Unnatural Understandings and the Disparate Minds

When you have a setting with ghosts, poltergeists, and other paranormal goings-on in that vein, the next logical addition to the setting is people who investigate and or deal with such manifestations of the supernatural. There are essentially two types of groups who undertake these endeavours, though there is always the potential for overlap. There are those that take a scientific approach and those that take the metapsychical approach. Beyond, or aside, from the overlap of these two methodologies, is the conflict between the two, which can be further complicated by the deniers and debunkers of both. This of course ends with a messy four-way conflict, but therein lays some fun of its own.

Since you are beginning with a reality base that includes the paranormal as witness-able fact there should be at least the beginning of a scientific basis for understanding it, even if the real hard science answers will not be found for many years to come. The science need not be clear, or widely accepted, or even very useful, but it should be there. Where there is a need for understanding, there will be people to pursue it. They will come up with answers that work for them, eventually. The same can actually be said of the metaphysical adherents too, they will find answers in the fashion that suits them. Since this is a fictional setting they can be just as correct and valid as the science-types, and often will be far ahead of the curve because they simply embrace the rules they see rather than trying to understand them at a level beyond utility. They also do not necessarily seek a rationale or explanation.

Most of the scientific types will have commonly held beliefs about how the paranormal works. There can be some dissension, even some where groups have wildly divergent theories, but I would guess it is minimal. That said it is minimal in comparison to the myriad of occult system beliefs. There is no feeling of consensus behind these groups because they do not believe so firmly that there is only one reality. As soon as they witness the success of a group with a different belief they must admit there is more than one approach, which is unless they fall into the same category as the debunkers. Even though the metaphysic groups can see more than one method they too can believe their way is superior, or more morally true, or what have you that causes from polite disagreements up to vicious rivalries amongst them.

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Anatomy of a Horror Setting #4-8: Industrial Phantasmagoria

Victorian Age horror is rife not only with the supernatural but also the mechanical and the scientific.  Steam locomotives had been in use for quite some time.  Photography came about as the age began.  Gas lighting became widespread.  The London sewer system was built. People were working on and produced motorised vehicles.  The tail end was witness to engineering feats like the Brooklyn Bridge, and modern innovations like the incandescent light and phonograph.  On the science front Darwin published his "On the Origin of Species", and Faraday laid the groundwork for understanding the connection between electricity, magnetism, and light.  Medical breakthroughs brought about surgery with anaesthesia, the creation of vaccines, and the first use of X-rays scans.

These wild and exotic innovations provide great twisting points for horror.  They start at a basic level with the mundane.  The industrialisation of the textile industry, the spread of mining, and the rise of tenements and slums provided hellish environments with dangerous and desperate conditions.  Child labour was an all too common occurrence.  Any of these could be the basis of revenge from beyond the grave or from the living.  As marvellous as the phonograph was there was also much fear over what it implied, which was compounded by later attempts to combine it with spiritualism ideas to build devices that could communicate with the dead.  Such merging of spirits and science owes its due back to Doctor Frankenstein galvanising the dead back to life.

Mad scientists also followed in the perverted footprints of Frankenstein, but with their eyes open, intent on creating monstrosity and working toward world domination--since Britain showed it could be done.  What kind of scientific perversity are they into though?  The process of Eugenics can be used to make super men and women bringing about a master race.  Hybridisation mixes different animals together or men with animals.  Mechanisation is another route.  Tear a subject apart, amputate limbs, remove organs and create openings.  Fill those voids with gears and mechanical assemblies and replace limbs with faster and stronger motor driven parts of cold hard steel.  All of them could ultimately be combined even, with a supernatural element added for extra terrifying potential.

Mood: relieved.

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Anatomy of a Horror Setting #3-5: Horror Boldly Goes

Space... the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Event Horizon... its seven-year mission... to return from Hell... to seek out a new crew to torment... to boldly go where the Nostromo has gone before. Space is no stranger to horror. The basic conditions of the actual area known as space is dangerous and it is a seeming antithesis to life; cold, barren, and empty for the most part. For the longest time space was a great unknown. It still is a source of many questions and a never-ending parade of mystery. What is out there, waiting to be found, or ready to come here and find us? Science fiction that takes place in space doesn't fit into a particular sub-genre of its own unless it contains certain other hallmarks, which can then make it Space Opera.

