imperial culture

[Timerover51]

I have severe doubts that there would be a recognized "Imperial Culture".

The communications lag is going to be one major factor. When the entire planet understands that the latest news from Capital is over a year old, how much is anyone going to pay attention to it. They will know that things and people, the ins and out, the ups and downs, the latest fad and fashion, will have already changed by the time news of it reaches them. Given that, why will anyone waste the effort on imitating Capital? The nobles will pay attention, somewhat, as to whether or not their patrons are in or out of favor, but even then, what was true a year ago is likely no longer true.

Then you have the full range of government and Law Levels to consider. The culture of a planet with a Government of "0", family ties prevailing, and a Law Level of "0", is going to be enormously different than the culture of a planet with a Government of "9", Impersonal Bureaucracy, and a Law Level of "A". no weapons permitted whatsoever. Add in the different or lifestyle between a Low-population Earth-like planet with a low Tech Level and a High-population planet where dome life is mandatory because of the planet's conditions, and you have a limited basis for a large amount of shared culture. How the Vargr or Aslan are viewed is going to be highly correlated to the distance from the Border and number of Vargr or Aslan raids sustained.

That does not even consider the vast differences you will have between a conquered Terra and Regina/Spinward Marches, which will have little to do with the physical distance between them. Yet both are members of the Imperium.

 

[Whipsnade]

I have severe doubts that there would be a recognized "Imperial Culture".

You don't quite understand what is being discussed.

No one is suggesting there is an imperial culture which is also the prevailing culture on worlds scattered from the Marches to Rim. What's being suggested is that there's an imperial culture is the prevailing culture among people in imperial service.

There was a culture shared by the men who administered regions as diverse as Nigeria, Kenya, Bengal, and Fiji for the British Crown. When you look back on your own military service, you'll realize there was a shared culture within the Army despite the men making up that army originally being from diverse cultures. Historical "megacorps" like the EIC and VoC each had their own cultures too.

The idea is not that the general population of Mora will somehow have the same culture as the general population of Sylea - even if the billions living on each of those worlds would have anything resembling a unified culture.

The idea is that there is an imperial subculture or, more accurately, several imperial subcultures present wherever there are imperial personnel. The navy would have a subculture, the high nobility would have a subculture, the ministries, each megacorp, the uniformed services, and other groups would have a subculture. Those groups' subcultures would be spread across interstellar distances because the people making up those groups live and work across interstellar distances. Part of the reason these group subcultures would develop would be because those groups would teach and impose a group dialect intelligible to everyone in that group.

 

[flykiller]

every game is an atu.

Seriously, would you being willing to do that for my ATU and if so, PM me. That Culture thing is not my forte

somehow this got past me, can't recall if I responded. are you still interested in this?

 

[The Pakkrat]

Vargr Ethnicity Cultures

Tangent to Imperial Culture
(forgive for tacking this onto this thread) :squirrel:

From what I've read in both canon publication, fan contributions, and listened from various fans' headcanon, I can see something similar to Vargr subcultures. However, with Vargr we can see these found in ethnicity and regional varieties. Each sub-species (or ethnicity as preferred by some fans) of Vargr has a 'dialect' not only of language but also of preferences in ways of life, business practices, Pack dynamics, and how they play well or not-so-well with other Vargr ethnicities and other races. Let us not forget the time it takes for one Vargr in the Vargr Enclaves to communicate with another Vargr living on the Zhodani Consulate border. That is a significant factor in the OTU.

We know that the Vargr have racial pride, especially when confronted or compared to Humaniti, Aslan, <insert non-Vargr race>. Breathe the term Solomani Hypothesis within earshot of a Vargr and watch him puff up with vocabulary words like Ancients, Lair, jump drive, and dig out files on Vargr pre-stellar history. And that's before one encounters a Vargr member of the Church of the Chosen Ones, Stellar Divinity, Jihad of Faarzgaen, Runetha Saetedz, Oenlaetsvaeg supremacy or any other Vargr belief system.

We see behaviors of ethnical pride across the Vargr regions and ethnicities. It shows in their use of the many upon many languages and dialects. Compare Gvegh or Gvegh-Aek to say Vuakedh or pure Irilitok clear across the Vargr Extents. You will get an earful of how each speaker thinks their mode of using Charisma in sentence choice is better than the others'. And whether they are compensating for some inner turmoil or true believers in Vargr supremacy, we get a front row seat to see diversity across the Vargr ethnicities and regions.

