Trope-a-Day: No Such Thing As Alien Pop Culture

No Such Thing As Alien Pop Culture: Averted, for the most part – even without the dodge, I suppose, of pointing out that the Imperials would consider our distinction between high culture and low culture the product of a certain type of class-based social structure that humans have, and sniff rather loudly at the parochialism that assumes that primate status bigotry (with signifiers everywhere!) is a universal species trait.

I shall instead merely note those things of which the canon has named examples at this point, including music (all the forms listed under Future Music can be considered popular, except the most gratuitously complicated forms of opera and metatonal), an extensive literary culture that includes popular novels (speculative fiction is the Genre That Ate The Mainstream, which in turn becomes the subgenre referred to as “realist fiction”), epic poetry (even in the modern day), graphic novels, watchvids (i.e., non-interactive movies and television), InVids, slinkies, virtual-reality games, virtual-reality cosmoi, alternate-reality games, regular computer games, RPGs, board games, mechanical toys, recreational dueling and non-combat challenges, haut cuisine, participatory (although much less so spectator) sports and, yes, even spam.

Trope-a-Day: Cultured Warrior

Cultured Warrior: A very important aspect of training and institutional culture, not just for the Imperial Military Service, but for the entire sentinel darëssef, which includes the police, emergency services, paramedics, etc.  The argument runs, essentially, that it has dangerous and unpleasant side effects to have people running around trained to fight who know nothing else but fighting, be it fighting wars, fighting crime, fighting disease, or fighting entropy, and are thus disconnected from the finer things in life and the gentler, civilized virtues.

Thus, in addition to everything else, sentinel training (including even the seriously harsh kind used by the Imperial Legions) works hard to cultivate a taste for high culture and an appreciation for the finer things in life as a contrast to and counterpart for the gritty side of life.  In action, the institutions of the darëssef, from the IMS, the ISS, the Watch Constabulary, etc., on down have traditions to encourage this, including specific cultural leave in which their membership is encouraged to immerse themselves in this side of life on the institutional dime, in the interest of keeping them collectively healthy, functional, and complete.

Even many mercenary outfits do this, on the grounds that a sane mercenary is a more profitable mercenary.