Books with different races

[Nadia Grell]

I'm willing to bet that there's a higher percentage among the 3I versions of Humanity, especially between the Solomani Rim and just coreward of Core Sector. That's where the racial (but not necessarily *cultural*) influence of those pesky Solomani starts to thin out.

No doubt there's a higher percentage of mixed Humans in the Solomani Confederation as well, despite what SolSec wants us to believe.

Would you please come for a discussion to your nearest SolSec office over tea and a little talk about the proper way to promote the party lines when discussing in private or public. Lets say Saturday at noon, as we know that you do love Terra and the Solomani Party and would never say these things as it will confuse people that the alien influences on the Solomani Culture are as big as you say.

Thank you in advance.

 

[CordwainerFish]

The ZS had so many interest groups vying for attention that it could not focus all its efforts on a single problem, even when that problem threatened to destroy them. Ring any bells?

 

[Shardan13]

I hope that when, please not if, Mongoose do a book about the Vilani they tune down the Vilanian conservatism a bit and make the Vilani more passionate, emotional, expressive? I remember reading somewhere that the Vilani were like a very old, large business firm. Very good at doing what it has done in the past but resistant to change. Unfortunately, that gave me an impression of old white english men in a smoked filled room with extemely stiff upper lips which I hope is a disservice to the Vilani.

I also like the idea that the collapse of the first imperium led to a re-energizing of Vilani culture.

 

[Jame Rowe]

Would you please come for a discussion to your nearest SolSec office over tea and a little talk about the proper way to promote the party lines when discussing in private or public. Lets say Saturday at noon, as we know that you do love Terra and the Solomani Party and would never say these things as it will confuse people that the alien influences on the Solomani Culture are as big as you say.

Thank you in advance.

I'm sure that you'll be happy to cross the border to visit me with that soporific-laden tea.

 

[actionman]

I remember reading somewhere that the Vilani were like a very old, large business firm.

Probably the DGP book Vilani and Vargr.

They chose Japanese business culture as the model for the Vilani, which, while interesting, isn't good for adventurers, who are largely individual or small group innovators.

IMTU I give the Vilani an ancient Egyptian or Babylonian aspect.

 

[Condottiere]

 

[CordwainerFish]

I hope that when, please not if, Mongoose do a book about the Vilani they tune down the Vilanian conservatism a bit and make the Vilani more passionate, emotional, expressive? I remember reading somewhere that the Vilani were like a very old, large business firm. Very good at doing what it has done in the past but resistant to change. Unfortunately, that gave me an impression of old white english men in a smoked filled room with extemely stiff upper lips which I hope is a disservice to the Vilani.

I also like the idea that the collapse of the first imperium led to a re-energizing of Vilani culture.

The other year I saw somewhere posting that Hanzawa Naoki - a Japanese TV series about investment banking and revenge - was a very Vilani show. (Season 1 can be found on Unistat-friendly DVD. Still hoping for season 2.)

 

[ottarrus]

The other year I saw somewhere posting that Hanzawa Naoki - a Japanese TV series about investment banking and revenge - was a very Vilani show. (Season 1 can be found on Unistat-friendly DVD. Still hoping for season 2.)

Working in that sub-thread...
When Traveller was devised and grew to include the Vilani [the Vilani were originally a wargame opponent], they were purposely envisioned to be 'IBM-like corporate culture'. In that era IBM was in the process of losing a HUGE percentage of market share because they saw themselves as the titans of the market and no piddling little software company was going to topple them. It was the era of ankle garters for your socks. Very VERY 'Mad Men' like, except that the Vilani no longer had any competition to keep them alert.
That was the ruling style of the government.
But 'culture' and 'government' are two very different things. I don't think of the Vilani as being emotionless corpo-drones. It is just that their personal priorities are wholly different than the Terran/Solomani 'bigger, better, faster, more'. I think that a better way to look at the Vilani is a combination of Communo-capitalist China and zaibatsu Japanese.

