Thoughts on the Dark Imperium

[actionman]

No one said that they would be unrecognizable to themselves?

They would be recognizable as Vilani descended people with Vilani descended culture and language.

The continental dialects of Old Norse evolved into the modern Scandinavian languages, but isolated Icelandic changed relatively little. Consider if every group of Old Norse speakers were isolated. Pronunciation will differ, but written language will probably still be intelligible.

Just as an example, a major element of Vilani culture derives from the fact that there's barely any foodstuffs on Vland that can be eaten without processing. How is that affected by centuries of relative isolation on a world where you can just eat stuff that grows? Likewise, they have a circadian rhythm adapted to a much longer day. Does that survive centuries different light levels, day lengths, seasons, etc. People who live on a world where the planet will kill them will have behavioral differences from people who live in a paradise.

I took into account adaptation to different worlds.

My point is that populations who have been adapted to life on their world for centuries, as part of the Ziru Sirka, will not change all that much ( Edit: because of the Long Night. They would mostly stay as they were when the Long Night occurred, with the adaptations to their planet).

So by the time of the Long Night, circadian rhythms will have adapted, etc., if populations didn't live in sealed habitats, since worlds where people can live outside without protective gear aren't that common. The Vilani of the Ziru Sirka would've brought Vilani foods with them and cultivated them, because that's what they would be used to eating and their bodies would be adapted to those foods. The life on other worlds would probably be less edible that life on Vland, with the exception of Terran foods (which would probably make Vilani ill, since they weren't adapted to them).

Some Terran cultural diversity is mentioned in DGP and other Solomani-oriented books.

The Ziru Sirka controlled 15,000 worlds, while the Third Imperium only controls 10,000. The Spinward Marches and other frontier regions are the only regions where the Ziru Sirka didn't hold sway. Everything in red on the map below was predominantly Vilani (except for the part in the Vargr Extents), and experienced thousands of years of Vilani cultural imposition and assimilation. 100 minor human races would be 100 worlds out of 15,000. The Solomani Sphere region would be mostly Solomani, because the plagues brought during the Interstellar Wars and the Rule of Man would've destroyed or reduced many Vilani planetary populations.

A better way to say it is the Imperium doesn't force its cultural norms onto planetary populations, but will interfere if a world threatens the Pax Imperia.

Or bucks the Imperial feudal pyramid.

Imperial member world: Imperial nobles should be subject to planetary law while on planet.

Imperium:

 

[Vormaerin]

If you are arguing that the Vilani could maintain a monoculture over 15000 worlds for thousands of years (including almost 3000 years after the fall of the Ziru Sirka), I'm just going to say "sure, in a fantasy campaign." Frankly, I find that more unbelievable than jump drives.

If you just mean there's going to be commonalities, sure, of course. The Romans and Greeks influenced all of Europe and, therefore, the places they settled like North America and Australia. People quote Livy and whatnot. But no one today has much actual cultural commonality with the Romans or the Greeks. They don't act like them. Not even the Italians and modern Greeks. And they are far, far closer to us in time than anyone in Charted Space is to the First Imperium.

IRL, when Europeans moved to the Americas, they adopted local foods and sent those foods back to Europe. The Irish are famous for potatoes.
Which came from the New World. The Italians got tomatoes from the New World. Humans adapt and change and grow. Even the most successful cultural conservatives have evolving cultures.

The Vilani Imperium was Jump 2. Everything you know about time lapse in communications in the Third Imperium was 2-3x worse in the Vilani Empire. And here's the thing. The Vilani started out as innovators. They developed jump drive when we were inventing planted crops. Something like 4000BC, IIRC? They pushed out and explored, conquered, spread all over the place. They were not a conservative people in any ordinary sense of the term.