Regions color each Vargr ethnicity. The Gvegh are curious and cautious in Gvurrdon and other adjacent sectors because of their proximity to the Zhodani Consulate and the Imperia. Comfortable with their trophy homeworld Lair in their turf, the Logaksu have their shared trade routes and ethnical pride whether or not they conduct trade with the Imperia (1I, 2I, 3I). We see the dim but strong Urzaeng forced to take matters into their own claws as they continue to punish Gashikan and Trenchans for the Wolvesbane Project. The Irilitok have been shaped from outside and inside forces such that other ethnicities either pity them or despise them. This has colored their culture, an ethnicity that has been forced to work from within the system. And the Suedzuk are the most fractured in subcultures after the Sack of Gashikan, after the hatred of Humaniti splattered this ethnicity coreward, trailing and rimward, causing each sector-full of Packs and regions to differentiate significantly. Each has generated a regional subculture based on events. And yet we still see a racial pride hardwired into the Vargr.

And many Vargr are not racist. The Solomani Hypothesis was acknowledged, even if begrudgingly. The genetic proof was on display. This has caused another layer of subculture to lie juxtaposed over linguistic, ethnicity, and regional influences. This is one source for the Tetusu-Dene Scale, that a Traveller might get a clue as to his welcome on the next, Vargr-dominated world after jump breakout.

Vargr Charisma is another source of subculture. We see stratification across UPP ratings of Charisma. Low Charisma tends to yield Loners, Prospectors, Scouts, those Vargr who know they do better without Charisma getting in the way of making a living. We find mid-Charisma Vargr who are fine being members of Packs involved in low-ranking military, mercantile, citizen and craftsman careers. And higher Charisma UPP cuts Vargr for wearing mantles of nobility, functionary, scholar, high-rank military, board of directors corporates. Each of these subcultures are split down Vargr Charisma.

There are subcultures in the Vargr race based on when they left Lair, First Diaspora and Second Diaspora and later. We encounter a number of displaced, marginalized or ostracized ethnicities who departed Lair, never to return and rediscovered much later. Each of these exodus ethnicities have developed their own subcultures with a range of welcomes for the visitors upon rediscovery. The Akumgeda were mixed in opinion about being rediscovered by the Gvegh. The Nakagun have preference for Logaksu over Urzaeng visitors in their Listanaya Sector. The Kokasha are dwindling and at risk for extinction being pinned down in Trenchans Sector due to their treatment by the Gashikans Yileans. The Urzaeng have had to learn to make a living without the mercantile babysitting of the Logaksu. The distant Roth Thokken, born blind and born psionic draw sharply a subcultural line between themselves and the 'handicapped' Suedzuk that have them surrounded in Angfutsag Sector. Ovaghoun have pitied the Irilitok with distaste and suffered the ire of the Suedzuk who call the Ovaghoun (Archduke Brzk et al included) as Vilani bootlickers. All of this history has subdivided the Vargr into various subcultures.

Finally, because of the mutability of the Vargr race, we cannot make any hard, set-in-stone assumptions about an encountered Vargr individual before us. This is why see so much artwork of Vargr who wear their medals, titles, finery, livery and other heraldry on their sleeves. It is an added visual subculture of entitlement, making sure we get a clue as to who we are dealing with.

We cannot truly stereotype any Vargr we encounter without some prior notice of whom we are meeting and interacting. There are subcultures within cultures within ethnicities within this diverse major race. And still, despite all the variety, we can predict a Vargr racial culture perhaps based on physiology of which the Vargr are quite proud.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Whenever I ran games it was pretty generic stuff; PCs, starport, starship, grav vehicles or wheeled, there you go. I never got into what music or social or artistic trends were around. To this extent I don't think the Imperium has much of a unified culture beyond the military.

 

[Selandia]

To this extent I don't think the Imperium has much of a unified culture beyond the military.

spacers too have a mesure of "startown cosmopolitan" culture, a stew of local TI cultures borne by individuals from various world and smoothed by necessity of shipboard life. Such culture does not get define by Song of the month but by it very diversity and the "how to fit aboard" rules acting as cultural backbone.

Of course, liners running between two worlds with crew from one world will have the local culture as crew culture.

have fun

Selandia

 

[Tiikeri]

Imo, imperial culture should be vilani culture with a few innovations from the solomani. The vilani were always the majority human populationexcept on minor race homeworlds, in areas of new colonization or where they were genocided and replaced (solomani rim, plagues, wars and epidemics)

I think of the solomani like the normans in britain or the british or mugals in india. They formed a ruling class, changed some things, but the majority population didnt change their base culture.

