Human Culture in the Frontier

jedion357's picture
jedion357
November 7, 2012 - 6:51am
Mono, sub or multi-culture?

The English anthropologist Edward Tylor wrote:
definition of culture, in the 20th century "culture" emerged as the central and unifying concept of American anthropology, where it most commonly refers to the universal human capacity to classify and encode human experiences symbolically, and to communicate symbolically encoded experiences socially


To boil it down culture is the ability to encode experiences symbolically  and to share them socially.

Culture can be looked at as laungauge and custom but there is also "material culture" the items and things produced by social groups which is what the artchaeologist is largely concerned with

AD gave us a few specific cultural customs for Dralasites on Inner Reach, Dramune and Yazirians on Hentz, Araks and by giving us PanGal as a language ther are by default 5 languages.

This thread probably wont stay focused on human culture and will rabbit trail to other cultures but I wanted to consider ways to distinguish human culture by sytem or planet and even possibly account for sub, minor or other cultures within the human community of a planet or system.

For instance I think that human culture on the following planets/systems would all be a little different plus asteroid miners might have a distinct "culture" either in one system or simply throughout the whole Frontier- a brotherhood of Asteroid Miners BAM though the cadre may have helped to foster this sub culture.

Possible cultures to define with a custome or two:

1. Madderly's Star
2. White Light
3. Theseus
4. Timeon
5. Prengular (despite being a multi racial planet I feel that its worth while to look at what human culture here might be here since its the Hub of the Frontier)
6. Spacers could form a sub culture though I think I prefer to just have this space was from Clarion and shows it in speach and custom
7. BAM brotherhood of astro miner- clannish sub culture with a snobbishness for those not born to it.
8. Truane's Star whoes culture will heavily influence Laco's

As to the language issue- to effectively discuss this topic I think we need to discuss what the native language of the human population of the Frontier is. its not Pan Gal. This gets tricky as some of us like the cannon statement of a another race of humans (not from earth) evolved in another spiral galaxy and some of us like to just include earth in the setting but far off. What I propose is a name for the language that can work for both: something like Anglese which for the pro earthers would be a mongrel language that evolved in the sol system which is a mixture of English, Spanish and Chinese and for the anti earthers its just a name and it can mean what they like it to mean. or we can call the haman language: Terran which again means what the individual fan of the setting wants it to mean and we all get to hold hands and sing Kum By Ya despite our differences.
I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!
Comments:

jedion357's picture
jedion357
November 7, 2012 - 7:31am
I'll take a stab at Prengular

Gran Quivera: capitol of the UPF, Hub of the Frontier economically, geographically, socially, the meeting place of the core four races, steeped in History,

Humans here have largely adopted PanGal and many only understand Terran (or whatever we decide on) at a rudimentary level. They have a very cosmopolitan attitude and are almost snobbish toward other human cultures. Contact with Yazirians has impacted the human population here greatly and their is a great deal of cultural borrowing from yazirians in material culture- clothing in particular- ponchos, togas and chaps like leggings have all made inroads into the human culture. there has been some movement to adopt a yazirian transplant religion- the Brotherhood of One- an adaption of the philosophy underlying the Family of One by yazirian religious dissidents that embraces all spaient beings as being part of the One and not just yazirians. Some of these Gran Quiverans that travel as tourist to yazirian colonies are viewed as mildly annoying to their yazirian hosts.

A note on clothing- jump suits are a practical garb that can be viewed as part of the spacer culture. citizens of Grand Quivera, and in particular Port Loren have adopted the toga as formal business attire. Chaps are considered working class and counter culture attire- popular with youths, gangs, etc. and to some degree the working class that wishes to protect their legs since a toga or loose shirt that hangs to below the crotch will not due that. ponchos are very popular across the board. the youthful counter culture goes in for loose shirts hanging to the crotch and chaps and sometimes flaunts that they are not actually wearing underware.

