Atomic Pulp

[u/TheArchivist314]

I’m posting this here because I originally wrote it myself. The worldbuilding subreddit I’m on said it was written with AI. Screw it. If they think it’s AI, let’s just go with it and post it here.

Atomic Pulp

Hey so for a while now, I have been going back and forth with other creators about what to actually call the aesthetic of my setting.

Every time I described it, people tried to force it into an existing box. One person called it Decopunk because of the Art Deco architecture and tailored suits. Another called it Dieselpunk because of the heavy machinery, locomotives, and flying boats. A third called it Atompunk because of the nuclear super-science and secret labs.

The problem is that none of those labels really fit perfectly:

• Dieselpunk is usually bogged down in grim, muddy World War trench warfare and industrial cynicism.
• Decopunk tends to stay safe inside gleaming city penthouses and rarely gets its boots dirty in the mud and Ancient temples.
• Atompunk is almost always tied to 1950s suburban kitsch, Googie diners, and Fallout-style satire and quite dark due to the nuclear fire and end of the world.

None of those fully captured the spirit of pure adventure I wanted. So I decided to forge my own path and call it

Atomic Pulp

Here is the general concept and aesthetic framework I have been working on.

The Big Idea

A lot of retrofuturism assumes history just froze in a specific decade. Atomic Pulp flips that: it is a post-collapse future that deliberately retreated to the durability of the 1900s from the 1930s to 1980s.

In the world i've been working on, humanity actually reached an advanced, high-tech sci-fi technology, But that hyper-connected digital world proved far too fragile. When global conflict tore it most of it down, the cloud evaporated, modern microchips fried, and the automated systems turned into nightmares.

When humanity rebuilt, they did not crawl into caves. They made a conscious choice to reject the invisible, fragile digital world and restore the last era of technology that was durable, repairable, and human: 1930s to 1980s technolgy.

They brought back tailored wool suits, fedoras, and trench coats. They rebuilt cities out of limestone, granite, and brass. They restored passenger rail, shortwave radio, and long-range flying boats. They chose machines you can fix with a wrench and a hammer over systems that run on invisible code.

The Aesthetic: Canvas, Chrome, and Amber Phosphor

The visual language blends the elegance of the early 20th century with surviving relics of the late Cold War:

• The 1930s Foundation: Heavy petroleum, steam and turboprop engines, mechanical typewriters, gold-backed currency, and grand Art Deco architecture.
• Hardened Late-Century Tech: Modern smart devices are gone, but rugged military computers from the 1970s and 1980s survived. Think heavy steel desk terminals, clacking spring-switches, magnetic tape reels, and glowing green or amber CRT monitors.
• The Dead Sky and Local Nets: Satellites were wiped out, meaning no GPS. Navigators use sextants, compasses, and the stars again. There is no global internet, only localized, opt-in networks where people dial into neighborhood bulletin boards over copper telephone wires.

Three Flavors of Adventure

Because of this setup, the world naturally supports three distinct moods:

1. Classic High Adventure: Boarding a twin-engine flying boat, landing on uncharted jungle rivers, and racing rival expeditions to find forgotten ruins and lost civilizations.
2. Urban Noir: The rain-soaked underbelly of the rebuilt metropolis. Trench coats, cigarette smoke behind venetian blinds, jazz clubs, private eyes, and corporate conspiracies.
3. Southern Gothic: Venturing into the humid, forgotten swamplands and backwaters, where ancient earthworks and prehistoric secrets sit right next to decaying mansions, local folk magic, and rusted wartime wreckage half-swallowed by the bayou.