The solomani were too few and the rule of man too short for vilani populations to lose their culture, and the 3i nobility isnt even solomani. After the long night they would have assimilated and married local women, spoken local languages, and been solomani only in legend and ancient heritage. Imagine the british in india after a thousand years of zero contact with britain. Thats what the solomani on vilani worlds were like after the long night. They would be unrecognizable to the solomani in the rim sector.

 

[Blue Ghost]

spacers too have a mesure of "startown cosmopolitan" culture, a stew of local TI cultures borne by individuals from various world and smoothed by necessity of shipboard life. Such culture does not get define by Song of the month but by it very diversity and the "how to fit aboard" rules acting as cultural backbone.

Of course, liners running between two worlds with crew from one world will have the local culture as crew culture.

have fun

Selandia

I suppose. San Francisco is pretty cosmopolitan, as whenever I go into the city I see not just tourists, but everyday workers who are white, black, Indian, middle east, Hispanic and so forth. I think that would be likely at major startowns in border areas; i.e. large minorities like Vargr or Aslan depending on the region of the Imperium. And they may bring their own levels of acceptable organization or chaos, and have ghetto districts or enclaves. But cities, on average, tend to resemble one another with the odd landmark here and there. So it is I think with the Imperium.

Spacer culture might be unique. I don't know. It's probably flavored or seasoned from a variety of culture hubs; again, Vargr, Aslan, Soli, even Zhodani, but the Imperium strikes me as being fairly generic.

 

[Spenser TR]

This thread always makes me smile when it comes up. Because it's huge I haven't checked but I don't think I've run down this list here. If I have... oooops.

There are some things that seem to be very much part of a common Imperial culture. These are just from my own observation of many sources, definitely my own opinion:

-Don’t always start the fight, but be able to end it. Be very very powerful, but use power judiciously. This seems to be the entire operational doctrine of the imperial Navy.

-Some amount of structure and rigidity is good and necessary; schedules, systems of rank, routes of delivery, paths of service… all help provide stability across distances.

-Violence can sometimes be a legitimate tool of diplomacy.

-Travelling, starfaring is like respiration for a society.

-Diversity is a good thing, at least in spirit, and until it interferes with “normal.”

-Humaniti is just a little bit “better.” The standard alien specie are just a little bit wanting. Along with this, transhumanism is disdained.

-Being cosmopolitan is good, awareness and participation in the wider worlds is good.

-Belief in something bigger than one’s self is common – the Ancients, the Imperium. honor and duty, the value of service, the power of a contract – such beliefs are widespread.

-contracts are binding.

-Standardization and homogeneity have value – money, tech, language are fine examples.

-Commerce keeps civilization going; fair exchange, a value for goods or services keeps the peace and helps everyone thrive.

-Gender equality is a given.

-Personal privacy and free will is important. Anti-Zhodani sentiment is in part an expression of these ideas.

-A person should work, be productive, earn and save, and then retire to relative leisure and enjoy the fruits of their historical labor. Productive life is more valuable than non-productive life.

-Artificial sentients are not citizens, and have less rights than other sophonts.

-Psionics, psionic research and training are bad for society.

-Upward mobility is possible, earned, and encouraged.

-“Freedom” after a fashion is necessary, especially the freedom of capitalism
Religion tolerated but not the rule.

-Democracy is uncommon. It’s not often aspired to, not held up in any major way as something to strive for.

 

[flykiller]

Indian, middle east

well those did not just wander in, they are specifically imported and specifically subsidized in various ways for specific purposes.

Hispanic

these DO wander in, and are subsidized outright.

how much of these dynamics will be present in an "imperial" starport?

 

[Blue Ghost]

Regardless, the idea is that to me, San Francisco and the Bay Area as a whole, represents a major intersection for Earth, as I think starports would be for subsectors, or major hubs like Regina, Efate, Kinorb … and all the others in border regions. For the Bay Area there's also Chinese and Japanese from the previous century, Vietnamese, Burmese, white Australians and Russians. Some are larger groups than others as I think would be found in the Spinward Marches or in areas of the Imperium like the Geonee and Vegan regions.

But, just as there isn't an explosion of Asian films on the Bay Area media market, so would I think there just wouldn't be an explosion of Aslan or Vargr films in those frontier regions. Oh sure, you could find Aslan and Vargr media online, or wander into a store that catered to them, but you're not going to find a Vargr holovid section in a Vilani / Imperial human oriented grocery store. You'll find some Vargr canned food or fresh meat in the butcher's section, but I think that's about as far as Vargr culture would encroach. Ditto with any other major race; Aslan, Hiver, and so forth.

