Allow me to introduce you to Amon Assemon (Traveller Tuesday #20)

Now let’s build Ishee’s first and closest moon, which already has a name: Amon Assemon.  She’s a handball player from Côte d'Ivoire, but we’re right now more concerned with its population.  My Traveller universe models its system-level sociopolitics not on mid-century space opera, with one inhabite dplanet nestled amongst all the empty ones, but on 2000s transhumanist science fiction.  What that means is that I want a rather populated star system, but one still focused on the mainworld as the center of population, technology, and culture.  Accordingly, I apply a -1 DM to Population for every half-orbit away from the mainworld the planet is.  Well, half-orbit is the wrong word: the mainworld’s moons get -1, the world(s) one orbit away get -2 and their moons get -3, world(s) two orbits away get a -4 and their moons a -5, etc.

So Amon Assemon rolls 2d6-3 for Population.  A 3 gives the moon thousands of people living on it.  (bUWP α-3D-0704-0A (α Greve-Eau Pleine-Bishop Scheumack-Ishee-Amon Assemon)/????3??-?/?/??/Em).  Let’s get more specific . . . and random.org says that 8860 people live here.  That’s about 0.055% of Ishee’s population, or one Assemonite for abiout every 1818 Isheeans.  Unlike its big brother, there’s a chance Amon Assemon’s population all live in a single urban area.  A 50-50 chance, actually ~ however, a 1 is not greater than 3, so they do not.  In fact, because the population is so small, there are no cities at all thanks to this roll failing.  The 8860 Assemonites live scattered across the surface of the moon in isolated single-family homes.  We won’t know for a long time yet, but I imagine them mining or doing things like moisture farming (and looking not unlike a more airtight version of where Luke grew up, too).

How do those almost 10,000 people live?  1D3 tells us that there is but a single notable Cultural Difference.  A 44 on the follow-up D66 gives that difference as an Unusual Custom: Lifecycle.  This is a broad one, as it can cover killing elders, immortality by means of anagathic (anti-aging) drugs, a reliance on cloning as the sole means of reproduction, or family structures based on something other than reproductive lineage (like, say, children being raised by the state).  As a pansexual submissive trans genderqueer, I have a vested interest in imagining futures with areas in which my familial structures are the norm.  Such places have existed in the past (certain pirate cultures are the first to come to mind, various queer communes throughout the last two hundred years, Christian monasteries, even cowboy culture) and also now (I used to live at one in Oregon), but those always exist as interruptions in a heteronormative culture.  Those interruptions are necessary and important, but are only effective if we can craft visions of what it might look like for us to exist outside of that culture.

To be clear:  queers breed.  A lot, actually.  And most, if not all, of the queer mothers, fathers, and other-gender parents I know personally are quite attached to remaining in their children’s lives.  Duh.

Nonetheless, I think I’m going to use this Cultural Difference to make Amon Assemon a culture which has, for however long, been predominately queer.  Same-sex relationships are the norm here, the kind of love people are socialized into, just as people in our culture are socialized into different-sex love.  People on Amon Assemon come out as straight ~ no one has need of coming out as gay.  I’m not yet decided if parenting here occurs through a variety of means or if Assemonite culture has its favorite method (cloning, surrogacy, paired relationships, etc.).

While there might not be all that many Cultural Differences, a roll of 1D6 tells us that there are no less than SIX significant cultures shaping Assemonite culture.  I roll 1D6 6 times to determine the general type of each custom, getting 1, 1, 1, 1, 6, and 2.  That’s four clothing-related customs, a food custom, and a miscellaneous.  OK, so let’s start with clothing and fashion: the 4D66 that I roll come up 46, 42, 13, and 56.  Some group wears unusual clothes, while another has unusual fingernails, a third uses unusual cosmetics, and a fourth accessorizes in unusual ways.  I roll 1D6 four times to see which of these apply to everyone and which to particular groups.  The only one which isn’t universal is the cosmetics ~ those are worn specifically by (1D66=34) religious figures.

OK, so I think this is the drag planet.  Everyone on Amon Assemon wears greatly exaggerated clothing, usually that associated with the “other gender” in the galaxy as a whole.  Workaday fashion here is almost costume, however, filled with power clashing, melodramatic lines, and sheer size.  It’s also common for all Assemonites to pierce their fingernails, implanting rings or dangles or studs or pearls on each one.  As for the unusual accessories, I’m going to steal a trick from Chip Delaney’s Tales of Neveryon and say that Assemonites have a custom of strapping large mirrors to their bellies as a standard accessory.  I’m also going to grab from my favorite Mummy movie (and the hawttest person in the movie): no matter their religion, clergy on Amon Assemon are in the habit of using cosmetics and color to inscribe scripture, proverbs, and holy images across their face every morning.  The more devout use other visible skin surfaces (like hands and knuckles, arms, legs) for the same purpose.

Another 1D66 gives us 46 for the unusual eating habit on this moon.  That means that some or all of the Assemonites eat only at home.  A 1 on 1D6 tells me that all of them do.  This is a culture which sees eating as private, not to be done where others can see you.  Is it because of their extravagant outfits, making them both more prone to messy eating and more scared of it?  Finally, the miscellaneous custom.  The 1D66 comes up 52, so air has some sort of unusual significance to . . . (1D6=1) everyone.  Well, that seems obvious, doesn’t it?  I mean, the moon is Size 0 so it’s pretty unlikely for it to have atmosphere, right?  I’m not really sure what to do with this . . . .  Maybe, Vegas-like, they keep the oxygen content of their artificial atmosphere higher than standard?  No, it’s probably more like a custom to always have a certain, sizeable tank of air on you at all times.  Decorating it, showing it off, or hiding it amongst your drag is one of the constant games in Assemonite culture, then.