you a start with exploring the genre.

Related Stories From Tomorrow Content:

Five Real Life Examples of Solarpunk?

On this post, I wanted to share some potential real life examples of solarpunk to help get you inspired, and to show that these ideas are potentially possible in real life if we dare to dream big.

Solarpunk Ireland, Druids, Celts – Art and Worldbuilding Ideas

This is a collection of digital art and ideas that captures the vision of a solarpunk Ireland, along with images of a futuristic world inspired by the ancient Celts.

Solarpunk Spain & Al-Andalus – Art and Worldbuilding Ideas

This is a collection of digital art and ideas that capture the vision of a solarpunk Spain, along with images of a futuristic Al-Andalus from an alternative timeline in which the Moors were never thrown out.

Solarpunk/ Swamp Punk Fiction World Building Guide

An addition to this guide, focused on swamps.

“The Spider and the Stars” – A Review of a Short Story About Insect Farming

A new, controversial idea for saving the climate has been getting press lately: Insect farming. Check out the article above to read more.

Solarpunk Short Story Anthologies and Magazines:

Solarpunk: Ecological and Fantastical Stories in a Sustainable World

Brazilian editor Gerson Lodi-Ribeiro proposed, and the authors in this anthology took the challenge to envision hopeful futures and alternate histories. The stories in this anthology explore terrorism against green corporations, large space ships propelled by the pressure of solar radiation, the advent of photosynthetic humans, and how different society might be if we had switched to renewable energies much earlier in history.

Wings of Renewal: A Solarpunk Dragon Anthology

The future is vibrant, hopeful, and filled with dragons. Read more!

Sunvault: Stories of Solarpunk and Eco-Speculation

An anthology that broadly collects solarpunk short fiction, artwork, and poetry. Focuses on solutions to environmental disasters, sustainable energy used by societies that value inclusiveness, cooperation, and personal freedom.

Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Summers

 The seventeen stories in this volume grapple with real issues such as the future and ethics of our food sources, the connection or disconnection between technology and nature, and the interpersonal conflicts that arise no matter how peaceful the world is.

Solarpunk Magazine – Demand Utopia

A fiction magazine with a focus on promoting solarpunk stories and art!

Solarpunk Novels:

A Psalm for the Wild-Built: A Monk and Robot Book

“It’s been centuries since the robots of Panga gained self-awareness and laid down their tools; centuries since they wandered, en masse, into the wilderness, never to be seen again; centuries since they faded into myth and urban legend.” But then…

A Prayer for the Crown-Shy

A sequel to the book above.

Ecotopia

“Twenty years have passed since Northern California, Oregon, and Washington seceded from the United States to create a new nation, Ecotopia…”

Solarpunk Films:

Some people may debate whether some of these films truly are “Solarpunk” or not. But my purpose is simply to share some works that potentially have Solarpunk themes.

The Works of Hayao Miyazaki (Co-Founder of Studio Ghibli)

These films are recognized in hindsight as examples of early Solarpunk cinema.

Princess Mononoke (1997)

Treasure Planet (2002)

WALL-E (2008)

Tomorrow Land (2015)

The Avatar Films (2009 and 2022)

The Black Panther Films (2018 and 2022)

Solarpunk Music:

Solarpunk Music (naturewave)

Video/Computer Games:

Eco

Work together to advance society and stop a meteor, all without destroying the ecosystem in the process.

Half-Earth Socialism

Try your hand as a global planner of a future society. Play with a wide range of technologies and policies spanning different fields and ideologies. Will you lead the world to ecological utopia or planetary ruin?

Beecarbonize

Do you have what it takes to save the planet? Beecarbonize is an environmental card strategy game with climate change as your opponent.

Solarpunk on Steam

“Solarpunk is a survival game in a technically advanced world of floating islands. Alone or together with your friends, you can construct buildings, grow food, craft gadgets and hop on your airship to explore distant islands in the sky.”

Notes Towards a Solarpunk Game Design – Overview

Ideas for Solarpunk game designs.

RPGS:

Fully Automated!

Fully Automated is an open source tabletop roleplaying game set in a solarpunk future.

Dive into a wild, hard-science post-scarcity future and go on thrilling adventures across Los Angeles in the 2120s!​

Further Reading

Solarpunk Wikipedia

Solarpunk Reddit

Solarpunk Aesthetics

Solarpunk Is the Future We Should Strive For

Solarpunk: Designing a Sustainable World Worth Living In

What Is Solarpunk? A Guide to the Environmental Art Movement (Built In)

Related YouTube Videos:

How We Can Build A Solarpunk Future Right Now? (Our Changing Climate)

The Fantasy Genre that’s Powered by Green Energy | D&D (The Cleric Corner)

I hope this was both helpful and inspirational for you. If there is anything else you feel is important for me to include, please feel free to share in the comments below!

Solarpunk Ireland, Druids, Celts – Art and Worldbuilding Ideas

jbjwrites3 Comments

This is a collection of digital art that captures the vision of a solarpunk Ireland, along with images of a futuristic world inspired by the ancient Celts.

Back in May of this year, I visited Dublin, along with Western Ireland, where my ancestors are from, and took hundreds of photos of sweeping Irish landscapes, cobblestone houses in the countryside, churchs, ruins, castles, and Irish towns, such as Galway and Cork. In this collection of digital art, I used my photos of Ireland and enhanced them with Dream Studio, an AI art device. The collection below represents my experiment of enhancing pre-existing art with AI.

Solarpunk Ireland

Solarpunk is a literary and artistic movement that envisions and works toward actualizing a sustainable future interconnected with nature and community. The artistic genre uses the Art Nouveau style. The aesthetic also makes heavy use of bright colors and is often inspired by Studio Ghibli movies, particularly Castle in the Sky and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.

Worldbuilding a Solarpunk Ireland

In a solarpunk, futuristic Ireland, the landscape is a harmonious blend of advanced technology and natural beauty, showcasing a society that has embraced renewable energy and sustainable practices. Solar panels are seamlessly integrated into the rooftops of homes and public buildings, capturing the sun’s energy even on overcast days. Wind turbines, gracefully turning along the windy coastline, provide a substantial portion of the country’s electricity, while wave and tidal energy converters harness the power of the Atlantic Ocean. Urban areas are designed with green roofs and vertical gardens, transforming cities into lush, living ecosystems that produce food and filter the air.

Agriculture in Ireland thrives on principles of permaculture and regenerative farming. Fertile fields and pastures, nurtured by Ireland’s abundant cattle, sheep, and crop rotation, yield abundant harvests without depleting the soil. Traditional farms coexist with high-tech vertical farms and aquaponic systems, ensuring a steady supply of fresh, organic produce year-round. Coastal communities sustainably harvest fish and seaweed, maintaining the delicate balance of marine ecosystems. Forests are carefully managed to provide timber and other resources, with reforestation efforts ensuring that forest cover is continually expanding, supporting biodiversity and sequestering carbon.

Alternative Celtic History

In an alternative history where the Celtic people were never conquered, their society evolves with a profound connection to nature, deeply rooted in Druidic customs and Celtic lore. This solarpunk future reflects a harmonious blend of ancient wisdom and advanced technology. The Celts, with their reverence for the natural world, develop sophisticated sustainable practices, seamlessly integrating renewable energy and eco-friendly living into their everyday lives.

The landscape of this Celtic society is dotted with roundhouses and crannogs, traditional structures made from locally sourced, sustainable materials like timber and thatch. These dwellings are updated with green roofs and solar panels, providing energy while maintaining harmony with the environment. Sacred groves, revered as places of worship and reflection, are meticulously preserved, and advanced techniques in agroforestry and permaculture ensure that agriculture supports biodiversity and soil health. Celtic knotwork and ogham inscriptions adorn public spaces, celebrating cultural heritage while embracing cutting-edge design.

