[Will]

Hmmm, I have the text of your story saved somewhere. I skimmed the first few parts and saved it because it seemed like it could be interesting, but I never did get around to it. Might have to dig it up, now that I'm not swamped with school and/or work constantly.

Anyway, some quick thoughts on your questions:

1: Being that the Icarans are primarily white/asian/mixed race what do you think their cultural reaction would be if they came across say a black or hispanic person?

I assume then that you are not including much of South Asia in with Asians. Indians, Burmese, Thai, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian, Indonesian... all can be quite dark-skinned. I'm not sure that the assumption that individuals with darker skin would be considered a separate species would hold. I would imagine that they would be considered inferior and/or evil.

2: Do you think a culture with the kind of physical regime that the Icarans have would accept a culture that does not have that kind of requirement on it's people?

Probably not, at least not accept as equals. Tolerated, sure, but there will not be much respect there unless the other culture is in some other way superior (i.e. a culture of savants) to Icaran.

3: How do you think the Icarans would handle say modern Christianity or modern atheism?
3a: How do you think modern Christians would respond to Icarans (try not to be offensive, and if you can't be unoffensive feel free not to answer)
3b:How do you think modern Atheists would respond to an Icaran?

Depending on the fervor of religious adherence, I would guess Christianity would be considered actively hostile (as with the modern situation with the largely Christian West and the largely Muslim developing world). Atheism would probably be considered a minor annoyance or a benign perversion. The feelings would probably be mutual for modern Christianity and Icaran state religion. Less devout populations could probably co-exist without much conflict, but any real or perceived imbalance on either side could cause an eruption of hostilities. As for modern Atheists... I can't imagine that they would care about the religious practices of Icarans. They don't make all that much of a fuss now unless they're being targeted in some way.

4: What do you think the Icarans would think of a free and democratic society?

Probably what we think of a society like China's. "It'll never last, we're so much better, etc." ad nauseum.

5: Would you see the Empire as evil?

Evil? No. I wouldn't want to live under it, but if I grew up in it, I most likely wouldn't mind. It is vaguely reminiscent of Hobbes' Leviathan.

6: Not from a 'god bashing" point of view please (and if you can't answer without a God bashing remark then just don't answer) how do you think the faith of the Empire would shape it

I think you already covered most of it. Since presumably it's a mixture of Christianity and Buddhism, I couldn't imagine that there would be much of the anthropomorphized "personal God" beliefs of today, so "prayer" would most likely be replaced with "meditation". Can't think of any other major influences though.

7: Do you think an average Icaran would be happy?

Probably. Just the same as the average American.