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imperial culture

(continuing the theme of planetary culture driving imperial ...)

rethe

rethe is one of the more unusual worlds in the imperium in that, despite its vast population, family ties continue to predominate. in the opinion of most this has not served them well, but the rethans ignore this and continue their ancient ways. from the original two thousand families that came six hundred years ago to mine the mineral deposits, the size 2 world population has swelled to twelve billion. through the water crisis, through the vermin plagues, through the civil war infighting, through the shutdown of the mines, and through the permanent economic crisis and vast overcrowding, the rethans continue to remain in and return to their family homes on rethe.

rethan society is stratified, literally. rethan habitats are "pits", large shafts sunk into solid rock at the planet's surface that may be up to a thousand feet wide open in the center and that can reach down several thousand feet. the pits are capped with a steel framework inset with thick glass panels to retain air pressure at sustainable levels in the pit. the shaft is lined with living spaces, almost always family apartments, set into the solid rock and facing out towards the wide walkways circling the open shaft. successful upper class famlies live in the upper tiers, middle in the middle, while city life support infrastructure, the lowest class of families, and lone individuals, are at the very bottom. cities consist of huge collections of these habitation pits, along with pits devoted to space port, agricultural, commercial, manufacturing, academic, civic, and communal activities, all linked together by tens of thousands of foot, slope-rail carriage, and (in "high-class" tiers) grav-driven carriage tunnels at most levels, in addition to endless elevators and stairs between tiers. most of the upper level tier stairs and transport passages are documented and can be isolated at each end with iris valves, but many of those in the lower tiers are not. in addition the entire planet is perforated by quite literally millions of mine pits, shafts, passages, communication tunnels, played out ore veins, and other diggings, many of them connected to the cities and transportation tubes between cities. in addition new pits and new transportation tunnels are always being dug, and some few mines remain in operation, continually adding to the planet's porosity and sometimes causing deep mine flooding when the world's underground seas are encountered accidentally.

artificial gravity is maintained in all family dwellings to encourage normal human physical development, but the walkways, passages, and pit centers are unmodified and have nothing but the planet's own gravity. lighting is common and bright in the upper tiers, becoming a bit dimmer and more intermittent towards the lower tiers. power is provided mostly by vast solar panel farms on the surface and supplemented as necessary by cold fusion power plants leased from outside companies.

marriages are often arranged according to family traditions - oddly, men and women maintain separate traditions. while women on rethe are considered free and equal citizens they almost always marry young and almost never work outside of their homes. men who are not at work usually are with their families almost non-stop. "going out" usually means going out with the family to communal activities, and despite their troglodyte existence rethan cities are filled with civic and communal activities. the children seem slightly more independent of their families than the adults and large groups of them hurtle through the tunnels and walkways playing their games and going places.

one rethan norm that many outsiders find disturbing is their practice of lining the walls of their habitations with small statues, plaques, and urns with the ashes of their ancestors. ask a rethan about any of these displays and he can tell you all about that ancestor in sometimes unnerving detail. another rethan norm that many outsiders find entrancing is their practice of singing in their pit wells. they will line the walkways of their pits, any number from a few to literally tens of thousands at a time, singing ancient harmonies that everyone knows by heart and sometimes trying out new ones. rethans tend to maintain these two practices whereever they go.

rethe must import most of what it needs. with their mineral veins played out and lacking the technology to build starships on their own, rethe has no natural resources other than it's own people, their physical and technical labor, so this is what they sell and export. millions of rethans serve in extra-planetary corporations, the merchant marine, and the imperial forces, remitting their pay back home. despite their family ties rethe routinely sends pioneer colonists to worlds that request them, as many as and often more than are requested. if a mercenary company can supply the transportation then rethans can sign up for mercenary work by the tens of thousands. and when the imperium needs to raise an army, literally ten million rethans can sign up in one day. except for the colonists most rethans return home, bringing their expertise and skills with them.

in addition to their people themselves, rethe sells manufacturing labor. vast trains of ships bring raw materials to rethe and turn around with manufactured good for sale elsewhere. treece and enope are unable to compete with rethe in manufacturing and are bypassed on the trade routes, and despite their huge technological advantage even feri and zivije are hard-pressed to keep their costs below that of rethe industrial labor and transportation. in fact feri does some of it's space-going vessel production on rethe. bartering between rethe and inthe in foodstuffs for manufactured goods is one of the most regular and profitable trade runs in the regina subsector.

