Worldbuilding Post-Diaspora Human Interstellar Civilizations

I have a bit of a problem with my main project.

In the history of this 'verse, Humanity fled Earth after a catastrophe rendered the planet no longer suitable for habitation. Waves of arkships were launched for far-flung stars in search of new worlds to settle, each the seed of it's own interstellar nation.

Here's the issue: for a lot of the more "normal" factions I'm building- and by this I mean those colonists who didn't encounter some circumstance that either stunted or accelerated their technological or cultural development- it feels as if I'm basically transplanting Human cultures into a space setting, which I very much do not want to do. This is kind of antithetical to the themes of the world I'm building, not to mention that it comes across as lazy and uninteresting.

So, do you think you can help me with this? Is there something I'm missing? What about your own spacefaring factions makes them unique, interesting and worth writing about in your opinion?

In my work, aliens contact humanity and offer to meet us if we can make it to Epsilon Eridani by ourselves. It's strictly STL, so each of the major nations (US, Russia, China, Europe, India) set up a long line of generation starships, traveling at about 5% of C, spaced about a month apart, a kind of giant conveyor belt in space. A lot of the drama concerns the loss of a sense of national identity as the residents on board the starships start developing a culture of their own. They can communicate with each other, and even travel between the ships, although it's not easy or cheap. So I decided that the scenario somewhat resembles the early colonization of America, with isolated communities a month's travel time or so from each other. Life is tough for these people, mortality rates are high, government is low, most relationships are informal. There is an extremely tight sense of community within each ship, governing institutions between the ships are very democratic and decentralized. Think North America in the late 1600's, early 1700's, except with radio and atomic power.

edited 17th Jan '17 6:01:47 AM by DeMarquis

Interesting. On the subject of a loss of national identity, how much do you have staying the same in terms of culture over that long a journey? What exactly needed to change to better suit life in space? What about language, does that change much or does it stay the same?

In my 'verse, the evacuation effort- or at least the first wave thereof- was organized under the auspices of the United Nations, so their populations are going to be heavily multinational. I imagine this would skew them towards developing into some kind of mix of cultures, but I have no idea what the final product might be. Me being a very much worldbuilding-obsessed person, I want to have a clear idea about what made the culture of each Arkship what it is.

This first wave was also outfitted with cryostasis pods for the majority of the crew, and the deliberately oversized command staff cycled on and off duty in one-year shifts. This is the reason why this first wave stayed relatively close to the cultures of Old Earth and we get the "normal" factions from them. By "normal" I mean that their general form of society does not diverge radically from what we are familiar with. They're, broadly speaking, liberal, democratic and innovative, with little history of inter-state war. Or at least, that's how I have it at present. The fact that they were all a part of the same arkship group helps with this, as they recognize one-another, but this also comes off to me as somewhat uninspired and boring.

Worldbuilding for the extreme cases is a much easier task. For instance, I've mentioned the Ecumene in this subforum before. They're a branch of Humans whose civilization was devastated by machine intelligences. This gives me a good idea of what direction I should go in- they have a deep suspicion of thinking machines and some even view technology in religious or spiritual terms. Their worldbuilding is coming along fine. Tricky part is, I have no such straight line to follow when worldbuilding these more "normal" factions.

At present, I have five major "nations" that sprung out of the first wave: Aspera, Kreisau, Gallica, Novora and Al-Tiir. The chief distinguishing characteristic between them is not ethnic- as I mentioned, these arkships were multinational projects- but linguistic. Culture also varies, but to a lesser extent for various reasons to do with how the project was set up. All three Abrahamic religions are completely gone, at least in terms of being any force relevant to politics. This was a trend that existed for at least a hundred years before the Diaspora, and leaving Earth sort of helped it along.

That's a short view of what I have set up so far. Feel free to critique or pick it apart, as it stands I'm deeply dissatisfied with what I presently have.

How exactly is the new environment different? Culture is often shaped by the environment in which a society finds itself. Think about what ways this may change or shift things. Furthermore, how long were they on arkships? Were they on them long enough for a culture shift to occur there too? This could stack interestingly for someone used to living in a more sterile environment thrown into a more unforgiving setting. Or even for someone who was born in a metropolitan area suddenly undergoing a rapidly shifting living situation.

Furthermore, you've said that these people come from a cosmopolitan, liberal, democratic background, but when setting up their own civilizations, things may differ based on several factors: environment (some places are more conducive to a communal effort that is needed for survival while others may be more forgiving to individuals who strike out on their own), individual leaders (everyone has different styles of leadership - did they adhere to public want or do they trust their own instincts more? If so, what were these instincts and how would they change the culture or law?), or something like society composition (I assume that each nation had a varied skill set, but maybe one has a larger group of scientists, young people, blue collar workers, right wingers, left wingers, etc. - all these things could shape the central pillars or themes of a civilization).

Changes also don't have to necessarily be large - they can be more subtle too. Language shift can be an example. While Old to Middle to modern English are all big changes, they different underwent a series of small changes that can be observed overtime - this is evident even in modern English, as some words from this generation have changed from what they meant two generations back. Meanwhile, new words have entered into the lexicon while others have fallen into disuse.

