Is there an Imperial culture?

[LeperColony]

Do you think there is a unified Imperial culture? Are there traits that neighboring peoples think of as "Imperial," whether they are accurate or not, in the same way we think there are characteristics common to Americans or Japanese or what have you? If so, what are they? Given the great distances the Imperium covers, the slow rate of information communication, and the limited nature of 3I government, how did this unifying culture form, and what sustains it?

Along the same lines, is there an Imperial pop culture? In the 3I, do you see the same media consumed by a large enough percentage of the public to form a common frame of reference such that someone from the Marches and someone from the Solomani Rim could name the same celebrities, quote the same catch phrases, and know the same songs?

 

[far-trader]

I have long held that there is, though the details of my take on it are fuzzy. They've come a little more into focus with the latest musings of my support fleet idea in (iirc) the "What is a Naval Base" thread (http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=27328). What I'm calling the Strip Fleet is a big part of what defines Imperial Culture and where one finds Imperial Pop Culture. If not there then in the "Are fleets too Large in Traveller" thread (http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=27304).

That and the other services, starports, and bases. I had originally (when Traveller first came out) settled on a very Starship Troopers kind of culture for the Imperium. Citizenship is gained through Service. Member world populations are subjects unless they serve. Join the Service, see the stars, become a Citizen.

An idea that came out of TNE (iirc) was that the 20th C Terran vibes in the Imperium grew from a discovery of a cache of ancient (circa 20th C Terra) material that was adopted and widely spread by the Imperium. Thus the Imperial Pop Culture of the classic era is a revival of 20th C Earth memes.

The Imperial Pop Culture is often, though not always, mimicked and adopted by eager subjects of member worlds.

...something like that. As I said a bit fuzzy and never really fully realized. Just a rough idea of what it feels like to me.

 

[mike wightman]

We were told practically nothing about the Imperium core worlds in the early days of Traveller.

The setting described the frontier sectors where considerable home rule is practiced by the planets.

If you read the introductions to LBB4 and LBB5 they suggest that the Imperium directly controls it's core member worlds but the frontier sectors are just too far away for this.

Also note that the library data in the early adventures suggests a much smaller Imperium, perhaps only a few sectors in size...

Then the Imperium inflated, the description of the Imperium in the Library Data supplement made it several domains in size, and the map produced confirmed this.

But we were still not told how the core worlds were governed - directly by the Imperium or planetary governments under and Imperial umbrella.

Then came DGP and their vision for the Imperium, by the time of MT the various sectors they detailed suggested autonomous planetary governments were the norm rather than direct Imperial control.

I personally don't think they got it right.

I think all the worlds for a couple of sectors around Capital should have a government code to denote direct government by the Imperium, with islands of direct Imperial control in the next wave of sectors, and finally the autonomous planets under an Imperial umbrella in the frontier sectors.

An alternative view that i am beginning to develop for MTU - which steals from Dan's excellent idea for Strip Fleets forming the basis of Naval bases - is that only a few worlds around Capital are directly governed by the Imperium, the bulk of the Imperial citizenry actually living in space based habitats. This allows Imperial culture to become very different from today, it becomes alien to us almost. A TL15 space based culture is very different to what we have today.

The Imperium beyond the very core worlds becomes almost an Empire above an empire if you see what I mean.

 

[robject]

Interesting ideas!

I suppose if there were a core for "Imperial culture" it would include the original worlds of the Sylean Federation, which itself seems to be a largely Solomani culture (?) with plenty of Ziru Sirka substrate and Sylean bits, whatever those are. I'd also suppose that worlds directly governed by the Imperium would include those original worlds, by the way.

Anglic as the official language says something about Imperial culture -- it's fundamentally Solomani, perhaps in the sense that Roman culture is an "attribute" of European countries which speak languages descended from Latin.

 

[rancke]

I have long held that there is, though the details of my take on it are fuzzy. They've come a little more into focus with the latest musings of my support fleet idea in (iirc) the "What is a Naval Base" thread (http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=27328). What I'm calling the Strip Fleet is a big part of what defines Imperial Culture and where one finds Imperial Pop Culture. If not there then in the "Are fleets too Large in Traveller" thread (http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=27304).

