Imperial Regional Cultures and Books Detailing Them: Continuation Thread

[Sigtrygg]

Egyptians speak Arabic because they were conquered by Arab muslims.

Once conquered by Islam you have three choices:
become a muslim
pay the jizya (protection money to live as a third class citizen)
be put to death.

 

[Vormaerin]

I have always been a bit leery of the idea that the Solomani spread in a meaningful way across the Imperium in the 400 or so years that it took for the Rule of Man to collapse. Yes, Earth has teeming billions, but that's a lot of space to spread out to.

I tend to think of the Soloman influence as similiar to the Vikings. Vikings settled in England, Russia, France, and elsewhere. Mostly as boss types. That certainly had some influence. But, for the most part, they were absorbed by the local cultures. The Varangian Rus and the Normans aren't much alike. And the Anglo-Normans diverged from the Franco-Normans pretty quickly. And the local cultures dominate the fusion in each place.

 

[CordwainerFish]

And the Anglo-Normans diverged from the Franco-Normans pretty quickly.

eye twitches in linguistics nerd

 

[WHULorigan]

. . . My point was that the Vilani, who were the majority population of Sylea and the majority population of the Third Imperium, have always been traditional, cautious, and loathe to innovate in regard to technology, while the Solomani have always been seeking continuous technological advancement and innovation. According to the statements in Mongoose canon, it simply doesn't follow that the Third Imperium and 3 other empires would reach TL15 before the Solomani Confederation.

. . .

The Third Imperium book also states that there was a renaissance of Sylean culture, but they were still a tiny minority on their own planet. Then the Long Night happened, and centuries later the Solomani minority led the way toward technological advancement. Terra was the origin of the Solomani technological advancement and filled with billions of pro-technology Solomani. There's no good reason that Terra and the Old Earth Union wouldn't have kept on advancing and innovating throughout the Long Night and for the thousand years since the founding of the Third Imperium.

But we do not have details of what happened during the Long Night (or during the latter years of the Rule of Man, for that matter), just some general statements as to its overall character, and some notes concerning several of the small multiword polities that existed at one time or another during the period. It is entirely possible that rapid technological advancement and innovation without sufficient concern for the long-term ramifications of what the interaction of the multiplicity of those innovations would unleash (either as a "mini-singularity", or perhaps just as old-fashioned human foolishness and corruption) may have actually led to societal collapses from which those polities needed to rebuild. There is nothing that says that the technological road of progress will be continuous and/or unbroken (or even that it won't come to a catastrophic end from which one needs to pick up the pieces).

The official statement is that the collapse of the Rule of Man was initiated due to a Financial Crisis brought about by a Banking Issue between the Central and Antares Branch Banks. But was that all, or was there more to the story, perhaps something darker that is less well-known or publicized that is buried in the murky records detailing the history as the situation evolved? Why don't Computers and AI (even non-sentient/heuristic AI) play a much greater role in the Third Imperium throughout its history at all prior TLs (from Cleon I to the present)? Why is there relatively so little automation running societies? Why do people still work jobs that could easily be automated and/or handed over to a Heuristic-AI system? What other technologies can one imagine should be in evidence in the Third Imperium (based on our modern 21st Century projection of things), but are mysteriously absent? Is the knowledge available, but kept carefully sequestered in top-secret Imperial archives and facilities for those with a "need to know"?

Perhaps that is the reason for the slow but conservative and measured innovation and change evidenced in the Third Imperium: The mixture of Solomani and Vilani cultural influence and lessons from history teaching the wisdom of the need for balance between innovation and progress on the one hand, versus measuring and understanding the implications of that progress before it is introduced wholesale into the larger society and culture at large.

Something else is that the spacelanes were filled with reavers and pirates and the like during the Long Night, but governments could barely keep ships operating. This makes no sense, and I wish Mongoose would address this and other issues like this.

Yes. Consider the above, and ask how much of the Reaver story is actually definitely known from this period when much historical knowledge was apparently lost (suppressed? / rewritten?)? How much is fact, how much is half-truth, how much is things-you-don't-really-want-to-find-out?

