ErikModi

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction? I really hate to keep coming back to this, but. . . Lucas may indeed have had the whole story planned out, IN BROAD STROKES, and realized that the story he originally envisioned was too big for one movie, so expanded the first act into one full movie. Consider this basic outline for the OT: Leia gives droids plans to Death Star Leia is captured. Luke finds droids. Droids help Luke find Obi-Wan Luke, Obi-Wan, droids, find Han and go to deliver Death Star plans. Luke et al find incomplete Death Star. Luke et al rescue Leia Luke et al flee to Rebel base. Empire attacks Rebel base (Death Star still under construction.) Luke and Obi-Wan flee one way, Han and Leia another. Obi-Wan trains Luke to be a Jedi. Han and Leia captured by Vader. Luke confronts Vader, learns who his daddy is. Rebels launch assault on Death Star, Luke again confronts Vader, and Emperor. Good guys win. Curtain. Now, that seems like one good, self-contained story, but rapidly grows too big for a single film, especially in the late 70s. So, GL expands on the first act, fleshes out many details, and makes the Death Star the completed instrument by which the Empire attacks the Rebel base (after all, if the Death Star just sits there being built for the whole movie, it becomes a failed Chekovian gun.) People make a grand mistake assuming that when GL says "he had the story planned" he means that he had every single line of dialogue, character development, plot point, piece of background info, etc. nailed down. That is simply not how writing works. What he far more likely means is that he had the rough outline of the whole story, from Anakin's birth possibly to Luke's death, in his head in broad strokes, and the details get filled in as he writes. Now, part of the nature of the Force is that all living things are a part of it. People like Han subconsciously draw on the Force all the time, just by being living beings. But they can't interact with it to the level that an actual Force-Sensitive can. Consider another, actually the first, Star Wars novel, Splinter of the Mind's Eye, in which a crystal is discovered that amplifies a person's ability with the Force. Luke and Leia are examining a shard of this crystal, and Luke feels the effect as he touches it. Since (they believe) Leia is not Force-Sensitive, she would feel nothing if she touched the shard (interestingly enough, she never touches the shard or the crystal in the whole story. . . one wonders if GL had some input to ADF as he was writing this story.) The most telling scene in that book, written between ANH and ESB, is Luke talking with self-proclaimed Jedi Master (actually a hack who can barely wiggle a salt shaker) about the effects of the shard and the Force. She mentions that there may be Force-Sensitives in the Imperial Senate who could feel the ripple from Luke and the shard interacting as he touched it, at the very least heavily implying that Force-Sensitivity is determined at birth. Now, the prequels clearly illustrate the Force-Sensitivity is not strictly generational, otherwise, the prohibition on Jedi marrying/having children would very shortly result in there being no more Jedi (just like the mandatory spay/neuter laws PETA is pushing would very shortly result in the extinction of all breeds of pet animals, but that's an entirely off-topic rant.) Somehow, the genetic wizardry that allows Force-Sensitivity is not inherent in having Force-Sensitive parents. Perhaps the Force itself decides to "gift" some children and not others with a more intense connection to it? Midichlorians demystify the Force my ass. Now, so I'm not committing a total foray into off-topic land, if one has a "religion" akin to the Force in a sci-fi setting, what are some implications? Well, the Sith demonstrate one implication succinctly: If some people are born with a more innate connection to the "Force" of the universe, are not those people, by definition, superior to others? Is it not their literal birthright to rule over the other, less-enlightened beings of the galaxy? Is it not fitting and right that all other beings exist to serve those lofty few on the Divine's party line? Also on the subject, the Yuuzhan Vong of the Star Wars EU have an interesting polytheistic religion. They believe in several gods, but chief among them is Yun-Yuuzhan, who, it is said, sacrificed himself to create the universe, carving his body into pieces to create all that exists. Finally, he created his chosen children, the Yuuzhan Vong, for whom he created everything else. The Yuuzhan Vong are not only a "chosen people," the believe that all life was literally made to serve them by God. As an interesting corollary, the Minbari in Babylon 5 believe that Universe broke itself up into galaxies, stars, nebulae, planets, life forms, and sapient individuals in order to better understand itself. Through observing the acts of the beings it has created, the Universe itself gains a better understanding of. . . well, itself. Both faiths start from the premise of "broken into bits, the bits are us" and end in very, VERY different places. Another interesting facet of Yuuzhan Vong religion is that they believe machines are abominations, for they are mockeries of true life. Now, on the surface, this may make them seem like hippy Luddite weirdos, but it actually makes them MORE ecologically destructive than many machine-based cultures, for the Yuuzhan Vong, believing that all life was made to serve them, have no qualms about modifying that life to serve them better. They will destroy entire ecosystems, warp species until they are effectively destroyed if it brings them closer to what they want. I actually wrote a bit for the Star Wars Saga Edition RPG about importing Avatar (yes, yes, I know) into Star Wars, and noted that, far from being kinder to a Pandora-like planet than an industrial society, the Yuuzhan Vong would destroy the planet far more efficiently. The Vong don't care about Unobtanium, but the planet's rich and deadly organic life would be perfect for conversion into biological weapons, destroying whatever these billions of species may have been in favor of what the Yuuzhan Vong thought they should be. Anyway, I've probably rambled far too long, and hope some useful data has come out of it for anyone willing to read my diarreha of the keyboard.