rethe has several atypical resources. for one, it has plenty of space on its surface for large-scale hazardous testing accompanied by large-scale personnel support and non-wilderness living for the testers. many corporations, and sometimes the imperium, conduct long-term testing of hazardous products at rethe. for another, rethe is able to engage in hazardous materials manufacturing without having to worry excessively about industrial pollution or biosphere contamination. such workspace is surprisingly rare, and rethe can charge handsomely for these priviledges. it does.

one less-mentioned and less-remarked-upon rethan export is teams. the close living and close family ties of rethe often produce groups, sometimes very large groups, of men and sometimes of women, whose families have known each other for generations and who know each other very deeply from childhood, and who thus make excellent teams of whatever training and purpose. some of these teams achieve great fame, but most are covert, and some are outright secret.
 
This is great...Rethe is a planet that has often been a stopping off point for my groups without any specific adventures being set there.
 
(continuing the theme of planetary culture driving imperial ...)

louzy

except for the loss of riverland to the consulate, in the spinward marches there is perhaps no humanitarian disaster greater than louzy.

in the beginning louzy was nothing more than a large mining colony of efate. as the war with zhodane approached efate stepped up its mining activities on louzy, tripling the population of miners and expanding the starport. at this time grant experienced its genetic crisis and ecological collapse, requiring evacuation of the entire population. thirty-nine grand colony sleeper ships eventually congregated over grant, for an entire year cycling between grant and louzy dropping the grant population on louzy temporarily in anticipation of transfering them later to riverland at leisure. then the zhodani incursions into the spinward marches began, resulting in a tremendous flood of refugees fleeing the approaching happy police state. these rapidly exhausted available space in the jewell subsector and most of them were diverted to louzy in the belief that they needed to be kept out of the way of the war effort and that they would be repatriated soon (and in the belief that zhodani agents were among them). up until the end of the war the thirty-nine grand colony sleeper ships were pressed into service evacuating refugees from riverland to louzy. large relief organizations were dropped off on louzy to handle the vast immigration, efate and the imperium poured in money and personnel to support the refugees, and a very large contingent of rethans arrived to help add temporary sub-surface habitats similar to those on rethe to the vast mining and subterranean block habitats to allow those who had been in lowberth too long to be revived.

at first some refugees were cleared to transit to efate, but when it became apparent that many were in fact zhodani agents fomenting unrest on efate those transits were brought to a halt, and in fact everyone still on louzy was required to remain there. the vast collection of starships crowding the limited louzy starport and overflowing out into the wasteland surrounding it, many of which had been waiting for fuel for years, were grounded by imperial order and their jump drives disabled or confiscated. the imperium continued an effort to clear and emmigrate families with children, but eventually gave up even on this and decided to focus on attempting to restore order and control on efate first. rumors of this children emmigration policy and golden ticket off of louzy, however, spread like wildfire and led to a population boom unrivaled in human history.

and that is where the situation remains, to this day.

it's not all bad. efate and the imperium continue to pay refugee relief and welfare support. the psi threat, where not outright overblown, seems to have receeded and off-world aid workers and bureaucrats no longer are required to wear psi shields when in contact with the population. huge quantifies of work are supplied by efate corporations and other interests, and the short jump between louzy and efate makes the pair a vast industrial hub in support of the imperial cold war effort. substantial upper and middle classes have emerged, and many louzans qualify for imperial service and sometimes even emmigration.

but most imperial worlds continue to refuse to take any significant quantity of louzan refugees. vast lower class populations remain stuck in the mixed tech underground habitats cobbled together over the years. welfare dependency is widespread and intractable. disease and drug use is rampant. while cultural intolerance and resentment is the norm in the upper classes, gang warfare and murder in the lower classes is daily life. while some etiquette is observed in the upper levels, in the deep pit habitats one can hear the screaming and fighting and rampant sexual activity below. in many locations the population and activities of the lower classes are unknown to any but themselves, and some areas of the planet are effectively outside of anyone's control.

the rethans form the most effective gangs, and they are torn between hatred and loathing of the imperium and the realization that they can't return home without it. the grant refugees try the hardest to work with and for the imperium in the hope that someday the zhodani will be repulsed and grant's children may yet land on riverland. the original mining colony's descendents are perhaps the richest and most well-connected off-world. the descendents of the trapped aid workers form a de-facto civil service government, though a more bitter bunch of hereditary bureaucrats cannot be found anywhere. the refugees displaced from the conquered territories form the majority of the lower classes.

