Sandy's Soapbox

World-Building

A friend of mine is world-building. For a sci-fi game, he puts forth two stipulations. First, all cultures are not monotypes. No 'warrior race' where even the cooks are honor-bound cookie-cutter samurai. No 'merchant race' where the only job is a variant on used car salesman. All Earthlings are not sex-starved patriots. You know the tropes to avoid here.

The second conceit is that the unifying Galactic Government allows only 2 representative cultures per world, a Greater and a Lesser. So each world gets pigeonholed, even though each world is specifically not unified.

He wrote a sample entry. I countered with a different definition of Earth. This is my column, so I'm putting my entry first.

Today's exercise is for you to outdo me. Take the stance of an alien sociologist doing a cursory examination of Earth and assigning cultural representation to it. You must define us by two dominant cultures-- no more, no less. One is Greater and one is Lesser.

In some ways, this is like a game of cultural telephone, or writing about Earth in shorthand.

Alien Culture, 'Earth 2006'

by Sandy Antunes

The dominant culture on the homeworld of Alien Culture A is internally called the Chinese Kingdom, and referred to by its neighbors as Communist China. They are ruled by a semi-hereditary bureaucracy governed by non-theistic monarch elected by an inner council.

Male roles within the society are assigned either by heredity-- sons follow in father's role-- or through the post-school examinations-- jobs assigned by the state according to perceived aptitude. Female roles are assigned via the examinations, though many forsake careers upon being married in order to be caregivers. With a large population, the government has imposed firm restrictions on breeding, allowing only one child per married couple. As sons are favor, covert infanticide is not uncommon, despite being technically illegal. Religion is forbidden and loyalty to the state is considered the highest of virtues. Civil strife is therefore rare and the culture is considered stable.

The Chinese Kingdom has access to all the world's technology and has a strong manufacturing base, but tends to import basic research from its less populated but more technologically focused neighbors. The Chinese Kingdom has an uneasy peace with the rest of the world's nations, maintaining a large standing army to both defend its large borders, and to provide the potential of counter-attack should their economic interests be threatened. Militarily, they are considered mildly aggressive and well defended.

The Chinese Kingdom has the longest historical record of continuous self-rule relative to the other world's nations and cultures, and maintains an active interest in their history. They can be characterized as generally taking a conservative stance towards social change, but are extremely skilled at assimilating new technology into their military and industrial operations.

The second major cultural group is an economic alliance of the nations of two continents, the Americas and Europe, featuring a mix of governments generally characterized by: rulership by elected officials with relatively fixed terms of office, and competitive markets endorsed and restricted by their representative governments. They are named either Eurocentric or Americentric, depending on who is currently serving as Junior Senator.

These nations tend to have an opposite stance on Chinese issues in that they encourage families to have multiple children, allow more self-determinism in choice of employment, actively endorse a multitude of often-contradictory religions, and are more willing to discard historical traditions in favor of those which gain them a market advantage.

Technologically, the *centric are extremely advanced, but their technology is not uniformally distributed and many regions are relatively primitive, while a number of enclaves enjoy the benefits of higher technology as a perk of higher economic status. Dissemination of new technology follows this pattern: rapid in high economic areas, lower in others. Gaining in economic status is the primary motivation for most individuals in this culture.

Civil strife is rife within the nations that make up this culture, and incidents of war and genocide are not uncommon. Despite this, with their large industrial basis and interest in new technology, as well as their economic co-dependence, this culture is considered stable. They are considered militarily aggressive and well-defended.

Note: The remainder of nations tend to maintain alliance with one or both of the above groups, ensuring Alien Culture A is well represented in the galactic government despite the strong degree of balkanization on their world.

The Senior and Junior Senators of Alien Culture 1 tend to act and vote independently in the Senate, with little 'world-centric' accord in their considerations.

Take Two: Alien Culture, 'Earth 2006'

by Senex Gynt

This world will be perplexing to outsiders. There are a wide variety of subcultures, most of which claim to be dominant and denigrate the others. The dominant culture recognizes the social ownership of capital, a deep and abiding distrust of intellectualism, and a preference for collectivism over individualism.

A plethora of minority cultures resist each of these notions with varying degrees of success. When they made contact with the Interplanetary Union and were informed of the two Senator rule, they were unable to agree on two Senators, and the IU was forced to refuse to recognize any of the dozen or so pairs of individuals each of whom claimed to be the sole authorized representatives.

At the moment the world is proscribed - the IU refuses to deal with any of the parties. However a number of the member worlds have made independent bilateral or multilateral treaties with cultural, national or religious groups. This has generated calls from within the IU for a stronger censure of such treaties, which have in the past always been "under the table" and beneath notice.

The IU has converging on two solutions. The "stick" is a quarantine of the planet, preventing all commerce (which ignores the fact that the bulk of the trade is in information, which can't be quarantined), and the "carrot" is an approach from the IU which proposes that the planet nominate one senator from the planets primary federal political union and a junior senator who will be a representative of a special corporation and will share economic benefits of IU membership with stockholders (this ignores the fact that IU contact usually results in a deflationary cycle which destroys the economy of the planet).

Taboos

The Primary religion of the planet is a civic culture of hypocrisy. In the public space things are usually described as their opposite. For example, the bulk of their wealth and production is tied up in government controlled social capital. But it is necessary to describe the participants in this system as capitalistic. The bulk of the citizens in each culture are granted extremely limited and diminishing rights - but it is necessary to describe this as democratic liberalism. Adherents of this religious culture tend to become quite argumentative if these elements are pointed out, so it is safest to wait and see what words are used to describe a cultural artifact, and to use those words, rather than descriptive words.

A secondary taboo related to the first relates to aristocracy. The planet is governed by an elite aristocracy perpetrated by limited access to education. However, like the armies of byzantine eunuchs, the bulk of tasks are done by those shut out of the aristocracy. In order to deal successfully with members of the planet, it is necessary to pretend that the aristocrats are responsible for all activity, and that any problems of implementation are due to the malign actions of the undereducated vulgar class.

Your Turn

There you have it, two takes on modern earth viewed by an outsider. And in two tries above, neither of us effectively considered the role of Islam in a two-party world. A decade ago, the Soviet Union may have been the default choice for a galactic senator. L. Sprauge DeCamp once wrote stories of an Earth where Brazil was the dominant power. Perhaps the necessity of unification could result in even odder power blocs on Earth. There are clearly many more ways to envision this.

Senex's entry bent the second rule (two reps per planet, no more, no less) in an intriguing way, by having Earth not yet invited to join. While handled aptly, I personally find this approach as being too 'earth-centric', falling into the space opera genre trap that Earth is somehow special.

However, bending the rule opens up a new class of worldbuilding. In this case, the entry-- by adding a new classification of 'proscribed'--actually ends up defining its speaker (the galactic empire) as much as it defines Earth. It indicates shades of grey within the galactic empire, and hints at intrigue and disunity.

Just as how an entry is written can define either the world or the observer, how an author approaches the writing can define the author. You can write from your own beliefs or by discarding your preconceptions. You can choose to ignore commonly-held 'facts' about the world and instead try to see what quirky approach an alien observer might take. Exaggeration, misunderstanding, and inversion are actually useful lenses for a sci-fi worldbuilder.

Any piece of writing holds the author's biases, but in looking at Earth from the outside, you can choose which biases to toy with. Just as science fiction is the literature that examines the present by casting it into the future, worldbuilding is not just about making a world, but in exploring your own world view.

We gave you two looks at Earth, and invite you to offer your own.

Until next month,
Sandy
sandy@rpg.net