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction?

For those who haven't played Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 (and really, if you haven't, what kind of superhero gamer are you?) one of the mechanics is called a "Fusion." The basic idea is that two heroes combine their powers for a kind of "ultimate attack." There are three types in the video game, Targeted (meant to do a lot of damage to one enemy), Clearing (meant to damage a lot of enemies at once), and Guided (sort of a middle ground between the two.) That's largely irrelevant to the concept's application in HERO, but helps as I describe some of the Fusions from the game. A Clearing fusion might be Iron Man firing a repulsor blast at Wolverine, who uses his adamantium skeleton to diffuse the blast into a large area, striking multiple opponents. Or Spider-Man may gather several enemies with his webbing, pulling them all together into one clump that Iron Man blasts with a high-power repulsor shot. A Guided fusion might be Iron Man and Ms. Marvel firing their energy bolts at each other, the energy meeting and combining in the middle into a higher-powered area, while they fly around the room hitting anything that gets caught between them. A Targeted Fusion might involve Spider-Man snagging Wolverine with a webline, spinning a few times to build up momentum, then hurling him at an opponent in a sort of mutated Fastball Special. Or Venom may pick up a large chunk of the ground, which the Green Goblin will decorate with Pumpkin Bombs before Venom clobbers the offending opponent with it. The specifics of these examples aside, I'm wondering how to build these sorts of Fusion Powers, where two characters combine their abilities to greater effect. A certain amount of this can be taken care of with the Teamwork rules, but I'm looking to build a specific power that involves two or more characters combining firepower. I looked at the "requires multiple users" limitation, but it seems to only decrease an ability's effectiveness if the "crew" are not met, not prohibit its use completely. Anyway, anyone have any thoughts on how to tackle this problem?

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction? There really wasn't much established about the Clone Wars in the pre-prequel EU, partly because George Lucas had his own ideas and didn't want to let other authors establish what was going to happen for him. As such, an Clone Wars references in materials written before the prequels is very vague, and does sometimes contradict the events depicted in the Clone Wars, though the galaxy honestly is big enough to fit almost everything. I recall being at a panel with Timothy Zhan as one of the guest speakers, and hearing how GLs input changed the story he was intending to write. To of the major changes: The Noghri were originally supposed to be the Sith. Joruus C'Baoth was originally supposed to be an insane clone of Obi-Wan. Anyway, we're now really getting off topic.