Space Opera seems like an odd genre to which to add horror. It is historically know for its melodrama and romantic plots. It is also a heavily clichéd form of science fiction. By definition its characters, plots, and the civilisations, which inform most of the settings, all tend toward the massive, powerful, and grandiose. It is working in contrast to all of that where the best horror might be found. In keeping with Space Opera's past, horror doesn't have to be the only other genre added in, though of course such additions should tend toward being tropes and the like only. These additional elements can be from other science fiction sub-genres or from other full genres entirely. The use of vast space faring empires in Space Opera opens up several facets upon which to build.

The new frontiers of the galactic empires, governments, and federations lend themselves well to plots that are perfectly at home in Westerns, or Adventure stories. Those frontiers can be filled with horror. The series Firefly is a fine example of fusing Space Opera and Westerns. With the addition of the Reavers it veers straight off into horror. Cyberpunk is another possible addition to Space Opera and horror. Though lacking the 'Opera' aspects per se the movie franchise Aliens and its assorted book series' is certainly cyberpunkish with the company conspiracies of Weyland-Yutani Corp. Moving from Alien to its sequel Aliens moves from space horror to Military Science Fiction horror. Military Science Fiction often overlaps with Space Opera sometimes by necessity.

Mood: cold.
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In space no one can hear your spleen!

Anatomy of a Horror Setting #3-4: Cybernetically Enhanced Horror

I have personal experience with cyberpunk horror. My first consideration was not deciding why put horror into a cyberpunk story. The base storyline was in place and the main characters were set. A strong sense of urgency was missing though. The story needed punch. Oddly enough the sense of overpowering dread was lost with the level of hopelessness and desperation that the story had. What it needed was a shot in the arm, something to kick the horror up a notch. That horror boost came from the sense of security mentioned last article. It came not just in shattering that greater security than a modern setting held. The danger, the fear in facing the horror of such a plot and antagonist was actually heightened by grounding it versus the best that science and ballistics could offer.

The science fiction nature of the cyberpunk milieu allows for the characters, and the reader, or viewer, with them to share a moment of dawning terror without stepping over the line into the usual impossible odds ethos of Lovecraftian horror for example. The horror is greater because it is less of a man vs. nature conflict. It takes away the resignation that the end is inevitable. It leaves room for hope. Hope that is then crushed. The horror is kept fresh and within arms length. It is much more satisfying to pit characters of skill and power against something that ultimately terrifies them than it is for the everyman. That which frightens the usually fearless, or appals the morally bankrupt, is something with which to be reckoned. At least this is true with the right set up and the right situations.

It is easy to slip away from the horror into a more action-oriented mode where the importance is placed on survival more than dealing with the cause and coping with the fear elicited by the situations. The conventions of cyberpunk can be used to add different layers of horror. The dystopian nature, moral grey areas, and the tough choices arrayed before the protagonist can be bent to psychological horror. Good and evil are strained and skewed. The cultural commentary brought to life by the dark science can be darkened further by the horror elements added. Greater depth, and nuance, is possible when adding cyberpunk’s essential layer of man vs. himself conflict, and setting that against or in contrast to the external conflict. Personal horror of oneself could even in itself be a goal.

Mood: retro.
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Anatomy of a Horror Setting #3-3: Do You Feel Cyber, Punk?

An easy pairing for near future science fiction horror begins with the cyberpunk genre. Cyberpunk deals with technology that is more advanced than today and focused in two main directions. The Internet, computer software, and artificial intelligence play an important role. This is followed a close second by human augmentation that is commonly in the form of cybernetics, and military hardware. The technological level of sophistication depends on how many years in the future the story takes place. Another factor common to the genre is that most settings involve massive, global corporations that control just about everything between them, even the governments that are supposed to be running the world’s countries. These companies are great motivators of plot in the stories.

The protagonists in cyberpunk are the punk part of the equation. They battle against the monolithic corporations and work outside of the often-corrupt law. Keeping with the dark dystopian mood that permeates the genre these protagonists are not always the most moral of characters. To the common people they are indistinguishable from the criminal element. The heroes of the setting are aware of the true nature of their society and unwilling to leave things the way that they are. They end up fighting, incapacitating, and often killing people in authority even as they do the antagonists. They steal information Robin-hood style. It is not uncommon for them to work with and for criminals, and tread the fine line between doing what they’re paid for and what is right.