Their Founders Day festival, unlike other colonies, is not that of the founding of the colony but of the UPF. there is a legal holiday called First Contact- simply a day off from work to commemorate the first contacts between the core four though its held on the day that Humans from Clarion encountered yazirians in Prengular (sort of like Presidents Day is for both Lincoln and Washington)

Note some of the above practices in clothing have infiltrated Morgaines World: togas not so much but the loose shirts and ponchos. Most Morgainers wear pants and rugged clothing though the loose shirt belted about the waiste with a vest is considered dressy. Morgaine's world is colder and more rugged and requires clothing to match making the toga very impractical though anyone wishing to ape Gran Quiveran culture can wear a toga on an evening out or to a party.

Morgainers are far more practical and less cosmopolitan then the citizens of their sister planet. In particular the Pan Gal corporation is marketing their Morgaine Trekker, a rugged hiking/work boot throughout the Frontier. Other companies sell this style of boot but Pan Gal claims to be the official source of the true Morgaine Trekker. In fact Pan Gal had went to the expense of setting up a factory on Morgaine's World to support the marketing claim. Because of this many of the small shoe businesses that made shoes in small shops (some even made by hand) have gone out of business. a few of these small shops have hung on and survived by offering an insanely well made product but at tripple the cost and a +5% to DEX/RS checks in an outdoor/woods/mountainous environment where the wearer must check to avoid and enviromental effect like a rock slide or to keep his footing or to react fast (possibly a +1 to IM but only in the right environment not indoors or on a ships deckplating). Pan Gal's Morgaine Trekkers are simply mass produced boots of good quality but with no special ability- 25 Cr. Cheap knock offs are 15 Cr to 20 Cr, and the small operation or hand crafted trekkers go for 75 Cr. One shop makes a variant with an integral knife sheath for 80 Cr.

EDIT: I'm just posting thoughts randomly here and had a new one- starting equipment package for a Morgainer might include real deal Morgaine Trekkers (with the +5% bonus) pants, loose shirt, belt and poncho- ooops my brain just flashed a picture of Luke Skywalker in Star Wars. Note Morgaine's World in AD is an outpost with no economy listed and in Zebs its Moderate with business, industry and agriculture. I chalk that up to AD representing the conditions around the time of SW1 and Zebs the conditions around SW2. showing the growth of the colony and the development of its economy. So with farming and outpost in its background/history I would tend to include an item of equipment that suggests farming origins for the Morgainer. I like to think of Morgaine's world in terms of images from my youth in Alsaka, Maine and Up state NY- forest, mountains and rugged country. to that end perhaps a cultural item might be a Bowie like knife- balanced for throwing and usefull for the bush and survival situations not to mention knife fighting. increase the credit cost and make them so well balanced for throwing that they are +5% but the mass produce mega corp marketed ones just dont match that quality (they are just a knife of the same stats and cost as the std. knife off the equipment list) pretty much the only place to get a true Morgaine Knife is Morgaine's World, a Capellan Free Merchant or a specialty knife shop though you'll pay a little more with the CFM and the specialty shop as the knife had to be obtained from Morgaine's World. thus a Morgainer could start with the clothign specified and the Trekkers and the Knife.
I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!

vmnjn's picture
vmnjn
January 25, 2013 - 5:41pm
I always took it for granted that human worlds would have cultural "traits" connected to their name's backgrounds.
  1. Clarion/Gollywog - British/Scottish/Welsh with a dash of African - The original slang I took to mean the royal family had african ancestry. Similar to Manticore in the Honor Harrington series
  2. Gran Quivera - Spanish/Portuegese
  3. Morgaine's World - American/Canadian/Mexican - Basically a cultural blender
  4. Lossend - Dutch/German
  5. Minotaur - Greek/Italian
  6. Pale/New Pale - Irish/French - Greek Wrestling but I add French because they don't have one.
  7. Kdikit - British/Scottish - I always pictured a colony that started as Vrusk but was quickly overwhelmed and marginalized by colonists from Clarion.
Or am I misunderstanding you?

Do like "Anglese" as the name of the humans' language.

jedion357's picture
jedion357
January 25, 2013 - 7:06pm
I'm guessing that vmnjn is a "Earth Exists" guy like me.
I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!

vmnjn's picture
vmnjn
January 25, 2013 - 9:27pm
Guilty Cool

I never saw an issue with the four's home world's being elsewhere. Nor with the Frontier's humans coming from Earth. A crowded Sol system, never having developed FTL up to that point, sending colonizing sleeper ships in many directions always felt right to me.