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction? It's also referenced fairly often in the EU that cloning Force-Sensitive individuals is extremely difficult, and rarely pulled off successfully. Witness Joruus C'baoth. I have to soapbox for a moment here on the subject of midichlorians. People seem to labor under several false assumptions when it comes to these things. 1: Midi-chlorians create the Force. True, only so far as ALL living things create the Force. Ben Kenobi in ANH says "The Force is an energy field created by all living things." Yoda in ESB says "Life creates (the Force), makes it grow." As living things (symbiotes, like real-life mitochondria) midi-chlorians create the Force just as much as a human, Wookiee, Hutt, mynock, or space slug does. 2: Midi-chlorians ARE the Force. False. The Force is still an energy field, still the mystical power of life itself. All midi-chlorians do, according to Qui-Gon's explanation, is allow a living being to tap into that energy and use it. 3: I can drink a midi-chlorian cocktail or get a Jedi blood transfusion and become instantly Force-Sensitive! False. That's as reasonable as getting a blood transfusion from a person with a naturally high metabolism will cause you to lose weight, or a white person getting blood from a black person getting darker skin. It just ain't gonna happen. In real life, coming in contact with someone else's tissue isn't going to rewrite your own DNA, much less your mitochondrial DNA, so why would Star Wars' midi-chlorians have this effect? They wouldn't. 4: Midi-chlorians reduce the Force to mere biology, instead of it being space magic. This is part of the larger fallacy that science and magic cannot co-exist within the same fictional framework. Many people seem unable to cope with a fictional world that has both aspects within it at the same time. A world with magic cannot have any tech more advanced than a crossbow, though it is (rarely) allowed to have magical items that mimic high technology, such as light spells bound in metal rods to make flashlights. And if your world has rayguns and spaceships, magic is non-existent at best, fakery perpetrated by those of nefarious intent at worst. Recently, this trend has been changing, but many people are still highly resistant to the idea of magic and science interacting too closely. There's a real tendency to, on the rare occasions science and magic are allowed to co-exist in the same universe, to refuse to allow magic to interact with science in any meaningful way. For instance, I'm reading a novel series by Adrian Tchaikovsky, called Shadows of the Apt. In this fantasy world, humanity is divided into several subspecies, each based on particular insects and getting special abilities called Art from each. Ant-kinden can communicate telepathically, Beetle-kinden have excptional physical toughness, Spider-kinden can cling to walls, etc. Some races are Apt, which means they can invent and use technology. Some races are Inapt, which means that even pulling the lever on a crossbow or turning a doorknob is beyond them. Inapt races can use magic, which is a concept so totally alien to the Apt that they, for the most part, deny it even exists. Science cannot explain magic, and magic cannot explain science. However, logically there must be points where the two overlap. To perform the tricks he is capable of through the Force, a Jedi must draw on some kind of energy. Testing may well reveal that this energy is translated through is body by the organelles known as midi-chlorians. Where the organelles get this energy from, or how exactly they translate it into usable form, remains mysterious, but the data supports the conclusion that midi-chlorians give Jedi "knowledge of the Force." Sorry for the tirade, but I've seen this argument way too many times, and it always seems to stem from the same misunderstandings and misrepresentations of what was actually stated. I now return this thread to the general direction of maybe making its way somewhere close to in the vicinity of on-topic.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... A few I forgot: In the previous session to the one I posted above, Gravitas is in a one-on-one with Man O' War, who primarily uses guns. Tired of being shot (and really, who wouldn't be?) Gravitas attempts to use a gravity crush type power to destroy the gun. The GM is looking up the rules, attempting to determine what happens, and the suspense is wearing on the group. Somebody asks if the gun is destroyed yet, or something like that. Me: The gun is both destroyed and not destroyed until the GM makes a ruling. In bringing this line up last night, Groundwire's player renamed Man O' War's weapon 'Schroedinger's Gat.'* *"Gat" is a mostly noir-style slang term for a gun. Back to last night's session, as Warforge shoots Gravitas with a raygun that looks like a Desert Eagle pistol. Gravitas: I'll be fine unless (looks at the GMs dice as they hit the table). . . ow.