At some point, the *government* turned inward and focused on stasis. Apocryphal documents suggest they learned of threats beyond the limits of their current expansion and chose to avoid them. Actual published materials don't answer the question and leave it to a particularly strong governmental tendency towards stasis and control. The Vilani were far more successful than any real world empire in their attempts at stasis, but they failed. And they were failing BEFORE the Solomani and Vargr showed up.

 

[actionman]

This is what I'm arguing:

They would be recognizable as Vilani descended people with Vilani descended culture and language.

Of course different planetary populations would have cultural variations to adapt to their circumstances, even before the Long Night. In crowded dome cities, customs of politeness and non-interference could develop. On worlds where people have to manage large land areas or isolated facilities, a culture of self-reliance could develop. On worlds that had a imbalance between the sexes, a practice of multiple spouses could develop. These cultural adaptations would be in place during the Ziru Sirka, and IMO, all of these people would still be racial Vilani (depending on if there are other human populations), speak Vilani, and still have a baseline of Vilani culture during and after the Long Night.

Consider that the Vilani of the Ziru Sirka were a literate highly advanced interstellar civilization. They would have records of their laws, culture, and language, and the ability to instruct continuing generations in them. When the tech began to break down, they could transfer their knowledge to more durable media. This would give them long term records with which to educate new generations and maintain cultural continuity.

This is a very different situation than iron age people on Earth, who had no systematic education and not much to write with. English only began to have standardized spelling in the 1300's, with generations of dogooder language reformers changing it as they pleased.

I doubt that Vilani colonizers would find much to eat on other worlds. Most worlds don't have much in the way of indigenous life, and potential foodstuffs on alien worlds probably wouldn't be compatible with human biochemistry. The Vilani would bring their own food and cultivate it.

The evolution of Greeks and Romans of the classical period into modern Greeks and Italians involved a lot history, like barbarian invasions, foreign populations settling, the disruption and/or destruction of institutions, conquest by foreign powers, etc., that would not happen on Vilani worlds, where the majority of the population is Vilani. In the provinces of Rome, Roman culture was imposed on non-Roman populations, and the barbarian invasions swept much of that away. This is a very different situation than Vilani colonists being the only population on a world and left to their own devices.

IMO isolation is a force for stasis, while interactions with new people, cultures, languages, and events pushes change. This is why I think that isolated populations wouldn't change all that much from the beginning of the Long Night to the conquests of the Third Imperium.

 

[Vormaerin]

If they are small populations with little internal conflict even after the collapse of the interstellar order, perhaps. Though two different isolated groups in completely different environments will likely become quite different over generations. The larger the population, the more fragmentation will happen.

You could imagine 15,000 stagnant worlds that learn everything from their ancestral records. But that flies in the face of human history. These worlds will have different technological needs, different environmental impetus, and different levels of technological and social impacts from the ending of the Vilani Empire, the rule of the Terrans, and then the Long Night. They will invent and forget different technologies and cultural trends. They'll have different natural resources.

The United States pre internet used to have regional differences in the generic word for "carbonated beverage". It was "pop" in some regions, "soda" in others, and "Coke" in yet others. And that was the same country, with the same culture, talking about the exact same item that had existed for less than 100 years. Yes, if you have a tiny population living in constant contact in essentially the same place, they'll tend to stay pretty much the same. That's not what we are talking about with multitudes of significantly different planets with generally sizable populations (if they were self-sufficient enough to survive the Long Night).

I'm not sure where you get the idea that in Traveller most worlds don't have indigenous life. Yeah, there are lots of worlds that are put on barren rocks, but those are also the worlds least likely to survive the Long Night at all. But there are lots and lots of worlds that are not barren rocks or hellworlds.

 

[actionman]

different levels of technological and social impacts from the ... then the Long Night.