The possibility of running into other "human" sleeper ship settled colonies that never got FTL, or the "homeland" getting FTL and showing up always interested me.

Karxan's picture
Karxan
January 25, 2013 - 9:44pm
I feel the same way about earth being the homeworld. I always thought to tie in Gamma Worlds history a little into the Frontiers. The humans were from earth but earth had its own problems and collapsed so they were on their own though they never knew what happened to earth.

rattraveller's picture
rattraveller
January 26, 2013 - 6:49pm
Well you are all welcome to include Earth in the mix. Personally I took three of the Frontier worlds and made them Homeworlds for Dralasite, Human and Vrusk. The cultures parallel Earth only in that they used some cultural names for the planets. I am not sure an all Western culture is appropriate but if it works for you.
Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go?

vmnjn's picture
vmnjn
January 26, 2013 - 7:49pm
Well I mostly went with them because they fit the names. If I recall correctly I was thinking to introduce other Earth cultures as other sleeper-ship created human colonies discovered as the UPF grew.

Just occurs to me that we could have one or two of the plague worlds be an other than western culture.

Tchklinxa's picture
Tchklinxa
December 28, 2013 - 2:29pm
I like the idea of tying the names into the culture of the humanoids, they do that a lot in Sci-fi (even if the humans are alien human societies) and I plan to expand the humanoid colonies so I can add some fun planets from old shows. 

If we assume Earth is the Human Home-world then Gamma World gives some ideas as to why Humans might not know about Earth. Gamma World has a short adventure that was starts at the Albuquerque Spaceport (thus we know they had space travel of some sort) in which a rocket launches the PCs to a Space-station iV in which there are zombies wandering around with a plague. So, this means there is another nasty Space Plague in the TSR universe that could be imported into SF since the Plague is still active. It does raise the possibility that Humans lost contact with Earth not just because of the Nuclear War but also because of the Space Plague. This plague could have spread through many Space Stations in many systems onto many ships and to many colonies besides making its way all the way back to Earth Space-stations. I do not have enough info on Gamma World to have a reliable time line but if my net poking results are close to what TSR put in Modules or Dragon. Then Earth had several Colonies in and outside of Sol System, received a warning from a colony about hostile alien life (war with another species something else that might have resulted in loss of contact with Earth for some colonies), had conflicts with colonies, and Earth Gov. may have lied to the populace about destroying all of the space plague. So flash forward in time to SF and Humanoids/Humans might have no idea where they came from and rediscovering old colonies or spaceships or stations might have resulted in Plague spreading back to healthy colonies that where isolated after Earth was Nuked or oops making nasty aliens aware there where more humans to exterminate or enslave, further creating even more isolation to the few surviving colonies, then if they had private wars, disasters etc they could end up in the Stone Ages too and by the time a sole surviving colony rediscovers the knowledge to go into space they might not know they ever lived elsewhere as a species.

Below is the info on the Plague... 

(Albuquerque Starport Mini Module, Paul Reiche III, 1983)
Canopus Plague Zombies 
HD: 8
HP: 40/35/34/32 (4 zombies)
AC: 9
MV: 9
AT: 2 attacks for 1d3 each, plague

"Appears to be made of a dark brown, glistening, gelatinous substance. The
disgusting creature will attack the party by bashing characters with its two
misshapen fists. Each attack does only 1d3 points of damage, but anyone struck
will be coated with some of the creature's gooey substance. The brown material
will eat away at the victim's flesh, causing 1d10 points of damage per round. 
If the damage taken exceeds the victim's total number of hp the victim will
become a plague zombie and attack the rest of the party. The only way to stop
the plague from taking over a body is to remove the affected flesh with a sharp
object, causing 1d6 points of damage per affected area. Once the plague has
taken over a body there is no cure. The plague zombie is clothed in a plain
jumpsuit and has no other possessions."

"The Canopus plague is an alien disease brought back to Earth by long-range
scoutships in the early 2300's. It is highly contagious and causes its
victim's flesh to change into a viscous, pudding-like material. Once the plague has
totally taken over a body the victim becomes a zombie, interested only in
seeking out healthy humans and infecting them with the foul disease. The
Canopus plague never broke out in epidemic proportions on Earth, but many space
stations such as this were completely contaminated. When this station was
infected, the survivors were lucky enough to escape and leave the plague zombies
behind. The space station has remained functioning, but plague zombies wander
the rooms and halls in an endless search for humans to infect."