 

[Shardan13]

I see the Vilani as more political orientated than technological orientated. Their first instinct is to find a political solution to a problem than a technological one unlike the Solomani.

 

[CordwainerFish]

It is just that their personal priorities are wholly different than the Terran/Solomani 'bigger, better, faster, more'.

Have you seen Robert Eaglestone's Vilani grammar? Instead of the Indo-European first and second person, it has a sort of proximal and distal that would probably spring from a very non-Anglo worldview. (Not the other way around. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is pretty much junk.) I need to shake WALS upside down to see if it's a case of ANADEW...

 

[Tom B]

No Florians, though?

Totes agree, indeed I have it on my pile to reread and use.. maybe JTAS articles if nowhere else?

I don't have the book with them in.

 

[Tom B]

Not that many Celtic speakers left.

It's pretty likely that quite a number of aristocrats and ambitious bourgeoisie are multilingual.

About Celtic speakers, there's a whole lot of stuff that could be written here, but since devolution, the Scottish and Welsh governments have been promoting Gaelic and Welsh. Here in Scotland, there are more Gaelic immersion schools, the ambulances have the Gaelic for ambulance on them, the railway stations have the names in both languages.

Ireland have policies in place to protect the Irish language. Any Irish people here wanting to expand on that?

Manx and Cornish are now being brought back from the brink.

 

[Condottiere]

Seems government sponsored.

In terms of language, the most organic response has been Ukrainian and Hebrew.

I recall when there was a push to teach Mandarin, probably to replace French, as a second language, and currently, to replace English with Russian, in China.

What the mainland Chinese, or particularly Xi, forget, is that you need a lingua franca for commerce and diplomacy.

Though, five millenia in the future, artificial intelligence universal translator programme is more likely.

 

[Nadia Grell]

I have always seen the Vilani more like prefering economical warfare;
"So your world do not like to join the great Vilani Empire" no worries, we will supply you with high tech until you are dependent on us, then we will strangle the import to your worlds, so that you must beg us to join in order to get it back."

A little like the merchants in Asimov's Foundation (book) did. I think it was in the war with Askone, where the traders made the planet dependent on the Foundation tech, and as Askone declared war against the Foundation, the war dragged on and then the Askone government had to sue for peace as people no longer could live as Foundation strangled the tech.

 

[Sigtrygg]

About Celtic speakers, there's a whole lot of stuff that could be written here, but since devolution, the Scottish and Welsh governments have been promoting Gaelic and Welsh. Here in Scotland, there are more Gaelic immersion schools, the ambulances have the Gaelic for ambulance on them, the railway stations have the names in both languages.

Ireland have policies in place to protect the Irish language. Any Irish people here wanting to expand on that?

Manx and Cornish are now being brought back from the brink.

No love for Breton?

 

[Condottiere]

Speaking of the French, apparently pre Revolution, they had regional dialects.

The Germans and Italians had a go with a standardized one.

 

[Sigtrygg]

The French tried to crack done on Breton and Basque language use.
Scotland has three "official" languages, english, scots, and gaelic

 

[Condottiere]

Prior to a universal translator, language allows governance.

Nationalism usually requires a unique one

 

[ottarrus]

I don't have the book with them in.

The Florians appear in Mongoose Trav 1 ed. 'The Trojan Reach' and in DGP's Traveller Digest #20.
'The Trojan Reach' is available on DTRPG for less than $10 US.

 

[ottarrus]

Speaking of the French, apparently pre Revolution, they had regional dialects.

The Germans and Italians had a go with a standardized one.

Swabian Germans have a saying:
'Wir können alles, nur nicht Hochdeutsch sprechen' "We can do anything... except speak High [Standard] German".
And Bavarians fight just as hard to keep their dialect too! Same with the Swiss speakers of French, Italian, and German. A lot of that is Southern German knee-jerk resistance to almost anything Prussian or Brandenburger.
In many ways, you see the same kind of things from American Southerners and Massachusetts natives.