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction? Perhaps ironically, this is the most difficult one to define of all. Religion and science are both pretty well-defined terms, but science fiction has a genre has such a broad base of potential it's very difficult to pin it down. One definition I remember hearing was that if the story cannot stand without the science, then it is science fiction. This has never sat well with me, as pretty much any story can replace "science" with "magic" and get along just fine (and, in point of fact, most "science" in science fiction has far more in common with magic than science.) The other, slightly better version I heard was that science fiction is about the society, fantasy is about the individual. In fantasy stories, not only can one person make a difference, it is typical that ONLY one person can make a difference. Only Frodo can carry the One Ring to Mordor, only Perseus can slay Medusa, only the Grey Warden can defeat the Archdemon, only Luke Skywalker can stop Darth Vader and the Emperor, only Neo can save Zion. In science fiction, the whole is more important than the group. Sure, Kirk is an amazing hero, but he couldn't do any of what he does without the whole crew of the Enterprise backing him up. John Sheridan is a figure of almost religious import by the end of Babylon 5, but he couldn't have gotten there without the people around him and the alliances he made. Sheriff Jack Carter saves the day constantly, but the rest of Eureka gives him the data and tools he needs to do the job. The best definition I've ever heard is that science fiction isn't a plot, it's a setting. The new Battlestar Galactica is the perfect example of this, using the setting of science fiction to tell a very human story. All bad and most good sci-fi forgets this simple axiom, instead getting too wound up in the bells and whistles of magical technology and forgetting that, no matter what story you tell, at the end of the day it always has to be about people.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... From last night's game. We're fighting the Road Warriors, a quintet of supers who travel from city to city, challenging the local supers (mostly heroes, but sometimes villains sign up) to televised matches in a local sports arena. Think WWE (of which none of the group are actually fans, by the way) with superpowers. The first bout, played the previous session, was a one-on-one between one of the party (Gravitas) and Man O' War, one of the Road Warriors (they all have war themed names, Warhawk, Warforge, Warhead, War Machine, Man O' War). Seeing that things appear to be on the up-and-up (because honestly, who can blame us for being suspicious) we decide to bring in the whole team, and face them down in a four-on-four. My character, Nightscream, spent five years in prison for manslaughter before he became a superhero. So, as we're entering the arena, thinking up taglines to introduce ourselves, my character comes up second. GM: It's Nightscream! Flipside: Look! He's out of jail! As I come out of Gravitas' teleportation portal, I swing up in the air, do an acrobatic flip, and land in a classic heroic three-point stance. Groundwire follows, just walking out. Groundwire: Show off. Me: Bite me. Groundwire and Nightscream have. . . had their issues. Groundwire has an electrical sense that is telling her one of the massive pillars in the arena has a lot of electrical activity going on inside it. Unfortunately, her flight only works along electrical lines, so it's the only thing in the arena she can use to fly. Groundwire: I'm not too comfortable getting in such close proximity to things I can't readily understand. Me: Oh, come on, you spend all this time with us! Flipside: Argh! I was going to say that! The Road Warriors favorite advantage on their attacks is Double Knockback. Warhead does a leaping slam attack that hits Flipside and me. Despite neither of us taking any Body damage, we're both knocked back, me far enough to wind up outside the arena in the crowd, as well as being Con stunned. Jokes fly about audience members grabbing me, "I caught a superhero, can I keep him," hands in awkward places, me being stunned with my tongue hanging out while somebody's leaning into take a picture with their camera phone, which leads to thinking about all the cameras/camera phones going off in my Con stunned face, which leads me to jokingly ask the GM "So, how many dice of Flash is that?" Later, Warforge hits three of the team with a flashbang grenade. I was only spared because I was, for the second time, knocked into the crowd. Warhawk has metal wings with hoverfan contraptions in them, which he uses to generate winds in the arena that impede movement and ranged attacks. Groundwire: Something something his windy ass. Me: . . . eeewwww (fanning my nose.) Groundwire: Seriously, dude? Beans? Warhead is a martial artist, who has kinetic energy powers which he uses through a chain. Loosely based on Kratos, from God of War. We use, appropriately enough, HeroClix minis to represent the characters on a battle mat. The mini the GM picked for Warhead was Thunderball, a muscular black man in a green jumpsuit with a ball and chain in his hands. I should also point out that the entire group is suburban white guys, except for Groundwire's player, who's Chinese/Swedish (among many, many other things) and grew up in the ghetto. Groundwire (declaring an attack on Warhead): Shock the monkey. Me: Monkey, really? Groundwire: Well, he kind of looks like a monkey. Me (actually shocked): Whoa, what? Groundwire: No, no, no, come here and look at this. And indeed, from where she was standing, with the way the character's arm and chain interacted, it looked like a monkey climbing a tree (the chain was the tail.)