But the SF game on the other hand consistently presents Humans as not being from Earth first in the AD rules and then a 2nd Humanoid Species of the Snowballers (Human but not Human? How can Mhemme be a separate Species if the DNA is the same?) So who is to say the humans in SF are not different looking from Earth ones, I know the art shows pretty normal looking Humans but maybe Space Humans could have different skin colours, eye colours, or hair colours. If instead of looking at the Mhemme as a separate species but instead as simply a race of the greater Space Human DNA pool then other questions arise... where did they come from? They are a separated isolated species of Human? So then we end up with either they are a lost colony (Earth could have been the origin of their ancestors or another planet), star seeded by someone else (Earth could have been the origin or Earth too could have been seeded in which case the true Humanoid home-world is unknown) or Snowball could be the Home-world of all Humans (not likely but wouldn't that be a surprise).

I am throwing this out there as I think it would be possible for future humans to naturally just look different than Earthlings, think humans with pink, blue or silver hair, or with bright yellow, orange or pink skin, why not? Especially if SF Humans really didn't come from Earth.

I might have Earth or Earth Colonies be out there some place but I sort of like the idea of Space Humans (in which case Earth might not be the Human Home-world)... maybe a space mystery exist about humans. 


 "Never fire a laser at a mirror."

oTTo's picture
oTTo
February 8, 2014 - 11:19pm
It seems to me there are only a few options for how humans arrived, but this thread is meant to discuss culture and not origins.

Humans are adaptive, we adapt and change to our surroundings. I believe that by Frontier era, the commonalities to Earthling cultures would be almost nil, but rather be a more Terran culture, with slices of each worlds differences represented. Worlds with different star types, atmospheres, gravities, moons, cycle periods, temperate zones, etc. would all dictate much of the culture. Humans from Prenglar must have some amazing weather to be in togas as a common attire.

I can see humans from harsher or frontier worlds being more rugged, western types than their cosmopolitan core world brethren. I can see diplomats and high fashion far beyond what we could imagine now, changing with the seasons, the changes in trends, etc. Rim fashion trickles in from the fringes of the Frontier towards the core, things change again. Starship crews, anything they have with them from home would be a representation of their culture, some of those trinkets or items may make their way to worlds where the culture has no presence, but instead is kept for its nostalgic value.

I can also imagine retro cultures, side cultures, sects of existing cultures breaking off.

Actually, to pose another idea...should humans of the Frontier be from Earth, there would be remnants...religion and cultures that have lasted several thousands of years already. Islam, Jeudasim, and Christianity all would be able to have some relics left over at this point, more likely is something along the lines of Hindu or Buddhism. The icons of the faiths, trinkets of the faith, may still exist in pockets of the Frontier.

I do like the idea that the humans spread out and lost contact over long periods of time, this make sense. That means the cultures of newly found human colonies later on would be far different than UPF standard, or closely related because of human commonalities at the genetic memory level....spit balling of course.

jedion357's picture
jedion357
February 9, 2014 - 7:06am
Great question oTTo, I've been a proponent of having Earth in the setting and some unknown distance away. My reason for this is that 1) a duplicate evolution of humanity makes no sense 2.) you can draw on 1000s of years of human culture in lots of interesting ways. 3) having it as lost to humans in the Frontier means you dont have to deal with the politics that would go with earth.

A player can play his character with a Greek accent because he's from Minotaur in the Theseus system
You could refer to things like the Epics of Gilgamesh and Beowulf
You could describe an NPC as the Napolean of the Yazirians or the Steve Jobs of the vrusk and it makes sense in the setting for a character to say this.

However, I do avoid any reference to Catholicism, Mormonism, Islam etc. because its best not to touch anyone's sacred cow in this forum. at a table top game where everyone but me was a Roman Catholic and conversation strayed to Islam because of a recent news event and everyone felt the need to vent at Islam's expense it wasn't no big deal since no one present could be be offended. This forum caters to everyone on Earth that speaks English and is a fan of SF thus religion is best left out.