This is great...

hope it's useful.
 
(continuing the theme of planetary culture driving imperial ...)

junidy

if the zhodani consulate is a happy police state, junidy is a happy concentration camp.

junidy started out as yet another large successful mining colony. as its capabilities were developed and it approached its industrial inflection then junidy as a society chose a path of centralized control, and its citizens became servants to industrial production. as junidy developed further and approached its information inflection then again as a society junidy was steered towards a path of centralized dispensement, and it's workers lost all control of their government and their culture. as junidy rushes towards their cybernetic inflection there is every sign that they will be herded into centralized biology and sociology and will lose all control of themselves in favor of a tiny elite running everyone else's biology and everyone else's lives.

on junidy almost every personal and social action is limited and there is little room for any individual thought or effort. from birth all subjects are raised in state development centers where they are socially and habitually conditioned to accept state intervention and direction in their lives at all times. conscious education, while highly effective and competent, is also a continuation of this conditioning, and from early in life judy's are steered towards their state-determined status and life's work in the service of junidy. pharmaceuticals are employed throughout life to ensure each judy is in the proper mental state at all times.

centralized computerized networked state control extends to judys' personal lives. the chief programmer provides to each subject a list of places he may go, times he may go there, individual friends that he may have, hobbies in which he may engage, spouses from which he may pick, times to have children, and number of children he may have. free time is highly directed and alloted to communally beneficial activities. all of these choices are calculated to result in maximum mental and physical health of the individuals involved, to minimize resources expended, and maximize industrial and informational productivity of junidy. judys are free to operate within these choices, and excession of assigned parameters is severely discouraged if not outright excluded.

this is not to say that non-conforming judys are punished. they simply are guided. all judys wear monitoring and interaction equipment at all times - test subjects are being installed with the new cybergear - which reports on their location, physical status, mental state, and environmental interactions with other judys and the infrastructure of the planet, and guides them in making proper choices in pursuit of the chief programmer's plans. if a judy is not operating within parameters, other judy's simply will be directed not to interact with the rogue judy. doors will not open for him. the infrastructre of the entire planet will not respond to him. nothing will work for him until he returns to his proper parameters, designed for his benefit and the benefit of all subjects of junidy. conformity with the chief programmer's plan simpy is the right thing to do. it is the only thing to do. there is no other way.

each year every judy undergoes a full physiological, psychological, and neurological examination to catch and correct physical, mental, and psychic problems early. compliance with pharmaceutical regimines are confirmed, daily meds are updated and adjusted as necessary, monitoring equipment is examined for tampering and replaced.

all of this is not to say that junidy views itself as a perfect society, it fully recognizes that it has flaws. each week each subject of junidy may, if he desires, spend one hour alone in his own purge room, speaking his mind and carrying on as he pleases. if he wishes he may have fully interactive holographic projections of senior junidy programming council members with him, and he may tell them anything he likes, does not like, or what needs to be changed. most judys seldom speak of their experiences there but some happily relate how their suggestions in their purge rooms were taken seriously and how they participated with the chief programmer and contributed to the great algorithm by which all judys live.

junidy is a fairly wealthy world, mostly because of its class A shipyard, the only one in the entire subsector. not only does junidy build excellent j1 starships for commercial use - their agzlu- and j1 maus-class boats are regarded as the best anywhere - they also have a contract with the imperial navy for constructing the 4900 dton cargo modules used by the navy's alice-class transports, making a valuable contribution to the defense of the imperium despite being only tech 9.

a walk through the junidy habitats is a fantastic experience. holographic scenery is everywhere, holographic guides appear at every turn to personally suggest courses of action that seem tailored to every individual, and the entire infrastructure of the planet seems tuned to one's immediate thoughts and presence and actions. those who conform report that it's like walking in a dream that bends to meet you. and sometimes, if you're lucky, the chief progammer hologram himself will appear, giving sage advice and happy compliments to the smiling judy's that suddenly gather around him to share the experience of seeing the one who guides them all.

judys are rated level 1 to level 5 for purposes of interacting with off-worlders. level 1 is no acknowledgement of any kind permitted, level 2 is any necessary physical interaction but no verbal, level 3 is any necessary physical and verbal interaction, level 4 is full interaction as appropriate, and level 5 is any interaction. some judys are selected as being rated for off-world activities, mostly in imperial services or in trade negotiations or in educational institutions. these are said to be the rogue judys, but most people find nothing rogue about them at all. some, having an opportunity to leave junidy, never return, but most do.
 
