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Is the entire Madras sector colonised by Scots?

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Is the entire Madras sector colonised by Scots?
Post by BobfromSydney   » Sat Dec 12, 2015 7:08 pm

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As far as my brief research can discover, the percentage of the current world population that is Scottish is somewhere between 1/3 to 1/2 a percent.

I'm just re-reading Shadow of Freedom and it feels like every single planet we encounter is populated by Scots/Scotch-Irish! To me it feels so unlikely that it is dissolving my suspension of disbelief.

What's going on? Why are there so many Scots in the verge/near Meyers?
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Re: Is the entire Madras sector colonised by Scots?
Post by kzt   » Sat Dec 12, 2015 7:13 pm

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BobfromSydney wrote:What's going on? Why are there so many Scots in the verge/near Meyers?

What was that line from Stripes? "We got kicked out of every decent country.."
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Re: Is the entire Madras sector colonised by Scots?
Post by saber964   » Sat Dec 12, 2015 7:27 pm

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BobfromSydney wrote:As far as my brief research can discover, the percentage of the current world population that is Scottish is somewhere between 1/3 to 1/2 a percent.

I'm just re-reading Shadow of Freedom and it feels like every single planet we encounter is populated by Scots/Scotch-Irish! To me it feels so unlikely that it is dissolving my suspension of disbelief.

What's going on? Why are there so many Scots in the verge/near Meyers?



Are sure your not confusing Meyers for Saltash?

Also look at today there are more ethnic Luxemburgers in the city of Chicago than in Luxemburg City the capital. I myself am a ethnic hodgepodge, I am Scots English French German Danish Ukrainian Russian.
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Re: Is the entire Madras sector colonised by Scots?
Post by Crown Loyalist   » Mon Dec 14, 2015 2:20 pm

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The population of the universe does seem to be absurdly white.
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Re: Is the entire Madras sector colonised by Scots?
Post by Theemile   » Mon Dec 14, 2015 2:48 pm

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Crown Loyalist wrote:The population of the universe does seem to be absurdly white.


Several of the Andermani worlds were originally populated by stock of Chinese origin. The Nebdele "hell worlds" were populated by those of African decent. We also know of a polity known as "the Judean league". The Queen of Manticore has a complexion called "Mahogany"...

I think diversity is there, but the names and generations are so homogenized it's hard to tell (one could imagine a man of Japanese decent and red hair named "Juan Johansen").

We've also seen a very small slice of the Honorverse overall.
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RFC said "refitting a Beowulfan SD to Manticoran standards would be just as difficult as refitting a standard SLN SD to those standards. In other words, it would be cheaper and faster to build new ships."
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Re: Is the entire Madras sector colonised by Scots?
Post by saber964   » Mon Dec 14, 2015 5:41 pm

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Theemile wrote:
Crown Loyalist wrote:The population of the universe does seem to be absurdly white.


Several of the Andermani worlds were originally populated by stock of Chinese origin. The Nebdele "hell worlds" were populated by those of African decent. We also know of a polity known as "the Judean league". The Queen of Manticore has a complexion called "Mahogany"...

I think diversity is there, but the names and generations are so homogenized it's hard to tell (one could imagine a man of Japanese decent and red hair named "Juan Johansen").

We've also seen a very small slice of the Honorverse overall.



Very true IIRC, there is a minor character who had a Nordic name but was described as Asian. Also look at the names Mi-Ling Jackson, Jacques Benton-Ramirez y Chou, and Simon Chakrabarti. They're a mix of Chinese-English, French-English-Hispanic-Chinese and English-Indian.

Also lets not forget Zanzibar is Arabian and San Martin is Hispanic.
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Re: Is the entire Madras sector colonised by Scots?
Post by Daryl   » Tue Dec 15, 2015 1:53 am

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Honor and her mother (naturally) are of Asian stock.

As to diversity there are supposed to be more people of Greek extraction in Melbourne than Athens, but being of Greek extraction doesn't mean solely that.

Regarding the spread of Scots and Irish around the world you can blame the English aristocracy for that. When they wrote the laws to enable themselves to have the clearances (getting rid of the rural residents to free up estates to make money) they sentenced whole peoples to emigrate or starve.
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Re: Is the entire Madras sector colonised by Scots?
Post by dscott8   » Tue Dec 15, 2015 8:42 am

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I seem to recall a casual comment in one of the books that generations of intermarriage had resulted in a genetic jambalaya, with most people having mixed ancestry. On the other hand, some planets seem to have been colonized by specific ethnic or cultural groups, like San Martin. If we had the means and motive to leave Earth today, don't you think that a lot of ethnic, cultural or religious groups would choose to have their own planet?
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Re: Is the entire Madras sector colonised by Scots?
Post by Theemile   » Tue Dec 15, 2015 4:52 pm

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dscott8 wrote:I seem to recall a casual comment in one of the books that generations of intermarriage had resulted in a genetic jambalaya, with most people having mixed ancestry. On the other hand, some planets seem to have been colonized by specific ethnic or cultural groups, like San Martin. If we had the means and motive to leave Earth today, don't you think that a lot of ethnic, cultural or religious groups would choose to have their own planet?


Another point is any group who is going to go form a colony by definition has 2 items going for them
1) they doesn't want to be here
2) they have the financial means to leave.

1 way colony ships cannot be cheap - probably equal to the current US GDP each. So there have to have the money to afford to go.

The point I'm trying to make is each "wave" of colonization is made up of the current wealthy portion of the world that want to leave.

In the current world, if we were to start the colonization effort now, most Private Colonization efforts would likely be made in the US, EU, Saudi/Dubai, Japan/SKorea. A few would come from Russia or China and S America.

As the wealth (and population) of those areas leave, they lose political and financial power. China, India, and Brazil continue to grow in power, and Russia becomes more dominant, as the former western countries and Asian powers emigrate and spend their economies on ships. Slowly, the number of Russian , Chinese, and Indian ships increase until they follow the pattern of the western powers.

In short, who is sending colonization ships will vary with who has the cash. And since we know there may be hundreds of years worth of generation ships still underway, it could very well be that many of those ships are from the places which are considered the poorest nations now - because they will be the richest nations left when they left Earth.
******
RFC said "refitting a Beowulfan SD to Manticoran standards would be just as difficult as refitting a standard SLN SD to those standards. In other words, it would be cheaper and faster to build new ships."
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Re: Is the entire Madras sector colonised by Scots?
Post by saber964   » Tue Dec 15, 2015 5:29 pm

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IMHO the first couple of colonial expeditions would be very, very expensive and would likely be a multinational effort, with multinational colonists. IIRC Beowulf was the first extra-solar colony. If you look at the last names of the people you get a multi ethnic mix of names that are IIRC German, Russian, Spanish, English, Chinese, Japanese, Polish etc. in origin. Later as more and more colony expeditions depart it would get less and less expensive to mount expeditions. As the colonizing efforts get less expensive it would get easier for single nations, ethnic groups or other groups e.g. Grayson or Pontifex to mount expeditions.
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