In this futuristic Celtic society, Druids play a central role as both spiritual leaders and keepers of knowledge. They oversee the use of renewable resources, guiding communities in the sustainable harvest of timber, the management of waterways, and the harnessing of wind and solar energy. Education is holistic, combining ancient lore with scientific inquiry. Children learn the healing properties of plants alongside principles of renewable energy and environmental stewardship. Festivals celebrate the changing seasons, with music, dance, and storytelling reinforcing communal bonds and cultural identity.

Solarpunk Irish Towns and Cityscapes

Anime/Studio Ghibli Vision of Irish Landscapes

These photos include the Cliffs of Moher, the Ring of Kerry, and the Burren National Park.

Solarpunk Celtic Style and People

Anime Meets 9th Century Book of Kells

The Book of Kells is a work of 9th century monastic art that depicts scenes in the Bible. This book was moved around quite a bit to protect it from being destroyed by the vikings. I took some photos I have of the Book of Kells and applied an anime/solarpunk/celtic filter.

Solarpunk Castles

If there is one thing the Irish landscape has in abundance, it is medieval castles. Below is a vision of medieval castles being repurposed for vertical agriculture.

Solarpunk Irish Countryside

Solarpunk Dublin Portal

Solarpunk Long Room/Trinity College Library

Solarpunk Irish Fairy Gardens

Futuristic Druids Meet Ancient Structures

Related Content:

Solarpunk Spain & Al-Andalus – Art and Worldbuilding Ideas

Writer Setting Guide – The 90s

jbjwrites1 Comment

Why Are the 90s So Hot Right Now?

There’s no denying that the 1990s is in. Grunge fashion was one of 2022’s biggest fall trends. I’m even hearing the occasional 90s alternative rock song when I walk into a store now. And I’m pleasantly surprised to hear about so many Gen Zs watching shows like Friends and Sex and the City, despite these shows pre-dating their existence.

This sudden interest in the 90s should come as no surprise. Trends recycle every 20-30 years like clockwork. Remember back in the 2010s when the 80s were hot?

However, there’s another reason some people think today’s youth are nostalgic for a decade they didn’t exist in. The 90s represent a simpler, more laid back time before social media, before smart phones, before pandemics, before mass shootings, before doom scrolling, and before a 24/7 connection to all that is wrong with the world. In the 90s, the Cold War had just ended and there was a new peace in the world. It was an optimistic time when the “World Wide Web” was brand new. The future seemed full of possibility. According to Business Insider, young people troubled by today’s economy are escaping into 90s and early 2000s nostalgia. And for many Millennials and Gen X’s, there’s also a satisfaction with seeing the trends of our youth making a comeback.

So you want to capitalize on this current plaid and flannel coated wave of nostalgia? You want to write a story set in 90s? Here’s a guide of some essential things I put together for your research, dear writer.

Disclaimers:

  • Don’t write toward trends for the sake of following a trend alone because trends can always change. But rather, it may just be a fun and nostalgic exercise for you to write something that takes place during this time.
  • For those in the 35-55 age group, some of this may seem like it was written by Captain Obvious. But for the younger Millennials, Gen Z’s, and Gen Alphas reading this, they may not know what life was like growing up without internet or cell phones. And for the older generations, it may be a good education about the trends they missed out on during the 90s when they were busy being parents or going to work, you know, “adulting.” Also, even for people like myself who did grow up during this period, it could be a good reminder of what life was like.
  • In the interest of keeping this as an article rather than a book, there’s only so much I can cover. I tried to cover the basics, but I’m sure there’s a lot I missed out on. It’s an entire decade after all. Feel free to ask questions in the comments.

(Above Image Source)

Major Events in the World and the U.S., 1989-1999:

(The Berlin Wall Coming Down – Image Source)

Below I’m going to include a timeline of key events from the 1990s. This is not to say that these are the only events that mattered. There is also a bias toward the U.S. in this timeline as a reflection of my own lived experience. However, these are just a few events that I think were influential to life at the time and were widely discussed.

End of the Cold War, 1989-1991: The end of the Cold War was one of the most history making events of the 20th century. The world went from having two major geopolitical superpowers to one.

  • November 9, 1989 – the Berlin Wall came crashing down, a powerful symbol of the fall of the communist world.
  • December 26, 1991 – the Soviet Union collapsed and a struggle between two major geopolitical super powers was ended. American political scientist Francis Fukuyama even argued that we had reached “the end of history” and that Western liberal democracy was the final form of government.

Birth of the World Wide Web, 1991:

  • The internet did exist before the 90s. 1983 is considered the official birth of the internet. But 1991 is the year that the internet became available to the public via the World Wide Web. I have a whole section on the internet below which will have more detail.

The Persian Gulf War, 1990-1991:

  • August 2, 1990 – The Persian Gulf War began as Iraq invaded neighboring Kuwait.
  • February 28, 1991 – An international force, led by the U.S., defeated Iraq. This was the most popular U.S. war since World War II because it restored confidence in America’s position as a global super power, and helped exorcise the ghost of America’s failures in Vietnam.

Apartheid Was Repealed, 1991:

  • South Africa existed under a system of racial oppression from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was characterized by an authoritarian system in which the country was politically, socially, and economically dominated by a white minority.
  • June 17, 1991 – Apartheid legislation was officially repealed.
  • 1994 – Multiracial elections occur as a result of the end of apartheid.

The AIDS Epidemic Peaks in the U.S., but Keeps Growing World Wide:

(This hard to read graph is from the CDC. It shows that AIDS deaths and prevalence peaked in the U.S. in the early 90s, and then began to wane by the mid 90s)

  • The AIDS crisis, as we generally think of it, began in the 1980s, though people were dying of this virus before the 1980s. AIDS was first named in 1982 in the New York Times.
  • 1991 – AIDS became the number one cause of death for U.S. men 25-44 years old.
  • 1994 – AIDS became the leading cause of death for all Americans ages 25-44 years old.
  • 1999 – The World Health Organization announced that HIV/AIDS had become the 4th biggest killer worldwide. Global AIDS deaths peaked around 2005 and then began to decline. (Statista)

The Bosnian War, 1992-1995:

  • 1991 – the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia ceased to exist, having dissolved into its constituent states.
  • 1992 – Croat and Muslim nationalists, who were formerly part of Yugoslavia, formed an alliance and outvoted Serbs in the independence referendum for the international recognition of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a sovereign state. War broke out and Serbs quickly assumed control of over half the republic. Killings and deportations became rampant in the newly-proclaimed Serb Republic, but also widespread in Muslim and Croat-controlled areas.
  • 1995 December – The Bosnian War ended. The Dayton Peace Accord created two entities, one for Serbs and one for Bosnian Muslims and Croats. This conflict is significant because it shows the violence that continued in the aftermath of the Soviet Union’s collapse as countries struggled to chart a new future for themselves beyond the paradigms established in the Cold War.

The Rwandan Genocide, 1994:

  • April 7, 1994 – The Rwandan Genocide started. During this period of about 100 days, anywhere from 500,000-800,000 members of the Tutsi ethnic minority group, and some moderate Hutus, were murdered. 2 Million people fled the country. The genocide finally ended on July 15, 1994. This was an event that shocked and horrified the world, since so many people were killed in such a short amount of time.

The OJ Simpson Trial, 1994-1995:

  • September 26, 1994 – The OJ Simpson trial began. This was a major event in the U.S. that dominated the news cycle. A famous celebrity, O.J. Simpson, was accused of murdering his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. The trial spanned eleven months, ending on October 3, 1995. The verdict came out as, Not Guilty.
  • The trial is often characterized as the trial of the century because of its international publicity, and has been described as the “most publicized” criminal trial in human history. The trial took place shortly after the historic 1992 Los Angeles riots. Many commentators believe that the defense capitalized on anger among the city’s African American community toward the LAPD, which had a history of racial bias, to convince the majority-Black jury to acquit Simpson, despite the fact that OJ was implicated by significant amounts of forensic evidence.