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There were two more teams in Byzantian chariot racing, the reds and the whites, but I can't find any information on how they fared against the greens and blues. Were they pounded on by both sides or ignored by both sides or what?

Hans

It looks as if the answer is "in what decade"?

This source [1] says that in the time of Justinian the Reds and the Whites had fallen to a secondary position and their horses were provided for them by the Blues and the Greens. However the Emperor Anastaius [reigned 491-515] had been a Red [fan] only a few decades before and the Reds and the Whites still had their fans.

ObTrav: I'm sure that some teams that have had a bad few decades still have loyal fans.

[1] https://books.google.com/books?id=x...page&q=chariot racing teams byzantium&f=false
 
Interesting ideas with the Junidy piece but it leaves out the Llellelwyloly and some of the information in The Traveller Adventure.
 
(continuing the theme of planetary culture driving imperial ...)

porozlo

to say that porozlo is balkanized misses the point.

porozlo is unique among popA worlds in that it has retained a belief in the fundamental primacy of the individual human. for pozies all human existence, reality, and experience starts with the individual and never rises above that level. for pozies, culture and morality and society and government are all illusions or deliberate fictions, while the real driving force in all human affairs is the individual and his persuasive ability, his coercive force (recognized as existing, though viewed as violating the primacy of the individual), and his property rights (based on equal respect for all individuals equally in mutual self defense), backed or opposed by other individuals of equal standing. governments, corporations, business affairs, friendships, and acquaintences are all equally temporary and expedient - though some may last for lifetimes or even generations none are ever viewed as being necessarily permanent or deserving of existence merely because they exist. in pozie "politics" one seldom hears the words or concepts of "we", "society", "common", or "shared", rather one hears "I", "you", "oppose", and "support", and all pozie social interactions seem to be based on these four concepts immediately applied.

this is not to say that pozies do not cohere and organize - they most certainly do - it's just that they individually cohere and self-organize around specific leaders and specific goals. the seven major "governments" of porozlo consist of its loosely adjacent seven major mega-cities, each explicitly organized as mere confluences of private interests and their supporters (one city has seen its central downtown migrate continuously throughout the range of its boundaries for two centuries). taken together these mega-cities are the largest yet densest organized open-air concentration of humans anywhere in the entire imperium. above these is the porozlo shipyard complex, a vast conglomeration of cooperating and competing construction interests without any permanent centralized control that nevertheless successfully has supplied the imperial navy with alice-class and condor-class ship hulls, among many others, for generations.

outside of the mega-cities organization rapidly declines, and the further away from them the smaller the social organization and the lower the level of technology that is present. this results in a vast continuous spread of humanity centered on towns, then rural counties, then plantations, then individual homesteads, and finally the loners that ride on horseback the extreme edge of the wilderness seeking minimum contact with any human beings. in this vast range of individual humanity cities, posses and vigilantes, courts, civic projects, and all group endeavors come and go, all based on some passing individual or some temporary shared intent. in some areas conflicts develop and rise to the level of open warfare, and mercenaries frequently find employment somewhere on prorozlo, but in general most areas never see any significant violent conflict and most problems are resolved and most goals achieved peaceably enough.

if porozlo has anything that could be termed a planetary government it is megan's world, a - not committee but - confluence of interests regarding porozlo's planetary environment - containing pollution, maintaining existing flora and fauna, and generally keeping the world the jewel it is. porozlo is one of those rare planets that is not merely human habitable but a terran norm, and this is not taken casually by the pozies. almost one third of the population has contributed time or significant money to megan's world at one time or another, and megan's world keeps entire research and animal handling facilities, fleets of eco-enforcement ocean-going ships and space-going boats, wilderness ground wardens, and tourist guides, in pursuit of its goals. megan herself died long ago and she represents the pozie ideal - a man who's personal influence and non-coercive persuasion and common human goals outlives him.