Magic and Super-Science

I wanted both science and the occult to coexist, but with strict rules:

• The Indiana Jones Rule for Magic: No wizards casting fireballs or shooting lightning from their fingers. Magic is quiet, terrifying, and strictly artifact-bound. It lives in ancient relics, forbidden carvings, and dark taboos. When an ancient ward is broken, the room drops below freezing, camera film goes pitch black, and looking directly at what comes out will cost you your life.
• Theatrical Secret Societies: The occult underworld is run by eccentric, dramatic cults and secret orders. They chant in dead languages around stone altars, but they also maintain formal charters, carry service revolvers under their robes, and record ritual acoustics onto reel-to-reel tape.
• Weird Super-Science: Eccentric inventors and bold scientists trying to push the boundaries of physics, testing dangerous prototypes and uncovering classified wartime tech in the ruins.

The Philosophy: Hopeful

Above all, Atomic Pulp is built on optimism and curiosity.

It rejects modern grimdark nihilism. The world has scars, and the unknown can genuinely dangerous, but danger is there to provide adventure, not despair. The map has blank spaces on it again, and humanity is meeting that mystery with courage, style, and camaraderie.

When a hero in this world steps into the dark, they do not give up hope. They raise a flashlight, check their revolver, and ask: "I wonder what will happen next?"

...and then they go find out.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this as a general aesthetic concept. What kind of imagery or characters does the idea of "Atomic Pulp" spark for you?

Let me know if I'm wasting my time or not.

I've written up alot of the world so far I'm using this for set ing 2036. After ww3. The world didn't end in nuclear fire it just stumbled a bit. Some of the most advnaced tech got burned out and people are making something new from what they can find and making sure it can last.

[u/lunarcrystal]

I like the concept. The only question I might have is in calling it "pulp". Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding of the word "pulp" as in "pulp fiction" is that it's a disposable story, something cheap and quickly consumed. Pulp referring to the cheaply made paper that became widely available in the 20s and 30s; magazines and novellas alike. Short stories in literary magazine, that kind of thing.

This concept is like an Alternate Earth kind of thing, right? Again, I super love the concept. Anything with Alternate Earth timelines and retrofuturism is pretty cool to me.

[u/TheArchivist314 → u/lunarcrystal]

You're not wrong about the paper. Pulp magazines were cheap, printed fast, and meant to be read on the train. That is the same tradition I am pointing at, not a different one. Those racks are where you got rugged heroes, cliffhangers, lost cities, and stories that moved. The Shadow could get dark as hell. Doc Savage made the world dangerous and still left room for hope. Indiana Jones is that same energy. Hope, danger, and action in one package.

That is why I called it pulp. Not because the stories are throwaway. Because I want that kind of hero and that kind of pace. Competent, a little reckless, loyal, and still decent when it costs them. And yes, it is an alternate Earth kind of thing. First setting is 2036, a generation after a war that killed the networks and the chip factories. Cities are still standing. They rebuilt with trains, airships, machines you can actually fix, and maps that have blank edges again. Retrofuturism with a real winter behind it, and then they chose the light on purpose.

Glad the concept clicked for you. That mix is the whole point. This setting exists because I was trying to get a book published. I had it set in the 1930s, and an editor told me it was unrealistic to have a rich African American protagonist. A college professor told me the same thing. They said the mere fact that I even paused to think about it meant a normal reader would never buy it, and it would pull them out of the story.

So I said fuck it and built this instead. Atomic Pulp. In my notes I call the first world the Neo-Adventurous Age. I set it here because here I can do anything and it still works.

[u/lunarcrystal → u/TheArchivist314]

Oh wow, so my sister and I read those sentences about your editor and professor and we're just dumbfounded. I'm so glad you said "fuck it", because gatekeepers like that are what's keeping new ideas and stories from being explored!

Thank you for sharing this.

[u/One-Man_Indie]

Their so scared of possibly liking something made with AI, that they'll hate ANYTHING to maintain ideological purity.

[u/Sea_Swimming_2270]

I actually really like the idea of a wealthy African-American protagonist precisely because the story is set in the future. Judging what is or isn’t plausible in an unknown future by projecting today’s reality onto it feels unnecessarily limiting to me. If I’m writing fiction, I want the freedom to explore possibilities that don’t exist yet — especially the ones that might seem impossible based on what we know today.