That and the other services, starports, and bases. I had originally (when Traveller first came out) settled on a very Starship Troopers kind of culture for the Imperium. Citizenship is gained through Service. Member world populations are subjects unless they serve. Join the Service, see the stars, become a Citizen.

I agree with Dan, mostly. The 3rd Imperium is a cultural heir to the Sylean Federation which was a cultural heir to the Rule of Man which was a cultural heir to the Terran Federation. Although that doesn't necessarily mean that it kept many or any of the cultural tropes of Old Terra, there are all those adventures that unconciously assume that the PCs embrace 20th (now 21st) Century mores (Even the ones that assume the PCs will be breaking laws mostly assume that the laws they will be breaking are pretty much akin to 20th Century laws[*]). Although the reason for that is really because those are the values of the writers and most players, I find it easier to justify in-game as a culture that has survived 3000 years than as just a whole mess of coincidences, much less pretending the resemblance isn't there in the first place.

[*] The TTA adventure on Pysadi is a good exception (though the Pysadian culture is supposed to be quite foreign to the PCs).​

But almost by definition the normal PC is a member of the interstellar sub-culture -- the people who travel between the stars and the people on each member world that interacts with them. Those are the ones I consider to represent the Imperial culture. And the main indoctrinator of Imperial culture are the Imperial services and the Imperial merchant marine. People leave their home communities and have the Imperial culture knocked into them by their new surroundings. And you wind up with a group of people whose mores not at all coincidentally resemble 20th/21st Century Western mores enough that 20th/21st Century Traveller players can slip into their skins quite easily.

I will add that if GDW intended Imperials to be markedly different from default 20th Century Western people, then it should have provided a description that differed from that default. Adding something different now, 30 years later, would IMO fly in the face of 30 years' worth of material.


Hans

 

[Enoki]

One would think so. One that I have used is that there is an Imperial Church. My version is modelled on the Anglican / Catholic church where it is state run and a political as well as religious artifice. It gives you one more group of powerful, connected people with lots of money players can p!$$ off to no end...

 

[Carlobrand]

Do you think there is a unified Imperial culture? Are there traits that neighboring peoples think of as "Imperial," whether they are accurate or not, in the same way we think there are characteristics common to Americans or Japanese or what have you? If so, what are they? Given the great distances the Imperium covers, the slow rate of information communication, and the limited nature of 3I government, how did this unifying culture form, and what sustains it?

Along the same lines, is there an Imperial pop culture? In the 3I, do you see the same media consumed by a large enough percentage of the public to form a common frame of reference such that someone from the Marches and someone from the Solomani Rim could name the same celebrities, quote the same catch phrases, and know the same songs?

No - mostly, though Mike's comments are worth thinking about.

Why no? Two reasons - time and distance. Distance, in this case the week-plus travel time between worlds one to four-light years apart, tends to isolate cultures. Jewell is a couple or three months from Aramis. Aramis is, what, a couple of years from the core worlds? And the Third Imperium is over a millenia old, and the Marches almost as old. Given a degree of isolation and time, cultures tend to evolve in their own unique ways.

Why only mostly? Because there will be similarities based on the fact that they evolved from similar parent cultures, and because interstellar trade and communication will tend to disseminate cultural memes, offsetting the isolation effects to some extent.

Think of 1860's America, the nation an offspring of British culture, but the north and south as culturally different from each other as night and day - and yet similar in language and in certain basic assumptions about government. That took only a couple of centuries and differences in economies and environment.

Think of the Roman Empire, its fall and the evolution of its former parts: Italy, Spain, France, England, Turkey, the Arab world, parts of Germany, and so forth. Some of them kept the bulk of their former culture, incorporating small portions of Roman ways. Some were profoundly affected. All evolved in their own ways afterward - but all share some similarities evolving from their common contact with the culture of Rome.

The Imperium has a homogenizing force in interstellar trade and communication. However, travel times are long and the Imperium has been around for over a millenia - and is composed in places of even older interstellar communities that experienced long periods of being out of touch with each other but that share a common history before that. All of that suggests an Imperium that shares certain broad cultural traditions - that bit about being governed by an Emperor and such, for example, and an apparent common language, or at least a common trade and government language - but that is likely to have profound differences between regions.