porozlo is very rich. in addition to its massive imperial-patroned shipyard and cities' vast industrial output, porozlo is a primary tourist attraction, and retirees throughout the spinward marches end up on the terran norm bringing their money with them. trade with rhylanor is very heavy and many ultra-wealthy rhylan's own second and third estates on the planet. but of it all, porozlo might be best known for its luxury starship cabin accomodations. private yachts and luxury megaliners are built in many yards throughout the marches, but almost all of the very best - including those of duke norris at regina - are flown to porozlo for their final interior outfitting.

many millions of pozies wander the spinward marches, just to see what it all is. some are wealthy and merely wander, others pay their way by specializing as temporary crew or migrant workers, almost always true to their exact word but seldom going beyond it and never owing anyone anything or listening to any argument that they should. they despise the zhodani, gaze in horrified fascination at the judys, don't quite get the moran men, and fully understand and salute the imperium as a personally-owned project. many join imperial services but seldom rise to high rank. they are reliable but they always are moving on.
 
at this point 70% of the imperial population of the spinward marches has been culturally characterized. it may be assumed that these overwhelmingly large planetary populations will have an overwhelmingly large influence on "imperial culture" in that region.

for those who play traveller, hopefully these write-ups will add more depth to their player and non-player characters. in addition I tried to make the worlds themselves suitable for traveller gaming, offering opportunities and openings for game action and also opportunities and openings for individual referees to insert their own world-building in pursuit of their own game action.

Junidy piece but it leaves out the Llellelwyloly and some of the information in The Traveller Adventure.

I have nothing past lbb 6. also, if one cannot figure out how to pronounce the name within sixty seconds then perhaps it is better just to move on.
 
Or, "Those Welsh aliens" as I sometimes call them. Locals on Junidy call them "Dandies", which is short for Dandelions which they slightly resemble: A cross between a dandelion and a flamingo.
 
Tis sometimes nessecary...

It's a recurring issue. Misinformation is disturbing. We'll have to discuss it in the Moot before the Emperor.
If you think the Junidy is a bad sitch wait till you find out about Regina's Naval Base...:rolleyes:

Flykiller, damn you put a lot of work into this. Nice, so how do you feel about ATUs? :devil:
 
Okay, wiseguy...

every game is an atu.
Keep talking smart. You know I got a SPASec issue auto-riot gun in the squad, right. I am way to old to being chasing you punks down on foot. :devil:

Seriously, would you being willing to do that for my ATU and if so, PM me. That Culture thing is not my forte, I do mechanics and operational Traveller. Far more interested in the workings of Court and Bureaucracy to deal with the little things like worlds. One of the things I do love about T5 are those SysGen Extentions. Saves me much work starting from scratch, but still requires some work.

Either way, I am very much enjoying your detailed cultural looks at the Third Imperium.
 
I think of it as a cultural parallel to the Austro-Hungarian empire with a more stronger internal working infrastructure/bureaucracy and certainly a clearly capable, proficient military service.
 
The culture of Capital

I came across a world profile for Capital that includes a cultural profile (TD9, pages 12-13). Assuming Imperial culture has been heavily influenced by the people living on its capital world, this would give some strong hints about Imperial culture:

Progressiveness: Conservative and Indifferent
Aggressiveness: Unaggressive and Peacable
Extensiveness: Harmonious and Friendly​


Hans
 
I came across a world profile for Capital that includes a cultural profile (TD9, pages 12-13). Assuming Imperial culture has been heavily influenced by the people living on its capital world, this would give some strong hints about Imperial culture:


Progressiveness: Conservative and Indifferent
Aggressiveness: Unaggressive and Peacable
Extensiveness: Harmonious and Friendly​

Hans

Hans,

*** Are you sure that wasn't TD8? ***

TD8 featured (Core subsector)
TD9 featured (Cemplas, Bunkeria Subsectors)
TD10 featured (Cadion, Chant Subsectors)

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.
 
Hans,

*** Are you sure that wasn't TD8? ***

TD8 featured (Core subsector)
TD9 featured (Cemplas, Bunkeria Subsectors)
TD10 featured (Cadion, Chant Subsectors)

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

TD9 was the first issue in the large-format, which had the picture of an Imperial Guardsman holding a standard, with the Imperial Palace in the background. That was the issue that was devoted to Capital.
 
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