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction? I was just using those races as convenient names for the two opposing sides of the hypothetical conflict.

Re: The "Essay"(ESSE/UEH) Project(Warning: mature/controversial content contained her Or plants from To Catch A Predator.

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction? Puppeteers were from his Ringworld books, right? I could never really get into that series. It was okay, but I've read much better. Combining that with the aspects of godlike aliens mentioned above could create a really interesting and different kind of religious war. For your consideration: The Vorlons have mathematically proven that there is both a soul and an afterlife, thus there must be divinity behind it all. The Puppeteers have mathematically proven the lack of same. Thus, the two species are in a constant state of religious disagreement, each one backed up by their own proven science. But how can both sciences be correct? The two proofs are mutually exclusive, and cannot both be correct, can they? Averting interstellar war between two horrifyingly advanced alien races may revolve around discovering a "Soul Unification Theory," a way to allow both mutually exclusive proofs to exist within the same scientific framework.

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction?

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction?

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction? I provided links, you refuse to accept them. Not my problem. I'm 31.

Re: The "Essay"(ESSE/UEH) Project(Warning: mature/controversial content contained her Well, it all really depends on what you mean by "chivalrous:" the reality of chivalry as a code of conduct or the fantasy. In fantasy, chivalry is all about doing right, being a good, moral (sometimes overmoral or "lawful stupid") Knight In Shining Armor. In reality, chivalry was more of a set of rules of engagement, created to keep knights from being TOTAL rat-bastards and allowing them to be only partly bastard-like. At its core, chivalry was more about how to treat opponents in battle than about any grand sweeping code of morality. Nobles weren't to be killed because they could be ransomed back to their families for a lot of money. That's where heraldry first got it's start. The dude with all the sigils and shields and crests all over his armor is worth some money alive, so don't kill him. This idea did adapt and change a great deal, and there's a lot of debate over what the code meant, what was actually contained within, how closely it was followed, etc. I'd be inclined to approach the subject from two angles. One being the "realistic" concept, the other being the "romantic" one. In the "realistic" idea, chivalry is less a moral code of conduct than it is a set of battlefield regulations, a primitive Geneva Convention if you will. Arranged marriages are common, and even in highly monogamistic societies it's not uncommon for men and women to have extramarital lovers, since the marriage is purely for convenience, wealth, land, title, whatever. In the romantic version, chivalry is indeed a code of moral conduct, Right Makes Might, and so on. Such a knight having sex with any but his bride is unthinkable, as she is his truest love, and he has probably slain a whole Monstrous Manual full of foul beasts to win her hand. Interestingly enough, for both ideals in one package, check out A Knight's Tale, starring Heath Ledger.

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction?

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction? Exactly. And for the record, I'm not "going after" science. I happen to like science. I'm good at science. But any REAL scientist is capable of admitting that, not only are there things science cannot adequately explain YET, there are likely things science will NEVER adequately be able to explain. Like why people keep arguing instead of having constructive conversations.

