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Racial/Ethnic Groups in Fenspace
Racial/Ethnic Groups in Fenspace
#1
Pulled out from the soil thread, as I think this is interesting enough to be pursued. Suggest insertion into the Glossary (EnFenloPedia?) when consensus has been achieved. Please support Consensus by posting your ideas and corrections and input!
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what other minority groups might be "interesting enough" to get into space with handwavium?
To be blunt, Pakis, Irish, Jews, Amish, Nigerian, Homosexuals.. the list could go on and on, if needed.
Nigerians - A rather tightly-knit community of Nigerians have set up shop on Mars, and are doing quite nicely for themselves. The prime reason for their mini-exodus was to provide an honorable face to the Universe, in contrast with the Nigerian Prince email scam, which they're quite unhappy with.
Pakis - Tired of treatment as second-class citizens in their native Britian, the Pakistani immigrant is by and large a happy healthy person, who while they may end up working in a service position, is now working with people who believe that their services are honorable, valued, and worthy of respect.
Irish - Bars In Spaaace. No, really. a nucleus of irish brewmasters and distillers pushed off, to investigate and take advantage of the easy availability of vaccum and zero G in fermentation and distillation of beverage. In general, they're a fairly technical folk, nowhere near as tightly knit as the Nigerian or Amish communities. They're profiting a lot in stability from the concept that "If ye don't like it here, we'll be happy to help you get back home", forcing noone to stay Out that doesn't want to..
Jews - The old persecution of the Judaic peoples hasn't escaped from the gravity well yet, leading some of the more verbally pugilistic of this community to debate upon the specific gravity of hatred.. A split community, part of the Jewish prescence in Fenspace believes that the Fenchurch and it's sacraments (such as they are) are Kosher, while the other half appears to think that that Fenchurch thing is a fine, fine idea, but they still need to be holding their own sanctified observances. As of yet, this 'conflict' has led to well-reasoned debates, and quite a lot of profit for coffee and bagel sales.
Homosexuals - Yes, there is a 'Gay Station'. It's a fully functional space station, with a surprisingly balanced gender mix in it's permanent population. The station is a political haven for anti-discriminatory lobbying and propoganda, and they've finally come clean about the Gay Agenda:
1) Live well
2) Be Happy
While the station does have a red light district, it, like Candy Apple Reds, is a seperate entity, clearly marked, and not really that big of a deal, since that's not what their main purpose here is.
Amish - A surprising member of the Fenspace population mix, the Amish can be found primarily on Mars, though the Venus Terraforming Project has already made it clear that there will be land available for them on Venus, when.. The Amish in Fenspace are, unsurprisingly, quite liberal compared to their Earthbound kin, but still avoid technology as much as possible, preferring instead to utilize handicrafts and manpower, where some of us would use antigrav and grapples. An Amish hand-woven spacesuit will shock the wearer on their first donning, as it's lighter, more flexible, and just works better than the average run-of-the-mill. The fact that it was constructed by hand as much as possible, well, that's just their thing, right?
One Amish elder has been quoted as stating that "Mars, while not Heaven, is certainly a very nice place to raise a barn, thanks to the gravity."
The modern Amish buggy is horse-drawn, sure, but the horses are signifigantly smaller, wear their own pressure setups, and the buggy itself is air tight and uses a variant on the Hephaestian zipper-lock.Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979
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Re: Racial/Ethnic Groups in Fenspace
#2
Now I have to go move my post on the Amish over here...
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To be blunt, Pakis, Irish, Jews, Amish, Nigerian, Homosexuals.. the list could go on and on, if needed.
Well, I meant "interesting" in the Haruhi sense, but I suspect that need and desire would work just as well as oddballness...
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The Amish in Fenspace are, unsurprisingly, quite liberal compared to their Earthbound kin, but still avoid technology as much as possible, preferring instead to utilize handicrafts and manpower, where some of us would use antigrav and grapples.
Note that the Amish are not automatically hostile to technology. They in fact evaluate all technologies carefully before banning them (or not). The primary criterion, I understand, is whether or not the technology would have a negative impact on the formation and maintenance of the Amish community. And even then, it may not be entirely banned, if there are some uses that profit the community rather than individuals. (Someone more knowledgable should feel free to correct me or expand as necessary.) So I can certainly envision Amish ships, as long as they are large and support whole communities at once -- individual auto-sized ships would no doubt be banned except as community shuttles, because individual ownership and use would fracture the community. (Though the space-going buggy is such a delightfully twisted idea that it should be enshrined in setting canon forthwith.)

-- Bob
---------
Visit beautiful Boston, proud successor to Seattle as
"City Most Scared Of Its Own Shadow
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Re: Racial/Ethnic Groups in Fenspace
#3
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The Amish in Fenspace are, unsurprisingly, quite liberal compared to their Earthbound kin, but still avoid technology as much as possible, preferring instead to utilize handicrafts and manpower, where some of us would use antigrav and grapples. An Amish hand-woven spacesuit will shock the wearer on their first donning, as it's lighter, more flexible, and just works better than the average run-of-the-mill.

As the Amish tend to take a longer view of things I could easily see them growing a variation of a Jurain Space Tree.
Probably a 'Waved mix/graft-ing of Oak, Alder, Sequoia, and giant Redwood.
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Re: Racial/Ethnic Groups in Fenspace
#4
Considering that the setting has catgirls, sentient androids, and other non-human sophonts, are people even going to notice the colour of a random person's skin?
While some groups will be noticed for doing things in a substantially different way from everyone else (e.g. the Amish), I'd expect most folks to simply fade into the background weirdness, no matter how not-weird their unusual behaviours might be.
But that's just my initial reaction - I may think otherwise later...

-Rob Kelk
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
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Re: Racial/Ethnic Groups in Fenspace
#5
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As the Amish tend to take a longer view of things I could easily see them growing a variation of a Jurain Space Tree.
Well, first they'd have to know what a Juraian Space Tree was. The Amish are not a prime market for imported anime.
-- Bob
---------
Visit beautiful Boston, proud successor to Seattle as
"City Most Scared Of Its Own Shadow
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Re: Racial/Ethnic Groups in Fenspace
#6
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Well, first they'd have to know what a Juraian Space Tree was. The Amish are not a prime market for imported anime.

They would have to come up with the idea independently, yes.
or maybe they just wanted some lumber to build a wagon and got the tree by accident.
But seriously, what would most fen think when they see a space travelling tree?
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Re: Racial/Ethnic Groups in Fenspace
#7
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But seriously, what would most fen think when they see a space travelling tree?
Truthfuly? Probably not Jurai. I mean, we're mostly huge anime geeks here, so that colors our perceptions, but it's a big, wide world out there. All kinds of ideas out there.---
Mr. Fnord
http://fnord.sandwich.net/
http://www.jihad.net/
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"
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