Hello, @horzymandias, and welcome to Steemit.

There are many Steemians who do not go by their actual names on this platform.

Certain others will say that it's so important to be honest and to clearly identify ourselves, but as you may have heard, someone else once questioned "What's in a name," and concluded, not much.

From reading your intro, it's clear that you are a reasonable, decent person, with varied interests. Therefore, you could call yourself Charles Manson, or even Marilyn Manson, and I'd follow you and read your posts.

As for a community, what generally happens is that one will slowly but surely develop your own community here -- as embed oneself in an already established community. But you are correct in that Steemit is more of a community than a network. Or maybe, a collection of overlapping communities.

That's it for now. Full Steem Ahead.