Yanks in Space...

[Condottiere]

Depiction of the Imperium Marines tends to end that way, especially since they're an armoured expeditionary force.

Armies and mercenary units have a wide range of inspirations.

As do navies.

So it tends to come down to tropes associated with architypes, and stereotypes.

You wouldn't think the Diversified Expanse would be subject to this.

But Holden is an idealist, the United Nations seem Europeanized, and the Martians are a successfully separated militarized former colony.

And, Vikings in space.

 

[MonsterX]

EU cultural mandates aren't often in my news feed.

They aren't really in my feed either, and I live in an EU country and my day job involves intensive work with EU institutions, law, policy and politics. Not saying they don't exist, just that in 25 years I haven't come across one yet. Sounds like that kind of thing that would make people mad and cause quite a stir, so it is odd that I missed it.

 

[MonsterX]

"Yanks in Space" is a description of the cultural homogeneity of the 3I context, and the assumptions embedded in the rules of all aspects of Traveller, as well as universe as it is played in individual games. This is partly a reflection of the fact that you need reference points, and you only have the ones you have. So you you are a Yank, there you go. I'm sure there are more American Traveller players than any other nationality, which explains why it goes in this direction, but if the fan base were different it would end up being Brits in Space, or Germans in Space.

You need a cultural centre of some sort to give depth to your universe, and it helps if it feels somehow familiar to the players. This enables you to contrast this "normal" with more exotic cultures. Otherwise, it is just a bunch of stuff happening and nothing ever makes any sense. Your Imperium can have a sort of homey feel to its core culture (meaning core, in the sense of a shared interstellar culture), to contrast with certain exotic planets with strange traditions which might be in the Imperium, and the polities outside the Imperium; thse you make different by specific markers you give them. This achieves that feeling of exploring a strange universe better than if you tried to invent all the cultural reference points out of whole cloth.

Spoiler: Mild Spoilers for my DNR players - you know you you are!

For example, my players are currently in the DNR at Gateway Station, and are having trouble coming to grips with the locals on who live on the station, and they see as a "cult" - the stationers are simply a tight community of humans and bwaps who have lived together for centuries and incorporate mutual elements, simultaneously inward looking and solidaristic, (and sometimes paranoid when triggered), but also superficially open and friendly to outsiders as long as the terms of the interaction are favourable and non-threatening. This interacts with the space station's multicultural governance structure from the Gateway Consortium. The Consortium staff and other spacers moving through are a familiar element for the players (this is not totally realistic, given the PCs are Imperials, but I am playing it this way) - in our case the "Eurotrash in Space", and the contrast to the stationers underlines their strangeness and mystery in this context. The players have to solve a murder in this context, and hopefully the appearance of corruption - but not necessarily where they think it is - creates a sort of "Chinatown" vibe (look up the movie and watch it, if you aren't familiar!).

Thus the Yanks in Space (or whatever nationality works in your context) is a world building shortcut, probably both necessary and inevitable, but one that you can build off of to develop the feeling of both depth and strangeness to your universe by contrasting it with the other cultures you develop.

 

[Sigtrygg]

'Yanks in Space' isn't anti-American in the modern sense of the term.

Offence is taken, not given. Pretty much the whole point of the first amendment. Of course if we don't like American values...

 

[Sigtrygg]

This is why there should be a HUGE difference between the High-Tech Hi-Pop culture producing worlds and the backwater colonial worlds.

There used to be.
The original S:3 had the vibe of frontier region, where the locals were not always welcoming of their Imperial rulers. Reading the rumours in A:1 there are many that are not very complimentary of the Imperium. Then there are the TAS news articles where the Imperium is atempting to embiggen their achievement, and yet the locals keep blowing them up. The Ine Givar are resistance fighters, freedom fighters if you will.

Then they changed it.

 

[Sigtrygg]

"What have the Romans ever done for us?"

A lot less than the Britich Empire or US hegemony have done for improving standards of living worldwide.

