Various Camden...

Old Bob was old, like really old; fifty something. He'd been on Camden for longer than he cared to remember. But he did remember.

It started when he was a student at the University. Bob was a chemistry and exogeology undergraduate. He had come to Camden from Picta, in orbit round Sirius B. Siriuns are often taken for human beings. With basically identical anatomy, the Siriuns are slightly paler than Earthlings. This reflective of their body temperature, which under equal conditions is slightly cooler than a human's. Siriuns are slow to rise and tend to dress warm.

Bob had just finished his first year exams and was enjoying, for a few weeks, the peculiar joy of being a Radiohead. Bob was a farmer's boy. Though he had loved growing up in the Pictan countryside he'd got a taste for city life and wasn't keen on going back. He had taken up the guitar and was half-willingly looking through music shop ads, going to free jam sessions. He had just started going out with a beautiful young Earthling called Jenny, the future Mrs Bob.

His family liked to stay in touch. Bob had received an email late in the year/week: something wrong, do not come home. Bob tried phoning, but got no contact. In fact the whole planet seemed to be out of signal. Somewhere on Picta there had been a runaway anti-matter reaction, which scoured about half the planet clean of life and annihilated the atmosphere. Bob's parents were one of the few thousand refugees to escape with their lives.

With no home, and no income from home (Bob was a grant student) Bob had to find work. He tried his luck at the university, the hospital, various shops and cinemas. He found some bar work, but that didn't make the nut, especially now he had to rent out privately over the summer. Things were getting increasingly difficult when Old Kurt, the chief of police (the only officer) offered him a job.

Bob was thrown. “Deputy?”

They were in a café by Mornington Crescent. Bob knew Kurt through an art discussion group started on campus. Kurt was doing his morning round when he saw Bob glum, sitting alone by the window, mulling over a cold Aldebaran tea. He meant to ask him about the disaster but saw him glancing through the want ads in the Camden Journal:

“I don't know”, said Bob, “I mean part of the state”.

“There is no state, here” said Kurt.

“What'd you mean?”

“How many police officers do you know, Bob?”

“I know you” answered Kurt.

“Well, any more, have you seen any other officers out doing the rounds?”

“I haven't really...”

“Exactly!” exclaimed Kurt. “No one likes to see a police officer. I'm a mediator. I keep the peace. I'm not here to repress. I don't perpetuate so-called crime, I do my job and go. It's just a name, like 'deputy'. It's for all the people out there, the straights on other planets who send their kids here”.

“But what about crime?” asked Bob.
“What about crime? Crime is mostly whatever you choose to it define as. The Earthlings have their saying ‘possession is nine-tenths of the law’, well, they would say that. But here on Camden nine tenths of the people own nine tenths of the stuff. What’s to steal?”

“What about the other tenth?” asked Bob.

“They’ve got TV” said Kurt, with a wave. “So, what say you, young man?”

With that Bob became Deputy Bob.

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The Radioheads - very outward, sensitive people, verbally and musically articulate. They are liable to listen to some music and notice its unusual time signature or the key switch in the middle eight. They can do this because the flexible antennae on their head allows them to scan numerous frequencies at once. As well as complex, intricate music Radioheads love strong, abstract art. A great number of them are touched by audio-visual synaesthesia. A tune may become a rotating abstract pattern, geometric shape or body schematic, or vice versa.

The Radioheads tend to be liberal in outlook and rationalist in philosophy. They are less hedonistic than others and often quite engaged in galactic issues. They can sometimes be a touch aloof and disconnected from other Tribes. They are certainly respected. Many of the Radioheads who remain on the planet full-time are successful in their chosen field.

The Goths – are easy to spot, all are over seven foot tall. They, of course, have their own line of clothing, flowing, long and dark. The Goths are very conscious of their look, they are in their own way a very beautiful tribe.

They are also very musical. Goths adore moving, romantic music performed with power. This sometimes leads them into surprising areas. Earth's rock music is very popular among Goths, although they are also heavily into different forms of classical music. Every Goth has a copy of Camden Philharmonic performing the Aldebaran Suite.

The Goths are nihilists and can be quite prickly. They tend to keep to their own. This can lead to members of other tribes treating them ironically. Though romantic self-destruction is central to Goth culture very few Goths have ever fallen apart. If you want to annoy a Goth ask them if they've committed suicide today.

The Bunnies – are lovin' it, man! They love to dance and Planet Camden, pulsating to so many different rhythms and waves, is the place to do it. The Bunnies are called such for their boundless energy, particularly over the weekend (which is also the end of the year), although they tend to go underground during the midweek blues, to be seen by nobody. The Bunnies are brightly coloured people. Their skin is luminous and flushes with different colours, more so at the high point of their cycle.

Bunnies love fusion and simultaneity. They love art, music, film and fashion, especially if it happens all at once. They are always raising money, putting on events, plastering the planet with posters and fliers.

Though apolitical they are very social. Bunnies love to meet people from new planets, hook up, swap beats and rhymes, fashion tips, screen prints. The Bunnies are central to day-to-day Camden, plugged in. The outer galaxy is shocking to them.

The Baggies – unfairly singled out as the planet's stoner tribe (none of the tribes are innocent on this account). The Baggies are primarily a musical group, a laid-back offshoot of Bunny culture, concentrating on slower rhythms, bass tunes. Baggies also appear much paler than Bunnies.

The Young Royals – were not so much a cultural tribe as a educational category. The University of Camden was always a prestigious institution. It costs a lot to send your offspring halfway across the galaxy to receive higher education. Many planets gave grants or ran scholarship programmes. Even so a large number of students were from affluent families on powerful planets.

Your typical Young Royal is a consumer, a socialiser and a networker. Many were sent by their families with explicit instruction to sleep around, take drugs, pull crazy stunts but make sure you make friends there, good friends, rich, powerful friends from planets where we can do business. Young Royals have excellent memories (which sometimes makes them good students), they are always good with names. They are emotionally intelligent, with special mutable faces tuned to the viewer's aesthetic ideal. Young Royals tend to dominate student politics, to the intense irritation of more politically committed groups.

The Church of Hendrix – are a group of galactic hippies, dedicated to subversion and psychedelia. Based on a commune circling Ursa Minor, The Church of Hendrix is their established Earth name. It was they who sent Jimi Hendrix to shake up music in the western spiral arm. After his time on Earth he was moved to a civilisation in Sirius B that was stuck in the jazz age.

The cult is currently tolerated but not trusted on Planet Camden, street jamming and free improvisation being way out of fashion.

Morissey's Children – are a teasing bunch. Inspired by the prophet of the fourth gender, theirs is a part literary movement based around the popular magazine Hand in Glove, with a circulation of 15-20 thousand, specialising in open poetry, enigmatic short stories and contrary opinion pieces. Morissey's Children hold frequent events in his honour, bicycle races, flower arranging and karaoke. The Children like to talk in aphorisms and diagonal slogans. They (appear to) argue that Morissey was a constant poet, whose every spoken word was in blank verse.

But, who knows if that's true. Morissey's Children are impulsive controversialists, pranksters and leg pullers. Some say they're satirists who poke fun at the values of more uptight tribes (such as the Radioheads' political earnestness or the Bunnies and their indiscriminate, one world openness). Others say they go too far, not meaning half of what they say but opening the door to much other groups who threaten the delicate harmony of Planet Camden.