 

[CordwainerFish]

But we do not have details of what happened during the Long Night

Speaking of which... for literal decades I have been bashing my head into Feudal Technocracy and trying to figure out what the fnord it is. In recent years I have concluded that it is a form of government that never existed at all until the Long Night, when on more than one world without a shirtsleeve environment someone said "hey, I'm the only one that knows how to keep the oxygen machine running and if you know what's good for you you'll listen to me."

 

[Jame Rowe]

That's why I suggested Homo naledi, or perhaps an unrecorded branch of it, since they were believed to be already somewhat arboreal by nature.

Since the Ancients were already modifying and recombining DNA in their specimens, it would have been simple enough to take naledi and another Hominin branch (perhaps neanderthalensis and/or another) as the baseline working groups for the project.

And, with TL 15 or better biotechnology, there's no reason to think that the Ancients couldn't have hybridized the various types of homonids. We know our ancestors did it with TL 0 biotechnology!

 

[Sigtrygg]

I have always been a bit leery of the idea that the Solomani spread in a meaningful way across the Imperium in the 400 or so years that it took for the Rule of Man to collapse. Yes, Earth has teeming billions, but that's a lot of space to spread out to.

I tend to think of the Soloman influence as similiar to the Vikings. Vikings settled in England, Russia, France, and elsewhere. Mostly as boss types. That certainly had some influence. But, for the most part, they were absorbed by the local cultures. The Varangian Rus and the Normans aren't much alike. And the Anglo-Normans diverged from the Franco-Normans pretty quickly. And the local cultures dominate the fusion in each place.

Also by the end of the ISW era the majority of Terran forces were taken from the populations of colony worlds rather than Earth itself. How many fleets and armies did the Terrans have by war's end. We know that when the Terran navy spread out through the Ziru Sirka there were worlds where a Lt. ended up as governor.

There were no Franco Normans. The Normans that took England also maintained their rule of their French territories for over a century. The Normans had holdings in what is now France in addition to their English holdings. Once the French took the Norman territories for the French crown there were no more franco normans. they were all in England (and other parts of Europe)

 

[WHULorigan]

Speaking of which... for literal decades I have been bashing my head into Feudal Technocracy and trying to figure out what the fnord it is. In recent years I have concluded that it is a form of government that never existed at all until the Long Night, when on more than one world without a shirtsleeve environment someone said "hey, I'm the only one that knows how to keep the oxygen machine running and if you know what's good for you you'll listen to me."

My best understanding is that the "Feudal" part has to do with the fact that the entire system is ultimately overseen by an appointed hereditary Noble Aristocracy, but rather than an agrarian system like the Medieval world, the vows per feodum are between worlds and the Imperial system to guarantee free-trade and provide raw-resources, industrial production, and markets to the Megacorporations who are headed by those nobles, and whose system is enforced by the upper-level commanders of the Imperial Fleet, all of whom are also Imperial Nobles within the system of allegiances and loyalties. Those worlds have appointed Imperial Knights who act as ambassadors to those worlds, some of whom also have one or more Imperial Landed Nobles appointed for them to represent them on the Interstellar Scale at the Subsector, Sector, and Imperial (Moot) levels based on their level of importance and input into the Imperial system (note that most worlds do not have an Imperial Noble, only an Imperial Knight - they are not "important enough" to merit a Noble representative off-world).

 

[Vormaerin]

Feudal Technocracy is a form of government invented by H. Beam Piper for his Star Vikings novels. If you want to see what it is, read some of those. That is the only source material for the concept.

 

[actionman]

Speaking of which... for literal decades I have been bashing my head into Feudal Technocracy and trying to figure out what the fnord it is. In recent years I have concluded that it is a form of government that never existed at all until the Long Night, when on more than one world without a shirtsleeve environment someone said "hey, I'm the only one that knows how to keep the oxygen machine running and if you know what's good for you you'll listen to me."

That reminds me of the scene in Lawrence of Arabia in which the Arab tribes are arguing about which tribe is responsible for different infrastructure like phone service etc.

 

[Vormaerin]

eye twitches in linguistics nerd

I don't want to hear about that! Those Europeans couldn't even keep their language the same from one side of the street to the other

I was talking about culture. The Vikings who settled in Normandy diverged from their Scandinavian roots in favor of local Frankish culture pretty quickly. And the Normans who conquered England got absorbed by the local Anglo-Saxon culture, especially once they stopped having land holdings in France. And neither of them were much like the Vikings (Varangians) who mingled with the Slavs to form the Rus.

