imperial culture

[Nathan Brazil]

So how does this apply?

Agent of the Imperium can give you a clue. In one chapter, Bland brings up the The Eighteen plays Some things might be inferred about Imperial culture.

Bland was not born Vland, but on Sylea yet knows and carries a few traditions. One plays invovlves a"The Vilani Transitional Era, as Shugina struggles against the last functional Ancient battle machines" An event 20,000+ years prior. If not in fact, as a myth in oral tradition or written form. As a play/lesson on Disappointment. We barely give a darn or know about Gilgamesh and Enkidu after 10,000 years.

Leaving your finger behind. The family buries a momento of you, not the whole body?

 

[Condottiere]

Cultural Imperialism and soft power.

Latin and English became lingua franca, and presumably so did some bastardized form of Frankish.

Cultural Imperialism is more insidious, because regardless of how the oppressed view the oppressors, it speaks to an inferiority complex that compels adoption or imitation.

Or the aspects of the culture are just attractive and compelling, like eating raw fish on rice.

You can try force feeding, by opening up cultural centres in foreign cities and attempt to allure and beguile local elite and influencers, or coerce client states in directly adding your curriculum in theirs.

 

[Condottiere]

And before I forget, ghettoes can isolate minority cultures from the mainstream.

So can enclaves, usually established by conquerors to ensure both security and non contamination, usually cultural.

 

[McPerth]

The british ruled india for about 200 years, and the rule of man ruled the ziru sirka for 400. Even if every terran migrated to the ziru sirka, they would still be a drop in the vilani demographic bucket. Then with the 1700 years if interstellar isolation or sporadic contact, the terrans would have been absorbed.

I know that canon says different, i cant really see a justification for the vilani assimilating into small populations of terrans instead of terrans assimilating into the much larger vilani population.

But, unlike the British in India, were they didn't govern directly, the RoM did. As I said, the Spanish government of South America, where they exercised directly the government, would, IMHO, be a closer analogy, and current culture in most of it is closer to Spanish than to the former ones they had.

Roman Empire, to look for another analogy, also ruled a population severla times its own, and also exercised the power directly, and the result was also a closer culture to theirs than to former ones in most places...

 

[Nathan Brazil]

Cultural Imperialism and soft power.

Latin and English became lingua franca, and presumably so did some bastardized form of Frankish.

And the language of Third Imperium government at its highest levels? Galanglic. Not Old High Vilani, not Sylean, not French o: :rofl:.

Galanglic.

Was this used only among "the space between the stars" people and not necessarily the locals? If so, this situation could be like the old Chinese Empires. A single written language bound the government, the bureaucrats, and because formal education takes time away from food production, the rich and intellectuals. But not a single spoken one. The common folk still spoke their regional languages. i KNOW I am oversimplifying, but i am not a linguist nor have space. My best friend in childhood was Chinese and explained itt to me as such. He spoke "Cantonese" (aka Yue) BTW.

 

[Tiikeri]

That's true, but like in Dungeons and Dragons, you don't get any kind of "dose" of what the local culture calls song, dance, entertainment, nor local custom. D&D has the advantage that it's mostly a derivation of Medieval [norther mostly, but not exclusively] Europe, and all the folklore, legends, mythology that it implies.

It may be one of CT's great failings that as the OTU evolved, that there were people like me who saw the OTU as optional (however fun or useful it proved), and ignored things like Vilani culture. I think the MT VV supp describes Vilani culture to a degree; slow to progress, physiologically somewhat tall or lilthe, a tendency towards elegant garments and the like. But again, that's post CT.

I don't know, just tossing out ideas here.

IMO it is a significant failing with profound consequences. The vargr, aslan, and even the solomani got more of a cultural writeup than the vilani. Canon states that people consider themselves 'imperial', but then never goes on to describe what 'imperial' is, so it defaults to americans in space because canon didnt say different.

VV made vilani culture painfully boring.

 

[flykiller]

Why do we in the Midwest (not sure about other places) say "Bless You" or "Gesundheit" after someone sneezes?

heh. in medieaval times people thought yawning was caused by demons pushing their way out or in. that's why today people cover their mouths when they yawn.

 

[flykiller]

ghettoes can isolate minority cultures from the mainstream.

actually that's their primary function. "whatchoo doin' heah! this is OUR hood!"

and of course it goes both ways.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

Finishing my thoughts on Galanglic
Not the case, however. IIRC Galanglic was used throughout the Imperium, with dialect differences. One was the Rim dialect. Cannot stop thinking

"Remember Starport Paulo!" "The Sols shall rise again, y'all"
o::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl: :devil:

Which is to say if Galanglic is semi-universal in the 3I like English is now around the world what does this say about the power of proper, refined, established Vilani culture vs that of those barbararins of Terra. Being defeated after 3500 or 5000 or 7000 years (depending on which Vilani you speak of) 1700 years of effective isolation and Galaglic sweeps in for the win?

Or how quckly the Vilani went back to tradition once Rebellion came around.

 

[wellis]

What does GalAnglic even sound like? Do we have examples of it being said or written that sound weird to current day English speakers?

