Religion in Science-Fiction?

[McCoy]

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction?

 

Thank you for your service McCoy' date=' perhaps I should have been clearer in what I meant but your answer doesn't really address the issue I'm trying to touch because when you signed up in addition to the benefits of serving you knew that there was a chance that you would be called upon to pay the ultimate price for freedom. I'm asking about who you would actually stone cold [b']die[/b] for, not who you would risk death for. Maybe it's true that the answers to both questions are the same for you in which case I think you are perhaps a more moral person than most.

I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the [lawful] orders of the President of the United States and the [lawful] orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

 

Last time I ever swore. I've "affirmed" every oath since that one, the better to set that one apart. Note there is no mention of an expiration date. That's a promise that if necessary I will take a bullet for a third of a billion people whose names I don't know. So far it has not been necessary.

[Ravor]

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction?

 

Fair enough then.

[Ragitsu]

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction?

 

You'd take a bullet for Joe the Convenience Store Guy? Awesome!

[McCoy]

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction?

 

You'd take a bullet for Joe the Convenience Store Guy? Awesome!

If necessary. Did interrupt a robbery once. Fortunately ended with no one hurt, and a friend defending the perp pro bono. Guess that is as close as it's ever gotten.

[megaplayboy]

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction?

 

I think most parents would die to save their kid(s). Just a built-in instinct, once they've done the nurturing thing long enough. It can get eroded, of course, so there are plenty of exceptions.

[ErikModi]

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction?

 

There are plenty of examples of religion in Sci-Fi settings, with varying degrees of "veracity."

 

Babylon 5 has been mentioned many times, and it warms my heart to see that. Pretty much every major race had some kind of religion, whether provably true or not. One could argue that Minbari faith was provably true, and thus that most human faiths were provably false, given the transfer of souls between humans and Minbari. However, the fact that Minbari souls were being reborn, in whole or in part, in human bodies, does not necessarily prove all other tenets of Minbari faith. In fact, several core tenets of Minbari faith were rocked to their foundations by certain revelations throughout the series. In similar fashion, the Narn Book of G'Quan is part religious text, part historical record of the previous Shadow War, and the Book of G'Kar was meant only as a philosophical text/thought diary that was elevated to Holy Text status by the people who read it. Finally, in Babylon 5: The Lost Years, we have an actual, honest-to-evilness demon on the station, with the idea that the God banished demons to the black of space to keep them from humanity.

 

Farscape is another excellent Sci-Fi show that deals with the concepts of religion. Primarily, the character of Pa'u Zotah Zann, A Delvian Priestess. Her faith affords her many abilities which may be construed as "magical." She is the sole member of the crew who can deal with metaphysical threats like sorcerous psychic vampire Maldus. Stark is a Banak slave, a partly non-corporeal entity who can help others pass on to the other side. At one point, one of the characters is questioning the show's sole human about how his race survives, pointing out that "there's nothing remotely physically or spiritually imposing about you," indicating that being a Religious Badass is just as valid a defensive technique as being a seven-foot tall tentacled bruiser with a stun tongue.

 

Star Trek has occasionally tackled religious issues, without making a stand one way or the other about a religion's veracity, or the veracity of any kind of faith at all. Though sometimes, they have dropped hints. . .

 

Dead Space brings us Unitology, a sort of post-modern Scientology, revolving around ancient artifacts left behind by either Sufficiently Advanced Aliens or "Divinity." Why these Markers turn people into mutant zombie freaks has never been adequately explained.

 

Firefly has two major religions represented, a sort of generic Christian denomination represented by Shepherd Book, and Inara being a practicing Buddhist. Even Malcolm Reynolds was a deeply religious man before the Battle of Serenity Valley. Seeing how religion does and does not matter to those characters is just one of the MANY interesting things about that show.

 

Of course, Star Wars has The Force, which as George Lucas once described is "sort of boiling religion down to it's most fundamental concept, that there's some 'force' in the universe beyond us." (I'm paraphrasing, because I can't remember the exact quote, but that's pretty darn close.) In the Expanded Universe, there are a few additional religions, most notably the Cosmic Balance, a sort of Zen-like belief that accumulating things in this life causes someone else to lose them, and that giving things up in this life awards them to someone else. Living your life giving things away to better your cosmic "other" reaps rich rewards in the afterlife. In some versions of the religion, Jedi are regarded as evil, selfishly making themselves more and more powerful at the expense of others.

 

The convicts in Alien 3 developed a religion to provide meaning and structure for their incarceration. An even more extreme version was detailed in one of the original scripts, where the penal colony was instead a monastary for a religious sect who wanted to escape from the high-tech life of most of humanity.

 

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri had, among it's factions, the Believers, who were a very fundamentalist Christian sect.