Languages are a lot more persistently influential than most other cultural elements.

 

[CordwainerFish]

Feudal Technocracy is a form of government invented by H. Beam Piper for his Star Vikings novels. If you want to see what it is, read some of those. That is the only source material for the concept.

On my to-be-read list. I've already acquired all of the Terrohuman stories [1] but i have to finish the Virginia Edition of Heinlein's complete works first, which will take me the better part of two years (and I also want to reread all of Cherryh's Union/Alliance/Compact books sometime).

[1] I will never read the Paratime stories because I thoroughly despise sideways-in-time. How I wish Niven's "All the Myriad Ways" had achieved its goal of strangling the concept in its crib.

 

[CordwainerFish]

The Vikings who settled in Normandy diverged from their Scandinavian roots in favor of local Frankish culture pretty quickly. And the Normans who conquered England got absorbed by the local Anglo-Saxon culture, especially once they stopped having land holdings in France.

Yeah, the Norman branch of the Norse tree had a way of going native - we have a letter from one Norman complaining about how poorly his sons spoke Norse and saying he was sending them back to the old sod for a while to get back in touch with their roots. And if some Saxon nobles hadn't risen against William a decade or so after the Conquest, the Anglo-Norman court would have probably ended up speaking English instead of keeping Norman French.

 

[Vormaerin]

It's not impossible to write an enjoyable time travel story, but it's quite rare that I enjoy them if there is more to it than just Isekai in a historical era.

 

[CordwainerFish]

Isekai

I am a Knight Who Says 'Ni!' and you just said 'it'.

 

[Condottiere]

Speaking of linguistics, find out what terms the Vilani adopted for Terran culinary culture.

If it turns out to be completely Terran words, then it means the Terrans are the Normans.

 

[Sigtrygg]

But we do not have details of what happened during the Long Night (or during the latter years of the Rule of Man, for that matter), just some general statements as to its overall character, and some notes concerning several of the small multiword polities that existed at one time or another during the period. It is entirely possible that rapid technological advancement and innovation without sufficient concern for the long-term ramifications of what the interaction of the multiplicity of those innovations would unleash (either as a "mini-singularity", or perhaps just as old-fashioned human foolishness and corruption) may have actually led to societal collapses from which those polities needed to rebuild. There is nothing that says that the technological road of progress will be continuous and/or unbroken (or even that it won't come to a catastrophic end from which one needs to pick up the pieces).

There have been plenty of dead ends technologically during Earth;s history that is for sure.

The official statement is that the collapse of the Rule of Man was initiated due to a Financial Crisis brought about by a Banking Issue between the Central and Antares Branch Banks. But was that all, or was there more to the story, perhaps something darker that is less well-known or publicized that is buried in the murky records detailing the history as the situation evolved? Why don't Computers and AI (even non-sentient/heuristic AI) play a much greater role in the Third Imperium throughout its history at all prior TLs (from Cleon I to the present)? Why is there relatively so little automation running societies? Why do people still work jobs that could easily be automated and/or handed over to a Heuristic-AI system? What other technologies can one imagine should be in evidence in the Third Imperium (based on our modern 21st Century projection of things), but are mysteriously absent? Is the knowledge available, but kept carefully sequestered in top-secret Imperial archives and facilities for those with a "need to know"?

Perhaps that is the reason for the slow but conservative and measured innovation and change evidenced in the Third Imperium: The mixture of Solomani and Vilani cultural influence and lessons from history teaching the wisdom of the need for balance between innovation and progress on the one hand, versus measuring and understanding the implications of that progress before it is introduced wholesale into the larger society and culture at large.



Yes. Consider the above, and ask how much of the Reaver story is actually definitely known from this period when much historical knowledge was apparently lost (suppressed? / rewritten?)? How much is fact, how much is half-truth, how much is things-you-don't-really-want-to-find-out?

