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28/7/2025

 

I've thought much about this, but in whatever fiction I write, nothing has blended together and vanished altogether from reality.

 

In the worlds I imagine, one can still find the odd Turk, wholly focused in what culture has bred him, denying or shaping reality, wearing the exotic guise of a red fez, baggy white pants and twirled mustaches.

 

Yes, I allude to religions finding conflict against each other, but also, how it is a shame to lose the images of humanity, engraved in their simple way of life. One, I believe, has to imagine a future where the dactyl-priests still roam Samothrace, where the jaguar warrior of Mesoamerica is warring against different city-states for bloodied blessings of the Sun. To that end, diversity (disconnected from modern political meaning), the mosaic of un-blended human elements I believe it is misrepresented in whatever science fiction literature I've read so far.

 

Sure, there is the Greek-alluding name of Atreides, or the uneven mashup of Harkonnens, the Bentusi nomads (which albeit infinitesimal is probably the best of these examples), the houses of Lancer's newest expansion, the Spartans of Halo and the various different hues of humanity in Warhammer. But there is lacking at that minute point of focus. As if, time and space has not been considered enough, but simply reflected on paper through a very broad sight of an all-knowing writer. To me, it feels that cultures, are represented mostly through this broadness. The writer, putting through ideas in a mastermind's, creator's way, glossing over the infinitesimal details that describe such diversity in cultures, or the natural progression where these cultures rise from.

 

Does the same thing happen in IC? Perhaps. I lean towards yes, but here are two reasons why I am having trouble defining my negation to this question.

 

Firstly because, there is only finite space for building a culture, while running along the narrative. The readers, I believe, can and should only see small details. These in turn, are the building blocks of the story. However, the results of such details and flow do ground all the non-described vastness of a culture. Blocks make of a story, but said blocks cannot depict a culture's scope.

 

Secondly, point number one gets broadened by the sheer number of various civilizations in IC. There are a lot of cultures, even if just mentioned by name, I try to give to each some discernible characteristic. Chaos by sheer size of options alone. On one hand this gives breadth to the story, on the other hand this comes at making certain parts shallower.

 

 

 

And here is the only solution I have found. Doubling down and mixing at odd relations. My previous project focuses on a fictional, future version of the Bronze Age. This Bronze Era, a cycle of mankind, only now among the stars, all along vastly different planets. In IC, this phase focuses on the Iron Age instead. Still a mystical time, still a place of gods and some technology, all such era-defining attributes are uplifted into a sci-fi setting.

 

Not sure if this is something new, probably not, don't think that novelty matters that much either, but I believe this uneven, broad, unreal and anachronistic redux of the Iron Age, stirs the pot just enough to remediate the worry I've just mentioned.

 

There is a diverse cast of cultures, all of them fighting for some indescribable dominion of time and attention.

 

Where one looks towards Homeworld and the few cultures described there, in IC instead I want the reader to be able to dig around as many options as possible. Vastly different and contrasting to eachother, held together in this conflict of dominion.

 

The reader should be able to imagine the planet of Ulm and the vast industry as a quasi-mythological description of modern Germany, supported together in this era by allusions to Germanic mythology. Mind you, real or fictional mythology. For in IC there is allusion to the Riddle of Steel, but there is also pagan imagery and the mythology of Berlin nightclubs, where techno booms perhaps as loud as an ancient shamans' leather drums. This is the anachronistic blend I aim towards and with which I try to build the depth of different cultures.

 

And why should such modern and ancient, seemingly random moments in time blend? Because to the imagined civilizations of the future, humanity looks back to find colossal weight/ size of information all having occurred on old Earth. To them perhaps, the dark corridors of Berghain, are no more different than the blood soaked darkness of Teutoburg forest.

 

Perhaps in another planet, where there is only snow and endless forest, the locals reflect themselves only in dark Scandinavian culture. To them, black metal is the only thing of ancient culture that describes the world around them and naturally they gravitate towards such existing culture.

 

I believe, that people tend to choose (if already there) culture on this basis. That the planet /nature itself reinforces the culture that dominates a place. If mankind arrived at a new planet and say, there was only desert, mankind would scour through all of its history and gravitate towards civilizations that developed in similar environments.

 

And here is where the most important conflict rises. How does a desert planet pick between Bedouin culture, Assyrian culture, or Egyptian culture, or perhaps the culture of ancient, pre-Islam pagan Arabia of carved Baetyls? Do we blend all of these different periods? I cannot push myself to say yes here. If anything, I add more options. What about the Atacama desert and the culture of that place? What about keeping all these pockets of mankind as one, un-blendable mix of colours, one that is always infighting to prove which hue of culture is superior?

 

Isn't this what culture is? Isn't this conflict creative enough, perhaps more than the scope of the project itself?

 

And should that be enough depth for the various peoples of a sci-fi setting?