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Navigating Culture

My current wip takes place on a post-apocalyptic futuristic world with high technology and mystical creatures. Many of the societies that exist in my wip are the evolved and warped forms of culture and societies that exist today (only with greater influence). The problem I'm having now is the integration and selection of the cultures that I want to include. For example the Astaru in my wip are based on Nordic culture and follow a "religion" based on Norse mythology. Now ancient Nordic culture was not only war and pillaging but compared to all of the other aspects of it that (pillaging etc) is the most difficult to deal with in my wip in the sense of how integrated war is in the Astaru society . I guess my question is how does one accurately depict a culture without stereotyping it or having it be painted as a cliche depiction. Especially since my wip also utilizes Christian, Islamic, Shinto and many other cultures within it.
 

Reaver

Staff
Moderator
That's a very good question. This is precisely the reason that I stay away from mirroring real-world cultures, religions, etc. My only advice is write what you know.

Research each religion and culture as much as you can (preferably information from their point of view) so that you can paint a respectful, realistic and honest picture of them.

Also, I like how you rearranged Asatru for the Nordic religion. Subtle yet effective.
 
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skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
I can't quite figure out the question. The OP to me is about how to describe a culture. But that's description, not story telling. One could have a completely stereotyped world-building description of a culture and yet still find interesting ways to present that in a story. It's the story that counts.

The nub of the post concerned the Astaru. If I read the sentence correctly, they are warlike. The OP observes the Norse were also warlike. This is identified as the difficulty. That looks like compatibility to me, not difficulty.

There are lots of ways to be warlike. In what ways are the Astaru Nordic?
 

DeathtoTrite

Troubadour
I think OP wants to know how much detail has to be added to a culture for it to seem original. I would say you have two options 1) do a lot of research or 2) make it clear there isn't a good basis for the culture in real life.

Let's take... Mongol society, since it seems to be a pretty popular stereotype to have vast nomadic evil hordes. If you want your quasi-mongols to seem more well-rounded, include details like hawking, the kurultai, the animals they hearded, importance of women, blood brothers, etc.

Or, for another example, your standard Byzantine/ Roman Empire. A ton of worlds have the themes-- lost empire greater than anything in existence, powerful central government, now either destroyed or reduced to a decadent and shameful state. It might have scheming eunuchs and senators, gladiatorial fights, mad emperors...Sound familiar? But if you want it to be more natural you could add the the factions (originally chariot racing factions, but evolved to be much, much more), religious turmoil, some of the more bizarre traditions (byzantine emperors would spend hours slowly walking to the altar at Hagia Sophia to be crowned) etc.

Basically, if you want to base it off of a real world culture, make sure its a culture... and not just a few defining traits the average person associates with it.
 
I just about every way. The only differences are that 1.Instead of sailing the seas the travel using airships mainly because the land they call home is extremely mountainous (Imagine Greenland if it were the size of Australia and 55% mountainous.). 2. Majority of their people are cyborgs in some way or form. 3.Their society is run by psuedo-Gods.

My problem is that culture on a whole is a hard thing to utilize in a story without either (A)Creating a stereotype (which offends people of that culture) or being "too" accurate; which depending on the culture might push away readers either because they don't associate certain things (may find it boring or stupid) with particular cultures even though it may be accurate; or because they find certain things in the culture offensive or distasteful. Samurai for example were known for actively beheading their notable victims as medals of honor or bravery. Not m

I guess my question is how do you balance accuracy, originality and entertainment/appeal to readers.
 

Ankari

Hero Breaker
Moderator
I've created many religions for my world. Some are warlike, some are peaceful, and all were developed using the following loose guideline:

1) Who are the people? What physical/mental traits make them different from other races?
2) What is the actual origin of their existence. This doesn't have to be answered "on screen", but the author needs to know.
3) What, if any, were their original beliefs? Most religions change with time. How has theirs?
4) What is their history? What has happened to them since the original religion?
4) What is the current origin story of (their) existence? Once you've created an origin story, you can branch out into other areas governed by religion.
5) Create your religion to fit the people.
6) Compare it to other factors of their society and revise accordingly. Most cultures show evidence of their religion in other aspects of society. Government, courtship, domestic structure, etc.

In your case, I feel that you've taken the ancient Nordic religions and have created a people around it. Try as you might to disguise it with fantastical aspects, the meat and bone of the religion is still there. If you feel your reader can see the similarities, maybe it's because the similarities exist from conception.
 

Svrtnsse

Staff
Article Team
One thing you might try to tinker with is to add small details to go with the big things.

Big things will be stuff like how they're warlike and travel in airships.
Small things might be little details in how they interact with each other that differ from what other cultures do. Maybe they don't shake hands, but do fistbumps or shouldergrabs or such.

