: Re: How do I write "fantasy counterpart cultures" without being accused of cultural appropriation? In my book series, the various planets of the galaxy are inhabited by different cultures, most of

@Debbie451

Admit nothing
Not to be disrespectful, but it's unlikely you're writing the next Harry Potter or Game of Thrones, or even the next Honor Harrington. I say that because unless you're staggeringly more successful than one has a right to expect, nobody is going to be interviewing you about the hows and why-fores of why culture X does Y. With that being so, and your setting being the Far Galactic Future, just keep it mysterious. If you're keeping it all human, don't say where your "Kangaroo Island" culture got ALL it's cultural baggage. Invent a future society and reference THAT culture.
For example, say I have a planet called New Ireland. It's full of faux-Irish and I reference a lot of Irish traditions. But I don't attribute ALL those traditions to modern-day/historical Irish. Instead, I say that my culture is a mix of, say, Irish colonists and Vandalian (not a real place) colonists. Or Irish and refugees from the moon colonies. Then if you do make a cultural faux-pas and someone tries to call you out on it, just say that's brought by the made-up culture, not the real one.
Or even better, have a planet called Klendathu, have it be full of things like "the grynx, a traditional Klendathu instrument that sounds like a skinned cat to anyone not from Klendathu." (no offense intended, I do love me the bagpipes) and say NOTHING of the original colonists ethnic origins at all.
Now I'm not saying "You can be super racist if you have a made-up name to hide behind." You can't. You still need to do a hellacious amount of research to make your cultural melds believable and as close to unoffensive as you can get. My point is that once you've done THAT the last bit of work is to add in a make-believe culture so that when you decide New Ireland will declare War against every nation that doesn't mandate one-child-maximum families because your plot demands it, your Irish reader can go "t'was the damned Selenites who usurped me bonnie fair world!" rather than call you a racist for "taking a Modest Proposal Seriously."
Personally though unless it's near-future I would never expressly say where any given civilization comes from historically. This is how the subtler sci-fi authors operate. You might occasionally be able to point to names or a specific piece of art/architecture and go "a-ha! That's a reference to X!" but never enough of any one culture to get specific enough for anyone to be offended that the random Human From Planet X does some horrible thing. From a cultural level anyway. As has been said, you can't please everyone all the time.

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