The Death of Princess Diana, 1997:

  • The death of Diana, Princess of Wales, caused international shock and was a very prominent news story at the time. Diana was just 36 years old when she died. Her death sparked an outpouring of public grief in the United Kingdom and worldwide, and her televised funeral was watched by an estimated 2.5 billion people. The royal family were criticized in the press for their reaction to Diana’s death. Public interest in Diana has remained high and she continues to retain regular press coverage in the decades since her death.

End of Conflict in Northern Ireland, 1998:

  • 1998 – The Good Friday Agreement Referendum is held, ending decades of conflict between Protestant and Roman Catholic forces in Northern Ireland. The 90s was a time of many bombings and acts of politically motivated violence in both the UK and Ireland centered around the issue of Northern Irish independence.

U.S. President Bill Clinton is Impeached, 1998-1999:

  • Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial lasted from December 19, 1998 – February 12, 1999. The cause was Clinton’s testimony denying that he had engaged in a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky in a sexual harassment lawsuit filed against Clinton by Paula Jones. There were details in the Starr Report showing a sexual relationship between Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. It was pretty crude, but images of a dress Lewinsky had with Clinton’s…ahem…”genetic material” on it made it all over the news, and was on the news all the time for a year. It seemed like all anyone on TV could talk about. Clinton ended up being the second president to be impeached in U.S. history.

The Y2K Scare, 1999:

  • Y2K refers to potential computer errors related to the formatting and storage of calendar data for dates in and after the year 2000. Many programs represented four-digit years with only the final two digits, making the year 2000 indistinguishable from 1900. There were fears of mass technological failure at the turn of the century. Many people even started storing food, water, firearms and withdrawing mass sums of money in anticipation of a computer-induced apocalypse. However, the year 2000 happened, and there was no apocalypse.

Technology of the 90s:

The Internet:

(Graph Source)

  • 1990 – Tim Berners-Lee, a scientist at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, develops HyperText Markup Language (HTML). This technology continues to have a large impact on how we navigate and view the internet today.
  • 1991- CERN introduces the World Wide Web to the public.
  • 1992 – The first audio and video are distributed over the internet. The phrase “surfing the internet” is popularized.
  • 1992 – AOL went public and started mailing people compact discs that would let them use the internet in 1993.
  • 1995 – The first online dating site, Match.com, launches.
  • 1995 – Ebay is founded.
  • 1997 – The search engine, Ask Jeeves, is released.
  • 1997 – AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) is released.
  • 1999 – AOL buys Netscape. Peer-to-peer file sharing becomes a reality as Napster arrives on the internet, much to the displeasure of the music industry.

The development of the internet had a major impact upon society in the 1990s. Back then the internet was commonly called, “The World Wide Web,” or even sometimes referred to as, “The Information Super Highway” (usually by politicians). I myself first used the internet in the mid 90s when I was around 8 years old. My family would get AOL CDs sent to us in the mail. The internet was far slower, clunkier and more inefficient than it is today. It could take a webpage several minutes to load. You couldn’t be online and on the home phone at the same time. If you picked up the home phone while someone was using the internet, the phone would make a very unpleasant screeching JRRRRN EEEEEEEE sound. One time my parents had to call the police, but had to sign off the internet first just to make the call.

And yet despite its clunky beginnings, people were far more excited about the internet back then than they are now. As you can see from the graph above, few U.S. homes had the internet in the 90s. It was a luxury for the upper and middle class, as well as a novelty. Internet and computer usage didn’t start to become widespread in U.S. households until the late 90s/early 2000s. Until the late 90s, most homework was still handwritten and most research kids did for school was still done at the library. If someone needed directions somewhere, they would look at a map or get verbal directions. Even when I first learned how to drive in 2004, people were still primarily using maps and verbal directions.

Socializing on the Internet:

Socializing on the internet now is the norm due to the explosion of social networks in the 2010s. But back in the 90s, socializing on the internet was not the norm.

There began to be a growth of internet socializing toward the end of the 90s, as more people started using chat rooms, AIM, email chains, or sending each other weird chain letters promising curses if they didn’t send the letter to ten other people. For some people, their primary use of the internet was at the office or at school due to not having it in their home. I remember computers and internet use becoming more common in classrooms toward the end of the 90s.

Online dating was also new near the end of the 90s. Though it was uncommon. People would make fun of you or consider you nerdy if you found a partner on the internet. Also back in the 90s, it was not cool to be nerdy. The explosion of nerd culture into the mainstream happened later, in the 2010s.

Cell Phones:

(Image Source)

An important detail to remember in any story that you write in the 90s is that most people did not have cell phones. They would use their home phone if they needed to make a call. It was more common for people back then to remember people’s phone numbers or to have a book of written phone numbers. There were also more payphones around for people to use if they were outside of the house.

Thus, life was like an episode of Seinfeld. If you wanted to meet someone, you would pick a time and place, and people would be very mad if you didn’t show up at the specified time and place.

Given that home phones were the main method of phone conversation, you would sometimes have to talk to other people in the person’s household first before you could get them to find the person you wanted to talk to. People might also pick up another phone in the house and listen to your conversation if they wanted to ease drop, you could tell when you heard their breathing over the line.

CDs Dominate For Music:

(Image Source)

The CD-ROM as we know it was invented in the 80s, but it didn’t go into common use until the late 80s, when people started using it for gaming and music. In the year 1990, tape cassettes were more common for music. However, over time CDs became more common than cassettes, to the point that CDs were the main way to listen to music and play computer games by the late 90s. Also people commonly called it a “CD.” Not many people casually used the term, “CD-ROM.”

Cassette Tapes: While CDs eventually became more common, people definitely were still listening to cassette tapes in the 90s or using them to record on an 8-track recorder. The first car I purchased in the early 2000s even had a cassette player. And I remember in the early 2000s, most teens at my school still used cassette tapes for recording music if they were in a band. In the 90s it was still common for people to make a mixed tape of songs for their sweet hearts. Burning CDs didn’t become common until the early 2000s.

VHS Players/VCR:

(Image Source)

The 90s was the heyday of the VCR and VHS. Most U.S. homes had a VCR. A VHS tape was the most common way to watch movies. If people wanted to rent a movie, they would have to go to Blockbuster or some other video store. If someone wanted to record something on television to watch later, they could record it on a VHS tape with their VCR.

It was not until the early 2000s that DVDs began to surpass VHS in U.S. homes.

Floppy Disks:

Floppy disks were the main way that people transferred information on a computer. USBs were not introduced until 1996, and did not become commonly used until the 2000s. In the early 90s, a computer game would be on a floppy disk. But by the mid-late 90s, it was more common for a computer game to be on a CD.

Music

Grunge Music Becomes Popular in the Early 90s:

(Image Source)

  • September 24, 1991 – Nirvana’s Nevermind album was released. The Seattle-based rock band Nirvana unleashed an album which popularized grunge music, a musical style that emerged during the mid 1980s in the American state of Washington. Grunge music was influenced by punk rock and heavy metal, featuring the distorted electric guitar sound popular in both genres. Yet Grunge also incorporated influences from Indie rock. Grunge was slower than Punk and Heavy Metal, with a more sludgy, dissonant, ponderous, and grungy feel (hence the genre name).
  • The lyrical themes of grunge were typically nihilistic, angst-filled, introspective, and full of disillusionment over the state of relationships and the world. This came as a sharp contrast to the glam metal scene popular in the 80s, which celebrated life in the fast lane, partying, drug use, sex and hedonism. Grunge had a more low key energy, with lyrical themes similar to punk. There was a focus on mistrusting authority, hating the inauthentic, speaking out against corporations, and supporting women. Some say the grunge movement represented a hangover, or burnout from the 80s. Some say grunge music represented the malaise of Generation X.
  • Grunge was a commercial success in the early to mid 90s (which was ironic given the anti-commercial themes of grunge music).
  • The following grunge bands were very popular: Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, and Stone Temple Pilots.
  • Grunge waned by the mid-90s – Grunge’s popularity in America ended around the mid-to-late 1990s, when many grunge bands broke up or became less visible. Kurt Cobain, the lead vocalist and primary songwriter of Nirvana, struggled with a heroin addiction and committed suicide in 1994.