The start of the Long Night is really where the impetus for societal diversity will come from, IMO. A planetary society will be adjusted to its situation through the centuries of the Ziru Sirka, and the few centuries of the Rule of Man. But the Long Night, that has the potential to cause severe upheavals in a single generation, once it gets going. If a world falls into deprivation and starvation, this could lead to lawlessness which causes the failure of the technological base over a generation (teachers would be trying to survive instead of teaching, technicians would be trying to get basic needs met instead of doing their technical jobs, etc.) Then a culture of suspicion, small groups trying to survive, and violence could easily develop. Geological disasters that forced the survivors to start over with nothing would do the same and would probably induce diverse societies and languages on a world, but IMO, these differences would be more like the differences of the romance languages and cultures rather than things that are entirely different.

But, planets that are largely self-sustaining in which life is tough but not deadly, would probably retain a language and culture not to different from what it was at the beginning of the Long Night.

These worlds will have different technological needs, different environmental impetus, and different levels of technological and social impacts from the ending of the Vilani Empire, the rule of the Terrans...

They will have adjusted to these environmental conditions for centuries, with interstellar tech levels of communications, education, etc. exerting a norming effect under the Ziru Sirka and then 400 years of the Rule of Man.

But that flies in the face of human history.

That's rl Earth history, which has very different conditions than what we're discussing.

if you have a tiny population living in constant contact in essentially the same place, they'll tend to stay pretty much the same.

How tiny is tiny? Hundreds of thousands, like Iceland? Several million people in one region clustered around the former starport? Even a world which could maintain TL 5 has the capability for mass media. TL 4 could probably manage telegraphs. Both could manage education systems, especially if the generation which experienced the Long Night set them up.

But there are lots and lots of worlds that are not barren rocks or hellworlds.

And Traveller gives us very little information about biospheres. Even if worlds had life advanced enough to eat, like algae, plankton, fish, plants, animals, etc. I doubt very much it would be edible or nutritious, if not toxic. Vilani and Terrans would have to cultivate their own food.

 

[WHULorigan]

The United States pre internet used to have regional differences in the generic word for "carbonated beverage". It was "pop" in some regions, "soda" in others, and "Coke" in yet others.

What an odd bunch of terms for a soft drink . . .

 

[WHULorigan]

BTW, as a somewhat tangential aside, one of the things to consider that many players do not really appreciate about the Population code is just how "barren" and "deserted" many "Inhabited" worlds might potentially be for the lower Population values (because it is a logarithmic scale, not multiplicative). Anything less than Pop=6/7 (and even here I am being generous) and the majority of the planet is uninhabited wasteland.

• Pop=3 (Thousands) is a single town on Earth
• Pop=4 (10s of Thousands) is in the range of a single small city on Earth
• Pop=5 (100s of Thousands) is in the range of a single medium city on Earth
• Pop=6/7 (millions to 10s of millions) is still the population of ONE Major City on Earth today.

So when you look at a "world" and its population code, and you think about its geographic population distribution, what does the world look like? Is it a single settlement near the starport (or a major settlement with a few outlying districts) and the VAST bulk of the rest of the planet is an uninhabited waste? Is the Population a few small independent colonies from entirely different originating groups that are located in a few very widely separated regions on the surface who have virtually no contact (or who originally might not have even realized that the other group even existed)?

Travelling any significant distance away from the home encampment/colony without proper advance planning might be a virtual death sentence if you run into any trouble. Your disappearance might remain a mystery until your remains were accidentally stumbled upon decades (or centuries) later, if they even remember who you were.

It is quite likely that early colonization of worlds will be a lot less "one group" settling a world, and much more likely that "one group" will settle a chartered region of a world (and other groups of independent origin may settle other chartered colonies). And that says nothing of squatters who colonize, whose descendants end up in a colony for multiple generations before anyone even knows they are there. It would really depend on how much outside contact and radio traffic they are engaging in.

 

[Vormaerin]

Look, if you want to imagine that the Ziru Sirka and the Ramshackle Empire were better at maintaining communications and standards than the Imperium despite massively lower technology and travel speeds, you can do that. I don't believe it. The Imperium can barely influence most of the worlds it controls with its far superior technology.

