Basic Information
Atompunk is essentially a bridge between dieselpunk and rocketpunk - typically playing the 1950s straight, but without the sudden outbreak of common sense that occurred as everyone realised that nuclear weapons are not your friend. Things like Project Ploughshare are all the rage, nuclear powerstations are everywhere, ships and maybe aircraft are nuclear powered and short-lived but determined scientists are hard at work cramming reactors into smaller and smaller frames to create nuclear powered cars, motorbikes and, eventually, rocket-ships. Wrist computers with a goofy UI are optional, but expect a strong Art-Deco aesthetic (possibly with "the other side" embracing brutalism). Without the "punk" slant, this transits quickly into raygun gothic instead.
Like rocketpunk, expect the subversion tropes of the 50s to kick in as well - high levels of conformism, ubiquitous but poorly understood drug use, red scares and McCarthyistic responses and a misplaced confidence in the ability of science to solve everything.
Sources
Game and Story Use
- This - and/or rocket punk are the background to the Fallout universe before the war: although set in the 2200s, the atmosphere of the old world is very 1950s.