The Rise of Hip Hop and Gangsta Rap:

(Flavor Flav of Public Enemy performing in 1991. Image Source)

  • Hip Hop originated in the early 1970s and existed for several years among young, inner-city African Americans in the Bronx before coming into the mainstream. Hip Hop culture contains the following elements: MCing/rapping, DJing/scratching with turntables, break dancing, and graffiti art. The themes of hip hop originally focused on life in the inner-city, anti-violence and anti-drug use. People in poor neighborhoods who lacked money for musical instruments, or an expensive DJ setup, could mimic the sounds of popular drum machines by beat boxing with their mouths.
  • It was sometime between 1988-1997 that Hip Hop had a golden age. Some popular hip hop artists of the 90s were: Tupac Shakur (2Pac), Jay-Z, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube, LL Cool J, Public Enemy, Nas and the Notorious BIG.
  • Gangsta rap or gangster rap, initially called “reality rap,” is a sub-genre of hip-hop. It also experienced its golden age in the 90s. In the sub-genre of gangsta rap, hip hop artists started wearing the clothes of gang members and using harsher lyrics to represent the struggles of poverty, racism, police brutality and drugs in their communities. The pioneers of gangsta rap include Schoolly D of Philadelphia and Ice-T of Los Angeles (originally New Jersey), later expanding with artists such as N.W.A, Tupac Shakur (2Pac), and the Notorious B.I.G.
  • 1988 – N.W.A’s Straight Outta Compton was released from Los Angeles, establishing the West Coast as a rival to hip hop’s long-time capital, New York City. This is the first gangsta rap album to become a blockbuster success. It also sparked controversy regarding their song, “Fuck the Police,” which earned a letter from FBI Assistant Director, Milt Ahlerich, condemning the song.
  • 2Pac and the Notorious B.I.G. are murdered, 1996-1997: The late 90s is considered the end of the golden era of Hip Hop and Gangster Rap. This era came to an end as two major Hip Hop icons were murdered.
  • 1997 – The Bling Era Begins: While gangsta rap and hip hop became a huge-selling genre in the early 90s, hip hop was regarded as outside of the popular mainstream, committed to representing the experience of the inner-city and not “selling out.” This changed in 1997 with the beginning of the “Bling Era,” a name derived from Lil Wayne’s “Bling Bling.” Hip Hop and Gangsta Rap crossed over into the mainstream, blended with other genres, became more focused on materialistic themes, and achieved more commercial success. Artists like Puff Daddy, Jay-Z, Ja-Rule, DMX, Eminem, Lil Jon, and 50 Cent began to become successful during this period. Rappers wore shiny suits in their videos. The Bling Era eventually ended in 2006 when more people started downloading music.

90’s Style:

Fashion:

(Image Source. Don’t they look like Gen Zs!?)

While it’s hard to summarize all the styles that were popular in an entire decade, I’ll do my best to give a brief summary. According to Masterclass, fashion in the 90s was characterized by a wave of minimalist looks as a break away from the “anything worth doing is worth overdoing” culture of the 80s. Casual, chic outfits defined by baggy T-shirts, slip dresses, streetwear, and sportswear significantly shaped 1990s fashion trends. Fashion took on a disheveled look and emphasized casual comfort over materialism and polish.

Early 1990s style showcased bright colors and athletic wear reminiscent of the ‘80s, late 1990s fashion transitioned to sophisticated slip dresses and preppy prints. The music and film industry influenced popular trends that came out of the decade, styling grunge looks, denim overalls, mini skirts, and cropped cardigans. Trends from the 1990s continue to influence fashion today, as athleisure and streetwear remain popular.

In addition to the broad categories of women’s and men’s fashion, the 1990s also saw the popularity of numerous fashion accessories. Iconic footwear styles such as Doc Martens, platform shoes, and sneakers became synonymous with the era, while bags, backpacks, and jewellery also played a significant role in shaping the decade’s fashion landscape. These accessories often served to emphasize and enhance the various trends, providing an additional layer of personal expression and creativity (One Off Vintage).

Makeup:

The 90s were the decade of bold eyebrows, eyes and lips. Brown, purple, and burgundy lipstick became a huge trend, usually paired with a dark lip liner. At the time it was very trendy to line the lip with a darker color, then use a lighter lipstick and not blend the line, giving a very striking look.

Eyebrows were dark and well-defined, and usually thin. We also saw the start of the blue eye shadow trend and the use of glitter on the eyes. (See makeup trends by decade for more information)

Girl Power:

(Image Source)

Girl power and the rise of third wave feminism were a big deal in the 90s. Girls at my school liked singing, “Anything you can do I can do better.” More television shows and movies were showing women in intellectual or action roles that used to be reserved for men. Dana Scully in X-Files and Lisa in The Simpsons were both examples of female characters who were more intellectually competent than their male counterparts. Xena Warrior Princess became a very popular show featuring a bad ass, powerful warrior woman.

There was also an emphasis on increasing the number of women in the workplace. The first national observance of Take Our Daughters to Work Day took place on April 22, 1993, according to the Ms. Foundation for Women.

The Riot Grrrl underground Feminist punk subculture and musical movement began in the early 1990s. In addition to a unique music scene and genre, riot grrrl became a subculture involving a DIY ethic, zines, art, political action, and activism.

The average age of marriage for women jumped in the year 1990. For more than a century the average was 20 and 22, but in 1990 it jumped to 24. By 1997 it reached 25.

Toward the late 90s, there was also an emphasis on sex positivity in the third wave feminist movement. There was a growth in the idea of women embracing their sexuality and being empowered to make their own sexual choices. Indeed when Sex and the City was released in 1998, it became popular for showing a group of female friends who openly discussed and enjoyed sex. However, there are also arguments that by the end of the 90s, the sex positivity movement got twisted into women being exploited for the benefits of consumerism and male pleasure, as was visible in movies like “American Pie” (1999), or “Girls Gone Wild” (1997-2011).

Also, while girl power became popular in 90s culture, there was definitely still sexism in many avenues of day to day life. Growing up I remember that the girls in my neighborhood were expected to do household chores while their brothers got to relax and play video games.

Another important fact to keep in mind is that the girl power culture in the media was commonly displayed via white thin heterosexual women, but not so much through other women. Most of the characters on TV were overwhelmingly white and there was way less LGBTQ representation than there is now.

A shocking fact, however, is that women actually had higher employment rates at the end of the 90s than they do today (Statista). I’m not exactly sure why that is, but perhaps it’s because the economy for working class Americans was better back then than it is now.

90’s Slang:

The List Of 90’s Slang Words People Still Use
– Whatever
– Trippin’
– Yadda-yadda-yadda
– My bad
– You go, girl!
– Buzzkill
– Dibs

TOP 90’s Catch Phrases That Haven’t Come Back
– Talk to the hand
– So sue me!
– Da bomb / the bomb
– Sup?
– Crunk
– Eat My Shorts
– Who’s your daddy?
– Dip
– As if!

Source: Promova, Your Dictionary 90s Slang, 25 Excellent Slang Terms From the 1990s.

TV

Top 25 Shows That Were Popular in the 90s

Modern Shows Set in The 90s

Books

Game of Grunge – A Song of Rock and Hip Hop (Fanfiction)

20 Bestsellers Published in the 1990s

Modern Books Set in the 90s

My Own Experience Growing up in the 90s:

(A dorky picture of me in 1996 with a melted snowman)

Of course this is anecdotal, but when writing about a time period, it’s good to interview people who lived in it. And lucky for you, you have me! A living breathing human being who had a Furby, talked to her friends on a home phone (while sometimes getting wrapped in the cord), got the internet from a CD, placed colorful Lisa Frank stickers on my text books, watched Care Bears and Ninja Turtles on Saturday morning, saw gangsta rap music videos on MTV, and heard Soundgarden on the Rock Station instead of the Oldies Station.

