In the 426th century, over 99% of humans live strictly on over a thousand colonized planets and moons, each with their own nationalities, religions, languages, customs, politics, internal divisions, etc. Maybe they've been to another planet in their system, once or twice, but they're not regularly traveling space. Dinner at a friend's house means walking or taking a groundcar/motocab or an autobus. No Jetsons B.S. where everyone has a spaceship in their garage. They might have higher tech like bio-grafts and cybernetics and artificial intelligence, but their social and professional lives are pretty much what life is like today. There are families, temples, schools, banks, hotels, etc.
The >1% who regularly travel interstellar distances are the Starfarers, who can be broken into two groups, with some overlap.
The Clans are extended families that travel and conduct business as a unit. If you're born to a Clan, you're considered "Born to the Way." Some clans control only a few small vessels, while others might have the makings of a small armada with maybe one or two huge bulk freighters, a bunch of shuttles, and armed Clan Vessels (modified personal transports) as escorts, plus a few small stock freighters. They are clannish, gypsy-like, and don't usually let outsiders in on their inner circles. They're stereotyped often. Parents might say to their kids, "Stay with me, or the Starfarers will steal you away." They're referring to the Clans.
Indies are either antisocial or orphaned Clan members, clan members with no status due to some kind of inside conflict, or "Planetsiders" who traveled into space and adopted the Starfarer culture (the last describes most Indies). They're the Han Solo/Mal Reynolds type, preferring a small trusted crew and a rugged vessel that doesn't attract attention. Some were Born to the Way as clan members but went their own way by themselves, procuring a crew of other Indies and trying to make a living. A child born to an Indie Starfarer would be considered "Born to the Way" just as a child of a clan. Indies can marry into clans as well.
Commonalities: Anglese (rendered with certain marks in my novel) is the lingua franca, but Indies often bring their own slang to it and combine them or code-switch to create various mutually understandable dialects. Starfarers tend to stereotype "Planetsiders" as either dumb hicks or elitist urbanites. They live their lives in space, only touching down on a surface to trade, refuel, or make repairs. Some planets, like the oceanic Lorelei's P Lanet, due to their semi-nomadic, clan-based pseudo-Polynesian culture, maintain close ties with the Starfarers, but most other planets think of them as dirty space truckers, although they depend on them for interstellar trade. There's more Clans and Indie tramp freighters than there are shipping corporations, so the Starfarers pretty much control the interstellar economy. That's one of two reasons (the other being automation) that slavery only exists in the backwaters of my 'verse.
Starfarers are annoyed by Planetsiders' misconceptions about life in space, and get hung up on language. It seems even in the future, Planetsiders enjoy inaccurate science fiction. Their concept is akin to Star Trek-like "vidstreams." Only warships and passenger spacecraft colony vessels or (usually sublight, interplanetary) cruise liners get called "ships." Freighters, shuttles, medical vessels, etc. get called "vessels," "spacecraft," "rigs," "boats," "crates," etc. They go mad when someone calls the FTL Drive a "Hyperdrive" or some other sci-fi term. Or when they say "bridge," instead of "cockpit," "flight deck," or "command module." And if you call them "Space Truckers," they will break your nose. This is all because they consider themselves the heirs of the legacy of the first space explorers who came before all the colonies, whose exploration of space made colonization possible. It's sort of a "We were here first, and if we hadn't been, you might not even have been born" mentality, and a sense of ownership of space, particularly neutral territory between star systems.
So even though they don't know NASA was or about the Apollo missions (because it's so far in the future) they use technical language to differentiate themselves from those who don't carry that cultural legacy. In fact, if you ask them, they'll tell you that "FTL" isn't even accurate, since they use wormholes to travel, bending space-time rather than accelerating or traveling at warp or through hyperspace (though hyperspace does exist, Hyperspace Is a Scary Place is in effect and it has odd effects on the human brain, such as causing some people to "remember" alternate timelines). FTL is actually called the STF Drive for (Space-Time Fold), but no one calls it that because "STF Drive sounds like something you stick in a computer, not a way of bending physics to get around Einstein." (this according to the Human Popsicle main character, who knows about Earth history, in an age where to most people Earth is a distant memory or a mystery world, that's revealed to be inhabited by Posthumans.
