Matriarchies

[Reynard]

Europe during the Dark Ages shunned science and math while Arabic nations, including along the African Mediterranean coast and into Moorish Spain, were light years ahead. Europe advanced when they raided Spain.

Chinese and I think Indian science had similar advances. Europe was the barbaric savages.

And no matriarchies.

[sideranautae]

Europe during the Dark Ages shunned science and math while Arabic nations,

Irrelevant. ALL other cultures STOPPED at TL 2. Only one continued under its own steam up, to and PAST industrialization. I REALLY don't get into debates about stuff like what 2+2=. No matter what you think, it doesn't change reality. I don't tolerate revisionists. Life is too short to go down that insane rabbit hole.

peace out.

[dragoner]

Europe was the barbaric savages.

Sure, but that's not definitely the example being Europe, the Darrian Solomani were Turkish iirc. One thing about the 3I is that it was founded by the Syleans, who are a human minor race, so they were picking and choosing what solomani influences to use, as outsiders looking in. The whole solomani thing blew up in their face with the Rim War, and then a general recoiling from the solomani as they became increasingly racist. IIRC, the drift towards more European style nobility was in GURPS Nobles, originally it seemed more of a Dux Bellorum style.

[Rick]

Didn't want to get dragged off-topic by this, but still. The 3I nobility is a clear example of the name of the titles shaping the thinking behind them. If they had been called Archikeleustes, Strategos, Pluiarchos or Navarchos (yes I know they're military/naval ranks, not titles per se), would the thinking still have been the same?

[Tom Kalbfus]

I think Prime_Evil sidestepped the issue entirely, hiro and Reynard hit the nail on the head when they showed that their is little (if any) gender bias - the government types may be matriarchal, patriarchal, gender-equal or any slight variation on those 3; but bear in mind, if a government type is either matriarchal or patriarchal, it will be bigoted and based on gender inequality.

How egalitarian is an Empire with a hereditary Aristocracy?

Which is a good title for a NEW topic exploring the why's and wherefore's of the aristocracy of the 3I setting, but not really all that relevant to the topic at hand - if you create a new topic on that subject, I'll be happy to comment on it, just not here.

Well an aristocracy is a class, one is born into it, as opposed to a meritocracy where one works one's way up. Any society with an Aristocracy and commoners is non-egalitarian by definition. People born into the aristocratic class have certain social advantages over those who are not, this is reflected by the Social Standing Characteristic. To be fair, my own country has informal class structures based on wealth, the fact that some people can inherit wealth from their parents creates an informal class based on wealth, but of course plenty of people work their way up in this class structure, and many people fritter away all they have inherited from their parents through unwise investments and profligate spending, so that is social mobility. An official class structure with recognized nobility sort of pins the classes in place, for instance in some societies, Nobles don't pay taxes while commoners do, or perhaps fealty is owed by the Nobles to the Emperor, the nobles are in charge of collecting taxes from the commoners and owe a percentage of the tax collected to the Emperor.

[Tom Kalbfus]

5 pages and NOW you come up with the examples of matriarchies? Sheesh, could've done with them a good few pages back!

If we're going to go off onto the nature of the Imperial Nobility itself, might it be better to start a different topic?

Okay, I'll start a thread comparing Imperial Nobles to European Nobles during the middle ages.

[dragoner]

Didn't want to get dragged off-topic by this, but still. The 3I nobility is a clear example of the name of the titles shaping the thinking behind them. If they had been called Archikeleustes, Strategos, Pluiarchos or Navarchos (yes I know they're military/naval ranks, not titles per se), would the thinking still have been the same?

That is Dux Bellorum style, directly.

[GypsyComet]

5 pages and NOW you come up with the examples of matriarchies? Sheesh, could've done with them a good few pages back!

I did mention Mora on page 1. Apparently I wasn't loud enough.

[Rick]

Oops, sorry about that. I didn't take enough notice, and apparently, neither did tzunder.

[Condottiere]

Matriarchies are easy to impose, if the plot requires it.

If plausibility is wanted, a lot revolves around inheritance and line of descent, especially if society follows it along matrilinear.

[Minty]

Matriarchies are easy to impose, if the plot requires it.

If plausibility is wanted, a lot revolves around inheritance and line of descent, especially if society follows it along matrilinear.

I created a world with that sort of culture. The population largely follow an ancestor-venerating religion, going back to the first colonists. They didn't start out as a matriarchy, but over time and with vagaries of uncertain male-line tracing they became more and more matriarchal as generations passed, since only women can reliably trace their lines to specific first colonists.

On any world without good genetic science you can never be 100% certain who your father is, but it's pretty hard to get confused about who your mother is. By the time the word rediscovered things like y-chromosomal sequencing (and mitochondrial DNA for that matter) the population was already a well-established matriarchy with a state religion and a cultural set of norms both based on matrilinear descent.

[Condottiere]

And then there are the Drow.

Maybe power is held by a Psionic Class, and only females develop this gift (or are allowed to).

[Somebody]

Aside from a few already named official Matriarchies the big question is - where does it matter?

The 3I simply does not care about gender. We have more than one official Empress and Admiral (and one Admiral turned Empress), more than one Duchess (and at least one Arch-Duchess) in the official materials. The only issue of Strephon is female and no one makes a fuss about that either.

If you want planet "WayOutaThere" a matriachie IYTU - it is. Most writtendescriptions, even of the Spinward Marches, are so loose that they do not state the ruling sex, just a system. And "religious dictatorship" can be "Ares priests" as well as "Aphrodite priestess" - GMs choice. There are very few planets that are either clearly fixed for a sex (Mora) or open to all (Regina) by the source material.

Nor does it care for skin color or specifies what a cultural code actually means. Yes, the Syleans (or more correctly the Anglic translation from Old High Sylean) uses western style titles from the 2nd Empire(1). But that is all they use, even the system is not a classic western feudal system since i.e all swear fealty directly to the emperor, do not own "their" sphere of influence to divide etc.

Again it is for a GM to interprete the codes to his likings. That local monarchie on planet "WeMadeIt" may very well use Shogun/Daimyo/Samurai as titles and adress the imperial noble along those lines.

And finally: It is a game mostly aimed at male gamers from a western culture. Make the setting to strange and they won't play/buy it. Not everybody bought into the 1980s "Shogun" hype or as a historian once said to Clawell: "Remember it was Perry at Edo bay, not Tokugawa on the Potomac"

(1) Whos founder Hiroshi at least name-wise comes from an asian background btw.

[Tom Kalbfus]

What would high tech amazons look like anyway? In battledress, you probably wouldn't know the difference, until you get captured by them and put in a holding pen, if you are lucky enough not to get killed in the process!

[Condottiere]

That's where brass brassiers and skinsuits come in.