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The Cultural Background Meme:
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How does your character's cultural background effect their experience on the meatship? Their thought patterns? Has it led to any hilarious misunderstandings? Basically this is the meme where you expound on the culture your character came from.

If your character is from the 20th/21st century "first" world and not otherwise a cultural minority then expound on how they percieve the cultural backgrounds of other characters too.

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It hasn't happened yet, but I fully expect that sooner or later someone will take offense at at Tess' use of the word "tarbaby".

Nura is from a planet of precog--she herself one--and grew up in a very much Orwellian security upon society. As are the origins of several Legionnaires in the Earth-Prime universe, Nura’s childhood is ambiguous—however, there are hints that indicate a highly-disciplined upbringing. One part of her upbringing was that it was made clear that she was a the most brilliant precog of her generation upon Naltor, and thus grew up with a proud mind that her visions are definite. However, she came to change her view on this (partially thanks to Querl, and to certain events that happened)and this affected her greatly. It is a different mode for Nura to see her predictions as un-infallible, as she spent her adolescence upon a planet of people who firmly believe in predestination.

This is interesting. Fremen were very much given to prophecies, until the experience of Paul and Leto Atreides, who were rulers who actually were perfect precogs. They are now less gullible in that way, but as a people still given to that attitude.

Wyn is Irish and from an alternate universe where Ireland is still a part of the British Empire, which means that she's technically a member of an oppressed minority. This leads to some weird sentence structures, an inclination to distrust any English people she runs across, and not a whole lot of mourning for her world. She's also likely to support any smallish oppressed groups fighting for their independence, if the meatship happens across any civil wars.

Hunter is pretty much a Euromutt, although he's from the American South. He's in somewhat of a cultural minority, and he tries not to make it a big deal. (He's managed to shift his accent from small-town Georgian to bigger-city Georgian, although he hasn't lost it entirely and he tends to revert back during times of severe stress.) He's torn between being proud of his heritage and having one too many 'hick' comments thrown his way, which is one more thing that makes him more withdrawn.

Ava's family is from England originally, and she is privileged as hell. She's getting better about recognizing it (sloooooowly), but she does still tend to think that she's better than most people because her daddy had money. It hasn't quite sunk yet that none of that matters anymore, so... she can be a little insufferable sometimes.

Sheeana is a Fremen, the descendants of "Zensunni wanderers" who settled on Dune. Their culture is very closely parraleled to Bedouin culture. At the time they lived in sietches, watertight dwellings carved out of rock.

Paul-Muad'dib Atreides forged them from a collection of desert tribes into a formidable fighting force, and at the same time fulfilled their prophecies of a messiah (which had themselves been planted by the Bene Gesserit). This was actually a very bad thing for Fremen as a culture. It militarized them and made them dependent on a hero/savior/messiah.

The environmental changes on Dune brought about by Paul and his son Leto further accelerated this cultural decay until the only remnant of Fremen ways left were Leto himself, the Duncan Idaho Gholas (who had lived among Fremen in their original life) and Leto's village of "museum Fremen", who lived their whole lives in a disney-version of a Fremen community.

With Leto's death, Dune reverted back to the planet wide desert of its namesake. The Fremen started returning back to their old ways (in fact the existence of the "museum Fremen" was exactly part of Leto's plan, to reteach them desert ways upon his death), although they were now slightly more cynical than they had been, less susceptible to being seized by messianic leaders. The great sandworms were now no longer rideable either, until Sheeana came along with the ability to command them. A priestly caste, the remnants of Leto's priesthood, had grown up on Dune, and exercised rule by fear over the populace.

Constants of Fremen culture are the importance of water (ex. "to take water", to kill, "water debt", a great debt, "water in their cup", to be trapped or outmaneuvered), trial by combat, being very religious, and being tough as all hell. Sheeana was raised in this environment until age eight, when a worm ate her village.

It effects her whenever she has to deal with large bodies of water that most would take for granted (IE a bathtub). It imparts a certain ruthlessness to her thinking. She also has a slight Fremen accent, which is generally analogous to Arabic-accented English.

Shadow was created on a space station not only to try to cure a deadly disease, but also to eradicate an alien race. Thanks to things going downhill, he has a humongous chip on his shoulder and isn't too fond of humans.

Irma's your typical modern day city girl. Seeing as her best friends fill out every basic trope there is (Will's the new girl/tomboy, Taranee's the shy yet smart girl, Cornelia's the rich, privileged girl and Hay Lin's the flighty eastern girl), Irma's firmly rooted in terra firma. She isn't afraid of getting snarky at anything or anyone (even if it's the Oracle of Kandrakar!)

Vivio's previous incarnation was known as the Saint Kaiser, ruler of an ancient Belkan civilization. Even though she was created from the Kaiser herself, Vivio REFUSES anyone to refer to her as royalty. Those days are long gone. She is Vivio Takamachi, the daughter of Nanoha Takamachi and Fate T. Harlaown, and nothing more.

I guess I should also talk about their worlds, too...!

