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Space Romans: Difference between revisions
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{{quote|''"A heavily industrialized 20th century-type planet very much like Earth; an amazing example of [[Inexplicable Cultural Ties|Hodgkin's Law of Parallel Planet Development]]. But on this Earth, Rome never fell."''|Captain's Log, stardate 4040.7 ([[Star Trek: The Original Series]] "Bread and Circuses")}}
A sort of three-way cross between [[Fantasy Counterpart Culture]], [[Inexplicable Cultural Ties]], and [[Planet of Hats]], a Space Roman society is a human or [[Human Alien]] culture that, in an amazing coincidence, resembles a culture from Earth's history. This trope does not exclusively describe only those based on Rome, but any implausibly Earth-like society. Space Romans provide a handy way for the beleaguered writer to populate the galaxy with a variety of different, believable alien societies, but disbelief can easily be stretched to its limit if the writer isn't careful, or doesn't consider how the culture in question would be altered by being transplanted to space.
An inoffensive version of [[Space Jews]]. See also [[United Space of America]]. Contrast with [[Culture Chop Suey]].
Two common variants are the [[Space Amish]], a society of technological dropouts, and the [[Space Cossacks]], rebels and/or exiles from mainstream society.
{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
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== [[Literature]] ==
* Given the ambiguity of whether it should be considered [[Science Fantasy|science fiction or fantasy]], it's hard to tell if examples from ''[[Dragaera]]'' fit here or under [[Fantasy Counterpart Culture]] (perhaps both). In particular, there are the Fenarians, seemingly the dominant group of human culture, who speak Hungarian and have various Hungarian cultural traditions. More generally, Dragaera has a marked similarity to late medieval Europe, although given that supposedly the [[Our Elves Are Better|"Dragaerans"]] were genetically engineered from humans, there is likely some kind of [[Days of Future Past]] scenario going on.
* Arkonides of ''[[Perry Rhodan]]''' being mixture of predominately roman and british imperialism making them sort of albino Centauri.
* The Empire in Isaac Asimov's ''[[Foundation]]'' series of novels is very, very Roman by design. Asimov was inspired to write the ''Foundation'' series as a parallel to Gibbons's ''The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire''.
** To wit, it starts out as the Kingdom Trantor, then is for some time the Republic of Trantor, and later becomes the Galactic Empire. In its decline, it even gets its own Belisarius stand-in, Bel Riose.
* The entire world of Markerterion in ''[[Stationery Voyagers]]'' is occupied by characters with Spanish-sounding names. Every location on Markerterion looks to be either the Sahara, Spain, Mexico, California, Louisiana, or Kalamazoo. [[Inexplicable Cultural Ties|Little to no explanation is offered on how this happened]]. [[Your Mileage May Vary]] on whether or not the California-like region's inhabitants qualify as [[Space Jews]].
* The Abh Empire in ''[[Crest of the Stars]]'' are an aversion: a [[Tall, Dark and Snarky]] [[Feudal Future]] fond of [[Luxury Tropes]] and good living in general, but enthusiastic conquerors, largely indifferent to their conquered peoples, and well able to knock you into next week. They kind of resemble the French, but not quite: pre-Revolutionary France wasn't all that good at warfare and oppressed its peasantry, while Revolutionary France was revolutionary (the Abh are not known for their guillotines), and Napoleon was hardly feudal.
** If anything they come of as subtly alien in something akin to the [[Uncanny Valley]] but entirely through the mannerisms which appears deliberate and rather well thought out. This is justified of course since well they are aliens but were originally bio-engineered humans created by humans and used for space travel making them some of the [[Blue and Orange Morality]] disposition. One character even notes that while they're very respectable, honorable and kind to those they conquer he can't trust them because they're just too alien. Ironically his justification is derived from human cynicism and the acceptance that [[Humans Are Bastards]] thus the fact these aliens are not bastards squicks him out.
* A couple of examples in the ''[[Vorkosigan Saga]]'': Barrayarans are Space Ruritanians; Komarrans are Space Venetian Merchants; the planet Athos is made up solely of men, everyone is gay, and reproduction is done through science - as the name suggests, they are like futuristic Ancient Greeks; Beta Colony is Space [[Freestate Amsterdam]], although with a lot of Blue State America as well.
** [[Ascended Fanfic]] is in play here, as the author describes the first version of Cordellia's honor she was working on for her Fanzine being with the Barrayarans as Klingons and Beta Colony as [[The Federation]]. Over time she's considered [[Beta Colony]] to be mostly American descended, but with the culture being firmly Californian. Most of the rest of the countries have listed their group of colonists, although the Jackson's Whole is closest to a standard pirate state mixed with corporate state.
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* The Romulans from ''[[Star Trek]]''; heck, their homeworlds are even named Romulus and Remus, their politicians are Senators and Praetors, and their soldiers are Centurions and Legions.
** Explained in some potentially cannonically source or another as being the result of [[Sufficiently Advanced Aliens]] having formed the basis for the Roman pantheon and culture and those same aliens doing the EXACT SAME THING with the Romulans. The Romulans just took to it better/with better technology.
*** It does raise the question as to where THOSE aliens first got the whole Togas and Senators and Bowl Cuts and Empire ideas from to begin with.
** ''Star Trek'' even had actual ''Roman'' space Romans in the original series, complete with slaves and gladiators, as well as 1920s Chicago Gangsters, Native Americans, Nazis, the Yangs (Yanks) and Kohms (Commies) of "The Omega Glory", and even an ''exact duplicate of Earth'' in "Miri".
*** The Yangs even had their own Constitution with the EXACT SAME WORDING and an old flag identical to the 50 starred US flag.
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*** Within the Imperium itself, various [[Space Marine]] homeworlds seem to each have their own Earth counterpart: The [[Space Wolf|Space Wolves]] are Norse / Russian, the Ultramarines are Classical Grecoroman, the [[White Scars]] are Mongol. Thousand Sons had an Egyptian theme going on, the Word Bearers took after the three monolithic religions of the Middle East, and Emperor's Children had something resembling French and Italian high culture before they were corrupted by Chaos.
** More obvious in the [[Imperial Guard]]: [[Reds with Rockets|The Valhallans]], [[Roman Empire|Praetorians]], [[Rambo|Catachan]],[[World War II|Death Korps of Krieg]], [[Proud Warrior Race|Attilans]], [[World War II|Armageddon]] and others all descendants or counterparts of Earth culture.
** Taoist Space Communists? The Tau.
** The [[Crystal Spires and Togas|Eldar]] are at times Japanese Space Greeks, but show elements of being Space ''[[Celtic Mythology|Tuatha Dé Danann]]''.
** More minorly, the [[Our Orcs Are Different|Or]][[Xtreme Kool Letterz|kz]] are a species of green British football hooligans, replacing enthusiasm for football as the reason for collectively sowing chaos with just [[For the Evulz|loving]] [[Blood Knight|violence]].
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[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]
[[Category:Space Romans]]
[[Category:Fictional Culture and Nation Tropes]]
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