I'm not sure where the Imperium would have much of a culture. Locally, probably, but I can't see it Imperium wide.

 

[McPerth]

Imo, imperial culture should be vilani culture with a few innovations from the solomani. The vilani were always the majority human populationexcept on minor race homeworlds, in areas of new colonization or where they were genocided and replaced (solomani rim, plagues, wars and epidemics)

Curious, I always viewed it the other way, that Imperial culture was more based on Solomani ones, with Vilani hues and "taints" (for lack of better word, not wanting to be derogative).

I think of the solomani like the normans in britain or the british or mugals in india. They formed a ruling class, changed some things, but the majority population didnt change their base culture.

The solomani were too few and the rule of man too short for vilani populations to lose their culture, and the 3i nobility isnt even solomani. After the long night they would have assimilated and married local women, spoken local languages, and been solomani only in legend and ancient heritage. Imagine the british in india after a thousand years of zero contact with britain. Thats what the solomani on vilani worlds were like after the long night. They would be unrecognizable to the solomani in the rim sector.

Both British and Moghols were relatively few time as rulers of India, mostly trough surrogate rulers, and even then they left quite an influence in his culture.

I'd see it more like the Spanish Empire in South America, where they stood for about 300 years, and really replaced their leaders and ruling structure by the Spanish own, and despite the ethnic intermarriage, they really changedits cultures to another more standardized.

IMHO, the RoM was more like this, really changing the ruling structure in most Vilani worlds (on the believing htey were freeing them from the cast system), and, like Spaniards in South America, taking with them plagues that affected their populations (despite probably not to the same dgree, moslty due to higher TL) to people that had no immunity to them.

in fact, as 3I is depicted, Galanglic is (at least) understood in most of it (akin the Spanish in South America), and most ruling names ae from Solomani origin, as even the Vilani nobles tried to adapt to the SOlomani ruling, even changing the family names to this end. While most nobility is not ethincally Solomani, they appear to mostly be culturally.

 

[Tiikeri]

Something else that needs to be considered in is the cost of travel. Even a low passage costs 1000cr per jump which suggests that a cosmopolitan city will have people from the local cluster or a few jumps along the main. Think about how far, how many jumps at at least 1000 a jump, a vargr from the extents would have to travel to be a cosmopolite living in Regina. People in Massilia sector probably dont even think vargr are real.

 

[flykiller]

you're not going to find a Vargr holovid section in a Vilani / Imperial human oriented grocery store. You'll find some Vargr canned food or fresh meat in the butcher's section, but I think that's about as far as Vargr culture would encroach. Ditto with any other major race; Aslan, Hiver, and so forth.

well "encroachment" speaks to colonization and displacement, not to "cosmopolitanism". one notes that california has multiple state lottery systems, but the mexicans want to buy mexican lottery tickets instead. same with coke - they want to buy mexican coke imported from mexico. not sure "cosmopolitanism" actually exists anywhere but in a few ultra-wealthy enclaves, everywhere else is just various stages of colonization and cultural displacement.

 

[flykiller]

Curious, I always viewed it the other way, that Imperial culture was more based on Solomani ones

(grin) it does make the game easier to play ....

with Vilani hues and "taints"

most human cultures will roll with the winners. and while even defeated human cultures will experience at least pride in their past if for no other reason than self-identification, vilani culture is in fact objectively stifling and thus not attractive to some and solomani culture is in fact objectively liberating and thus attractive to most.

 

[Tiikeri]

Curious, I always viewed it the other way, that Imperial culture was more based on Solomani ones, with Vilani hues and "taints" (for lack of better word, not wanting to be derogative).



Both British and Moghols were relatively few time as rulers of India, mostly trough surrogate rulers, and even then they left quite an influence in his culture.

I'd see it more like the Spanish Empire in South America, where they stood for about 300 years, and really replaced their leaders and ruling structure by the Spanish own, and despite the ethnic intermarriage, they really changedits cultures to another more standardized.

IMHO, the RoM was more like this, really changing the ruling structure in most Vilani worlds (on the believing htey were freeing them from the cast system), and, like Spaniards in South America, taking with them plagues that affected their populations (despite probably not to the same dgree, moslty due to higher TL) to people that had no immunity to them.

in fact, as 3I is depicted, Galanglic is (at least) understood in most of it (akin the Spanish in South America), and most ruling names ae from Solomani origin, as even the Vilani nobles tried to adapt to the SOlomani ruling, even changing the family names to this end. While most nobility is not ethincally Solomani, they appear to mostly be culturally.

