Religon in the Traveller universe.Many paths.
- Thread starter BenTOGS
- Start date
To me, as a roleplayer, the "reality" of religion is of far less interest than the behaviors it inspires in people. Rikki Tikki hits on some great examples. I'm agnostic (if pushed I'd say atheist but I just don't care enough to argue with otherwise decent people about what they believe) and I find religion and mysticism are spicy sauces in roleplay settings.
I'm not even saying any of it has to be "real" ala Star Trek's superaliens (not a big fan of that stuff as a viewer) but what flavor does it bring to how NPCs interact with each other and the players? What adventures might be spawned by sophants of various faiths? What clashes might take place between them whether on campuses, noble courts or between the stars?
Traveller's OTU seems to assume a universe mostly driven by rational, secular, people driven by rational, secular, motives. They may be greedy and ambitious or honorable and trustworthy in approach to their goals but you can read the history of the setting and find relatively few places where it was warped by raw human irrationality. Where's Helen of Troy fit in here much less the Inquisition? Humans aren't rational actors by and large. It's why we're merrily melting our poles right now with full foreknowledge, as a species at least, what's waiting for us at the end of that road.
We all cling to comfortable illusions of one kind or another and historically react violently when those illusions are challenged.
But even beyond honest human irrationality for good or ill ends, the very stuff of epic sagas, you've always got rational actors who cynically use belief to achieve ends and goals. Those guys are really interesting. That's where most heirarchies end up eventually: more concerned with maintaining earthy dominance (for everyone's good of course) and lives of luxury (to better glorify the creator) than whatever teachings they admonish others to follow.
There's so much that can be done with belief that also brings out what's human on a culturewide level. I'm not saying religion = the drama of humanity. Doubtless scientific (whether real science or pseudoscience) or economic schools of thought can ignite the same kinds of passions and arguments and illustrate humanity's strengths and foibles just as well.
Religion just tends to be more colorful and accessible. I've yet to see glorious shrines to the Austrian School or fabulously robed initiates swaying censors while they chant out climate denial talking points. But stranger things could happen in science fiction.
I'm not even saying any of it has to be "real" ala Star Trek's superaliens (not a big fan of that stuff as a viewer) but what flavor does it bring to how NPCs interact with each other and the players? What adventures might be spawned by sophants of various faiths? What clashes might take place between them whether on campuses, noble courts or between the stars?
Traveller's OTU seems to assume a universe mostly driven by rational, secular, people driven by rational, secular, motives. They may be greedy and ambitious or honorable and trustworthy in approach to their goals but you can read the history of the setting and find relatively few places where it was warped by raw human irrationality. Where's Helen of Troy fit in here much less the Inquisition? Humans aren't rational actors by and large. It's why we're merrily melting our poles right now with full foreknowledge, as a species at least, what's waiting for us at the end of that road.
We all cling to comfortable illusions of one kind or another and historically react violently when those illusions are challenged.
But even beyond honest human irrationality for good or ill ends, the very stuff of epic sagas, you've always got rational actors who cynically use belief to achieve ends and goals. Those guys are really interesting. That's where most heirarchies end up eventually: more concerned with maintaining earthy dominance (for everyone's good of course) and lives of luxury (to better glorify the creator) than whatever teachings they admonish others to follow.
There's so much that can be done with belief that also brings out what's human on a culturewide level. I'm not saying religion = the drama of humanity. Doubtless scientific (whether real science or pseudoscience) or economic schools of thought can ignite the same kinds of passions and arguments and illustrate humanity's strengths and foibles just as well.
Religion just tends to be more colorful and accessible. I've yet to see glorious shrines to the Austrian School or fabulously robed initiates swaying censors while they chant out climate denial talking points. But stranger things could happen in science fiction.
Compare to Arthur C. Clarke's The Nine Billion Names of God. The monks there have a similar project, only it doesn't involve alien religions but does involve outsiders being called in to help. The monks believe that once they've completed their project, the universe will end. This could actually make a good Traveller scenario - the characters are either hired by the monks to help with their project, or hired by someone else to stop it in case the monks are right about what will happen when the project is complete...Rikki Tikki Traveller said:
He also seems to class atheism as a religion too. In Parliament of Dreams, Earth's contribution to the joint religious festival is a line-up of representatives of all Earth's religions, and first in line is an atheist. After all, like other religions, atheism is based on belief without proof. Like other religions, there are moderates who tolerate other beliefs and fundamentalists who do not.