I know you said that the three Abrahamic religions have fallen away, but what is the legacy that they have left behind? Are there remnants of ideas from them (or from other Eastern religions) that float behind, and how have these remnants shifted now that the people are separated from mother Earth and comfortable society? Or perhaps maybe they have been co-opted into the new beliefs concerning intelligent machines.

Language and culture are things that can be taught as static. There are a handful of real-world religions that have maintained their traditions throughout the ages, for example, and plenty of 'dead' languages that are nonetheless functional. Closing a single system off from outside influence greatly inhibits mutation to the possibilities of the stock inside (Russian + English = "My droogs at the milkpab", but not "Senyuu in the nyuubar").

The trick, then, is to have a single event - external to the 'nation' but not caused by another one - greatly alter the culture's perception of life. The US had its unexplored wilderness (result: space for industry and growth and the mentality that followed), the UK had its seas (necessity to brave them to grow, and ending up as an empire for a while), Japan had its natural disasters (valuation of human life), Australia had its danger (...blase reactions to venomous crabs), etc.

This is all very helpful, thank you.

There will have been a fair amount of linguistic drift, though in the case of English, the colonists have spent a short enough time awake (300-400 years) that the language would still be recognizable to us- albeit distantly. Like how we can read and understand the writings of English speakers in the 17th Century, these colonists' English would be similar enough to be basically comprehensible to you and me but also recognizably different. Other waves of arkships that were generation ships will have experienced a great deal more cultural and linguistic drift than the sleeper ships, but the first wave would not know of them since they were constructed after they left.

With regards to religion, monotheism still exists and is relatively common in the form of a quasi-materialistic deism, where belief centers around the idea that the universe is developing into a more complex state. Eastern religions have fared far better than traditional Western ones, and have become blended with cosmism and psychology into something we'd consider strange for a religion.

I'll dig back into the core conditions that may have set the stage for the colonies' divergence, but this is a rather large task and most of it is woefully unbuilt.

In my universe, the different national "ship-lines" each maintained their unique cultural identity through such things as names, food and music. They all ended up speaking English as a lingua franca, for the same reasons as on Earth. The biggest changes came from being semi-isolated in very small communities- they become simultaneously less hierarchical and formal, while also becoming more collectivistic and meticulous about rules and procedures. It's all driven by the danger they all face: either you do your part in maintaining the ships systems at all times, or you risk everyone you know dying.

But the communities are so small that there is no need to write it all down- everyone knows what they are supposed to do, and what everyone else is supposed to do too. Everything not directly connected to the ship's systems is less of a priority and handled more informally. There are no jails, for instance, and no police force, hardly any written laws at all. There is money, but hardly any markets except at the "freeports" (space stations located at intervals along the way). The currency are "Shares"- basically a standardized share of the profits the ship's community expects to make when they complete a round trip. If you leave your ship for another one, or a freeport, you take your shares with you. There are also standards associated with the various professions- these are taken very seriously.

And of course the whole point of the thing is to obtain alien technology at Epsilon E for trade back on Earth. The tech isn't supposed to be opened or examined during the return journey, but it's 100 years long and of course everyone studies it. So their scientific understanding of advanced engineering is rather more advanced when they return than when they left.

You can imagine the narrative conflicts this scenario can generate. I'm having a lot of fun with it.

My Mecha'verse has developed Jump Tech. Humanity fled Earth after a mass ecological disaster. They spent some years in colonies developing various important technologies to keep humanity alive, the United Colony Space Federation formed as a way to keep a united humanity with knowledge of its history.

Eventually they developed artificial gravity and the Jump Drive and eventually Jump Gates, and began to slowly expand outwards establishing new colonies and such, even finding at least 2 terraformable worlds that they have since settled proper at least 200-300 years later. Humanity continues a steady march colonizing nearby systems, and Earth using the terraforming tech has been repaired and has become a paradise to live on, with the UCSF having established it as the Capital of all human colonized space, and a place for dedicated veterans and workers in Governmental positions to retire in peace.

Other factions include the Martian Union, formed about 150 years ago after the Mars Colonist Uprising that seceded from the UCSF after a violent revolt proclaiming that they would "Not be held down by the chains of the bureaucratic federation". Many citizens regret this as things have not improved and the Mars council is easily the most corrupt thing in the Sol System. Due to Real Politik issues involving resources and not wanting to let the colony collapse in on itself the UCSF has little they can do at the moment.

Finally is the Jovan (Yes Jovan not Jovian) Republic. Alfred Lamond Jovan is the current king of this Constitutional Monarchy, their Capital is based around Jupiter and it is the biggest Space Colony ever devised. There were some issues when the eldest son tried to start a war with the UCSF but that has since been resolved. The culture is based around the idea of adapting to space with plenty of Zero G areas on the colony, the colonists themselves proclaiming that humanity's future is not tied to any planet but to be out in Space itself.

Culture has surprisingly not changed, but this is not without basis, the UCSF dedicated itself to maintaining the cultural identities of Earth, and governmental rule of various colonies varies of course, largely though it's governors who report to a central Prime Minister who report to the UCSF themselves. As for culture being unchanged, take a look at Pompeii and the artifacts we found there, graffiti that says various phrases similar to today, toys that are similar to what we have.

The biggest change would be a "Basic" language developed for ease of communication from colony to colony.

edited 26th Jan '17 7:06:12 PM by EchoingSilence