Let’s crack this egg:
Space travel! Cyborgs! Mutation! Automation! Organ farming! Time inven-sheeun! Necromancy! Magic is a word for technology too!
Just a rough draft, I’ll be back…
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A recurring Gizz thesis: “humanity tries to save itself using technology, ends up destroying itself and the whole goddamn planet with said technology.” Fables like Han-Tyumi and the Dawn of Eternal Night reveal King Gizz’ criticisms of power structures which ensure suffering using the technology ironically meant to allay suffering.
I recently read a really great essay about the classification of “punk” in literature (from cyberpunk to steampunk and so on); it clarified the difference between the aesthetics of punk and the ethos of punk. I believe the Gizz ethos lines up with true cyberpunk satire. I guess it could be something like “climate-punk” (I’ve heard ecopunk) since their main preoccupation is climate catastrophe. Han-Tyumi and Cyboogie are cyberpunk as fuck, but the main point there is: technology used to escape or perfect nature is a mistake and can only bring more suffering. Non-sci-fi songs like Astroturf repeat this message. So ecopunk covers a lot of their discography…
I enjoy using “Vulcanpunk” when specifically referring to Infest The Rats’ Nest and PetroDragonic Apocalypse since fire and volcanos play such a heavy role in both. You burn on Earth, you fly into the sun, you jump into the Venusian atmosphere, you get swallowed by a dragon.
Hell, even Ice Death has TWO songs about melting in magma/lava! Then Gliese 710 is about the Earth exploding as a star passes out solar system. Total annihilation by cleansing fire.
Caterpillars melt themselves to reform into butterflies. Vomit-bombs explode and munt torrents flow like lava, consuming all in its path. Magma is like the blood of the Earth, scabbing as lava hardens to make stuff, make more Earth.
The destruction of the body, returning your ashen atoms to the cosmos, surrender of self to the higher power that can never be extinguished. Give me Hell, I want that!
At this point, I’m just puking onto the page, thanks for reading.
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Humans yearn to be in control of our own transformation. Cyborgs confused by their faulty automation. But nature has final say. Nature scripts the metamorphosis that we undergo while alive, and nature turns us into the next thing. We try to snatch the Promethean fire from nature when pave over paradise. But we inevitably burn.
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Rats nest is my favorite album for this!!! From the colinzation of mars to the floating helium blimps on Venus, this record is absolutely PACKED with real life science stuff.
Think its almost analogous to the upcoming DAVINCI & VERITAS missions to venus that are launching at some point this decade hopefully… no legit blimps floating on the upper atmosphere but the twin spacecraft are going to land on venus and orbit the planet respectively. Think its a really neat parallel to Venusian I, Perihelion, and Venusian II. Venusian I being VERITAS, “floating helium” as its staying in orbit high above venus. It ain’t no blimp but typically the fuel/ox tanks on its propulsion system are backfilled with helium so I think it technically counts.
Perihelion because on the crafts planetary transfer orbit, theyll likely end up passing closer to the sun while they perform various gravitational assists to save on fuel.
Then Venusian II because Davinci will plunge into the hellfire that is the venusian atmosphere and surface. Its quite literally one of the most hellish environments in the entire solar system.
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Oh another neato fact about those helium blimps, it doesnt need to be helium! Because of the gnarly runaway greenhouse (heat death) effect on venus and the extreme pressures at the surface, normal breathable air is buoyant enough to stay above the super hellish conditions. You can fill your blimp with regular old air and sit, quite confortably as the temperature and atmospheric pressure is favorable to life. Just be sure to hold your breath as the traces of sulfur and co2 outside at these altitudes would be quite irritating.
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Thank you SO much for sharing. I had no idea Venus trips were being planned! The premise of helium blimp civilization in the Venusian skies is kickass.
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recommended and related viewing. don’t worry it’s not too “what if phone but too much”. there’s a version of this on YT but the quality is so bad it looks like it was filmed on a Nintendo DSi.
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The closest thing we could get to cloud city ala star wars haha itd be really neat. Wonder in a far distant future, if a form of corporal punishment in such a civilization would be walking the plank to your eventual self imolation…
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LOVE Adam Curtis. Hypernormalization was a game-changer. Will absolutely check out his “scary phone” doc 
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So don’t steal this, but I’m currently working on a comic idea springing from Rats’ Nest.
A whole religion is formed on Venus inspired by the sight of people self-immolating. Fire-worshipping monks who practice human sacrifice (you can guess the method).
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So like a Rick & Morty Knights of the Sun type of thing?
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Well when you put it that way, it sounds lame hahaha
I envision them more like The Strangers from Dark City: spooky bald weirdos dedicated to preserving their harsh way of life.
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Joey has a couple of ‘Wikipedia songwriting’ style songs that I like for this. Anoxia and Ataraxia are both centred on their topic like a Wikipedia article is, so they have kind of a science journal kind of vibe to me. Its an interesting form of sci-fi world building in music that only works with the larger extended universe/Gizzverse thing they have.
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Wiki-style is a great way to describe the songwriting. I also love the dorky focus on certain topics. To relate it to sci-fi writing: it’s very similar to how authors need to have real world knowledge in their pocket when coming up with speculative concepts. Superbug is a great song, supported by all the other songs about brain parasites and precarious societies.
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Philip Jose Farmer wrote a book called Dare in 1965. I just happened to be reading it when PDA came out. I won’t spoil it but think lost colonists, space travel, witches and dragons.
vulcanpunk is a good name i love it
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