http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forum ... 74#p117174
Rather than starting with any particular faction, this thread is about discussion of factions and cultures in general. Here we can discuss human cultures, how exactly they differ, and what made them develop so differently.
Ultimately, we might end up with a large pool of ideas taken from human cultures and ready to be applied to vegastrike factions.
First of all, why do cultures exist? And how do they evolve?
I think the evolution of man as social animal simply rewarded love of one's tribe, which goes together with recognizing it. In the old days tribes were small enough that you'd know each individual. As tribes grew larger, they invented special hats with feathers or whatever means of tribal identification were at hand. Eventually, hats were replaced by badges, and later picture ID's; and nation-sized tribes adopted flags and logos and anthems. The search for cultural identity is ongoing at many nation-tribes, however, as the power of flags and anthems to induce fealty is recognized as feeble. Real culture is a better provider of cohesion.
Fortunately for nations, individuals are eager to form cultural identifications; and while culture is not easy to manufacture, it is not hard to amplify.
Take Canadian versus U.S. culture, which as an immigrant to Canada who lived in the US I can compare to my ability. I want to write a little analysis here because I think this is a perfect case of two nations and two cultures that are so similar, compared to widely different cultures, and yet these two cultures are evolving along different paths, diverging, which I think is what cultures tend to do, naturally.
The typical US citizen is extremely proud of US culture and history, and with good reasons... Freedom and the Pursuit of Happiness is probably the clearest and most down to Earth motto any nation ever had. It basically says "you are free to believe A, as I'm free to believe B, and this won't stand on the way of our doing business together". And as a result, US culture is probably the most unified and cohesive of the past century.
But with that comes a price: The stronger a culture is, the harder it is for it to get along with other cultures. Advocating Democracy to cultures that glorify the powerful and generous basha, or the proverbial wise rulers, is not likely to attain good results.
Canadians tend to see US culture as a "melting pot", where immigrants from other cultures are expected to "see the light" and come to embrace US values; and Canadian culture, by contrast, as a glorified aggregate. The laws and constitutions are different in how they define Democracy: In the US, the majority rules, period; whereas in Canada there are safety valves that prevent one cultural majority's tyranizing a cultural minority; thus, where cultural minority rights are concerned, matters should not be resolved by a vote. Canadians are proud of this distinction, needless to say, and of the image Canada once had in the world stage (largely lost since the 80's) of being a champion of peace and tolerance.
How did this Canadian cultural distinction originate? I'm no historian, but I think it originated out of necessity, due to Quebec separatism. Separatists' strongest point has been the encroachment of English language and culture into the province of Quebec, and have felt that the only way to protect Quebec's French heritage is through sovereignty. Prime minister Trudeau used a lot of carrot and stick to keep Quebec a part of Canada: From sending in the army to quell separatist terrorists, to granting Quebec special cultural status. This set a strong precedent, and it was only a matter of time for other cultures in Canada to demand similar concessions.
Enough; I'm done with the US and Canada, for now. All I wanted to show is that culture is a self-differentiating and self-evolving phenomenon. A young nation may have a hard time defining itself, but then it finds something, holds on to it for life, and amplifies it until it becomes "culture" and "identity". Artists are rewarded for reflecting national or local culture; and eventually art comes to reinforce cultural identity.
I read recently somebody's trip to Croatia, where he relates that most croatians are muscular and fit and strong as bulls. Probably a self-identity born of having successfully defended their territory from a more powerfully armed occupier during the Balkan War.
Also read somewhere about the origins of Sicilian culture, where Vendetta was the key to their cultural survival. Any would-be occupier would have to contend with the fact that their actions against Sicilians would eventually have dire consequences, even if to do so would take generations' worth of time. Vendetta was culturally inexorable and inescapable, as it was a "family value" that didn't require a vertical organization.
But there are many other factors that can contribute to culture; and not just additively, but multiplicatively.
The current success of China in becoming a world economic power, I tend to attribute it partially to the game of GO, a traditional Chinese board game which is much simpler than chess in terms of rules, but much more complex, IMO, in terms of strategy. Western cultures have no equivalent, and their ways of thinking are lacking that special nutrient. In GO, "all you have to do" is surround your opponent's pieces, before your opponent surrounds yours. But if you look at GO end games, you'll be at a complete loss: The board looks like a random scattering of white and black buttons all over the grid, nothing surrounding anything; and yet the two champion level players have agreed as to who won and who lost the game. The thing is, the game involves so much strategy, and so much thinking ahead, that it is not necessary for the winner to prove the fact.
But to get back to Vegastrike, I think that to be able to characterize factions culturally, what's needed is a bit of brainstorming about their histories that goes beyond "they had a war with X and won/lost". There needs to be a fleshing out of the years before the war, the events during the war, if they won how they did it, if they lost why they did, etceteras, and as historical facts emerge, to brainstorm how they might have been webbed into culture and identity.
The dynamics of culture are complex. Yesterday I was listening to a radio program about the "potato famine" and how the Irish perceived it as a shameful chapter not to be spoken about, for many years.
In any case, I wish for this thread to remain non-faction-specific; just for discussion of,
- Earth cultures, and how principles learned could transfer to Vegastrike
- The cultural brainstorming process itself
- The Vegastrike cultural map, in general
Besides matters of self-identity, it would also help identify how sub-cultural rifts within cultures have developed as of the UTCS timeline. If faction X are neighbors of Y who had a war with Z, conceivably there were displaced people from Y who settled in X's territory and formed a sub-culture. Etceteras.