Re: 'Imperial Culture' (non-canonista)
 

They have to pretend to, anyway. Tolkien was very popular with the Sword Worlder ancestors, so naturally any Real Sword Worlder today has to like them too.


Hans

Re: 'Imperial Culture' (non-canonista)
 

An excerpt (slightly edited) from my JTAS Online amber zone The Alderon Diary:

"Kevin Alderon was Arbellatra's flag captain at the end of the 2nd Frontier War and followed her to the Imperial Core where he eventually became Grand Admiral of the Fleets and 1st Space Lord. Upon Arbellatra's death in 666 he retired to Kinorb where he lived out his remaining years in obscurity. About 50 years ago he was immortalized by an author named D.T. Woodsman who wrote a semi-biographical bestseller about him and followed up with a dozen sequels (All of which have since been turned into smash holo-dramas)."

Somewhere I have a list of the individual titles and a one-paragraph summary of each plot.


Hans

Re: 'Imperial Culture' (non-canonista)
 

There are hundreds of inhabited worlds; surely fantasy and ghost stories are popular on many of them. Ghost stories have been told in pretty much every human culture, for as long as anyone can recall.

Re: 'Imperial Culture' (non-canonista)
 

Does fantasy require that the audience be assumed to believe the plot impossible? For instance would Beowulf have been a thriller to the original audience and a fantasy to us? Because, if so "as long as anyone can remember" is dubious.

Re: 'Imperial Culture' (non-canonista)
 

Case in point:


Hans

Re: 'Imperial Culture' (non-canonista)
 

I wrote that 'GHOST STORIES' have been told as long as anyone can recall. That in no way requires that the audience believe or disbelieve in ghosts.


Which ghosts were you thinking of in Beowulf?

Re: 'Imperial Culture' (non-canonista)
 

That opens up another question: How prevalent is the belief in ghosts in your Imperium?

IMTU, that sort of thing varies a lot by world, and often by class and culture on a given world. On some worlds belief in ghosts is common. People may also believe in angels, demons, djinn, saints, loa, and fairies. On other worlds, such beliefs might be seen as 'superstition' or simply as alien. Note that higher TL does not necessarily equate to a rigidly materialistic worldview.

We've already dealt with supernatural beliefs to some extent in the Religion in Traveller Universe' thread.

Psionics tends to throw a monkey wrench into vulgar materialism, being as it is a mind over matter set of phenomena that cannot really be explained by the merely physical sciences.

YMMV and YTUMV

Re: 'Imperial Culture' (non-canonista)
 

One thing it does cause complications for are practitioners of folk magic. Every society has fortune tellers and similar professional folk magic pactitioners. At least every human society. In the 3I they'd be severely persecuted by the courts. Their lives would be interesting!

Re: 'Imperial Culture' (non-canonista)
 

IMTU, things like folk magic are usually ignored by the Imperium as local matters. Only if verifiable psionic acitivity is reported does the Imperium deign to get involved in 'local customs', as a general rule. Of course, the situation may be very different on some worlds or in some sectors. IMTU, there aren’t very many ‘Imperial Courts’ set up to try crimes of any sort other than treason against the Imperium, space crimes, and offenses committed in starports or other Imperial possessions. Dealing with dirtside magicians suspected of psionic activity would most commonly be handled by an Imperial noble telling the local rulers to crank up the pressure on the suspected psionicists.

Now, if the suspected psions are fooling about in space, a starport, or other Imperial jurisdiction, then that’s a different story…

Re: 'Imperial Culture' (non-canonista)
 

You wrote ghost stories and fantasy stories. Beowulf is a fantasy story to us because we do not believe in monsters the way Saxons did, or we believe in different kinds of monsters. I am not clear if it is properly defined as fantasy if it was not originally intended as such.