You could create a New Reformation Catholic Church for a sci fi setting (I think Asimov did this in one of his novels though it didn't feature big in the novel) and since its obviously not Roman Catholic its permissible to change some catholic things and you probably wouldn't offend a catholic but I would not do the same in a novel with Islam as muslims tend to hold their religion in a deeper reverence then a Catholic does such that I have a muslim aquaintance that wont mention Moses in a conversation without saying "peace be upon him" which strikes me totally as odd since Moses is the quintessential Jewish prophet but Qur'an endorses Moses and Jesus as prophets like Muhamad and prophets must be revered thus you can have the most interesting conversation about religion with a muslim who will with one breath slam Jews and with the other mention "Moses, peace be upon him" (there are of course what I call Catholic Muslims who are much like many catholics in my family: they are catholics for wedding and funerals and for the really religious among them on Christmas as well and the truly holy rollers on Easter/Ash Wednesday as well. I work several of these and they are only muslims when their is an advantage in it like not havign to work on Friday but otherwise they dont practice. They can get offended if you disrepect their religion but its those that actually practice it that get very animated)

So while I'm all for keeping Earth in the setting for a sci-fi rpg I think its best if none of the sacred cows make it off Earth and reach the Frontier. Not that I'm willing to say that only atheist engage in space travel but rather simply ignore the existence of any religion from Earth for the sake of civil association in the SF community. (and that's coming from the one member that as far as I know, is the most interested in religion and actually studied theology).

I have made it my labor to invent Frontier religions: Opiate of the Osakar article in the sfman and the Fo1 article in FE as well as the dralasite philosophy article.
I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!

iggy's picture
iggy
February 9, 2014 - 1:19pm
jedion357 wrote:
Great question oTTo, I've been a proponent of having Earth in the setting and some unknown distance away. My reason for this is that 1) a duplicate evolution of humanity makes no sense 2.) you can draw on 1000s of years of human culture in lots of interesting ways. 3) having it as lost to humans in the Frontier means you dont have to deal with the politics that would go with earth.


I often support jedion's setting material.  This is one locations where I like Earth (our Earth) not to be present.  However I do not see this as a conflict with the three points above.

1) Duplicate evolution is not so impossible.  Science is learning more and more that biology has bounds and rules much like physics.  The AD basic book states that the humans are like us but not exactly like us.  Thus I feel confortable with their longer life spans and can had wave some tollerance for more environment extreemes, etc.  Also with you delve into infinities then the possibility that out there in such an infinite universe another human like race arose sililar to us long long ago, then I can play that and have fun.

2) Again using the infinities of the universe I can borrow whatever history I want for my SF humans as well as blend in any other created history I need to make the story fun, rich, deep, and intreguing.

3) I totally agree with.  I do not want to deal with the homeworld and the politics, control, and potential empirialist mess that could come with it.

Thus the human cultures of the frontieer can be whatever we make them to be.  I get to travel alot to Asia and recently some to Europe.  When I was 12 I lived in Africa.  I really enjoy mining our cultures to creat new stuff for the frontieer.  I especially like how oTTo points our how environment shapes culture.  I get great inspiration for cities and their people by understanding their environment.  I had forgotten that humans on Prenglar wear togas.
-iggy

Bio-Social's picture
Bio-Social
May 22, 2014 - 11:52am

 Very cool, VMNJN.

 

 

I have a somewhat different list of cultures and orgin-countries in mind:


  • Clarion  cultures of Australia, New Zealand, Papua, various Pacific Island groups

  • Gran Quivera   Mexican,including people from Aztlan (SW former US)

  • Morgaine’s World   Alaskan and Russian Far East cultures, Korean

  • Lossend   Southern African cultures: Cape Dutch, Afrikaner, Bantu, San, etc.

  • Minotaur  Mediterranean cultures: Greeks, Turks, Maltese, some French and Syrians (?)

  • Pale & New Pale Southeast Asian cultures

  • Kdikit  West Indians and Central/South Americans (?)


The list isn’t meant to be all inclusive. I might swap out Minotaur's primary cultural background for North Americans (Amercian, Canadian) whose ancestors favored Classical Western themes in naming (not really strange, given the way Latin and Greek names are used today in astronomy and other sciences).