Another view might be that, though one's choice of deity might be all-knowing and all-powerful, humans are not. The various stories told about deities are written by humans according to what was seen in different parts of the world. Or, in the Traveller universe, different parts of the galaxy. So different religions might simply be different viewpoints. Now imagine a group similar to the B5 monks, studying all the various religions, looking for common ground in an attempt to find out as much as possible about God.
alex_greene
Guest
Atheism is not a "belief in no God." Atheists do not have a belief in God. Or any kind of beliefs, at all.
Anyone who tries to paint atheism as "just another belief system, like all the others" is either missing the point, or deliberately perpetrating an obfuscation.
Anyone who tries to paint atheism as "just another belief system, like all the others" is either missing the point, or deliberately perpetrating an obfuscation.
Well, it is a matter of definition. The Dalai Lama once described Buddhismalex_greene said:
as an "atheist religion" because Buddhists do not worship any deity. And
there are quite a few other "a-theist" (= "without deity") religions here on
our planet, like for example Daoism and Jainism.
alex_greene
Guest
Definition, not opinion.rust said:
From Wikipedia:-
"Rejection of belief," "absence of belief," "position" as in "political stance."
Not an actual belief in itself. Thus atheism cannot be "just a religion like all the others."
Originally from Delenn, religious caste.GJD said:
alex_greene said:
Further down the same article, the distinction is made between various forms of atheism. Basically there are those who are atheist because they have no opinion on the subject, and there are those who are atheist because they actively believe there is no deity.
So there are different sects of atheism. Yet another way in which atheism resembles other religions.
alex_greene
Guest
There are fans of Traveller who follow different sets of books. Some are into GDW's LBBs, some into MegaTraveller, some into Mongoose Traveller.So there are different sects of atheism. Yet another way in which atheism resembles other religions.
Yet another way in which Traveller resembles other religions.
There are different types of capitalist. Some follow Adam Smith religiously, some follow Gordon Gecko religiously, some follow Lord Sugar religiously and some believe in Donald Trump.
Yet another way in which economics resembles other religions.
There are different schools of rational scientific thought ...
There are different schools of secular philosophy ...
None of them are religions. Nor is atheism.
Somebody said:
I'm skeptical. I can look around me and see tons of people in bad life situations that could improve their lot in countless common sense ways. But emotion clouds judgment. Personal habit clouds judgment. Social pressures and local customs cloud judgment. I think people do what's easiest or most familiar most of the time. If that happens to mimic rational behavior it's because these approaches tend to evolve from personal experience or social legacies but actually sitting down and taking stock of one's situation and coming up with logical approaches to one's life...that's not really human nature. Just look at how loathed efficiency experts are.
Let's not get too sidetracked on global warming issues but the icecaps melting, just FYI, will have further reaching effects than the rise in sea level. But I'm guessing that a discussion in a gaming forum won't only be off topic but futile. People have local reality bubbles that generally can't be argued away even with rational discourse (there are scientific studies that concur on this point). That's how selective perception works. It's also kinda what makes things like religion so very good as dramatic elements in roleplaying games.
Again, back in the middle ages people actually believed they'd go to heaven if they died on Crusade. Even hard bitten realists of the time tended to suspect that stuff might well be real. Second and third sons were often shuffled off to the Church, if there wasn't some more useful role they could play (service to another lord or liege as a retainer) so they really weren't that much of a problem. Most of Europe by the time of the Crusades followed primogeniture anyhow.
I'll be honest, I don't get the other references. I'll google them later but I have to get to work now.
AdrianH said:Originally from Delenn, religious caste.GJD said:
It's paraphrased from Carl Sagan originally, I think - he said something like "Everything we do is just the universe trying to figure itself out". But, whatever, whoever, I think it's a very elegant concept. We are all stardust and all that.
G.