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction? Hey, I linked the sources I used to compile my point of view. After dismissing the definitions I was talking about, flying in the face of every scientific principle there is, I saw no need to waste my time. In essence, he is perfectly demonstrating exactly the kind of behavior I was talking about: preaching something as scientific law when it is still undergoing revision and analysis. I'm not debating evolution, I happen to think it is indeed correct, though our current understanding of it still requires tweaking. What I AM against is treating hypotheses and theories as facts, denying even the infintisimal probabilities that even well-tested theories are severely flawed, and claims that your pet theory must be completely and wholly true just because it's the one you like best. Claiming something is the way it is when it has not been completely proven is not science; by definition, that is religion. Many "atheist" scientists are actually extremely religious, but only when it comes to science. As an example, when asked if he thought E=MC2 was true, Einstein was known to reply "Of course it is! It's too beautiful not to be true!" That's Faith, not science. Science did eventually prove Einstein's Faith in his equation, but that does not transform his Faith into Science. Science led him to the conclusion, Faith made him believe in it until it was proven by Science. Claiming that, among other things, evolution has been proven is grossly offensive to true science. It has not been "proven" in the true scientific meaning of the term, partly because it is an extremely difficult phenomena to observe, record, and experiment with. Consider string theory. It's a really good theory, very interesting, and indeed explains a whole lot of weird subatomic brujaja. But, it requires a universe of more dimensions then we have observed in our own universe. Does string theory being the best Unification Theory* make it Proven? Hardly. Does string theory Prove the existence of alternate dimensions? Not by a long shot. Would the existence of alternate dimensions Prove string theory? Not even. "Proof," in scientific terms, is an EXTREMELY hard thing to come by, which is something not a lot of people really understand. There are a lot of really good, interesting, compelling ideas in the scientific community at any given time, and only a handful of those will survive the rigorous observation, testing, revision, experimentation, and replication required to Prove them. *That is not to say that string theory is the only, or even the best, Unification Theory available. I'm simply using it as an example. In a way, it goes back to exactly what I was saying earlier. . . scientists who are grand proponents of string theory, research the subject heavily, and believe it to be the one, true unification theory are exhibiting Faith, Faith that their theory is correct, when a lack of evidence, and sometimes even evidence against, tells them otherwise. In the final analysis, science (at least, GOOD science) is a lot more dynamic than many people realize. Even seemingly long-established principles, such as Newtonian Laws, are constantly being revised and revisited as new information comes to light. Describing the behavior of the world around us, which is what Science is made to do, is turning out to be a lot more difficult, and a lot more exciting, than anyone ever imagined. And no matter how well science learns to answer the "how" questions, the "why" questions will always be firmly in the realm of Faith, Philosophy, and Religion. Science may indeed one day be able to tell us, beyond the shadow of a doubt, How we came to be on this planet in the form we are in with the capabilities we have. But even on that day, the question of Why we are here, on this planet, with these capabilities, will remain nebulous.

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction? And you've just proven you know nothing about science.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... We got into a bit of an off-topic discussion yesterday, as the GM jokingly describes one of the NPCs superpowers as "the ability to look cool." I start talking about how, in a way, this is the top most common superpower: Males have the insanely muscled V-shaped torso, women have the gravity-defying triple-Ds. This leads into talking about Jean Grey blowing Wolverine's clothes off in X-Men 3 (the player of Groundwire is a HUGE Hugh Jackman fangirl), and I relate that this is, indeed, the second most common superpower. Groundwire: What, blowing people's clothes off? Me: No, having the least destructible parts of your costume be the only ones the Comics Code requires you to keep on. I mean, look at the Incredible Hulk. No matter how big he gets, Bruce Banner's pants still fit over those hipbones. Groundwire: (pause) Pants of Holding.