I might focus Kdikit more narrowly as the Southern Cone of South America. Buckerton could be a British-Argentine or even a Falklander name. Estronsa is Spanish.


 


rattraveller's picture
rattraveller
May 22, 2014 - 7:27pm

Minotaur should be a mash up of Ancient Greece and Las Vegas and Bollywood and Rio with a nonstop Carnival. Star Play is the major industry and with production facilities centered in Maze and spread throughout the planet you should expect a almost entirely service/tourist economy. You should also expect immense class distinctions with ultra rich and extremely poor sections and not much middle class.

Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go?

Bio-Social's picture
Bio-Social
May 22, 2014 - 8:00pm
rattraveller wrote:

Minotaur should be a mash up of Ancient Greece and Las Vegas and Bollywood and Rio with a nonstop Carnival. Star Play is the major industry and with production facilities centered in Maze and spread throughout the planet you should expect a almost entirely service/tourist economy. You should also expect immense class distinctions with ultra rich and extremely poor sections and not much middle class.

 

 

I like that!


iggy's picture
iggy
May 22, 2014 - 8:35pm
I like Lossend being a mix of Southern Africa; afrikaner, british, indian, zulu, bantu, etc.  Then through in a bit of the aussie mentality and you have a great culture for taming, managing, and preserving the wild environment of Lossend.
-iggy

Bio-Social's picture
Bio-Social
May 22, 2014 - 9:43pm



I seem to have lost an entire long post.


Oh well. ;0


Cutting it down:


I like doing the Human religions Dune style, with Earth roots but modified, evolved, and combined in ways that make it clear these are not the same sects and churches we know in our world.

For evil cults, I stick to the extreme politcal movements and to fictional religions without clear or strong roots in our world.  Look at the cults outlined in Dragon Magazine and Zeb's Guide and you'll see what I mean.

I might consider a neo-pagan/Jungian type religion on Minotaur, with futuristic versions of the ancient Greek gods worshipped as archetypal figures of the Human collective unconscious. Dionysius and Aphrodite, in particular, seem to fit.








Bio-Social's picture
Bio-Social
May 22, 2014 - 9:59pm

iggy wrote:
I like Lossend being a mix of Southern Africa; afrikaner, british, indian, zulu, bantu, etc.  Then through in a bit of the aussie mentality and you have a great culture for taming, managing, and preserving the wild environment of Lossend.

 

Right, you've caught the vibe. That's pretty much what I was going for. :) 

VMNJN's approach has a nice Pan-European feel. (I followed the link to his page, I think, and saw that he did indeed work in other cultures besides Western ones-- very cool stuff).

 

I haven't done a careful study of NPC and pregen PC names, but it seems to me we have:

 

plenty of English names

some Korean or possibly Chinese names

Some Russian or at least Slavic language family names

Spanish names

 

 

If somebody has actually compiled a name list from modules and sourcebooks, I'd love to see it.

 

 

 

 

 


jedion357's picture
jedion357
May 23, 2014 - 2:46am
Bio-Social wrote:
rattraveller wrote:

Minotaur should be a mash up of Ancient Greece and Las Vegas and Bollywood and Rio with a nonstop Carnival. Star Play is the major industry and with production facilities centered in Maze and spread throughout the planet you should expect a almost entirely service/tourist economy. You should also expect immense class distinctions with ultra rich and extremely poor sections and not much middle class.

 

 

I like that!



I like that too, but there is still a industrial element to the economy from the planetary catalog and I need to look it up but I think there is a star ship construction center here as well. But RatTs analysis of the culture of Maze and Minotaour is pretty good.
I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!

iggy's picture
iggy
May 23, 2014 - 7:20am
SFMan 11 also has Shadow Shack's write-up on Minotaur.  TerlObar just did a Google hangout session with me and presented how the orbital mechanics of Minotaur orbiting Ares can work.  I'm putting together diagrams and should be able to share them in the next week.  There is some culture stuff in Shadow's Minotaur write-up.
-iggy

Jaxon's picture
Jaxon
September 21, 2014 - 2:03am

 