Starfarer tradition assimilates whatever the Indies bring, such that both Indies and Clans consider certain things "Starfarer Traditions," like the way that some Starfarer Elders nearing death jump into intergalactic space to commit suicide (since even a Jump Drive is theoretically limited to the Milky Way). Among Starfarers, as on many outer colonies, there's no formal schooling, and apprenticeship is the norm. At age 11, kids are pretty much treated like older teens or small adults. They get set up for a few years with an apprenticeship where they learn a skill or a trade like piloting or spacecraft mechanics, or learning how to be a merchant traders, or whatever the parents and child decide is best suited. Marriages at 14, 15, or 16 are pretty common among Starfarers. Starfarer Captains can be surprisingly young, in their early twenties, with a crew of mostly teenagers. Fortunately, the Captain of my main vessel, Adrienne, is older and more mature, though he's also a Mad Scientist behind his rough, macho freighter captain image, he's not the picture of stability. The main character, the vessel's first officer, has a son who apprentices with the freighter crew.
Together the Clans and Indies basically control interstellar trade, so trade laws tend to reflect Starfarer ethics. Starfarers don't need to enforce blockades. They blacklist a planet and that planet would have to deal the Megacorporations. People in general prefer to deal with small businessmen like Starfarers than with greasy Megacorporations that are trying to monopolize industries like genetic engineering, that are essential to make colonization work. So the Starfarers essentially control the interstellar economy. There are millions of them, and just a handful or interstellar corporations.
Planetsiders, for their part, think of Starfarers as elitist or arrogant, since Starfarers pretty much bear that "I own the sky; You mind your little piece of ground" kind of attitude.
As you can probably imagine, Starfarers LOVE mysteries and puzzles of all kinds. This is especially true in the time frame of my novel, in which humans reached the edge of the galaxy, there's no frontier anymore (the Starfarers being frontiersmen for thousands and thousands of years) and nothing of interest left to explore in the habitable parts of the galaxy (the parts not flooded by lethal radiation or too sparse to colonize or exploit even with FTL).
Starfarers do maintain a few outposts; they prefer to build these outposts by digging tunnels inside asteroids rather than building structures on planets or moons. The less round and planet-like the asteroid, the better. Ideally something potato-shaped or craggy with lots of sharp edges. These outposts usually have an administrator and minimal government. Starfarers don't much like governments or organized religion, though many have mystical worldviews; others have more secular viewpoints; still others practice Planetsider religions (usually Indies from very religious worlds) in concert with Starfarer traditions.
Some Starfarer clans travel at sublight, following the trails of comets which they exploit for resources.
This is my variant on the "Spacer" archetype.
In the 426th century, over 99% of humans live strictly on over a thousand colonized planets and moons, each with their own nationalities, religions, languages, customs, politics, internal divisions, etc. Maybe they've been to another planet in their system, once or twice, but they're not regularly traveling space. Dinner at a friend's house means walking or taking a groundcar/motocab or an autobus. No Jetsons B.S. where everyone has a spaceship in their garage. They might have higher tech like bio-grafts and cybernetics and artificial intelligence, but their social and professional lives are pretty much what life is like today. There are families, temples, schools, banks, hotels, etc.
The >1% who regularly travel interstellar distances are the Starfarers, who can be broken into two groups, with some overlap.
Commonalities: Anglese (rendered with certain marks in my novel) is the lingua franca, but Indies often bring their own slang to it and combine them or code-switch to create various mutually understandable dialects. Starfarers tend to stereotype "Planetsiders" as either dumb hicks or elitist urbanites. They live their lives in space, only touching down on a surface to trade, refuel, or make repairs. Some planets, like the oceanic Lorelei's P Lanet, due to their semi-nomadic, clan-based pseudo-Polynesian culture, maintain close ties with the Starfarers, but most other planets think of them as dirty space truckers, although they depend on them for interstellar trade. There's more Clans and Indie tramp freighters than there are shipping corporations, so the Starfarers pretty much control the interstellar economy. That's one of two reasons (the other being automation) that slavery only exists in the backwaters of my 'verse.