The Ziru Sirka was TL 10 or 11. The max FTL speed was JUMP 2! That is massively slower than the Imperium's J4 standard. Along a main, it's only twice as long (though the Imperial couriers could go J6). If there's gaps, it can be much, much slower. Some cool cultural trend on Vland would take a minimum of 31 weeks to reach Sylea. And they are adjacent sectors. The actual borders of the Ziru Sirka were more like 100+ jumps (It's 108 to Barnard's Star from Vland, which is where Terrans first met the Vilani).

Again, maybe the Vilani settled worlds were all well organized government sponsored colonies with vast stocks of infrastructure. But that's not how colonies work in the real world. Most of them are half assed, lots of them are individuals or groups seeking a better life for themselves, or freedom from some unpleasantness or oppression. And worlds that are reasonably nice are probably going to have multiple different colony groups settling different parts of them.

The people rocking the good life and loving the way it is are not usually the people that go "You know, let's just go off to the middle of nowhere and start from scratch!".

The Vilani that go to the colonies are not gonna be the ultra conformists unless the government is drafting them. It's going to include sub cultures and religions that don't fit in well on Vland or more developed colonies. It's going to include other humans and aliens that get jump drive tech from the Vilani or just buy passage. We KNOW the Newts basically spread all across the First Imperium. We know that various human minors had STL colonies. The Geonee had jump drives of their own.


Btw, Iceland was like 40,000 people in 1800. We don't have good census information for earlier than that, but it was not more than that and likely less. It wasn't until the 1920s that it was even 100,000. And they were all on one island, dealing with the same challenges, the same events, and in constant contact with each other.

 

[actionman]

I think that the issue in the cultural and linguistic drift discussion is that I'm drawing conclusions from a different set of premises that what applies to rl history.

The premises I'm working with are:

• Planetary cultures and languages of the Ziru Sirka / Rule of Man at the start of the Long Night as a baseline. These populations would have been under Ziru Sirka cultural rigidity for thousands of years, with 400 years or less of respite under the Rule of Man.
• Each planetary culture is its own Vilani-descended monoculture because of the Vilani / Ziru Sirka cultural rigidity, and Traveller's mainworld / one starport / one major location suggests planetary monocultures (except for balkanized worlds and multi species worlds). The people are racial Vilani, except for populations which can't be absorbed by a Vilani population on the world (Solomani majority worlds, worlds populated by minor races, etc. In the Ziru Sirka and even the Rule of Man, Vilani majority worlds are the majority of worlds). The wiki states, "The Vilani gene pool is much less variegated than that of Terrans..." This suggests that Terran style diversity did not occur on Vland, especially since much Terran diversity comes from species hybridization with other hominids. This would not have happened on Vland due to the lack of those other hominid species. The Vilani on Vland would have had thousands of years as a high tech unified monoculture world (cultural rigidity again), and their colony worlds would have their own Vilani descended monocultures adapted to their practical necessities.
• These planetary cultures and populations would become isolated as interstellar travel ceases. There would no or very few outside populations, languages, or stimuli.
• These planetary populations would be TL 11 to TL 13 by the time of the Long Night. What worlds were able to produce and maintain locally is a different story, but by the time of the Interstellar Wars, the Ziru Sirka had been at TL 11 for at least 3000 years. That's plenty of time for technology, products, and lifestyle to expand throughout the Ziru Sirka. At TL 4 and above separated settlements would be able to stay in communication, and at TL 5 they would be able to stay in physical contact. And, they would have cultural history and artifacts of TL 11-13 all around them.
• These now isolated planetary populations would be living with their fully documented culture, history, and technology and possess full cultural continuity.
• Most planetary populations would probably be clustered around the starport region (if help or contact were going to come, it would come there). Thus they would be able to stay in contact with each other. IMO, people would abandon outlying settlements that weren't self-sufficient and congregate where they could get the most support or have the best chance of survival.