My perspective is limited since I was just a little kid in the 90s. But I still got to experience much of the popular culture and politics of the era through observing older family members.

I remember the 90s as a time of optimism and economic prosperity. Unlike today, people in the U.S. seemed hopeful about the future, especially in lieu of the “World Wide Web” and the end of the Cold War.

It was normal for kids to play outside until the sun set, racing around on their skateboards, roller blades, and bikes.

Another big difference is that people were less “plugged in” to their screens in the days before streaming and smart phones. There was more socializing in person (because there wasn’t much of an alternative). Payphones were ubiquitous. People were allowed to smoke in restaurants in the smoking section (though smoking was starting to wane in popularity). There was less obsessing over the news, because it ended on TV around 10 pm and then you couldn’t look at it anymore, unless you were reading a newspaper, or waiting around on your slow internet for a news article to load. I’m not sure if the world was actually a better place or if it was just more difficult to read about how bad things were.

But the plus is that if you want to go back to the 90s, you can relive it all through the information super highway on the World Wide Web!

I hope this guide was helpful. What do you remember about the 90s? Feel free to comment. Share this article if you liked it.

LINKS

Writer Setting Guide – Y2K (Stories From Tomorrow)

Game of Grunge – A Song of Rock and Hip Hop (Fanfiction on AO3)

15 Important Historical Events That Happened In The 1990s

Alternative Rock Of 90’s│Nostalgia Playlist

Solarpunk Spain & Al-Andalus – Art and Worldbuilding Ideas

jbjwrites2 Comments

This is a collection of digital art that captures the vision of a solarpunk Spain, along with images of a futuristic Al-Andalus from an alternative timeline in which the Moors were never thrown out.

Back in 2022, I visited Madrid, along with Southern Spain, and took hundreds of photos of Moorish architecture, Moorish gardens, picturesque mountain side villages, Granada, and Seville. In this collection of digital art, I used my photos of Spain and enhanced them with Dream Studio, an AI art device. The collection below represents my experiment of enhancing pre-existing art with AI.

SOLARPUNK SPAIN

WHAT IS SOLARPUNK?

Solarpunk is a literary and artistic movement that envisions and works toward actualizing a sustainable future interconnected with nature and community. The artistic genre uses the Art Nouveau style. The aesthetic also makes heavy use of bright colors and is often inspired by Studio Ghibli movies, particularly Castle in the Sky and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.

WORLDBUILDING A SOLARPUNK SPAIN

In a solarpunk story, where renewable energy and sustainable practices shape the world, Southern Spain emerges as an ideal location due to its naturally sunny landscape. Vast solar farms can stretch across the picturesque plains, generating clean and limitless energy to power the cities and communities. This immense solar potential would allow Southern Spain to become a shining example of self-sufficiency and reduced carbon footprint.

The sunny landscape of Southern Spain offers an opportunity for the integration of solar energy into everyday life. Buildings can incorporate advanced solar panels seamlessly into their design, harnessing the sun’s energy for electricity and heating needs. Entire communities can adopt solar-powered infrastructure, including streetlights, public transportation, and charging stations for electric vehicles. The vibrant, sun-drenched streets of Southern Spain can become a hub of clean energy utilization, showcasing a future where sustainable technologies harmonize with the environment.

Southern Spain’s landscape can also inspire innovative agricultural practices. With the right approach, the region can leverage its abundant sunlight to promote sustainable farming techniques. Vertical farms and greenhouses equipped with solar panels can thrive, providing locally grown produce and reducing the need for long-distance transportation. These sustainable agricultural practices would not only contribute to food security but also preserve the region’s natural beauty and biodiversity.

SEVILLE

ANTEQUERA

PARQUE RETIRO AND MADRID

GARDENS

SKYLINES OF MOUNTAINOUS, SOUTHERN SPANISH TOWNS

FASHION

AL-ANDALUS 2077

I used photos of the Alhambra along with Spanish mosques to produce the pictures above. The Alhambra is a palace and fortress complex located in Granada, Andalusia, Spain. It is one of the most famous monuments of Islamic architecture and one of the best-preserved palaces of the historic Islamic world, in addition to containing notable examples of Spanish Renaissance architecture.

ACTUAL HISTORY OF AL-ANDALUS

Al-Andalus was the Muslim ruled area of the Iberian Peninsula. It was a center of learning and philosophy in the medieval world. The city of Córdoba, the second largest in Europe, became one of the leading cultural and economic centers throughout the Mediterranean Basin, Europe, and the Islamic world. Achievements that advanced Islamic and Western science came from al-Andalus, including major advances in trigonometry (Jabir ibn Aflah), astronomy (Al-Zarqali), surgery (Al-Zahrawi), pharmacology (Ibn Zuhr), and agronomy (Ibn Bassal and Abū l-Khayr al-Ishbīlī). Al-Andalus became a major educational center for Europe and the lands around the Mediterranean Sea as well as a conduit for cultural and scientific exchange between the Islamic and Christian worlds.

It was also the home of Ibn Arabi (1165-1240 AD), a scholar, Sufi mystic, and poet who is still extremely influential in Islamic thought and philosophy today.

Ultimately the Christian kingdoms in the North overpowered the Muslims states in the South. Between 1492-1610 massive numbers of Jews and Muslims were expelled from Spain.

ALTERNATIVE HISTORY OF AL-ANDALUS

In an alternative history of Al-Andalus, the Moors were not conquered and driven out. Instead the spirit of knowledge, spirituality, sufi mysticism and philosophy lived on. And once the people of Al-Andalus acquired renewable energy technology in the 21st century, they created a sustainable, post scarcity society where the people advanced beyond the Capitalist grind to create a utopia. In late 21st century, the people spend their days focusing on knowledge, art, culture, spiritual advancement, sufi mysticism, and living in peace with the Earth. They are inspired by the Quran’s description of sumptuous gardens in paradise, along with the command in the Quran not to walk too heavily upon the Earth (17:37).

MISCELLANEOUS

World Building Science Fiction – Venus

jbjwrites2 Comments

WHY COLONIZE A HOT BALL OF ACID?

 

Until the 1960s, Venus was thought to be a potential location for human colonies and space exploration because it was known that there were clouds on Venus, so there was some speculation that it could have an environment that was similar to Earth. Indeed early pulp science fiction (particularly between the 1930s-1950s) depicted Venus as a lush paradise full of jungles, oceans, swampland, Amazonian warrior women, and even dinosaurs.

It was only in the 1960s, when scientists got a better look, that it was discovered that Venus was super hot and that the clouds are made out of sulfuric acid.

Another problem is that Venus has more volcanoes than any planet in the solar system.

Currently now, much of the discussion of finding another planet for humans to live on focuses on Mars, not Venus. Yet surprisingly, there are many aspects of Venus that could make it a better candidate than Mars, despite Venus being a boiling hot oven of sulfuric acid. So some people are now saying that the original assumption popular before the 1960s was correct. One of the people who has argued that Venus is a better candidate for human colonization than Mars is Geoffrey A. Landis, a NASA researcher who has written much on this topic.

The benefits of Venus are its mass is 82% of Earth’s, and its surface gravity is 90% of Earth’s.

Because of the thick atmosphere, people wouldn’t need a heavy pressure suit, just a simple acid-resistant suit.

Mars, by contrast, has low atmospheric pressure, low temperatures, low gravity, and high exposure to cosmic radiation.

(Image source for picture above.)

BLIMP CITIES IN THE CLOUDS

(Image Source)

People would not be able to live on the surface of Venus (at least not in its current form). The surface is 900 degrees Fahrenheit (475 degrees Celsius), which means it is hot enough to boil lead.