  1. Clarion/GollywogU.K.* primarily (English & Welsh) = heavy, ??% human
  2. Gran QuiveraMIXED* primarily (Hispanic and Portuguese (Brazil) = 16.35 billion, ??% human
  3. Morgaine’s WorldAmerican and Russian* primarily (Alaskan, Canadian and Russian) = 5.2 billion, 65% human
  4. LossendEuropean and African* primarily (Dutch, German and South African (Boer) = light, ??% human
  5. MinotaurMediterranean* primarily (Greek, Italian & Turkish) = 8.6 billion, 90% human
  6. PaleMIXED* primarily (Chinese & Indian) = 2 billion, 65% human
  7. New PaleMIXED* primarily (Irish & French) = 23 million, 79% human
  8. KdikitU.K.* primarily (Scottish & Irish) = medium, ??% human
  9. LacoMiddle Eastern* primarily (Arab) = light, ??% human
  10. KraatarU.K.* primarily (Scottish & Irish) = medium, 60% human

 


rattraveller's picture
rattraveller
September 21, 2014 - 1:53pm
For the worlds which are colonies of other worlds you should consider how much of an influence the mother world has on it. Thinking about how even though they were living in Jamaica the English colonists still wore the style of clothing suitable to the much milder home country. Meanwhile those in North America split between those who fully oppose breaking away from the home country (Canada) and those who fought to get away (United States).

Possible looking at how the colonists were picked? Empty the prisons and send them, minorities(religious, ethic, cultural) seeking a new home, a military/scienctific base which expanded into a colony, hand picked highly skilled beings to tame a new world. Squatters who won't leave? 

Or maybe a mix of different cities with vastly different colonists.
Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go?

jedion357's picture
jedion357
September 22, 2014 - 6:16am
I think that if Earth exists in the setting, I am a proponent of that but I also recognize that others dont hold with that, but if Earth exists in the setting than you'd have to recognize that the colony expedition that reached the Frontier would do so with all of the Greek/Med culture but rather it's key leader would have been a philosopher and names got chosen for their allusions in history/mythology but you'd likely have many cultures represented.

Theseus and White Light would have been amongst the first colonized and all the other human colonies would have been colonized from them either directly or indirectly.

Edit: nothing wrong with using any particular human culture for a PC background just state that the PC in particular is of French lineage and affect a bad French accent at the game table.

I've also tried to tackle issues of culture with the cultural perspective articles: which are directed at players not game referees. a system brief is for the game referee but the cultural perspectives article helps the palyer root their character from a particular planet. I try to include a bit of material culture with each article for example on Morgaine's world its a bit rough and ready thus the material culture is that knife throwing is a planetary sport much like darts and a character could start with some knife throwing skill. and their is a boot called the Morgaine Trekker which if authentic and not a cheap PGC knock off has a small benefit and thus a character originating from Morgaine's world has a chance to start play with one of these pair of boots.
I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!

Jaxon's picture
Jaxon
September 22, 2014 - 6:55am
Jedion, those are the things that interest players and make them want to flesh out their character's background. When they do that - it makes the game more interesting. 

I had one PC that made a half-orc and another made an elf (in AD&D). They were opposites and argued but, when the half-orc had to bail out the elf - he didn't let him hear the end of it...until the elf bailed him out. It then turned into a competition. They then became, grudingly friends.

Now these are the things that making playing more fun!

Karxan's picture
Karxan
October 13, 2014 - 3:57pm
If humans did come from Earth, it could be something like Firefly's background. There is an example of cultural mixes everywhere in that setting. Yes, no alien influence but as a human centric setting it shows how the human race could have left earth and brought a lot of the culture to the Frontier.

rattraveller's picture
rattraveller
October 14, 2014 - 10:38am
While I loved the show, Firefly did have one problem. The culture showed a mix of American Wild West and Chinese cultures. Anyone remember seeing alot of Asian people in the show to justify the cultural input?
Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go?

jedion357's picture
jedion357
October 14, 2014 - 11:29am
rattraveller wrote:
While I loved the show, Firefly did have one problem. The culture showed a mix of American Wild West and Chinese cultures. Anyone remember seeing alot of Asian people in the show to justify the cultural input?


A couple of times, but if you blinked, you'd miss them.
I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!