These are the premises I'm working with, and the conclusion I draw is that the Vilani planetary populations wouldn't change all that much. Sure there would be some linguistic drift, or different cultural adaptations to challenges caused by the failure of interstellar commerce, natural disasters, or whatever, but these populations would still be clearly Vilani, racially, culturally, and linguistically.

Look, if you want to imagine that the Ziru Sirka and the Ramshackle Empire were better at maintaining communications and standards than the Imperium despite massively lower technology and travel speeds, you can do that.

I did not imagine that, and it has nothing to do with my conclusions.

But that's not how colonies work in the real world.

I don't think real world examples apply to Traveller's fictional setting. I think it's highly plausible that Vilani colonies were megacorporate resource extraction colonies, and the people who were sent to found new colonies were Vilani megacorporate employees who didn't have all that much choice.

We KNOW the Newts basically spread all across the First Imperium.

This isn't relevant to how much populations would change after the cessation of interstellar travel.

It's going to include sub cultures and religions that don't fit in well on Vland or more developed colonies.

Not sure about that. Colony sponsors would include people who are going to function and make them a profit rather than subcultures that don't fit in.

 

[actionman]

The people rocking the good life and loving the way it is are not usually the people that go "You know, let's just go off to the middle of nowhere and start from scratch!".

Or they're highly paid corporate employees making even more lucrative bonuses if they participate in founding a colony. Or convicts. Or poor people.

And worlds that are reasonably nice are probably going to have multiple different colony groups settling different parts of them.

I'm not sure about that. Good worlds in the Ziru Sirka would've been discovered and colonized by the Vilani megacorporations, or other governments. If a world is valuable, like a Garden World, the Navy would park an escort or two in orbit to take care of interlopers, pirates, resource thieves, or people not authorized to be there. At TL 11, a satellite network would be easy to set up and ships on approach to the world would be easy to detect. Even if different colony groups settled a world, they would've been different groups of Vilani, and they probably would've blended into a monoculture after a few thousand years. Minor races had some colony worlds, largely centered around their homeworlds, but they were few compared to the Vilani populated worlds of the Ziru Sirka.

But that's not how colonies work in the real world.

We're not talking about the real world. We're talking about the Ziru Sirka and the Rule of Man, which operated under entirely different conditions, like interstellar TLs, a unified world culture on the homeworld (Vland), hostile, barren, or inhospitable colony worlds which are difficult for poorly funded or equipped groups to set up on, things like that.

 

[Arkathan]

Or contractors providing construction, on-site training or security.

 

[actionman]

Or contractors providing construction, on-site training or security.

There would probably be setup crews that would build the facilities for whatever the colony is for (mining or whatever), and then the colonists would come in. Probably habitation modules and life support first, and then the first wave of specialist colonists would come in to assist the setup crew and get the colony functioning as soon as possible. Then the workers, then general labor, then service support people, then dependents.

 

[Arkathan]

I suspect, once the initial colony gets to self sustaining or at least somewhat profitable, additional pre-fab manufacturing/processing/livestock/new blood would be shipped in as well. The construction crews and security could well expect a decade of contract work - although their personnel might well rotate out several times if they are not extremely remote.

 

[actionman]

I suspect, once the initial colony gets to self sustaining or at least somewhat profitable, additional pre-fab manufacturing/processing/livestock/new blood would be shipped in as well. The construction crews and security could well expect a decade of contract work - although their personnel might well rotate out several times if they are not extremely remote.

The construction crews and security could take a 10 year contract, then flush with that cash do whatever they wanted. A contract like that could be a very lucrative position, and highly sought after.

 

[MasterGwydion]

I think that the issue in the cultural and linguistic drift discussion is that I'm drawing conclusions from a different set of premises that what applies to rl history.