However, the higher up you get from the surface, the thinner and cooler the atmosphere gets. There’s a sweet spot about 50-55 kilometers up where the atmosphere is down to about normal Earth pressure, and temperatures are similar to the Mediterranean.

As Geoffrey A. Landis says, the surface is hell, but at cloud level, it’s paradise.

So a possibility is to build floating cities 50-55 kilometers above the ground. But how would one do this?

Venus’s atmosphere may be a vital asset in this endeavor. Venus has an incredibly thick atmosphere, about 100 times that of Earth. Most of the atmosphere is carbon dioxide, with just over 3% being nitrogen, and only trace amounts of other gases. And yet Venus has more nitrogen than Earth, simply because it has so much atmosphere.

There is also a sea of carbon dioxide down on the surface, having characteristics of both a liquid and a gas, which will be important for terraforming the planet, but we’ll get to that later.

Now with regards to the carbon dioxide atmosphere, we must keep in mind that carbon dioxide has a molecular weight of 44, which means that any gas with a lower molecular weight than carbon dioxide can act as a lifting gas, much like helium in balloons on Earth. That means that hydrogen and helium work even better as a lifting gas on Venus than on Earth, but it also means that our normal oxygen-nitrogen air mix could actually make a balloon float on Venus. And you can get hydrogen, oxygen and water out of the sulfuric acid that makes up the clouds.

A near-term option for humanity would be to have automated aerostat vehicles in the atmosphere.

But for longer-term habitation, Venus’s colonists could make large, sturdy blimps with the mass manufacture of graphene. What is graphene you may ask? Graphene is the building block of graphite (which is currently used in pencils). This wonder material graphene is the thinnest material known to man, at one atom thick. And yet it is incredibly strong, 200 times stronger than steel. Graphene is also an excellent conductor of heat, electricity and has interesting light absorption properties. Graphene is an exciting material that is getting a lot of attention—especially since the 2010 Nobel prize in physics went to Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, who first isolated Graphene in 2004.

And there is plenty of carbon for making graphene in Venus’s atmosphere. Venus’s colonists could use the carbon to make diamond hard tethers anchoring their blimp cities to the ground. These hard tethers could be possibly strong enough to survive the super-hot, acidic hurricane below. Or the colonists could use them like harpoons with a winch to drag their settlements around like a giant octopus.

Another benefit of Venus, Geoffrey A. Landis points out, is that the super thick atmosphere could provide shielding from cosmic radiation.

FLOATING SOLAR PUNK CITIES

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Up higher in Venus’s atmosphere, the lighting is a lot like Earth, except that if one stays in the same spot, they’ll have a day-night cycle not of 24 hours but of 243 days. Since the day-night terminator creeps along at a fast walking pace, even at the equator, a colonist could opt to stay in perpetual sunlight, making it handy for solar power or growing plants to help recycle air and water, and to extend food supplies.

In fact, solar arrays can produce just as much energy pointing downward toward the reflective clouds as they can produce by pointing toward the sun.

There is also a superabundance of solar energy to power engines. And all the wind allows colonists to use wings to provide lift for a plane or a kite, not just balloons and buoyancy. So, there are a lot of options for transportation and moving around in the clouds.

The abundance of atmospheric carbon dioxide and nitrogen will also be a useful resource for greenhouses.

The creation of mining robots could allow people in these sky cities to have autonomous sources of production that could give them a good deal of free time for recreation, education, family life, and spiritual reflection.

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Venus also has a surface area 3.1 times the land area of Earth. With all this room, a billion habitats, each one with a population of hundreds of humans, could be placed in Venus’s atmosphere.

OBSTACLES WITH FLOATING CITIES

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Floating cities would have their obstacles. Floating cities on Venus would have to be very thin and very lightweight to float. The colonists could also just orbit the planet in conventional rotating habitats. Yet being lower in the atmosphere would protect from meteors and radiation. Geoffrey A. Landis says the thick atmosphere would protect from radiation. But if this is not enough, the colonists could also put their blimps in water shielding to add some protection.

ROBOTIC MINING OF THE SURFACE

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Venus’s surface is way too hot for humans to mine on their own. But they could control mining robots from up in their floating habitats and deliver the goods by going up a tether in the form of a high-temperature fullerine tether. Or the robots could pop compressed gas cartridges to fill balloons and float back up.

A settlement could float over a spot they are mining.

TERRAFORMING VENUS

Terraforming Venus is another option. And given Venus’s mass and gravity, it may be the best candidate for terraforming in the solar system.

Terraforming could be accomplished by constructing a dome or an enclosure on the planet, which would grow to encompass most of the planet’s usable area. This could be part of the process of cooling down Venus.

Changing the Atmosphere:

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Part of the reason Venus is so hot is its thick atmosphere. But a major reason for the heat is Venus’s proximity to the sun. If one blocks out the light between Venus and the sun, they could reduce that heat. Colonists could use massive shades that are about as big as a football field but don’t weigh too much. Ideally, they would want to use something very light and strong, like graphene made of carbon. The colonists could manufacture these graphene shades on the cloud cities of Venus and deploy them to the Lagrange point between the sun and Venus by the millions until they shade Venus’s atmosphere. The atmosphere would then begin to cool. The thick atmosphere would start to liquefy and turn into seas of carbon dioxide.

The floating cities would probably not survive the process of liquefying the atmosphere, so the colonists would have to abandon them and retreat to orbital colonies. Or they could modify the floating cities to safely survive the process (like some Johnny Quest car blimp?) and be able to land on the seas of carbon dioxide and survive the changeover of early terraforming. During cooling, there would be a ton of earthquakes and maybe volcanic activity while it snows dry ice. And then, the colonists would have to find a way to export or permanently sequester all that carbon dioxide so they could warm the planet to an Earth-like temperature and an atmospheric composition.

Another possibility for clearing the atmosphere of Venus would be to use solar mirrors instead of shades. This would heat the planet even more and evaporate the atmosphere away.

But if the colonists went with the strategy of cooling the planet, they could keep cooling it until the seas of carbon dioxide froze and turned into surfaces of dry ice. Then they could pave over that and introduce dirt and water.

The trouble is, how to get enough water for oceans?

There is a large amount of water available in Venus’s atmosphere. But it isn’t enough for real oceans. It’s enough for people to drink and to farm food inside greenhouses. But it’s not enough to make a classic biosphere. For that, the colonists would need to come up with somewhere between 10-100 billion megatons of hydrogen.

One possibility is to boil hydrogen off the sun since the sun is a massive source of hydrogen.

Another possibility is to import the hydrogen from Jupiter or Saturn.

However, when it comes to making Venus more Earth-like, there is also the problem with Venus’s day length. Venus’s day is longer than its year. The sun would rise in the sky and stay there for months before setting for more months.

There are three approaches to this:

First, ignore it and adapt to life on a planet like this.

Second, place mirrors in orbit around Venus to bounce light down on the night side and block incoming sunlight on the day side to simulate a 24-hour day cycle.

Thirdly, the colonists could also make a fake sun with lots of mirrors to bounce light to something about the same angular size in the sky as the sun in Earth’s sky. All the mirrors and shades could also protect Venus from radiation. Though colonists would still want to consider an artificial magnetosphere to hold the atmosphere in. They can’t expect the atmosphere to stick around on its own once they make Venus earth-like.

The other alternative is to go all in and adjust Venus’s rotational speed to a 24-hour day, or maybe save some energy and let people sleep in longer with a 26-hour day. Yet the colonists would need massive amounts of energy to change the rotation of a planet. They would need 10^29 joules of rotational energy to do this. To put that in perspective, it’s more than a billion times the amount of electricity 21st century Earth uses each year. It’s also only a few years of energy output from the sun. (Though it would take roughly the same amount of energy to ship in enough hydrogen to create an ocean.)