Shadow's Earth is the same as ours, except that certain places are renamed, like New York City is Empire City and there's a version of San Fransisco as well (but, it's not Station Square). The only big difference in this world is that there are races of anthropomorphic animals running around (indeed, there was also an ancient race of Echindas), but the humans there pay it no mind. Heck, they don't even mind the appearance of loop-de-loops, rings, Chaos Emeralds, etc.

Irma's Earth is the same as all the other Earths. Nothing interesting here. It's never been mentioned where exactly the animated version of Heatherfield is located, but it's probably somewhere close to where beaches are (and it snows). There are other worlds Irma's been to, like Meridian (which is your typical medieval setting... but with monsters).

Not much is known about the kingdom Vivio's past incarnation once ruled and how they acted, though their magic was pretty impressive, yet very dangerous. I mean, look at the Saint's Cradle. As for Mid-Childa, it's pretty much your typical futuristic world, though they're very welcome of magic. Indeed, they probably have various cultures due to the fact that they're connected to hundreds and hundreds of worlds, Earth included.

Lafiel is an Abh, the native people of space (insofar as space has natives anyway).

The ancestors of the Abh were 29 clans of genetically engineered slaves, created by a planet of culturally chauvinist Japanese descendants. These slaves eventually broke free of their home planet, stole their own starship and set off. However they could not shake the suspicion that their former masters were planning to recapture them. So they turned around and destroyed their former home. As it turned out, they were not being followed and their creators did not have the resources to recapture them anyway. Over thousands of years, they evolved into an empire that spanned half the galaxy.

Guilt over this affair is one of the defining characteristics of Abh culture. The other is a feeling of closeness towards space (they call themselves "the Kin of the Stars") and a capacity for wit. Most Abh interactions involve at least a little maneuvering to find ways to politely insult each other.

Abh society is divided into landers (land based humans such as you or me, and are generally left alone, the Abh considering ground worlds to be responsible for their own affairs), direct subjects of the empire (such as non-Abh crew on Abh vessels and servants of Abh nobles) knights (full Abh who own no territories), nobles (Abh who oversee territory, such as Admiral Spaurh) and the royal family (the Abriels, such as Lafiel). It is possible to be promoted from lander to subject and from subject to full Abh citizen, even if one was not born an Abh.

Lafiel grew up at the very top of this pyramidal society, and it often shows in her haughtiness. However all Abh nobles and royals are required to serve long terms in the military and as merchants and Lafiel has spent every year since age 13 in the Star Forces. This colors her thinking, making her see things in starkly hierarchical terms. It sometimes makes her inflexible but also makes her a good teamworker.

Oh, also the Abh carry a cultural obligation to preserve the culture of their home city. This will cause her to act weird towards any Japanese characters on the ship, a mixture of guilt and hanging on their every word.

The Abh language is called Baronh and is a distant descendant of Japanese although it sounds a lot more like a gluey blend of Russian and Welsh.

Oh also Abh tend to address each other by full names, which include family name and title/social position. So Lafiel is actually Abriel [family name, the royal family] Ne Dobrusc [of the Dobrusc line] Boeurh Paryunu [viscountess of Paryunu, "the country of roses"] Lafiel, Deca Commander [military rank, lit. commander of twenty, which is the crew of an Abh destroyer], Acting Empress [since she's the only living Abriel].

Obviously she's rather uncomfortable using people's first names and will avoid it whenever possible.

Isaac's home city is a steam/dungeonpunk Fantasy Counterpart Culture of Victorian London, with all the grime and nastiness that entails. This makes him generally distrustful of authorities (the New Crobuzon Militia are a fascistic combination of military and secret police). He's also used to scarcity, even in his relatively comfortable scientist-for-hire borrough, and will often assume of others on the engineering team that they are competing with him when they aren't.

He isn't actually "Black" in the way we would parse culture as that cultural division does not exist on Bas Lag. The oppressed minorities there are Xenians (non-humans). Being involved in an extended affair with a Xenian woman and a subscriber to the illegal newspaper Runagate Rampant, he is easily sympathetic to those fighting for their rights and will take their side.

Most of his friends are bohemians of some stripe, which means he's definitely a party dude and can appreciate good art.

Kang's entire race was created to be shock troops in a war, and were taught from birth that mercy is weakness, and weakness is death. They were forced to fight and kill clutch-brothers for food, in the belief it'd make them stronger, and had awe and respect for their human caretakers and commanders ingrained pretty much from the moment they hatched.

The humans in the dragonarmies treated them pretty much like shit, though. Oftentimes, they were called 'lizardmen' or 'dumb beasts', and forced to serve as infantry (cannon fodder, basically) or perform menial tasks such as latrine duty. They're actually very intelligent, having dragons as parents, and by the end of the war, most, if not all of them had lost the reverence they'd initially had for humans. Hell, half of the reason for the fall of Neraka right at the end was because they'd had enough of it.

...so, Kang really doesn't like it when humans treat him as if he's stupid, or try to use him. Otherwise, he's at least okay with most everyone, as long as they treat him like an equal. Even though he's the Lord-Governor of a nation, he's pretty chill, and likes a good conversation or party. It's just a job to him.