At least over here they were an extremely serious problem. Once the cen-OddjobXL said:
turies of almost permanent barbarian invasions had ended with the Battle
of Lechfeld in 955 AD, there was a huge and steadily growing surplus of
young noble warriors hungry for land, status and wealth, who caused al-
most as many problems as the barbarian invaders had done. The crusa-
des offered an excellent opportunity to get rid of them by promising them
a chance to conquer what they were longing for in Outremer, and the es-
tablished nobility, the church and the commoners were happy to see them
go. Religion played a role in this, but only a very minor one, as the usual
excuse for a very secular political decision to restore the peace by sen-
ding the troublemakers "to the colonies".
Somebody,
Consultancy is very big and successful in the US. Everyone does it because of the recession. Management really needs to be certain that consultant have expertise in the appropriate field. Your 100% right if i follow the concern.
_________________
Everyone,
Moving away from understanding modern religions (that can easily be determined from reading a few web pages). How do you see different religions spread? Just on colony ships? Military ship chaplains?
I wrote the Christian and Protestant Monks/Missionaries into MTU. They're looking for signs of GOD and spreading goodwill. I even have an Ursa Monk class "protecting human kind from itself" in my post Rebellion setting.
Consultancy is very big and successful in the US. Everyone does it because of the recession. Management really needs to be certain that consultant have expertise in the appropriate field. Your 100% right if i follow the concern.
_________________
Everyone,
Moving away from understanding modern religions (that can easily be determined from reading a few web pages). How do you see different religions spread? Just on colony ships? Military ship chaplains?
I wrote the Christian and Protestant Monks/Missionaries into MTU. They're looking for signs of GOD and spreading goodwill. I even have an Ursa Monk class "protecting human kind from itself" in my post Rebellion setting.
I'm not an OTU expert so I can't argue definitively how Terran religions would look in that distant future (not to mention all the minor or new human religions/cults that would crop up as isolated, or even isolationist, colonies took root).
I'd likely lean on Fading Suns as a good example. There you've got lots of isolated worlds with various religious and ideological cults that have spread to one extent or another but most of which have a distant basis in more familiar 20th century spiritual (or economic/scientific/philosophical) thinking. Some of them deliberately isolated themselves from central governments explicitly to protect their beliefs or lifestyles from scrutiny or dilution. Others just evolved the way they did as the local reality of their new homes impacted on old beliefs or as those old beliefs mingled with new ideas from other colonial groups.
In some places you've got almost picture perfect versions of old earth faiths, though the names may be changed and some of the tenets tweaked, but in most cases you've got new, sometimes weird, hybrids. Within the Known Worlds the pressure of the major central church (a retooling of Catholic Christianity but with a new martyr figure and his own unique followers) causes some religions to be persecuted and go underground while some partially adapt to the established doctrines (which themselves are in flux as theologians argue and interpret over the years).
Then there's the Vilani Empire which would almost have to have a central faith of some kind, one would think, or at least an organized philosophical sect of some kind. Perhaps the whole Navy/Nobility/Imperial structure could be seen as a cult unto itself with something like a secular version of Emperor worship going on and a paternalistic, patronizing, attitude to more provincial mystical faiths of member worlds.
I'd likely lean on Fading Suns as a good example. There you've got lots of isolated worlds with various religious and ideological cults that have spread to one extent or another but most of which have a distant basis in more familiar 20th century spiritual (or economic/scientific/philosophical) thinking. Some of them deliberately isolated themselves from central governments explicitly to protect their beliefs or lifestyles from scrutiny or dilution. Others just evolved the way they did as the local reality of their new homes impacted on old beliefs or as those old beliefs mingled with new ideas from other colonial groups.
In some places you've got almost picture perfect versions of old earth faiths, though the names may be changed and some of the tenets tweaked, but in most cases you've got new, sometimes weird, hybrids. Within the Known Worlds the pressure of the major central church (a retooling of Catholic Christianity but with a new martyr figure and his own unique followers) causes some religions to be persecuted and go underground while some partially adapt to the established doctrines (which themselves are in flux as theologians argue and interpret over the years).
Then there's the Vilani Empire which would almost have to have a central faith of some kind, one would think, or at least an organized philosophical sect of some kind. Perhaps the whole Navy/Nobility/Imperial structure could be seen as a cult unto itself with something like a secular version of Emperor worship going on and a paternalistic, patronizing, attitude to more provincial mystical faiths of member worlds.