Accomplishing this task could come in the form of sending a large beam of hydrogen from the sun like a water jet, hitting one side of the planet Venus, injecting hydrogen and spin. If we were getting the hydrogen from gas giants instead, each of those ships and pods would be moving quite fast, carrying a large amount of kinetic energy. The amount of kinetic energy needed for massive transports of hydrogen would be in the same ballpark as rotational energy. So the colonists would need to figure out how much hydrogen they want and how much rotational energy they need and make sure each pod of hydrogen is moving at a speed to deliver that energy. If that were moving too fast, they might ship in comets or massive balls of ice and let the extra mass carry the extra kinetic energy. It would still be very tricky to get this process to work. But a benefit of this is that if the planet is spinning fast enough, it could generate a magnetosphere, so the colonists wouldn’t have to generate an artificial one.

Another possibility is to give Venus a moon and use it as a gravity tractor to impart spin. And the outer planets of our solar system have an abundance of moons, along with excess hydrogen. The colonists could also take the excess carbon from Venus and build a fake moon.

While these are all interesting ideas, the reality is that terraforming Venus would most likely take thousands of years. So this would involve a long-term commitment that would outlast the length of many civilizations. The kind of society willing to do this would either have to be very dedicated, or they might be some form of artificial intelligence with a lengthy lifespan.

The residents of Venus have a few options: The orbital colony route, the floating city route, the para-terraforming route where they use shades to cool the planet down and use orbital mirrors to create a 24-hour day, or go big and start spinning the planet up to a 24-hour day by importing shipments of hydrogen or water to impart that spin momentum.

The colonists also don’t only have to do one option. They could have several phases or multiple options pursued simultaneously.

WHAT WOULD THE VENUSIAN ECONOMY LOOK LIKE?

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Carbon in the form of graphene will likely be the preferred building material of the future, so Venus could export gigatons of that.

For export, Venus has lots of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and solar or wind energy for industrial processes. They could also build solar-powered satellites for export, along with shades and mirrors for terraforming.

Mining the surface (which is primarily a basaltic silicate), will provide silicon, iron, aluminum, magnesium, calcium, potassium, and sodium.

Venus could give Mars pods of nitrogen for their terraforming process, which could get shipped to their atmosphere and shot down. Metal for the pods would come from mining the surface of Venus.

Venus is closer to Earth than Mars. With current propulsion systems, launch windows to Venus occur every 584 days, compared to the 780 days for Mars. Flight time is also somewhat shorter; the Venus Express probe that arrived at Venus in April 2006 spent slightly over five months en route, compared to nearly six months for Mars Express. This is because at closest approach, Venus is 40 million km (25 million mi) from Earth (approximated by perihelion of Earth minus aphelion of Venus) compared to 55 million km (34 million mi) for Mars (approximated by perihelion of Mars minus aphelion of Earth) making Venus the closest planet to Earth.

Then there is the accessibility of asteroids from Venus. In terms of flight time, Venus is closer to the Asteroid Belt than either Earth or Mars. Geoffrey A. Landis argues that the higher orbital velocity of Venus makes transfer orbits somewhat faster and increases the number of transfer opportunities to various asteroids in the Asteroid Belt.

There is also the possibility of tourism on Venus. The appeal is that people can walk around beautiful sky cities without a heavy pressure suit. And with the thick atmosphere, there is the possibility of hang gliding with just a mask and a thin acid proof suit.

EXAMPLES OF VENUS IN EARLY SCIENCE FICTION

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As mentioned at the top of this article, Venus was a popular planet in early science fiction before it was known that the surface was hot enough to melt lead. Therefore, there are quite a few examples of humans colonizing Venus, especially in the age of early pulp Science Fiction. But be aware that these examples do not offer accuracy given what we know about Venus today. I mean…especially not with the dinosaurs and Amazonian warriors and so on.

In the early pulp science fiction of the mid twentieth century, there was a lack of agreed upon canon about what Venus was like, given that the stories about life on the planet included everything from thick jungles, to a water world covered in oceans, to widespread deserts. In comparison, the writing about Mars was much more uniform.

Science fiction scholar Gary Westfahl attributes the disparity largely to the image of Mars made popular by Percival Lowell around the beginning of the 20th century. By contrast, very little was known of Venus aside from the fact it had clouds.

Disclaimer: I produced a list below of examples of Venus in science fiction. This list below doesn’t represent all instances of Venus in science fiction, as there are multiple instances. The list simply represents a few examples I have chosen to highlight.

Venus in Fiction (Wikipedia)

A True Story by Lucian of Samosata – 2nd Century A.D. (One of the earliest known examples of interplanetary travel in fiction. Lucian refers to Venus as the ‘morning star.’)

Voyage à Vénus by Achille Eyraud 1865 (One of the earliest known uses of Venus as the primary setting in fiction)

Last And First Men by Olaf Stapledon -1930 (A book that discusses genetic engineering for interplanetary colonization.)

“The Big Rain” by Poul Anderson – 1954 (Anderson writes about terraforming Venus’s atmosphere.)

In the Walls of Eryx by H. P. Lovecraft – 1936

Perelandra by C. S. Lewis – 1943 (This is a retelling of the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden on floating islands in a vast Venusian ocean.)

Lucky Starr and the Oceans of Venus by Isaac Asimov – 1954 (Asimov depicts human colonists living in underwater cities on Venus.)

“Before Eden” by Arthur C. Clarke – 1961 (Clarke portrays Venus as mostly hot and dry, but with a habitable climate at the poles.)

VENUS IN MODERN SCIENCE FICTION

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2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson – 2012 (A very well written novel showing human colonization on multiple worlds in our solar system.)

“The Sultan of the Clouds” by Geoffrey A. Landis in Asimov Magazine – 2011 (I highly recommend this story for anyone who wants a more scientifically sound depiction of what life on Venus could look like. This is written by a NASA researcher.)

The Snows of Venus by G. David Nordley in Analog magazine – 1991 (In this story, G. David Nordley suggests that Venus might be spun-up to a day-length of 30 Earth days by exporting its atmosphere of Venus via mass drivers.

ART

Venus Science Fiction Art on Pinterest

LEARN MORE ABOUT COLONIZING VENUS

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Colonizing Venus Video by Isaac Arthur (YouTube)

Colonization of Venus by Geoffrey A. Landis (NASA, February 2003)

How to colonize Venus, and why it’s a better plan than Mars (Big Think, 11-28-18)

How Could We Create Settlements on Venus? (Universe Today, 9-4-16)

RELATED PAGES

World Building Science Fiction – Mercury (Stories From Tomorrow)

World Building Science Fiction – Mercury

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(My sources are cited at the bottom of this article. For much of this article, I researched the content put out by Isaac Arthur, who in 2020, was named the recipient of the National Space Society’s Space Pioneer Award for Education via Mass Media)

Mercury is one of the most neglected planets in Science Fiction. Mars or Venus are usually the sites for fictional colonization. One might think Mercury’s close proximity to the sun and its lacking atmosphere would make it a dud.

But there are actually several reasons why an airless ball of silicon and metal next to the sun could have potential.

Below I will include resources that could be helpful to science fiction writers.

Since people don’t commonly write about Mercury, it would be a great way to come up with something unique that would make their work stand out.

MERCURY’S LONG TERM POTENTIAL AS A DYSON SWARM

In the long term, Mercury could be used as a building supply store to construct power collectors, and then disassembled to form the basis of a Dyson Swarm.

A Dyson Sphere is a megastructure that completely encompasses a star and captures a large percentage of its power output. The thought is that this would be how a space fairing civilization would meet its energy requirements, exceeding what could be provided by planets alone.

A Dyson Swarm is a variant that consists of a large number of independent constructs (usually solar power satellites and space habitats) orbiting in a dense formation around the star.

