Art and culture in Scrapyard Station
Mar. 18th, 2021 02:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feotakahariSome worldbuilding for the fun of it.
Tinkers: although they think of themselves as a warrior race, the majority of Tinkers are not and have never been active military. This leans towards an actionized, Hollywood-ized view of those "keeping us safe." Tinker art is heavily focused towards the brave lone hero, outfighting and out-stubborning impossible odds. They suffer and even die, but always in the service of making the universe a better place.
If you think this sounds stupid, it could be worse. At least it's not rampantly xenophobic, like most of the art made by the remaining baseline humans. Losing our home planet to an alien invasion was not good for us as a species.
Nomads: evolutionarily speaking, cooperation is a relatively new thing for Nomads. Their ancestors were solitary hunters, until a changing climate brought bigger and nastier predators to their homes. There was a strong selection pressure for pre-Nomads (Nomad-ids?) who could work together to drive off beasts too fearsome to face alone, and Nomads today make a lot of art that we would recognize as extolling the Power of Friendship. The heroes are a team, and everyone has something to contribute to the greater whole.
Conversely, the greatest evil in Nomad culture is someone who would wait for other Nomads to die injuring a predator, then finish it off without taking injury themselves. Nomad art is full of traitors, backstabbers, and quislings, always portrayed in the vilest of terms. When Nomad art has a lone hero like a Tinker movie, it's because the hero was betrayed and abandoned, and the genre isn't action, it's horror.
Scholars: as a race that reproduces through recruitment, Scholars attract people who want to preserve their knowledge and memories past the death of their original bodies. They have only a couple generations of art, but so far, it's focused on intelligence, insight, and creativity. The Scholar hero isn't necessarily someone who fights, but someone who thinks and plans, and the villain of a Scholar story is someone who destroys anything they can't be bothered to understand.
Also, expect food porn. A LOT of food porn.
Builders: narrative arts are somewhat neglected in Builder culture. They're more the type for sculpting. The stories they do tell are often about ensemble casts, who may not know each other well, or have any idea of the subtle impact each has in the other's lives. Expect slow, methodical buildup as one person's kindness or cruelty ripples across the entire story.
Builder stories are unusually likely to spend time on characters who are selfish, vindictive, or outright evil. Things tend not to end well for these characters as the consequences of their actions catch up to them. A common Builder villain archetype is someone who thinks they can plan for every possibility, but is undone by events they failed to predict.
Parasites: if you really want to know what their art is like, go ask them yourself. I'll wait here where it's safe.
Everyone else: when the majority of your people live on a single planet, the few who choose to leave are driven by either wanderlust or crippling isolation. Their stories often come as weird or experimental, since they're based in storytelling traditions the galactic community is unfamiliar with.
Tinkers: although they think of themselves as a warrior race, the majority of Tinkers are not and have never been active military. This leans towards an actionized, Hollywood-ized view of those "keeping us safe." Tinker art is heavily focused towards the brave lone hero, outfighting and out-stubborning impossible odds. They suffer and even die, but always in the service of making the universe a better place.
If you think this sounds stupid, it could be worse. At least it's not rampantly xenophobic, like most of the art made by the remaining baseline humans. Losing our home planet to an alien invasion was not good for us as a species.
Nomads: evolutionarily speaking, cooperation is a relatively new thing for Nomads. Their ancestors were solitary hunters, until a changing climate brought bigger and nastier predators to their homes. There was a strong selection pressure for pre-Nomads (Nomad-ids?) who could work together to drive off beasts too fearsome to face alone, and Nomads today make a lot of art that we would recognize as extolling the Power of Friendship. The heroes are a team, and everyone has something to contribute to the greater whole.
Conversely, the greatest evil in Nomad culture is someone who would wait for other Nomads to die injuring a predator, then finish it off without taking injury themselves. Nomad art is full of traitors, backstabbers, and quislings, always portrayed in the vilest of terms. When Nomad art has a lone hero like a Tinker movie, it's because the hero was betrayed and abandoned, and the genre isn't action, it's horror.
Scholars: as a race that reproduces through recruitment, Scholars attract people who want to preserve their knowledge and memories past the death of their original bodies. They have only a couple generations of art, but so far, it's focused on intelligence, insight, and creativity. The Scholar hero isn't necessarily someone who fights, but someone who thinks and plans, and the villain of a Scholar story is someone who destroys anything they can't be bothered to understand.
Also, expect food porn. A LOT of food porn.
Builders: narrative arts are somewhat neglected in Builder culture. They're more the type for sculpting. The stories they do tell are often about ensemble casts, who may not know each other well, or have any idea of the subtle impact each has in the other's lives. Expect slow, methodical buildup as one person's kindness or cruelty ripples across the entire story.
Builder stories are unusually likely to spend time on characters who are selfish, vindictive, or outright evil. Things tend not to end well for these characters as the consequences of their actions catch up to them. A common Builder villain archetype is someone who thinks they can plan for every possibility, but is undone by events they failed to predict.
Parasites: if you really want to know what their art is like, go ask them yourself. I'll wait here where it's safe.
Everyone else: when the majority of your people live on a single planet, the few who choose to leave are driven by either wanderlust or crippling isolation. Their stories often come as weird or experimental, since they're based in storytelling traditions the galactic community is unfamiliar with.