Starfarers are annoyed by Planetsiders' misconceptions about life in space, and get hung up on language. It seems even in the future, Planetsiders enjoy inaccurate science fiction. Their concept is akin to Star Trek-like "vidstreams." Only warships and passenger spacecraft colony vessels or (usually sublight, interplanetary) cruise liners get called "ships." Freighters, shuttles, medical vessels, etc. get called "vessels," "spacecraft," "rigs," "boats," "crates," etc. They go mad when someone calls the FTL Drive a "Hyperdrive" or some other sci-fi term. Or when they say "bridge," instead of "cockpit," "flight deck," or "command module." And if you call them "Space Truckers," they will break your nose. This is all because they consider themselves the heirs of the legacy of the first space explorers who came before all the colonies, whose exploration of space made colonization possible. It's sort of a "We were here first, and if we hadn't been, you might not even have been born" mentality, and a sense of ownership of space, particularly neutral territory between star systems.
So even though they don't know NASA was or about the Apollo missions (because it's so far in the future) they use technical language to differentiate themselves from those who don't carry that cultural legacy. In fact, if you ask them, they'll tell you that "FTL" isn't even accurate, since they use wormholes to travel, bending space-time rather than accelerating or traveling at warp or through hyperspace (though hyperspace does exist, Hyperspace Is a Scary Place is in effect and it has odd effects on the human brain, such as causing some people to "remember" alternate timelines). FTL is actually called the STF Drive for (Space-Time Fold), but no one calls it that because "STF Drive sounds like something you stick in a computer, not a way of bending physics to get around Einstein." (this according to the Human Popsicle main character, who knows about Earth history, in an age where to most people Earth is a distant memory or a mystery world, that's revealed to be inhabited by Posthumans.
Starfarer tradition assimilates whatever the Indies bring, such that both Indies and Clans consider certain things "Starfarer Traditions," like the way that some Starfarer Elders nearing death jump into intergalactic space to commit suicide (since even a Jump Drive is theoretically limited to the Milky Way). Among Starfarers, as on many outer colonies, there's no formal schooling, and apprenticeship is the norm. At age 11, kids are pretty much treated like older teens or small adults. They get set up for a few years with an apprenticeship where they learn a skill or a trade like piloting or spacecraft mechanics, or learning how to be a merchant traders, or whatever the parents and child decide is best suited. Marriages at 14, 15, or 16 are pretty common among Starfarers. Starfarer Captains can be surprisingly young, in their early twenties, with a crew of mostly teenagers. Fortunately, the Captain of my main vessel, Adrienne, is older and more mature, though he's also a Mad Scientist behind his rough, macho freighter captain image, he's not the picture of stability. The main character, the vessel's first officer, has a son who apprentices with the freighter crew.
Together the Clans and Indies basically control interstellar trade, so trade laws tend to reflect Starfarer ethics. Starfarers don't need to enforce blockades. They blacklist a planet and that planet would have to deal the Megacorporations. People in general prefer to deal with small businessmen like Starfarers than with greasy Megacorporations that are trying to monopolize industries like genetic engineering, that are essential to make colonization work. So the Starfarers essentially control the interstellar economy. There are millions of them, and just a handful or interstellar corporations.
Planetsiders, for their part, think of Starfarers as elitist or arrogant, since Starfarers pretty much bear that "I own the sky; You mind your little piece of ground" kind of attitude.
As you can probably imagine, Starfarers LOVE mysteries and puzzles of all kinds. This is especially true in the time frame of my novel, in which humans reached the edge of the galaxy, there's no frontier anymore (the Starfarers being frontiersmen for thousands and thousands of years) and nothing of interest left to explore in the habitable parts of the galaxy (the parts not flooded by lethal radiation or too sparse to colonize or exploit even with FTL).
Starfarers do maintain a few outposts; they prefer to build these outposts by digging tunnels inside asteroids rather than building structures on planets or moons. The less round and planet-like the asteroid, the better. Ideally something potato-shaped or craggy with lots of sharp edges. These outposts usually have an administrator and minimal government. Starfarers don't much like governments or organized religion, though many have mystical worldviews; others have more secular viewpoints; still others practice Planetsider religions (usually Indies from very religious worlds) in concert with Starfarer traditions.
Some Starfarer clans travel at sublight, following the trails of comets which they exploit for resources.
edited 13th Oct '13 6:18:26 AM by fulltimeD