#I think the zones does fall into a sort of urban rural divide too. big towns are much more liberal and politically involved

[zone-seven]

Thinking about zones culture...

(Before I get into this, please keep in mind that I see the DD universe as like 75 years removed from the literal apocalypse, so things like communication, transportation, and infrastructure are very different from our modern world, or even the real world 1950s. Add that to extreme poverty, and you get zone dwellers living 'only' 200km apart who don't necessarily know that much about each other first hand.)

Really there is no singular "zones culture". Well, there is in a sense — in the interplay between the collective cultures of the California Desert — but that's nobody's real culture. It's just the natural result of cultures colliding.

This half-real "Zones" culture is little things — like everybody knowing a little bit of English, but not because they speak it for real, just because it's the lingua franca between communities, and between the desert and Battery City. It's using the same ingredients in very different cuisines because those are what's available in this time and climate. It's dressing pretty differently but following similar principles, since everyone lives with the same relentless sun, dust, and drought. It's broad things that came about due to proximity or convenience, not necessarily out of a sense of community.

But then there are smaller, much real-er cultures — local ones, lone ones, town-by-town ones. It does tend to cluster in regions, and there is lots of crossover of course, but each settlement, whether 100 people or 10,000 people, has it's own norms and customs. There's a lot of dead space out there; neutral towns vary wildly in their languages, religions, beliefs, and values... and smart folks will know at least a bit about their immediate neighbours! It's hard not to, to be honest. Life in the desert of California (and maintaining sovereignty from Battery City) requires a decent bit of cooperation and willingness to form alliances.

Some of the biggest towns in the Zones — the few approaching that 10,000 citizens mark — have quite the influence on the settlements around them. The biggest of them even exert influence on the entirety of the Zones, being big enough to support things like newspapers and far-reaching radio stations. Even then, though, people really do value tradition and custom; they've fought tooth and nail to keep it, as did their parents, grandparents, and so on. The city is already after their culture. They're not friendly to people trying to change their ways.

Killjoy culture is a little different.

Killjoy culture, as I'm defining it in my canon, is primarily the culture of ex-citizens of Battery City. Of course, it is also describing a political movement, and these escapees are not totally isolated in their politics, so it also includes some people who were born in the desert. There are plenty of reasons why desert-borns dislike the city, though few take it so far as to join up with killjoys. Similarly, some immigrants from the city have no interest in the political fight and instead do their best to assimilate into (usually) one of the larger towns. Mainly, however, I think about Killjoy culture as being heavily influenced by Battery City, especially in ways that feel very 'un-city' and free to people who once lived there, but feel restrictive and extremely 'city' to anyone desert-born. It's sort of separate from the cultures of desert towns as a whole, because they do not interact nearly as much or on as good terms. Neutrals don't have the sort of wariness with each other as they do with 'joys.

So, I think killjoy culture is sort of false in the same way that "zones culture" is false. It exists, but it's built first and foremost around something other than its people. Well, that combined with whatever scraps of Old World (pre apocalypse) culture their family in the city managed to keep. Very “killjoy” to have one-of-a-kind cobbled together cultures like that.

Killjoys do have a sense of community, though neutrals often miss this because killjoy community looks different than theirs. Killjoys are often rather nomadic, and they're always scattered. A lot of their culture is in media, and in folklore, and in the few events that are important enough for mass gatherings. Different than typical zones folklore, which often follows certain themes — killjoy folklore is heavily influenced by lobby culture, including a lot of droid religion.

But folklore is another topic…