 

[Icosahedron]

I think that, as Hans says, what we have been given over the past 30 years suggests a fairly homogeneous culture not dissimilar to 20th century Earth (The great dividers of 20th century Earth - and the whole of human history - are religion and politics, whereas the unifying feature of Earth is, and always has been, trade and commerce). Religion and politics do not appear to have such a divisive impact on the Imperium, perhaps being less influential, while trade, Travel and megacorps are central to the Imperial ethos - factors which themselves form part of the 'Imperial culture'.

There appears to be a common language, a common mode of dress, a phobia about Psionics, everyone will roll their eyes at mention of Type S ventilation systems, everyone knows what the Emperor looks like, everyone who is anyone will know how to address a duke, nobody trusts what a Hiver says, the symbol on the door of the gents is likely to be recognisable everywhere, along with the rest of the hazard warning symbols, you know you can get cheap meals and a decent bed at the Travellers' Aid, etc, etc...

A unified pop culture is a different matter. There may be one or two 'legendary greats', Elvis equivalents (heard the one about him being put into cold sleep and popping out for a stroll every now and then?) but fashions are very capricious and likely to vary from world to world with local talent - how many French rock bands can you name? Clothing fashions will vary, too, but perhaps not radically. Our own fashions vary between nations and sub-cultures, but everyone recognises the staples - the little black dress, the jacket and tie, the jeans and T-shirt...

And I think to draw parallels with Rome, you need to look at culture during the empire, not after its fall.
Time will diversify cultures in the absence of a unifying force, but time will homogenise cultures if a unifying force is present throughout. The Imperium hasn't had millennia to fall apart, it's had millennia to draw together.

 

[Gray Pennell]

Culture is a very hard to define its sort of like the unifying theory of everything. In my studies I go with a culture being shared signs and symbols. These come about in several ways politics aka ideology, religion, marketing, and media, history and local folk traditions to name a few.

Imperium culture would be made up of "universal" not local symbols.

Here is a quick list of where the signs and symbols would come from.

Imperial Navy
Imperial Scouts
Imperial Marines
The Star burst
The Scout ship and that vent
TAS
Nobles
Solomani Theory
Ancients
History of the rise of the 3rd Imperium
Fear of another Long Night
The way the Imperium views other races
Distrust of Psionics
Mega Corps
Tech 13-15

So yes there is a cultural just add more as you wish. Local things will be based on history that areas history.

One of the interesting thing about signs and symbols they do an amazing job showing how people experience alienation of culture shock. If you dont recognize signs and symbols than you feel the alienation. A world that has tourism as a man source of money will work to have tons of Imperium signs and symbols aka the Golden Arches etc. A world off the beat track would have its own set of symbols/signs and be proud of them.

This is why we would have a hard time with Hivers they would be very allien or Grandfather technology their signs and symbols would lose us.

 

[DangerousThing]

A unified pop culture is a different matter. There may be one or two 'legendary greats', Elvis equivalents (heard the one about him being put into cold sleep and popping out for a stroll every now and then?) but fashions are very capricious and likely to vary from world to world with local talent - how many French rock bands can you name? Clothing fashions will vary, too, but perhaps not radically. Our own fashions vary between nations and sub-cultures, but everyone recognises the staples - the little black dress, the jacket and tie, the jeans and T-shirt...

I like this.

Of course, Elvis was really Grandfather on a vacation. Then he returned from time to time just to play with our minds.

 

[LeperColony]

Although I don't exactly have a really clear view of the question myself, I think in MTU there exists an interstellar Imperial culture, but it has relatively few adherents.

Nobles, Imperial military personnel, megacorporate employees, free traders, and Travellers would all have a shared culture of similar values and references. In fact, I see these groups as closer to each other than they are even to their places of origin, in the same way that the various military aristocracies of the middle ages had more in common with each other than they did with their own lower orders. As these people dominate offices and the historical record, that would lead to a belief by Imperial leaders that the 3I was far more culturally homogenous, or at least culturally unified, than it really was. One of the consequences of this cultural drift was the ease with which the Imperium shattered during the Rebellion.