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction? To be perfectly fair, evolution has not been PROVEN to be true. It is a Theory, well-tested but not undeniably proven, not a Law, which has been tested and undeniably proven. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_Law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_as_theory_and_fact It is the best theory currently available, and does a very good job at hammering out what's going on, but there are anomalies it does not quite account for yet. As a scientific principle, it is still being examined and refined to "nail down" exactly what it is and how it functions, but there's nothing wrong with that, that's exactly how science works. Come up with an idea (hypothesis), test it, test it, test it again, test it some more to see if it holds up (theory), revise it or throw it out if it doesn't, and eventually come up with a complete, encompassing explanation for the phenomena in question (law.) Now, there are actually very few Christians who both A) except that every word in the Bible is literal fact and the Bible covers absolutely everything. The Christians who do make such claims are what I call a "vocal minority," a relatively small group who just happen to make a big enough noise that everyone thinks there are many, many more of them. I've had long talks with devout Catholics, even one who was at one point in the Seminary to become a priest, and we've agreed a four billion year old Earth and the existence of dinosaurs millions of years before humanity does not at all conflict with Genesis. It's not in there simply because God, like any GOOD author, knows what's important to the story and what isn't. Dinosaurs don't matter to the story of early humanity, so they're left out. Likewise, extraterrestrials don't matter to the story of humanity yet, so they are left out. Unlike Tolkien, God doesn't feel the need to give us twenty pages of history that are completely irrelevant to the story at hand. In fact, I don't recall Genesis mentioning the creation of Angels either, at least not in the "cliff notes" opening about the six days of creation. Angels seem to just spring up into the story, with no previous indication that they were there. So, it would follow that the creation of Angels was not an important thing in regards to the story of humanity, while our interactions with Angels are. I freely admit that I am certainly not a theologian or great student of the Bible, so I may be quite wrong on that point. A few pages ago, I'd brought up a few instances of religion in Babylon 5, one of which was a brotherhood of Christian monks who traveled to Babylon 5 to meet and speak with many alien races, learning about their religions and faiths, reasoning that God was responsible for all life in the universe, and thus revealed himself to them all in different ways. Compiling all this data, learning all these "faces of God" could only bring them closer to knowing the truth of God Himself. This is one excellent way in which scholarly Christianity can make its way into the stars and adapt to the discovery of extraterrestrial life. Quite simply, the reason I think that most Science Fiction leaves religion out of the equation is because most people who believe strongly in science do not believe strongly in God, or do not believe at all. It is only relatively recently that many people have moved away from the idea that science and religion are mutually exclusive. Even as a kid growing up in the 80s, it seemed as though if you accepted science as true, then you were not allowed to be religious, and if you were religious, you were not allowed to be scientific. Thankfully this is being challenged today, and one is free to believe in as much or as little as one wishes. This is summed up quite excellently by a quote from the Season 4 Finale of Babylon 5: Faith and Reason are the shoes on your feet, you can go farther on both than you can on one alone.

Re: The "Essay"(ESSE/UEH) Project(Warning: mature/controversial content contained her Interesting, but I think it's too in-depth and unwieldy to be really useful, as well as reducing a lot of the really interesting aspects of a relationship to a series of boring die rolls. I tend to prefer KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) systems, and the simplest system of all for this sort of thing is no system. Just let the RP and needs of the story carry things. If it's appropriate for two characters to be attracted to each other, let it happen. If it's appropriate for them to have relationship issues as a result of some in-game event, let that happen. I think artificially inserting events and relationship levels and break-up rolls is just going too far.

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction? Some clarification on the Triluminary, gleaned from the Season 4 Episode Atonement: Delenn says that Sinclair got "the Triluminary" from Epsilon 3, the Great Machine built thousands of years ago by advanced alien race "for the future." Dukat tells Delenn that the Triluminaries "come to us from the distant past, but it is also said they come to us from a time in our future." Thus, it seems to me that the Triluminaries are built by Epsilon 3, then given to Sinclair to take back in time and give the Minbari. They are conserved in the future because the ones that are built in the current time are sent back to become the ones that Delenn and the Minbari possess in the current time. As such, there are only six Triluminaries in existence from the time Epislon 3 finishes building them to the time Sinclair takes them back in time.

Re: The "Essay"(ESSE/UEH) Project(Warning: mature/controversial content contained her