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.

 

[Blue Ghost]

well "encroachment" speaks to colonization and displacement, not to "cosmopolitanism". one notes that california has multiple state lottery systems, but the mexicans want to buy mexican lottery tickets instead. same with coke - they want to buy mexican coke imported from mexico. not sure "cosmopolitanism" actually exists anywhere but in a few ultra-wealthy enclaves, everywhere else is just various stages of colonization and cultural displacement.

*shrug*

When I think of Vargr living on Imperial worlds, I think of Vargr living on Imperial worlds. That is they have their district, but strictly speaking there's only a few that mix into mainline human culture and live amongst humans in human neighborhoods. What that entails, how many fights or interracial friendships it generates is, to me as a referee, a non-issue, because unless the players want to wander into the Vargr district, or the mix-raced neighborhood, or local ghetto, it's not important.

It never cropped up in any of my gaming sessions. The closest was when a group I was refereeing for was on a predominantly Vargr world, and they wanted to buy an air raft. Well, the Vargr being partially color blind, they could only find these very gaudy painted air rafts, which, to the Vargr, appeared to be these cool blue-gray or yellow or even green color schemes. But, to the human eyes appeared to be something akin to the Partridge Family bus, or worse.

Your mileage may vary on cultural interaction. In one of my fan fic offerings I wrote Vargr as per the GURPS version; rowdy, ill tempered, attractive in a puppy dog kind of way, pack mentality, and all the rest, because that's kind of how I view wolves. And so it was that I wrote about their "out door" starport. If it had been a Vilani or Imperial starport, then I would have written it like a major contemporary airport, as I have. And to me that's about as distinct as cultures get in the 3I. Everything else is just flavor thrown in there by the referee.

 

[aramis]

Tiikeri:
The IN is speak soft, carry a big stick, and once you go to use it, overkill the target.

Local governments don't survive IN INtervention. Often, local populations don't, either....

 

[Nathan Brazil]

I saw someone mention the Vilani and realized there may in fact be a general Imperial culture of sorts and it may well be Vilani. Not in the big ideas but in the little things.:coffeesip:

Why do we in the Midwest (not sure about other places) say "Bless You" or "Gesundheit" after someone sneezes? I learned as a kid it was a quick prayer to ward off the plague. Silly tradition perhaps. but most everyone says it. Bless you I get, it is English, but why the heck do I say "Gesundheit" (German) to other English speakers? Why not my Spanish "Salud" (Health) or "Dios te bengida" (God bless you) because tht's what you say in Spanish. I'm Mexican-American.
Its because in the Midwest, who were the predominant culture? German. Even in my city Chicago, the Polish Mecca of the Midwest. Germans and German language began fading due to WWI but even in the '70s when I grew up, I'm stuck naturally saying Geundheit or bless you.

Similarly kid rhymes one grows up with call up the echoes of your own cultures origins.:coffeegulp::coffeegulp::coffeegulp:
Jingle Bells, Batman smells... (pop culture 70s, Batman reruns)
Yankee Doodle went to town riding on a pony... (America history)
London Bridge is falling down...(Great Fire of London)
and the scariest once you know its origin
"Ring around the rosies" (The Black Death)

 

[Blue Ghost]

I saw someone mention the Vilani and realized there may in fact be a general Imperial culture of sorts and it may well be Vilani. Not in the big ideas but in the little things.:coffeesip:

Why do we in the Midwest (not sure about other places) say "Bless You" or "Gesundheit" after someone sneezes? I learned as a kid it was a quick prayer to ward off the plague. Silly tradition perhaps. but most everyone says it. Bless you I get, it is English, but why the heck do I say "Gesundheit" (German) to other English speakers? Why not my Spanish "Salud" (Health) or "Dios te bengida" (God bless you) because tht's what you say in Spanish. I'm Mexican-American.
Its because in the Midwest, who were the predominant culture? German. Even in my city Chicago, the Polish Mecca of the Midwest. Germans and German language began fading due to WWI but even in the '70s when I grew up, I'm stuck naturally saying Geundheit or bless you.

Similarly kid rhymes one grows up with call up the echoes of your own cultures origins.:coffeegulp::coffeegulp::coffeegulp:
Jingle Bells, Batman smells... (pop culture 70s, Batman reruns)
Yankee Doodle went to town riding on a pony... (America history)
London Bridge is falling down...(Great Fire of London)
and the scariest once you know its origin
"Ring around the rosies" (The Black Death)

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.