 

[CaptRet]

Here's a stanza from Beowulf, written no later than the 9th century in Old English (Anglo-Saxon). Now, what does Galanglic look like ??



Þâ wäs on burgum Beówulf Scyldinga,
leóf leód-cyning, longe þrage
55
folcum gefræge (fäder ellor hwearf,
aldor of earde), ôð þät him eft onwôc
heáh Healfdene;

 

[Condottiere]

Pa signed on as a loader on the long ranged Beowulf barge Scyldinga; getting freight off father allowed himself all the time in the world, so folk nicknamed him Halfdone.

 

[Blue Ghost]

IMO it is a significant failing with profound consequences. The vargr, aslan, and even the solomani got more of a cultural writeup than the vilani. Canon states that people consider themselves 'imperial', but then never goes on to describe what 'imperial' is, so it defaults to americans in space because canon didnt say different.

VV made vilani culture painfully boring.

I think Traveller's emphasis on security scenarios just doesn't lend itself to local flavors. With the more contemporary D&D modules you can travel to analogs of Ancient (fantasy) Egypt, medieval Italy, India, Japan, China and the like, all with built in cultures. The game mechanics are pretty universal; hack and slash or cast spells as you desire as you fight and pillage the local area. Traveller's emphasis is more on plot survival and resolution, so Efate, Kinorb and Regina probably resemble Capitol and Terra, just as today's cities and technology, world wide, strongly resemble one another. The only difference being the local language and art forms.

I think the GURPS AMs are superior in their writeups over the CT AMs in this way, because they offer explicit examples of alien behavior and social construct. And they do give distinct alien cultures that are apart from the Vilani, Vegan, Geonee, Vargr and so forth.

I don't know. Terra, now and in the imagined 3I thousands of years from now, I'm guessing, probably has districts that are ethnically similar what is today, but perhaps with regions that are more ethnically blended. I don't know. I'm just blabbering on here.

 

[Condottiere]

 

[Blue Ghost]

I don't understand.

 

[Condottiere]

 

[Tiikeri]

But, unlike the British in India, were they didn't govern directly, the RoM did. As I said, the Spanish government of South America, where they exercised directly the government, would, IMHO, be a closer analogy, and current culture in most of it is closer to Spanish than to the former ones they had.

Roman Empire, to look for another analogy, also ruled a population severla times its own, and also exercised the power directly, and the result was also a closer culture to theirs than to former ones in most places...

The spanish conquest of the americas is not an applicable example to this question because the indigenous populations were almost destroyed through epidemics, mass slavery, and systematic genocide campaigns. The indigenous populations were substantially destroyed and then replaced by colonists from spain and so on. This kind of population destruction did not occur throughout the ziru sika. Even in the solomani sphere epidemics were deliberately stopped after the plague of duskir. As the indigenous populations were reduced by 90% colonists flooded in from a highly populated europe and other regions, leading to cultural dissolution. This didnt happen in the ziru sirka.

A better example would be the spanish colonization of the phillipines. The spanish directly ruled the phillipines for 300 years, but the phillpinos retained their identity culture and languages despite systematic campaigns to eliminate their culture. Now consider the immense size and population of the ziru sirka. Even if the terrans had 100 worlds at the start of the rule of man, thr ziru sirka had 10,000?? There wouldnt be enough terrans in charted space to displace or assimilate the vilani, especially in the core regions which had been settled and developed for thousands of years. The long night would have removed the norming influence between worlds, and terrans wouldve been tiny minorities on most vilani worlds. And, canon doesnt state that the terrans made deliberate efforts to stomp out vilani culture and language, while the vilani had a very long history of forcing other cultures to become vilani. Only in the solomani rim war period did yhe solomani purge their worlds of vilani, separated by 2000 years from their ancestors the terrans.

 

[SpaceBadger]

This reminds me of a discussion my first group had very early on: Was the Imperium evil and was it our job to resist them? At that time Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica and Blake's 7 loomed large in sci-fi and when you mentioned galactic empires, they were automatically evil.

Yeah, that sounds like group I tried to start in college. This issue came up during chargen, so after they generated their first Traveller characters, I set aside the adventure I had ready in order to work on a new adventure for them to support rebellion in an Evil Pocket Empire - not the Third Imperium, which I overall kinda liked. But then while I was getting that ready, they all got hooked into a D&D game and I never got another chance to show them the Way of Traveller.

 

[SpaceBadger]

The Suerrat were eager allies of the Terran liberators against the Ziru Sirka that had subjugated them, and much later they also apparently led a revolt against the Third Imperium in the 400's that was crushed.

Hadn't thought of this before, but maybe that's why the writers of MT chose to make Dulinor be from Ilelish? Is it ever stated whether he is Suerrat or "normal" Solomani/Vilani type of human?

 

[SpaceBadger]

and another question. is anyone finding what I've written about mora and trin useful or helpful? if so I'll continue.

Yeah, I am finding them both entertaining and thought provoking. (OK, I know I'm responding to a 4 year old post, but still I'd like to encourage more of that.)