continuing the view that planetary culture drives imperial, we turn our attention to mora. mora is old (meaning that it would have been an early driver of exploration into and supplier of colonists for the spinward marches), pop A (meaning it affects present spinward marches culture by sheer weight), tech F (meaning it is a leader in tech research and development), and industrialized (meaning it is an industrial and economic powerhouse). it also is the possessor not only of a shipyard (putting it in a class above such pop A worlds as porozlo, junidy, and lousy) but of a very old shipyard, and it is a major supplier not just of cannon-fodder people but high-tech-trained people. thus:
moran economic, business, and therefore political, interests are represented, usually heavily, throughout the spinward marches.
mora provides a very large proportion of naval ships, naval officers, and naval technical personnel.
thus is moran influence. but what is moran culture? elsewhere we are informed that mora is a gynarchy, meaning the women rule. how this bizarre situation came about is not made clear, but let's run with it. the only way this could happen is if the males accede to this arrangement, so the moran males must be accommodated in some happy manner. using human nature as a guide, I propose thusly:
moran society is largely that of an ancient female village, writ large. the women have an interest in, own, and run their various "villages", which are ordered in various tribal, racial, and social standing hierarchies - political, industrial, financial, etc. each female matriarch sees to the welfare of her charges, be they single individuals or corporate matriarch with their own charges, and in turn reports to an elder matriarch. moran females are raised to account for everyone, take care for everyone, and look to everyone. leadership is determined by a combination of formal training and examination accompanied (perhaps dominated) by social relationships and popular accession/acclaim. thus moran culture and society is entirely female and an organic whole entity from top to bottom.
moran males are all rogues - not the handsome dashing kind, but simply not core components of moran society. they are more like ronin or temp workers. they are not despised by the women, but they are seen as hormonal individualist loners and needing guidance and control by the steady female moran society. moran males are taught, not to suppress their masculinity, but to give it full reign, to exercise their talents, to be strong and aggressive, to drive on towards their goals - as servants of mora, not as its leaders. they strive and compete, they sometimes fight each other, but when they are injured or fail they are taken care of, picked up, and launched again by the moran gynarchy. competence and success are rewarded, incompetence and failure are re-directed.
the biggest competition amongst moran males is for families. most achieve something, but the greatest males see the most progeny.
thus:
most moran females remain on mora, but many millions of the males roam over the entire spinward marches for a portion of their lives. moran males supply many imperial enlisted marines and quite a few low-level naval commanders, not to mention mercenaries. they don't always take full responsibility for their actions, and often are heedless of danger to themselves. most are very energetic in their duties, quite the brawlers and drinkers, (happily) stunned at the access to women throughout the remainder of the spinward marches, and usually automatically submit to any female who presents herself as being in charge.
some moran males despise moran society and can't wait to get out from underneath it. for good or ill they are their own men and consciously despise any attempt to control or interfere with or help them. these are often found as merchant ship captains, privateer captains, or exploration ship commanders.
Luckily instead of a knife fight we just chuckled and shrugged.
