What will I be doing?

Not for the first time have I asked myself this question, but now everybody else is asking me what on earth I’m doing too. Doing a PhD in Philosophy should sound like I have some sense of direction, but when people hear that I’ll be doing my research on a video game, the conversation has generally come to a crashing halt. It isn’t because gaming is seen as a weird hobby like gamers claim it once was, because these days it’s pretty normal, but people wonder what more is there to it than fun? Personally, I think fun is enough reason to study something, but my supervisors are going to want more than me just playing games for several years. So, I’ll be using Mass Effect specifically to look at biological stories, also known as biopunk stories.

What is ‘biopunk’?

It is fair if you roll your eyes at hearing yet another -punk label being attached to a science-fiction subgenre. But discussions about ‘biopunk did come before the loud Twitter debates over whether ‘hopepunk’ meant anything at all. Biopunk discourse became an important foundation that allowed those discussions of other subgenres to be built into popular culture. The term ‘biopunk’ is still a loose one, but commonly thought of as fictional stories concerned with biology. While Mary Shelley is credited with starting the scifi movement in the West with Frankenstein, her text was also one of the first works of biopunk. The greatest debates around biopunk tend to be whether it needs to be political, and if it is, then how should those politics be demonstrated? The common storylines of biopunk tales cannot avoid politics: mutant creations from nuclear fallout and radiation, gene editing, ‘biohacking’, loss of biodiversity, viruses; all of these common biopunk plots are inseparable from politics. Arguably, that’s exactly what we want. There has been widespread lamentation of cyberpunk increasingly becoming a subgenre concentrated upon its aesthetics rather than its conflicts. But how biopunk stories truly relate to politics is what I’ll be focusing my research on. I’ll take the plots from Mass Effect and look at how they deal with politics, and especially for what they say about marginalisation and oppression.

Why Mass Effect?

In the original trilogy, Commander Shepard must lead the galaxy to fight a fleet of hybrid machines (part tech and part organic) set upon harvesting the DNA of advanced biological life, and wipe out any being surplus to requirements. In the fourth game, players explore a different galaxy but the new protagonist Ryder faces similar biological threats, if not with the same impending sense of doom. Biopunk is at the core of these games, which should be no surprise when they are made by a company called BioWare. Subplots also fit the bill: there is a “sterility plague” unleashed upon the krogan, a virus deployed as bioweapon on Omega, several main characters are ‘created’ in a more refined take on Frankenstein, vulnerable people are deliberately exposed to element zero to ensure that they develop biotic powers and, at one point, there’s even a clone Shepard that the original Commander must battle. Mass Effect has a wealth of bio-related stories that can be examined, and this series offers several unique opportunities. Mass Effect deals with inequality in a more obvious and apparent way than a lot of scifi games really have the scope for. The series shows poverty, disabled characters, queer characters and a hell of a lot of racism in both galaxies. This means there’s room to examine the issues of marginalisation within the lore. Gaming has also often been overlooked for its contributions to genres, but the mechanics of Mass Effect can be examined to see whether they contribute to the ideas and themes of biopunk that are prevalent throughout the games. One series provides many routes for exploration.

Where will ‘Mutant Theory’ come into it?

As part of the Mass Effect research, considerable time will be dedicated to looking at characters who were designed and then created. Mutant Theory will be developed from these characters. Mutant Theory will look at why audiences react or connect to characters like these and if they do so in particular ways, especially as it is a common biopunk plot. Mutant Theory will be developed from the Monster Theory that Jeffrey Jerome Cohen designed. His theory looked at the way audiences fear and desire classical monsters and what these beings represent. Mutant Theory however, will be designed specifically around a certain type of science fiction monster: the ones we create. Further reading While I will be publishing essays that go into greater depth as I make my way into my PhD program, I will continue to highlight reading that may be relevant or of interest. Below are some introductory books that will be helpful if you wish to learn about biopunk or Monster Theory. Biopunk Dystopias, Lars Schmeink Tracking Classical Monsters in Popular Culture, Liz Gloyn Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, Mary Shelley