Jaxon's picture
Jaxon
October 15, 2014 - 4:26am
Yes, the Tongs, on the space station, on planet side, etc. But, yes - you blink and you miss them.

Tchklinxa's picture
Tchklinxa
October 26, 2014 - 9:37pm
I feel Firefly was onto something but yes blink and you missed other races... I sort of decided that Old Terra exists/existed and Old Terra space is out there but like Firefly or Gamma World or the MA scenario something bad happened in the mists of time that led to an exodus, lost colonies, lost knowledge of where the real home world is, lost colony ships and a fusion culture forming nearer the Core & that is where the humans came from to the Frontier. Basically this gives me options.  More to the culture point I think religions from sci-fi are better to use then actual real ones, I figure there would be relics, strange left over customs, but nothing that is too close to what people do today,prior to Jump Tech we are talking long range slow colonization too, so that means cultures either asleep, isolated bubbles of generations in transit, and pretty isolated once they set up colonies and serious lag time with messages between worlds in different systems. It is possible this led to a cultural break between where ever the frontier humans came from and the origin civilization. Jump Tech may have destabilized relations between worlds that our Space Humans came from too leading to all out war and now the Humans in the Frontier are it. Just some thoughts... Humans really could have been bopping around the galaxy for a very long time with or with out Earth in the picture. Culturally I go with a modern sci-fi 60-70ish fusion of cultures... I decided to go with constructed type languages for Humans. If some one has a book say in English it might be an unknown language to modern Humans.
 "Never fire a laser at a mirror."

Jaxon's picture
Jaxon
October 27, 2014 - 5:46am
intering take on it

Tchklinxa's picture
Tchklinxa
October 27, 2014 - 11:31am
I also figure multi-generational Human Spacer Culture is different from planet side Cultures. Spacers who are 1st Gen., i.e. raised planet side might scoff at the beliefs of multi-generational Spacers. 

As a cultural note:
One thing we all naturally do when creating future space humans is draw on our own cultures, so if we speak English then clearly that is what future people speak... and of course every one thinks like we do but I you are trying to think more out of the box in the what if it is not the USA, or China or per-older sci-fi timelines the USSR that actually launches the next phase of space colonization... if you take the historic super-powers away who would have the ability to corner the market on space colonization & travel?  The reason I am throwing this idea out there is to show how such a change would greatly effect Space Culture and Colonization in many different ways... even if everyone ended up in space eventually the established colonies, customs, rules, laws of governance and common language would be hugely effected by the Government/Civilization that was out colonizing first. Even if your Humans are not from Old Terra the exercise of what if can be useful in creating a fusion culture that is alien to what Players expect... but Human. Or what if Humans went into space already, & what if what we think is new are really rediscoveries then today's dead cultures can become Space Human Culture with reworking... total rip off of BSG & Stichin and other sources. 

I am borrowing ideas that fit for me from other TSR space/future games... especially games like GW & MA that way if Old Terra ever becomes a reality in my SF universe I have cultural touch stones that may not be obvious though until contact with Old Terra Space occurs (the GW currency of domar is still known by Humans, and was replaced by the credit but it is what they where using before the credit) I am reworking timelines to my needs. I will allow the belief in a mythic lost planet if it comes up, but why it is lost, and if another known planet might be believed to be Human origin point will be open to debate. 

Original SF tech level is very much a product of it's time of creation... I am actually okay with a clunkier tech level as it makes the SF universe/culture different and might well reflect how cultures develop differently, take 2 steps forward & 10 back or push the envelope with less and that becomes established tech... when I am presenting older Human Tech in the Frontier it is Human specific technology and not necessarily usable easily by other races or even compatible with modern tech. I am toying with doing an early Colonization storyline... preSW1 or having PCs have to deal with older tech from pre-SW1. I am thinking standards became set after SW1, so prior to that each race had their own tech, non-compatibility issues, standards, number systems, languages and so on... the need to survive has created a 4 race fusion culture as far as tech, communication, & standards go but there will be experiences that are unique to each race and held as special by their members... so another question is what would Humans feel are uniquely Human things/customs and how that would manifest in the Frontier? 

Just mussing where you could go with it all.
 "Never fire a laser at a mirror."