Humaniti likes to believe in something permanent that is greater than itself, whether it's God(s), the State, The Weight of History/Ancestry, The Laws of Science, Free Market Economics , etc. Some belief systems are rational, some are emotional, but it's part of what it means to be Human.
I personally think that the need comes from an innate desire to seek patterns in our universe, with the choice of how to seek those patterns being an individual one. And of course, the strength and manner of expression of this need varies from person to person, etc., etc. To paraphrase Kurt Vonnegut Jr., "It's all complete B.S., but I choose the B.S. that makes me feel the best."
However stereotypes are what makes it possible to game something, so:
The interesting question is, do other species have that need?
Aslan: They strive to control territory like we strive to perceive patterns. They *are* spiritual after a fashion, but it seems to derive more from their sense of history (as it relates to territory) than a need for explanation. Now maybe Aslan females operate in a different way...
Vargr: Are driven by the need for "pecking order". Thus, their religions tend towards defining their place in the universe. This drive is similar to Humaniti in effect, but not in source.
K'Kree: Don't know much about their religions if any, but they clearly see themselves as a chosen people who will save the universe from the abomination of carnivorousness.
Hivers: ? Don't seem like they'd be religious in any way that we'd understand. I suspect they are complete nihilists and might be the only race that embraces the idea that all life is a cosmic accident, and the only purpose or social reality is what you make for yourself.
Droyne: They have been so heavily monkeyed with by Grandfather that it's hard to tell what they would naturally do. One might even suspect each Caste has its own fundamental drives and religions, but it's hard to imagine a Priest sub-caste for each caste, so Droyne Caste-Faiths would most likely be Pagan-like, with oral traditions and "folk knowledge".
, etc. Some belief systems are rational, some are emotional, but it's part of what it means to be Human.I personally think that the need comes from an innate desire to seek patterns in our universe, with the choice of how to seek those patterns being an individual one. And of course, the strength and manner of expression of this need varies from person to person, etc., etc. To paraphrase Kurt Vonnegut Jr., "It's all complete B.S., but I choose the B.S. that makes me feel the best."
However stereotypes are what makes it possible to game something, so:
The interesting question is, do other species have that need?
Aslan: They strive to control territory like we strive to perceive patterns. They *are* spiritual after a fashion, but it seems to derive more from their sense of history (as it relates to territory) than a need for explanation. Now maybe Aslan females operate in a different way...
Vargr: Are driven by the need for "pecking order". Thus, their religions tend towards defining their place in the universe. This drive is similar to Humaniti in effect, but not in source.
K'Kree: Don't know much about their religions if any, but they clearly see themselves as a chosen people who will save the universe from the abomination of carnivorousness.
Hivers: ? Don't seem like they'd be religious in any way that we'd understand. I suspect they are complete nihilists and might be the only race that embraces the idea that all life is a cosmic accident, and the only purpose or social reality is what you make for yourself.
Droyne: They have been so heavily monkeyed with by Grandfather that it's hard to tell what they would naturally do. One might even suspect each Caste has its own fundamental drives and religions, but it's hard to imagine a Priest sub-caste for each caste, so Droyne Caste-Faiths would most likely be Pagan-like, with oral traditions and "folk knowledge".
hdan said:
I don't believe these races would take on self-glorification, well perhaps the Hivers.
I see the Aslan as Monotheists where there honor is tied to the afterlife, Vargr ...Paganistic with a Gods of Havoc, War, and Clan(mating) being the big 3. Although, I could see a human effort to convert them to Monotheism.
Your right Droyne are "monkeyed with..." and that is where their religion should show clearly. Tales of one that rose up to a demigod, yes almost pagan. He was not a creator but a builder and warrior. Of course, they await his return. Human Monotheism would have little meaning to them. Ancient Droyne turned their backs on a greater purpose towards a self fulfilling role.
K'Kree destroyers of carnivores would worship the center of the galaxy. Yes... the black hole that will purify everything.
I can see the Hiver's and atheists and passive embracing their science. This would explain their curiosity with humanti.
Good stuff for my campaign...