The premises I'm working with are:

• Planetary cultures and languages of the Ziru Sirka / Rule of Man at the start of the Long Night as a baseline. These populations would have been under Ziru Sirka cultural rigidity for thousands of years, with 400 years or less of respite under the Rule of Man.
• Each planetary culture is its own Vilani-descended monoculture because of the Vilani / Ziru Sirka cultural rigidity, and Traveller's mainworld / one starport / one major location suggests planetary monocultures (except for balkanized worlds and multi species worlds). The people are racial Vilani, except for populations which can't be absorbed by a Vilani population on the world (Solomani majority worlds, worlds populated by minor races, etc. In the Ziru Sirka and even the Rule of Man, Vilani majority worlds are the majority of worlds). The wiki states, "The Vilani gene pool is much less variegated than that of Terrans..." This suggests that Terran style diversity did not occur on Vland, especially since much Terran diversity comes from species hybridization with other hominids. This would not have happened on Vland due to the lack of those other hominid species. The Vilani on Vland would have had thousands of years as a high tech unified monoculture world (cultural rigidity again), and their colony worlds would have their own Vilani descended monocultures adapted to their practical necessities.

This last part here I have to disagree with. Traveller is designed the way it is. For the most part the only places that are ever defined are the Mainworlds of a system, not because they are the only real settlement in the system, but because MORN. Traveller has never encouraged a map and define everything viewpoint and none of its printed material does either. MORN is written in everything. So, because of MORN, you cannot make any assumptions about how the galaxy is based on the volume of material printed. They simply Mapped Only as Really Necessary and ignored everything else that may or may not exist. This is the major problem with trying to draw inferences on what Charted Space is really like from Traveller's written materials.

 

[MasterGwydion]

I suspect, once the initial colony gets to self sustaining or at least somewhat profitable, additional pre-fab manufacturing/processing/livestock/new blood would be shipped in as well. The construction crews and security could well expect a decade of contract work - although their personnel might well rotate out several times if they are not extremely remote.

Except the rules really do not support that. The rules for mining, manufacturing, and for using construction drones/robots indicate that a colony could be built in months, not years, with a minimal (from a colony-level finances position) investment.

 

[Arkathan]

Except the rules really do not support that. The rules for mining, manufacturing, and for using construction drones/robots indicate that a colony could be built in months, not years, with a minimal (from a colony-level finances position) investment.

Another example of being tainted by CT. It took a while to get Book 8, so robots were not as big a thing when I started playing.
Even now, I struggle to keep my robotics player from turning every gun fight into a remote drone hunt for NK troops in Ukraine. Just a few days ago, the drones' recon identified an ambush point, and I had to have them run into an EMP generator 's field the bad guy set up just to keep them from spoiling the rest of the plot too soon.
It is a side effect of new robots being cheaper than in CT, especially if your players have bought a fabricator

 

[MasterGwydion]

Another example of being tainted by CT. It took a while to get Book 8, so robots were not as big a thing when I started playing.
Even now, I struggle to keep my robotics player from turning every gun fight into a remote drone hunt for NK troops in Ukraine. Just a few days ago, the drones' recon identified an ambush point, and I had to have them run into an EMP generator 's field the bad guy set up just to keep them from spoiling the rest of the plot too soon.
It is a side effect of new robots being cheaper than in CT, especially if your players have bought a fabricator

If you are only playing CT, then that would make sense, but if We use the current rule system, a lot of the underlying assumptions do not work anymore. The more robots you have in game, the more you need to take into account, hacking of said robotic systems. It would suck to be your player's character when the enemy hacks his drone and uses it against the party. lol

 

[Sigtrygg]

The Vilani had an aversion to robots...

 

[MasterGwydion]

The Vilani had an aversion to robots...

The Vilani ceased to be an Empire longer ago in their timeline than Jesus supposedly walked the Earth in Our's. The only laws I am familiar with for robots are the Shudusham Concords and they are no longer a law and haven't been for over 2,000 years.