 

[ottarrus]

Let's sort some facts about the Domain of Deneb out:
- Yes, Deneb is a frontier region, an area of space where several cultures intersect with each other and not always to anyone's benefit;
- But that intersection has been going on for A THOUSAND YEARS; Regina was colonized in the Imperial Year 75;
- Therefore everybody knows everybody else; Imperial goals, Sword Worlds goals, Vargr state goals, all of it are known quantities;
Because of these things, I submit that the Deneb sectors are no more a 'frontier' area than Vland Sector is. The difference is that Vland culture worships the Ziru Sirka and its demand for cultural homogenaity whereas the Deneb region allows each individual world to express itself as much as its population can and as far as that culture will reach. Treason is not tolerated, but other than that anything goes. This makes both the Zhodani and Vilani VERY uncomfortable because they have to relearn social cues, laws and customs every time their ship emerges from Jump.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Check when that little tidbit of the Spinward Marches being a thousand years of Imperial rule, it destroys my setting suspenders. It's when the Third Imperium became of little interest to me as it turned the setting as it was into something else.

Imagine if Mongoose starts to develop its own brand new setting. Then in three years time changes it in a pretty substantial way...

A:1 1979 - SM is a frontier region and the Imperium, if not the bad guys, are morally grey.
S:3 1979 - The Imperium is old and "is under strong pressure from its neighboring interstellar governments, and does not have the strength nor the power which it once had."
S:11 1983 - The Spinward Marches has been settled since IY60... 1055 years of colonisation and development. Not exactly a "frontier" frontier, more of just an outer province.

 

[Vormaerin]

There's a lot of shift about the mid 80s that really changed the tone of the Third Imperium. What you read in the early books by Marc and even in Agents of the Imperium is pretty gray. What you read in a lot of the fan material and later releases is much brighter.

I tend to feel that a lot of those later authors just don't grasp the size of the Imperium or the distances involved. The distance from Capital to Mora is 24 jumps at J6. Even with zero layovers, that's twice the distance from Britain to Australia in the 18th century. And the reality is that normal communications is not Jump 6 and it isn't 0 layovers. It's like 37 weeks by X-boat. The 5FW is going on for somewhere between 12 and 18 months before Mora gets even a message from the Core in response to the war starting.

This is why the history of the Trojan Reaches doesn't make much sense. The idea that the proto-Sindalians were a frontier of the 2nd Imperium is litterally nonsense. There's no path across the Great Rift, so they would have to via Corridor, Deneb, and the Marches, most of which was unsettled at the time. And they'd be going like J3? So even if they did, they's be so far from the Imperium it would be a memory. Its 107 J3 jumps from Earth to Sindal, big chunks of it "Wilderness". Those guys doing up the Trojan Reach in a fanzine way back when came up with a pretty cool political situation, but their grasp of charted space geography was not great.

As far as the Spinward Marches go, the grasp of the Imperium there is supposed to be weak. There's no Sector Duke, no Sector Admiral. No Grand Admiral for the Domain. No Archduke. No Depot. Communications to the core is far away. Piracy is a serious threat and many many worlds are backwaters, underdeveloped, or just plain run by craptastic governments. The Imperial Navy is overstretched and Imperial government is light on the ground.

But it steadily accreted more and more government and a stronger and stronger Navy. And a more and more upbeat good guy vibe. As someone with no direct contact with any of the principals, just looking at the bylines, it often felt like Marc Miller and Loren Wiseman were running two different Charted Space campaigns and what's published was a mix of both.

That change in tone was the origin of the Yanks in space, as mentioned. From the 1980s US propaganda of "hegemonizing the world for Great Justice!" being reflected in increased Imperial power and 'good guy' vibes as well as the explicit copying of US specific concepts like the Marines Corps organization as a complete combined arms army with some nominal connection to boats.