In another thread lately I posted about how I'd made some changes to politeness and morals in my culture. These aren't big things, but they're enough to set the culture apart from "the norm". For example, it's considered a little bit rude to offer to help someone with something, as it is seen as if you doubt their ability to handle what they set out to do. Conversely, it's something of a compliment to be asked to help out, as it means the person asking trusts you enough to acknowledge their weakness.

The above are just examples, but I think that little details like that can be just as effective as big things in bringing our creations to life.
 
I've created many religions for my world. Some are warlike, some are peaceful, and all were developed using the following loose guideline:

1) Who are the people? What physical/mental traits make them different from other races?
2) What is the actual origin of their existence. This doesn't have to be answered "on screen", but the author needs to know.
3) What, if any, were their original beliefs? Most religions change with time. How has theirs?
4) What is their history? What has happened to them since the original religion?
4) What is the current origin story of (their) existence? Once you've created an origin story, you can branch out into other areas governed by religion.
5) Create your religion to fit the people.
6) Compare it to other factors of their society and revise accordingly. Most cultures show evidence of their religion in other aspects of society. Government, courtship, domestic structure, etc.

In your case, I feel that you've taken the ancient Nordic religions and have created a people around it. Try as you might to disguise it with fantastical aspects, the meat and bone of the religion is still there. If you feel your reader can see the similarities, maybe it's because the similarities exist from conception.

Actually that is exactly what the Atsaru and other cultures are. Societies formed around old cultures. The world they currently inhabit is actually one of many colonies inhabited by Humans after Earth was destroyed. It's been millennia since the destruction of Earth and since then humanity has evolved both physically and culturally; they've also forgotten about their origins almost completely."

An example of how humanity has changed is that the Astaru are Xenophobic in the sense that they've tinkered with cybernetics to such a degree that they can only procreate with people born or turned into Astaru. This evolution forces them to wipe out entire civilizations (saving only the children and those susceptible to integration) in fear that interacting with them will eventually make their people weak again.
 

Ankari

Hero Breaker
Moderator
Actually that is exactly what the Atsaru and other cultures are.

If that's the case, embrace it and don't try to hide it. If you've watched the recent Mad Max movie, they did exactly this. I didn't get turned off by it at all.
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
Forgive me if I'm being thick. Your concern is that your Astaru are too much like Norsemen. I asked in what ways, but you only listed ways in which they differed. If the concern is similiarity, that's where you'd want to examine.

This gets a little tricky because Danes were not Swedes who were not Norwegians. Similar, but varied. And I'm guessing you mean the Northmen of the 9th century or so. Assuming that:

Politically they were organized into kingdoms, though their kings were not much more than hereditary war chiefs. Most of their people were farmers. The rest were merchants with them not being too fussy about the line between commerce and raiding. You know their religion. We don't know a whole lot about their social organization, other than standard types that derive from pre-modern agricultural society. Yes they were ferocious warriors but so were plenty of other peoples. They were handy with boats.

You may notice that the above description could apply to quite a few medieval peoples, especially prior to conversion to Christianity. But you probably wouldn't think Franks were the same as Magyars or Vikings or Wends or Letts. The point there is it doesn't take much to differentiate--clothing, diet, a few local religious variations, and you've got yourself a nation.

But, honestly, I think you have this stick by the wrong end. Write the story first. Give it what it needs. Then let your readers tell you if it's stereotypical and make necessary adjustments.
 
The problem isn't that they are too much like Norsemen (since they are basically the product of that culture afters years of travel and advancement.) The main problem is which parts of the cultures I should utilize and how to utilize them.

Another example in my wip would be Sanctus; the eventual product of Christianity. I basically took aspects of different denominations of Christianity throughout history and merged them into one society. Problem is, how to do that without offending someone. Within Sanctus there are sects called; Templars, Inquisitors, Crusaders, Clergy, Papacy and the Malak (basically people who have ascended to Sainthood or into "Angels". All of these sects perform different duties of varying degrees of benefit and horror.

Just like the Astaru; Sanctus displays aspects of certain cultures that might be seen as either insulting or cliche. My question is how best to straddle that line.
 

Reaver

Staff
Moderator
The fact of the matter is that no matter how good your intentions are or how respectful and honest your writing is, you're going to offend someone. My advice is don't let that stop you from putting your story out there. Stay true to your vision and write what you know.
 

Nimue

Auror
It kinda sounds like you're trying to cram an awful lot into one setting--not just a futuristic version of Christianity but futuristic versions of eight different historical Christian orders, multiplied by however many religions you're including? I can see some potential pitfalls here: a risk of heavy-handed messages, a risk that some religious tech-orgs or whatever are really detailed and others look like paper cutouts. I dunno. It might be a good idea to write a short story in this setting and see whether it reads as cool and organic, or boring and predictable because you've just drawn from surface-level popular conception. Test it out before investing a lot into the minutiae?
 
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