The Dark Knights, former allies, tried to kill off the entire race when they found out about the females being retrieved, so, uh, he really doesn't like betrayal much either. As in, he's 99% likely to kill you on the spot.

Draconians are very militaristic, and they are not squeamish at all about killing or violence. Their sense of humor tends to be rather crude, too, though Kang keeps himself polite when dealing with females of other races. Diplomacy is a wonderful thing.

Oh, and he's kind of :| about elves. Nothing personal, but it's hard to shake off ingrained prejudices.

Edited 2010-02-18 05:09 (UTC)

John is a Spartan-II super soldier. He was scouted out as one of 150 candidates for the Spartan program via medical records due to a good genetic makeup and, when met in person, evident good health, raw intelligence, competitive drive, and luck. He was selected as one of the 75 to actually be used, and when he was six years old he was abducted from home as he slept one night and replaced with a flash clone. (his parents never found out, and the clone soon died from the numerous medical complications they're prone to.) After that he was immediately flung into a grueling training regimen designed from the first moments to hone him into an obedient fighting machine.

John really was robbed of his childhood, and lacks a lot of formative experiences that we take for granted. (He's had no real conventional schooling beyond early elementary, for example.) He's also not used to having any real freedom or being his own person. (He's never taken a real vacation and wouldn't know what to do with one if he did.) His life is pretty much unspokenly property of the UNSC, and not his own.

Chief tends to find civilians frustrating to work with and thinks that many of them have their priorities severely out of whack. He also does not place blind faith in his superiors, though it is possible to earn his respect. He tends to be uncomfortable on a person-to-person level as he's accustomed to, honestly, being treated more like a weapon than a man. At the same time, however, he's unused to being alone and doesn't like it, so he makes for rather odd, distant company. He's honestly rather socially awkward, it's just hard to draw him out of his shell enough to even find that.

As far as aliens go, he has an instinctive dislike for them. That kinda happens when you spend most of your life in and lose most of the people you consider your family to a war with them. However, he is doing his damnedest to get over it and set a solid example for others, especially Kelly.

Bella is, first and foremost, a wolf. And she's about two years old. She has very little life experience, and much of that was out in the woods. Wolves are not renowned for their intellect, and though Bella's a Garou (and Garou are geniuses by wolf standards) this was what she was raised with. She prizes strength, smarts (though she has a hard time defining smarts), and glory. And she will bluster about her own meager glory as much as she can.

Secondly Bella's also quite young, so she's very impressionable and her Garou elders have left a strong impression on her. She sees the world in black and white and will zealously paint everything as such as she's been taught, though she's easily coaxed into contradicting herself if you present things to her the right way. She also has an excellent memory for rankings and needs solid leadership and hierarchy for her to function at her best.

She's naive and earnest and eager to please and has not seen a great deal of badness in her life, so she tends to be trusting of strangers if they pass the "do you look like a Wyrm creature?" test. Beyond that her tolerance for the bizarre is very high.

Jamie is originally from 18th century Scotland. Even though he spent a few years traveling through space and time with the Doctor, he still has some rather large gaps in his knowledge that become more evident when dealing with pop-culture references or names for things that didn't exist in his time. A lot of what he does understand is due to him being able to take something and compare it to something else he is more familiar with. He also will give things different names as a part of this, like 'flying beasties' for airplanes.

He also has some rather old fashioned views when it comes to women and what their role should be - especially when it comes to fighting. He sees women as needing to be protected, even if they are clearly stronger than he is. He's starting to work past this a little (and is getting much better at at least keeping the thoughts to himself) but may still be prone to saying or doing something sexist or stupid.

Kazami Shiro was born and raised in 1950s Japan, right after World War II. As such, he's a little old fashioned, especially in his beliefs about women. He has a slight distaste for Americans, but he does his best to work around it and knows that most of them aren't the tremendous fucks that some Japanese believe them to be. On-ship, he tends to be slightly overprotective of women, and doesn't believe in talking about his weaknesses or any injuries, since it's 'makes him less of a man', which was how he was raised. He won't say it in those words, but...

Indigo's personality is entirely built around a single team of superheroes who believe in attacking the enemy before they get up to villainous shenanigans. The Outsiders didn't spend a lot of time rescuing kittens from trees, no.

Apollo is... Whew. Uh. Apollo was built to be Superman, pretty much. He was emotionally conditioned and trained to be the kind of square-jawed hero that people would look at and immediately obey. Then he got betrayed and spent five years on the run, viewing the absolute worst that the world had to offer. Then he joined a team that believed any problem could be handled if you hit it hard enough. Still, it's been said that if half the population didn't want to turn their backs to a wall near him, he'd be the world's greatest hero. He's friendly, he's kind, but. He'll also incinerate an enemy first and ask questions after he's annihilated everything involved with them. Betrayal isn't a good thing for him, either. He'll likely kill you just for that.

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Wheeee, Kuroi tl;dring at everyone! :D

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