 

[paltrysum]

This is why the history of the Trojan Reaches doesn't make much sense. The idea that the proto-Sindalians were a frontier of the 2nd Imperium is litterally nonsense. There's no path across the Great Rift, so they would have to via Corridor, Deneb, and the Marches, most of which was unsettled at the time. And they'd be going like J3? So even if they did, they's be so far from the Imperium it would be a memory. Its 107 J3 jumps from Earth to Sindal, big chunks of it "Wilderness". Those guys doing up the Trojan Reach in a fanzine way back when came up with a pretty cool political situation, but their grasp of charted space geography was not great.

Well, they could have done it, but with J-3 tech. They just would have had to painstakingly build fuel depots to cross the gaps, jumping back and forth to create crossings. Insane and labor-intensive, but possible. Extrapolate from some of our famous early world explorers and you can imagine that someone might be just nuts enough to try it. Heck, Magellan had no idea what he was getting into when he crossed the Pacific. It nearly killed everyone aboard the Victoria.

 

[paltrysum]

Well considering Traveller was written by an American after their service in the military and was the inspiration for the game along with all the scifi....

True, but arguably none of the early books had that Yanks in Space feeling until the FFW game and related Traveller materials, in which the Zhodani began to feel like stand-ins for the Soviet Union.

 

[Arkathan]

True, but arguably none of the early books had that Yanks in Space feeling until the FFW game and related Traveller materials, in which the Zhodani began to feel like stand-ins for the Soviet Union.

With psychic KGB operatives.

 

[Vormaerin]

Well, they could have done it, but with J-3 tech. They just would have had to painstakingly build fuel depots to cross the gaps, jumping back and forth to create crossings. Insane and labor-intensive, but possible. Extrapolate from some of our famous early world explorers and you can imagine that someone might be just nuts enough to try it. Heck, Magellan had no idea what he was getting into when he crossed the Pacific. It nearly killed everyone aboard the Victoria.

Sure, but if we actually put all the stars and other celestial objects into the galaxy, we aren't running charted space. Someone would have done that crazy stuff and then it would be map and the Rift wouldn't be an obstacle like it is.

Riftbreaker stuff is really cool, but a lot of Charted Space makes no sense if empty space isn't actually empty for purposes of Jump Drive travel. IMHO, that's a lot of neat stuff for a different traveller setting. Obviously, that's just my opinion. YMMV.

 

[Condottiere]

From recent experience, Traveller can influence media depictions of science fiction settings.

But, I'd say that pop culture is more likely to influence Traveller setting(s).

 

[To Tha Moon!]

No, too juvenile

How about a Training Video for pulling someone around in space connected to a Tether?

 

[Arkathan]

How about a Training Video for pulling someone around in space connected to a Tether?

Reaction Drive or M-Drive?

 

[Condottiere]

You can choose between getting fried or ionized.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Sure, but if we actually put all the stars and other celestial objects into the galaxy, we aren't running charted space. Someone would have done that crazy stuff and then it would be map and the Rift wouldn't be an obstacle like it is.

Riftbreaker stuff is really cool, but a lot of Charted Space makes no sense if empty space isn't actually empty for purposes of Jump Drive travel. IMHO, that's a lot of neat stuff for a different traveller setting. Obviously, that's just my opinion. YMMV.

The best way to do it is to say that they are not empty, they are jumpspace shoals or anomalies. They may be empty of stars and worlds or they may be full, but due to jumspace issues, you can't travel there very easily.

 

[CordwainerFish]

How about a Training Video for pulling someone around in space connected to a Tether?

The Rolling Stones explains in both narrative and dialogue why you give one gentle pull and that's it because what you're pulling on doesn't have brakes. Hazel recounts what happened to some poor schlub who wanted to warp in a load of sheet metal just a little faster...

 

[MongooseMatt]

Others think that the Imperium uses the Imperial Marines as a guillotine to hang over the necks of worlds. But the 'Yanks in Space' crowd can't really decide if that's 'white hat' or 'black hat' Imperium.

Note: The Imperium is not and never has been a good thing. You could, however, make the argument that everything else is worse.