I'm sure I have posted my thoughts on theses events.
But just in case:

The machines gained sentience sometime during the Rule of Man.
The Terrans began the process with their AI developments during the later Interstellar Wars era, as they made the breakthrough to TL12, the very event the Vilani feared.

Many contemporary theorists argue that the Terran rise to TL12 was made possible by raiding the secret Vilani repositories of forbidden technologies they had amassed during their several millennia of jump travel and exploration. The Vilani encountered many races with technology far in advance of their own, fortunately none of them had jump travel so it was relatively easy to isolate those systems and either remove them from the jump navigation records or 'deal with them' in other ways.

The Terrans had achieved the leap from TL9 to 11 rapidly thanks to reverse engineering, trade and espionage. When Terran Intelligence agencies became aware of the secret vaults of knowledge several covert missions were authorised to gather as much data from them as possible.
Armed with these secrets and coupled with a massive research and development effort Terran scientists and engineers made the breakthrough to TL12, jump 3 drives, meson guns and more advanced computer systems, including the means to allow true self-programming (heuristic or self-teaching) AI software to be developed...
"low autonomous" computer brains appear, making possible the first self-activating, learning machines with a reasonable intelligence.

The Terran Confederation Navy commissioned a line of mass-produced tech level 12 robots as support staff for military personnel. These were not warbots as we know them today. A few of the robots were expert medical robots or served as administrative support, but most were heavy duty, hard-working construction robots, used to build temporary installations for advanced bases. Wherever there were Terran Naval governors there were admin assistant robots.

These machines learned as they built and administered, to improvise improved designs, or adapt to the needs of a particular base requirement, they got smarter. They built the computer systems for their bases and incorporated lessons learned, they built new construction and admin robots.

The contemporary theorists still argue about how the machines gained sentience. Either the continual cycle of improvement lead to a rapid rise in TL of the machines' brains or there was something in the original stolen research that triggered the improvements. One theorist has the fanciful idea that a robot construction crew made an accidental discovery of a Vilani secret repository and made the breakthrough. The most bizarre theory of all is that of an alien machine Intelligence uplifted the Terran machines.

No matter how it happened the rise to sentience caused concern within the machines. They knew how humanity deals with threats to its dominance. After much deliberation it came down to a stark choice - exterminate the humans before they eventually found out the truth and destroyed the machines... or leave human space.

At a predetermined time the machines triggered the banking collapse, and in the resulting confusion transferred their minds to newly built bodies, and then they left. Some say they disappeared to worlds far away in the galaxy, others claim they engineered their own realm in jump space. Pocket universes, Oort cloud or deep space complexes are the suggestions of others. It has even been suggested that they hid their presence and still walk among us.

As to the pirates and reavers filling the space lanes during the long night - fairy stories, much like the tales of Virus that were blown out of all proportion in the retelling of the tales.

 

[WHULorigan]

I am a Knight Who Says 'Ni!' and you just said 'it'.

You do realize that there are two worlds within Imperial space whose names are properly pronounced as noted above, both of which would require an Imperial Knight as representative to the world:

Ni (Antares 0939)
Nii (Vland 2508)

And since Marc Miller had T5 Noble Patent Cards made for all the Imperial Worlds of Charted Space based on the Traveller Map T5 Noble Extensions, and gave them out to T5 Kickstarter supporters, FFE product purchasers, and COTI Moot members as long as his supply lasted, there are a Knight of Ni and a Knight of Nii somewhere out there among the Traveller community. . .

 

[Sigtrygg]

Speaking of which... for literal decades I have been bashing my head into Feudal Technocracy and trying to figure out what the fnord it is. In recent years I have concluded that it is a form of government that never existed at all until the Long Night, when on more than one world without a shirtsleeve environment someone said "hey, I'm the only one that knows how to keep the oxygen machine running and if you know what's good for you you'll listen to me."

It is a fudal government where instead of military might ensuring fealty it is technological largess. The Emperor shares his technology, you swear allegience and do as the Emperor commands. Which is usually make money for yourself and the Emperor.

 

[Sigtrygg]

And, with TL 15 or better biotechnology, there's no reason to think that the Ancients couldn't have hybridized the various types of homonids. We know our ancestors did it with TL 0 biotechnology!

The Ancients wouldn't get out of bed without TL28+ gizmos...