Bugs, may they be organic, mechanic, electronic, or a mix of them all, in a world of input from cyberpunk or biopunk, stand at the core of this subgenre. It has the potential to be horrific and awesome on a new level. Perhaps the bugs come from out...
Bugs are everywhere. Burrowed in the ground and hiding in your ceiling. Eating the leaves of your trees and bushes. Filling the screen of your device in your time of gaming entertainment...
Bugpunk is one of the derived punk subgenre from Cyberpunk. Compared to some "punks" that follow the way of the hard science and the anti-establishment opposition, Bugpunk is closer to the Biopunk approach of evolution.
In the entertainment industry, through literature or comics, big screen or TV, gaming implements, Bugpunk has built its nest in the science fiction sphere.
We could classify the bug evolution at the core of the punk subgenre into three categories:
the evolved bug,
the enhanced bug,
the engineered bug.
From those three, the evolved bug species roaming the vast expanse of the Universe is most likely what comes to mind when thinking of Bugpunk. Let's just throw some titles, and everyone will node at one or another of those...
On the reading side, we have some classics such as Anne McCaffrey's "The Tower and the Hive" series and Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game". In the former the Hivers, a insect-like life form spreads all over the galaxy to find new worlds where colonies could settle and feed, until the world is destroyed and they need to find a new one. In the latter, Earth forces battle with the Formics to control new worlds resulting in the annihilation of the Formics.
Many will also remember the hordes of insect invaders in Robert A. Heinley's "Starship Troopers" and the movie adaptation where evolved giant arachnids destroyed everything on sight.
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The common point of the bugs in either McCaffrey, Card or Heinley stories is the classic structure of the insect-like alien species organised around a queen and sharing a mind link.
Though widely seen, the concept of critters bent on annihilating all we know and love starts to leave room for some form of fun and sympathetic evolved bug-like lifeforms...
It is on the gaming side that we find those lighter and funnier, adventure-seeker bugs coexisting with dreadful killer-bugs like in the Nintendo's Metroid game series.