Horror is as natural a fit with cyberpunk as it is with modern settings, in some ways perhaps more so. The powerful cyborgs, the futuristic weapons, the surveillance society, and the great scientific achievements all make for a world--human emotions and intentions aside--that is strongly grounded in reality, practical, and logical. The power available to even a single person with the right connections lends to a sense of security unfelt any time before. What better place and milieu is there to shatter with the illogical, the incomprehensible, and the supernatural? Powerful technologies versus the supernatural have a long history hearkening back to the spectacular but ineffective lightning cannons in the Gojira movies. Cyberpunk brings this to the more intimate, personal, horror level.

Mood: roguish.
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Anatomy of a Horror Setting #3-2: Binomial Nomenclature Horrorificus

There are three classes of science fiction that are the initial focus of the horror/science fiction cross-genre author. There is Hard Science Fiction where there is great accuracy to the science. There is Cyberpunk, essentially already a fairly dark genre. Then there is Soft Science Fiction where the science is not that strictly correct. These classes can be broken down further. In addition there are other classes of science fiction. The class with the least to say about mixing it with horror would be the Hard Science Fiction. The reason for this is that focus on accuracy and reality. This is not to say that it is flawless, but it does not particularly settle for verisimilitude. The Hard sub-genre requires horror strongly based in reality and might be best relegated to thrillers.

Cyberpunk has restraints upon it that also limit the horror that can be mixed into it. Or so one would think. Anyone who has come across GURPS Cthulhupunk or Catalyst's CthulhuTech RPG will agree. Though the focus isn't on horror Shadownrun is another example of cyberpunk and the fantastical. Cyberpunk can actually be written as horror without stepping outside of the technology that makes up the backbone of its science. It's all a matter of focus, where criminals with advanced weaponry like cybernetics and smart guns roam the streets, and hackers get their brains fried plying their skills against faceless monolithic corporations that are more sadistic and powerful than the worst dictators. Still, it is a genre ripe for adding upon in even more nefarious ways.

Soft science fiction is the most open class of science fiction covering a multitude of different styles from Space Opera like Star Wars, to modern day uses of unconventional science like Fringe, to the goings-on of Utopias with trouble like Isaac Asimov's Caves of Steel--itself a mystery cross-genre work--to dystopian stories like Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Soft science fiction immediately has a built-in cast of characters directly usable for horror in the form of aliens. There is no lack of alien horror stories. Being alien means extra-terrestrial beings are an unknown. Its already been discussed that science can be used for nefarious purposes, however even benign purposes can have unseen affects. Soft science fiction often has strong social overtones, which lend themselves to horror.

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Anatomy of a Horror Setting #3-1: Science Fiction Horror Feature

A psychic horror setting and magical horror setting are just that, horror settings. Now it’s time to look at something that crosses genre lines. A natural fit for melding with the horror genre is the science fiction genre. People often look at science in wonder, but they also look at it and see things that they don’t understand. They see a great unknown. The unknown is always a perfect jumping off point for fear. That which is unknown is frightening--a pretty standard and correct axiom. Science will always be a point of fear for some. There is always something yet to be discovered. Better yet from the horror standpoint is that scientific discoveries are comparable to double-edged swords. These discoveries can be put to both beneficial and malevolent uses.

In the previous setting discussions the questions that needed to be asked were not exclusive. Most of the options chosen worked together. Answering one question did not make other questions moot. Most of the possibilities coexisted in a cohesive whole. When looking at a science fiction horror setting some of the questions, especially the earliest ones, will exclude other ones from being asked. As with horror, science fiction has its own sub-genres. The science fiction sub-genres though vary in ways that separate settings into entirely different lines that are hard to blur--not impossible--and may be undesirable to merge. Horror sub-genres share a common purpose, to instil an exciting level of fear. Science fiction sub-genres serve different purposes and have their own unique goals.

All of this means that the first question the author of a setting needs to ask is what science fiction setting is necessary for the horror to be injected? This is the first question if the author knows what kind of horror it is to be. If the author doesn’t know then there is some leeway. Conversely the author can know what kind of science fiction the story will be--remember it can be a storyline for a short story, a novel, a script, or for a role-playing game--and then decide based upon that the nature of the horror that will be a part of the final amalgamation. The articles to follow will look at the types of science fiction that work best with horror, how to incorporate the horror within the science framework, and all of the important decisions needed to traverse the line between the two genres.

Mood: sombre.
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