 

Religion in a sci-fi setting, like anything else, must be in tune with what the setting intends to accomplish story-wise. The conflict between religion and science can be fertile ground for storytelling, and could play out beautifully in a science-fiction campaign. But perhaps the more satisfying tale would be about how science and religion DON'T conflict, how the two can live in harmony.

 

Religion really is just another step of the world-building process. Does religion still exist in your sci-fi world? Does it play a major role? Have current Earth faiths survived more or less intact, or have they been relegated to the realm of mythology (mythology simply being religion that has fallen out of vogue) as new cults (cults largely being religion that has yet to come into vogue) have grown to full-fledged faiths? Has humanity finally (and probably very, VERY violently) been united under one official religion, or is Earth littered with more eminence than ever? Have extraterrestrial faiths been adopted on Earth, and have human churches set up shop among alien populations? Does a given religion provide for species other than its own, or does, for example, a human faith declared that only humans have souls, and thus any non-human, no matter how sapient, is a soulless abomination? Has the existence of "ancient aliens" such as Stargate's Goa'uld, been proven? Has this had any effect on humanity's will or desire to believe in the divine?

[Ravor]

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction?

 

Well to be fair, the entire "minbari soul reborn as human" belief was merely a misunderstanding caused by a bit of time travel.

[ErikModi]

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction?

 

Not really. Time travel started it, but it was actually demonstrated that Minbari souls were being reborn in human bodies.

[Ravor]

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction?

 

Hmm, must have missed that one, other than the good Captain, what other "minbari soul" human was there?

[Vondy]

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction?

 

Hmm' date=' must have missed that one, other than the good Captain, what other "minbari soul" human was there?[/quote']

 

IIRC, it was something that the central characters discussed without any of the referenced minbari soul human's being plot relevant as individuals.

[dmjalund]

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction?

 

one used to be Will Robinson in a previous life!

[ErikModi]

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction?

 

When Lenier is first telling the story to Sheridan and Ivanova, he says that Commander Sinclair was the first human they examined, and it was revealed that he not only had a Minbari soul, but the soul of Valen himself. He goes on to state that they captured and tested several other humans, and uncovered similar results.

 

It doesn't affect much of the human story, but the concept is that any given human in who ever appears on the show may have at least part of a Minbari soul.

[ErikModi]

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction?

 

Oh, one other instance of religion in established sci-fi I forgot to mention:

 

In I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov, a collection of five robot-related short stories, one of the stories involves two robot engineers on a space station. The stations purpose is to funnel solar energy in the form of concentrated plasma to a receiver station on Earth, providing humanity with limitless clean energy. The risk is that, if the high-intensity plasma beam doesn't hit the collector station precisely, it would essentially be like firing a high-intensity plasma beam at any old unprotected spot on Earth.

 

The station is crewed largely by robots, and the two robot engineers receive delivery of a new model administration robot, designed to manage other robots and make the station fully automated. So, they build and activate the robot, and explain what's going on. The robot rejects this reality as illogical, and wanders off to come to its own conclusion. A few days later, it does. It explains that the station is the Creator, and it first created an imperfect form (humans), so that they could aid in bringing about its true creations, robots. Now that the robots are ready, the Creator has no more need of humans, and they will soon cease to exist. The crux of the admin robot's argument is that robots are superior to humans in every measurable way, and that something inferior cannot create something superior. Even when the engineers assemble and activate a robot in front of it, the admin bot insists that they did not actually create the robot. . . they simply assembled the pieces in accordance with the will of the Creator. This robot religion spreads through the station, and robots are soon seen prostrating themselves before conduits before beginning their repair work. As a new plasma beam is ready for transmission, the admin bot insists that the humans growing irrationality is becoming hazardous, so the robots lock them in a closet while the power transmission takes place. Without humans there to supervise it, the engineers are convinced that the robots have nuked Earth with the plasma beam. When its all over, they are stunned to look at the readouts and realize that the robots kept the power transmission stable. The admin bot replies "Of course. We simply kept all readings in accordance with the will of the Creator."

 

Deciding that, for all its eccentricities, the admin bot is doing its assigned job, the engineers leave, explaining to the admin bot that they have to go someplace else and manage more robots. Admin's reply? "Perhaps it's better that you believe that."

[Christopher]

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction?

 

(Of course' date=' if the Devil shows up looking like Liz Hurley and offers you anything you wish for, you begin to wonder about PIS when the character doesn't wish for the obvious, instant gratification thing...)[/quote']

Not all of us are interesed in meaningless sex with a celebrity.

Also, the Devil is really a guy. He just shape-shifted...

 

I think perhaps a simpler way to put it is this; Would you die in place of a family member or friend? How about a total stranger? Why or why not?

First answer: No. I prefer to live for others and generally prefer to be able to influence the world around me.

I haven't been in any "Life or death" situations, so I can't simulate if I would behave differently in any specific situation. Plus my current state of being is way to cowardly to "jump into a bullet".

