On 1/26/2018 8:17 PM, Jerry Barrington wrote:

Exactly my feeling on this sort of "culture" argument. And not just in Traveller: I've seen this in other games/books/movies. :P

On Thu, Jan 25, 2018 at 7:04 PM, Catherine Berry <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:

Well, to an extent. You'd still expect that some neighboring state that *was* willing to automate more things would steamroller all the culturally-hobbled polities. Either the original sophonts, or their robotic successors, or some transsophont fusion of the two.

That's always the problem with the "It's the culture of the 3I" argument. Anything about 3I culture that creates a significant enough disadvantage for them would in the long turn lead to their destruction (or irrelevancy), because none of the neighbors are bound by that culture. You need to posit an exquisitely balanced set of interlocking cultural handicaps to have any hope at all of explaining the setting. And even then, somebody out beyond the nearest neighbors would sweep through and steamroller *everyone*.

I think that given the external stimulus, that the culture would have to change and that's something we rarely see in Traveller. Reading the background materials for CT/MT and to a limited extent GT, everything is carved in stone and there is no change...they have taken the "bundle the reeds together so they won't bend and break" trope to an extreme.

I also find it difficult to support the theory that there can be anything resembling a monolithic culture in an area the size of the 3I given the distances and travel times. Within a few decades to a century or so, the North American colonies were already developing a distinct culture from their European source nations, and when you expand that to the size of the 3I, I see a universe closer to Star Wars (on social development/diversity) than we see in the game.

-- 
Kurt Feltenberger
xxxxxx@thepaw.org/xxxxxx@yahoo.com
“Before today, I was scared to live, after today, I'm scared I'm not living enough." - Me