However, turning Mercury into such a structure would take a very long time. Longer than the longest human civilizations have existed. Human beings don’t seem capable of dedicating themselves to such a long-term endeavor, but some kind of AI-human hybrid with a super long lifespan might. So if you decide to write a story about a people turning Mercury into a Dyson Swarm, you might also want to make them into something more than human.

BENEFITS OF COLONIZING MERCURY IN THE NEAR AND MIDTERM

What about Mercury’s near term/mid-term colonization potential, in case we don’t want to wait for the time span of several civilizations for it to become useful?  What are the benefits?

Solar Energy:

The proximity to the sun presents potential for harnessing a tremendous amount of solar energy, collecting solar energy for both Mercury, and other planets in a colonized solar system. This could be achieved via orbital solar arrays, which would be able to harness energy constantly and beam it to the surface. This energy could then be beamed to other planets in the Solar System using a series of transfer stations positioned at Lagrange Points.

A Heavy Metal World: 

Like Earth, Mercury is a terrestrial planet, which means it is made up of silicate rocks and metals that are differentiated between an iron core and silicate crust and mantle. However, unlike the Earth, Mercury’s composition is 70% metal. As a result, if Mercury were to be mined, it could produce enough raw materials to supply humanity indefinitely.

Similar Gravity to Mars and a Low Escape Velocity:

The gravity on Mercury is 38% that of Earth, which is similar to what Mars experiences. This is twice the level of gravity of the moon, making Mercury easier to adjust to than the moon. The low gravity coupled with the lacking atmosphere (no air drag) also gives the planet a low escape velocity, making it easier for ships to escape Mercury, in that they’d require fewer resources to do so. This would make Mercury a great site for exporting materials, especially considering their wealth of metals. Also, it would make Mercury a great site for building ships, especially if human beings become an interstellar civilization. If stellar lasers were built near the sun, a vessel could be launched from Mercury and pushed by lasers out of the solar system. And hydrogen for fuel would certainly be plentiful given the solar winds blasting Mercury.

Proximity to Earth: 

As a resource-rich world, Mercury is closer to Earth than the Asteroid Belt or Saturn. Mercury also achieves an inferior conjunction (the point where it is at its closest point to Earth) every 116 days, which is significantly shorter than either Venus or Mars. Basically, missions destined for Mercury could launch almost every four months, whereas launch windows to Venus and Mars would have to take place every 1.6 years and 26 months, respectively.

HOW TO MAKE COLONIZATION ON MERCURY WORK?

Mobile Bases: 

Mercury is the closest planet to the sun. Therefore, we tend to think of it as the hottest, but Venus actually beats it for peak temperature. Also, what many people don’t expect is that Mercury can get very cold. Mercury gets downright cold at night, unlike Venus, since it has no atmosphere, just a thin haze of mostly hydrogen and helium from the captured solar wind.

One way to avoid getting too hot or too cold is to set up mobile bases. These mobile bases would chase terminator, so Mercurians can get some solar power, but to where it hadn’t heated around or cooled down that much.

People would set up their camps where it’s cool and move on when the light and heat are too much. They would drive ahead to someplace that’s cold. But not so cold that they couldn’t work there. This would be good for mining.

An example of this in science fiction is what people did in Dune when they were avoiding giant sandworms while harvesting the Spice Melange.

People living in mobile bases would need to set up backup vehicles and engines in case one died. And they could use the extra energy from these backup vehicles while moving in order to power smelters and refineries.

Heating things up on Mercury to smelt them wouldn’t be too hard. A solar oven would work quite well because of the proximity to the sun and the fact that there are are no clouds in the atmosphere.

Mercury’s night side is also a good place to get rid of heat—something hard to find anywhere else near the sun. If one is generating a lot of heat, they can only get rid of that by radiating it away.

Down on Mercury’s light side, people could use conduction too, so they might have mobile factories at work, not just mining and refining operations.

The Great Flat Track of Mercury:

China has the Great Wall. Mercury might have the Great Flat Track.

As I mentioned earlier, getting what you want off of Mercury wouldn’t be that hard. The planet has an escape velocity of just 4.25 km/s, and an orbital velocity of just 3 km/s. It has no air. If Mercurians had a flat track from where vehicles could take off, without having to worry about air drag, leaving would be easy. However, landing would be hard. (A sort of opposite Hotel California situation, where it’s easier to leave than arrive).

Since there is no air, ships cannot aerobrake to shed velocity for free. Though one might be able to hit a very long track, very precisely and slowly shed speed off without friction, or run down a magnetic tube to let it leach off speed.

This gives Mercurians good reason to consider building a track all the way around Mercury, and it need not be at the equator either if people wanted to keep it shorter. Mercury gets hot, but is still cool enough for many metals to handle. Even steel, which is fairly mundane considering some of the materials Mercurians might use, retains its magnetic and conductive properties at those temperatures, and one thing Mercury is not lacking in is metals. Though one’s concern would be metal fatigue, as metals are expanding and contracting to various degrees as they run up from temperatures cold enough to liquefy air to hot enough to melt lead, but this is happening once a Mercurian day, which is very, very, very long (it takes 59 Earth days to complete one rotation on its axis Universe Today). So the Flat Track would not be getting heated and cooled constantly, and even today we know a lot of tricks for various alloys and composites that would minimize metal fatigue.

The Planet Down Under:

If one digs down a little bit on Mercury, they would start to see livable human temperatures underground, once they get away from the craters and closer to the poles, and in one of the more optimistic models, even room temperature underground at the equator at 90 degrees west, which would help with the expansion and contraction fatigue and other construction problems caused by varying temperatures.

Mushroom Habitats: 

If one doesn’t want to use mobile bases or live underground, they could try mushroom habitats.

These habitats would have a retracting option, where things fold down during the night and the brighest day, and pop back up when things are more moderate.

The habitat would be built up on stilts that aren’t thermally conductive. Then one would put a big umbrella over it, covered in mirrors, to bounce light away, one that could flip open or move aside to let in however much light a person wanted. Stilts would be made of something that doesn’t conduct heat well, like the silicate beneath the ground.  Spinning habitats could use centripetal force to create Earth-like gravity in the habitat.

Water in the Poles: 

There could be some water at some of the craters near Mercury’s poles. Wires underground could bring the water to people.

Making Mercury Earth-like: 

One doesn’t have to make a planet like Earth, if they want to live there.

But if people did want to make Mercury Earth-like, massive mirrors and shades in orbit could help cool down the planet. Mercury is massive enough to hold a breathable atmosphere. People could also collect solar wind from the sun, rich in hydrogen and helium, things that could be sold, using a giant mirror or shade acting as a giant windmill driven by the solar wind. “Star Wheel.”

MERCURY IN SCIENCE FICTION

As I stated, Mercury isn’t mentioned frequently in Science Fiction, which is why it would be a great thing to write about. However, if you do want to read some works that mention a colonized Mercury, check out the works below.

BOOKS

2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson

The 2005 novel, by Ben Bova.

Sundiver, in David Brin’s Uplift Saga.

Singularity Trap, by Dennis E Taylor

The Sirens of Titan, by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

SHORT STORIES

The Burning Soldier – A Microfiction (Stories From Tomorrow)

The Blind Mystic by Jessica Brook in Vanishing Point Magazine and reprinted in Bullet Points Magazine

Runaround, by Isaac Asimov

Retrograde Summer, by John Varley

The Coldest Place, by Larry Niven

“While working almost forty years” (Fandom.com)

VIDEO GAMES

Destiny

MORE INFORMATION ON MERCURY IN FICTION

Mercury (SFF Encyclopedia)

ART

Mercury Art on Pinterest

GENERAL LINKS

Science and Futurism with Isaac Arthur

How Do We Colonize Mercury? (Universe Today)

Colonization of Mercury (Fandom)

What Would It Be Like to Live on Mercury? (Space.com)

Mercury (Wikipedia)

RELATED LINKS

World Building Science Fiction – Venus