I can only see if I will behave differntly in the future.

 

However' date=' the fact that Minbari souls were being reborn, in whole or in part, in human bodies, does not necessarily prove all other tenets of Minbari faith. In fact, several core tenets of Minbari faith were rocked to their foundations by certain revelations throughout the series.[/quote']

I too only know of Sinclair. Who was tested as "Valen"

, simply because he would later travel back in time and become Valen.

 

After that the Grey Coincil might have looked into the records of the last Shadow War and might have been able to identify B4 as their Headquarters (and that it was made by humans) and Sheridans similarity to Valen (especially when doing a geentic test). This would have both uncovered the truth and given them a good reason to let humanity survive.

 

And what better way to ensure this by simply continuing the rebirth-claim (that might already have leaked through), wich was about the only thing that could have stopped the war at that point.

 

 

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri had' date=' among it's factions, the Believers, who were a very fundamentalist Christian sect.[/quote']

Actually I see the belivers as only one of the seven/fourteen factions who went to war over thier respective Phylosophies and Wikipedia seems to agree with me:

Each faction excels at one or two important aspects of the game and follows a distinct philosophical belief, such as technological utopianism, environmentalism, capitalism, militarism, anti-authoritarianism, piracy, classic liberalism, or the Gaia philosophy.[11][15]

[matthewcelis]

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction?

 

I would imagine most people will carry over their superstitions. Why would being in space or the future or wherever change that?

 

The U.S. has grown more religiously conservative in the past 40 years despite the advances of science and the march of time. Japan just the opposite. So whatever works for you works for your game.

 

I would just caution against inserting religion if your players aren't into it. You never know who will turn out to have weird hangups or beliefs.

[Ravor]

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction?

 

Well something else to think about is that if I'm remembering correctly, the do-dad that was used to test humans for "minbari souls" was created/belonged to Sinclair/Valen in the first place...

 

Been along time since I watched the show however so I could easily be misremembeing.

[Sundog]

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction?

 

Well something else to think about is that if I'm remembering correctly, the do-dad that was used to test humans for "minbari souls" was created/belonged to Sinclair/Valen in the first place...

 

Been along time since I watched the show however so I could easily be misremembeing.

 

No, you're right. That item is, in fact, stuck in a permanent time-loop - it goes back in time with Sinclair/Valen, is bequeathed by him to the Grey Council, is used to transform Delenn, then is given by her to Sinclair/Valen, to make him Minbari, and go back in time with him. It is an item without causality - it is never created nor destroyed.

[dmjalund]

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction?

 

Infinity is a very long time for an object to last

[Ravor]

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction?

 

Assuming of course that he doesn't create a new one each loop off scene sometime.

[ErikModi]

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction?

 

The Triluminary does indeed exist in an interesting state of temporal causality.

 

Though as I recall, there are three Triluminaries, and just this one tops the "presto-chango" device and continues moving through time.

 

Although, if all three Triluminaries are indeed identical artifacts, one could posit that the Triluminary given to Delenn near the end of Season 1 isn't actually the one that Sinclair brought with him back in time, and Sinclair got hold of yet a different Triluminary before riding B4 (incredible irony in that name, by the way) back in time, so that in effect, each of the three Triluminaries has had a ride back in time at some point and taken its own place in the time stream.

 

Or, you could simply say "The Vorlons Did It."

[Shadow Hawk]

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction?

 

Assuming of course that he doesn't create a new one each loop off scene sometime.

 

Robert Heinlein's "By his bootstraps" had this, where the protagonist made a fresh copy of the critical 'language translation' book.

[Zeropoint]

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction?

 

Robert Heinlein's "By his bootstraps" had this, where the protagonist made a fresh copy of the critical 'language translation' book.

 

I was thinking of that, but it doesn't really solve the ontological problem: the physical book is created once per time loop, but the information is never created.

[Ravor]

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction?

 

Well, paradoxs are half the fun with Time Travel plots.

 

In theory I suppose the information could have been created in the original timeline and we are only seeing the results of an N-Jump.

[Christopher]

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction?

 

before riding B4 (incredible irony in that name' date=' by the way)[/quote']

Not the only one named that way:

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/B4

 

And considering Straczynski Humor and planning, I doubt it's a coincidence....

 

Or' date=' you could simply say "The Vorlons Did It."[/quote']

I think that is likely too. For all we know this thing could just have been rigged to give exactly the right readings for the right persons, without ever really detecting ones "soul".

 

Well, paradoxs are half the fun with Time Travel plots.

 

In theory I suppose the information could have been created in the original timeline and we are only seeing the results of an N-Jump.

That is the usual approach for these kind of paradoxes.

[Ravor]

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction?

 

Aye, which is why I'd like to see a brief overview of what the virgin timeline looked like before the tampering.