Someone else mentioned a state church, but with the whole ruling the "space between the stars" concept of Imperial jurisdiction, I just don't see anything nearly that intrusive or omnipresent. Of course, I also don't tend to see a whole lot of Imperial interference with the day-to-day lives of the average citizen, and I would tend to believe that most "Imperials" would more strongly identify with their homeworld or their subsector than with the 3I. Though this attitude would be less pronounced in regions that require (or just have) more Imperial activity. Thus I think Marchers, with the Zhodani, Vargr, and Aslan threats, identify as Imperials to a much stronger degree than a safe resident of Zarushagar. Many people here seem to envision a 3I that actively legislates the day-to-day lives of ordinary citizens, but to my mind, outside Starports or with very limited exceptions (like the anti-psychic laws), relatively few people have cause to interact with Imperial law.

As to the question of pop culture, I would tend to agree with the opinion that distances makes it quite difficult. I think it is likely that there are regional pop cultures, perhaps a few subsectors in size, with a fair amount of cross pollination, especially along the various mains. Overlayed on to that would be the occasional true breakout hit spread primarily by the Megacorporations and other media conglomerates. I think fads like the Macarena have a reach between a few systems to a few subsectors, solid works like Best Picture winners between the subsector and sector size, and Shakespearean masterpieces Imperium-wide.

This is modified, however, with two important caveats. The elite group I described earlier as being culturally homogeneous would allow for the spread of pop culture as well. Additionally Imperial nobles would, I think, have a kind of celebrity status that would allow them to influence popular culture in a wide, but fairly shallow, manner.

 

[mike wightman]

In order for there to be an Imperial Culture you need to have lots of people who live by that culture's memes.

So where are all the people who call theselves Imperial and generate the Imperial cultural dynamic?

Is it the population of all the world that used to belong to the Sylean federation? Do they form the core of Imperial culture. Do they govern their worlds by the same governmental systems and live their lives according to Imperial cultural norms?

Now where did is see the write up of the Core sector? Are there loads of TL 15 worlds governed directly by the Imperium generating the Imperial culture?

Or is the Imperium the noble houses, megacorporations and Imperial ministries that don't actually rule worlds? How do they generate an Imperial cultural identity?

Where are all the people who call themselves Imperial and show others what it means to be Imperial?

 

[Dragoner]

IMTU it's Vilani acculturated with Solomani and that the Imperium manufactures culture and exports it to maintain and build cohesiveness. Things like docu-drama's about Cleon I, Iphegenia at the Flower Festival on Usdiki, tabloid blah blah blah; all to help bring about some sort of universal feeling, though by the rebellion, it is obvious it doesn't work.

 

[Ishmael]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_imperialism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_imperialism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_hegemony

These pretty much sums things up the basis of the Imperium imtu

 

[Hemdian]

Yes, and pop culture is subsidised by the state:

IMTU the Imperium is culturally two-tier. The IN and Makidkarun are partnered to provide universal cultural hegemony throughout the fleet (for reasons of cohesion). This includes both high-brow culture (decorum and etiquette), and low-brow culture (mass media pop-culture).

The artificially manufactured pop-culture is freely available to others too. Individual worlds may opt in to this to varying degrees, many do not. But even on worlds that don’t, visiting spacers (merchants, etc) are not always likely to find local culture to their liking (beyond tourist style sampling). Thus starport denizens tend to be consumers of Imperial culture. It has a reassuring familiarity for those who are otherwise culturally dispossessed.

Given that free market forces apply to those not in the IN, culturally compatible alternatives to Makidkarun’s output exist … from Naasirka plus a number of smaller, more regional, suppliers. And given the lack of realtime responses across the 3I, drama production is less ephemeral than that of contemporary USA. Five year initial production runs for holo-dramas are normal, and then (if successful) extended in ten year increments.

With the large number of consumers, even very lavish production standards can be amortised to near zero. Copyright is a semi-forgotten concept. Spacers often compare entertainment libraries to fill in gaps in each other’s collections, swapping dozens of hours of programming at a time as if they were baseball cards.

 

[Icosahedron]

So where are all the people who call theselves Imperial and generate the Imperial cultural dynamic?
<snip>
Where are all the people who call themselves Imperial and show others what it means to be Imperial?

Look in the mirror.
Probably most PCs you've ever played are examples of Imperial Culture. You may think they're mavericks, they might think they're mavericks, but compared with Zhos, Hivers, Solomani, Aslan, K'kree, Droyne, Vargr, or even 20th century humans, they're all distinctly Imperial.

If you take time to figure out why, you'll see the core of Imperial culture. Imperial Culture is, by definition, what makes Imperials different from anyone else.