"If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him."
— Voltaire
Talos, once known as Tiber Septim, Ysmir, or the Dragonborn, Heir to the Seat of Sundered Kings, is the greatest hero-god of Mankind, and worshipped as the protector and patron of just rulership and civil society. Tiber Septim conquered all of Tamriel and ushered in the Third Era and the Third Empire. At his death he ascended to godhood as the God of War and Governance of the Nine Divines.
— Entry on Talos, The Elder Scrolls wiki
Sabrina is her name: a virgin pure;
Whilom she was the daughter of Locrine,
That had the sceptre from his father Brute.
She, guiltless damsel, flying the mad pursuit
Of her enragéd stepdame, Guendolen,
Commended her fair innocence to the flood
That stayed her flight with his cross-flowing course.
The water-nymphs, that in the bottom played,
Held up their pearled wrists, and took her in,
Bearing her straight to aged Nereus’ hall;
Who, piteous of her woes, reared her lank head,
And gave her to his daughters to imbathe
In nectared lavers strewed with asphodel,
And through the porch and inlet of each sense
Dropt in ambrosial oils, till she revived,
And underwent a quick immortal change,
Made Goddess of the river.
Whilom she was the daughter of Locrine,
That had the sceptre from his father Brute.
She, guiltless damsel, flying the mad pursuit
Of her enragéd stepdame, Guendolen,
Commended her fair innocence to the flood
That stayed her flight with his cross-flowing course.
The water-nymphs, that in the bottom played,
Held up their pearled wrists, and took her in,
Bearing her straight to aged Nereus’ hall;
Who, piteous of her woes, reared her lank head,
And gave her to his daughters to imbathe
In nectared lavers strewed with asphodel,
And through the porch and inlet of each sense
Dropt in ambrosial oils, till she revived,
And underwent a quick immortal change,
Made Goddess of the river.
— Comus
Sokka: My first girlfriend turned into the moon.
Zuko: That's rough, buddy...
Zuko: That's rough, buddy...
Matter and energy had ended and with it space and time. Even AC existed only for the sake of the one last question that it had never answered from the time a half-drunken computer technician ten trillion years before had asked the question of a computer that was to AC far less than was a man to Man.
All other questions had been answered, and until this last question was answered also, AC might not release his consciousness.
All collected data had come to a final end. Nothing was left to be collected.
But all collected data had yet to be completely correlated and put together in all possible relationships.
A timeless interval was spent in doing that.
And it came to pass that AC learned how to reverse the direction of entropy.
But there was now no man to whom AC might give the answer of the last question. No matter. The answer — by demonstration — would take care of that, too.
For another timeless interval, AC thought how best to do this. Carefully, AC organized the program.
The consciousness of AC encompassed all of what had once been a Universe and brooded over what was now Chaos. Step by step, it must be done.
And AC said, "LET THERE BE LIGHT!"
And there was light—
All other questions had been answered, and until this last question was answered also, AC might not release his consciousness.
All collected data had come to a final end. Nothing was left to be collected.
But all collected data had yet to be completely correlated and put together in all possible relationships.
A timeless interval was spent in doing that.
And it came to pass that AC learned how to reverse the direction of entropy.
But there was now no man to whom AC might give the answer of the last question. No matter. The answer — by demonstration — would take care of that, too.
For another timeless interval, AC thought how best to do this. Carefully, AC organized the program.
The consciousness of AC encompassed all of what had once been a Universe and brooded over what was now Chaos. Step by step, it must be done.
And AC said, "LET THERE BE LIGHT!"
And there was light—
Jealous Ra lied to all his children. He told them that he was mightiest of all things, creator of the universe, when he merely shaped a tiny portion of the Primeval Waters. Now, however, Set knew the truth: all souls could grow as mighty as their tyrant father, and become creators themselves.
— Vampire: The Masquerade - Clanbook: Followers of Set
Remember in the Old Testament, when Moses kept disappearing off up that mountain because God wanted a chat? And Moses' people got so nervous and angry about not having a constant representative of divinity, by which I mean old Moses, that they built their own god instead. You remember some bastard hacked together a golden cow and said, okay, this is our god now and everything will be fine. That's how we work. The whole of religious history is about us trying to build amazing creatures to save the world.
[Transition to double-page spread of London in ruins, with the Thames clogged with wrecked boats and floating corpses]
So that worked out alright, then.
[Transition to double-page spread of London in ruins, with the Thames clogged with wrecked boats and floating corpses]
So that worked out alright, then.
— Reddin, Supergod
Time was for other creatures. Time's arrow did not carry me along with it.
I knew nothing of this. I was a mere creature, for all my multitudes, for all my powers, I was, after all, a mere mortal creature. It was as if one of the primitive Andalites I'd known had suddenly been thrust into the command center of a starship. I was an ignorant savage. An extreme primitive.
But I knew this: As simple and primitive as I might be, I could literally touch and move the vibrating lines of space-time.
I knew nothing of this. I was a mere creature, for all my multitudes, for all my powers, I was, after all, a mere mortal creature. It was as if one of the primitive Andalites I'd known had suddenly been thrust into the command center of a starship. I was an ignorant savage. An extreme primitive.
But I knew this: As simple and primitive as I might be, I could literally touch and move the vibrating lines of space-time.
— The Ellimist, Animorphs - The Ellimist Chronicles
I couldn't help but think that our religions were an oddity flying in the face of Setharii inclinations towards practical cynicism. It was as if people refused to believe their gods had once been mortal men and women. Granted, their gods had been born Gifted, but they had still soiled their swaddling and spewed milk all over their parents at the most inopportune of times. Given time and centuries of hard work - and knowing that secret in my head - perhaps even the likes of me could find a way to become a god. Hah, wouldn't that fuck them up!
— The Traitor God, by Cameron Johnston
In their ceaseless experimenting, they had learned to store knowledge in the structure of space itself, and to preserve their thoughts for eternity in frozen lattices of light. They would become creatures of radiation, free at last from the tyranny of matter. Into Pure Energy, therefore, they presently transformed themselves; and on a thousand worlds, the empty shells they had discarded twitched for a while in a mindless dance of death, then crumbled into rust.
Now they were lords of the galaxy and beyond the reach of time. They could rove at will among the stars, and sink like a subtle mist through the very interstices of space. But despite their godlike powers, they had not wholly forgotten their origin, in the warm slime of a vanished sea. And they still watched over the experiments their ancestors had started, so long ago.
Now they were lords of the galaxy and beyond the reach of time. They could rove at will among the stars, and sink like a subtle mist through the very interstices of space. But despite their godlike powers, they had not wholly forgotten their origin, in the warm slime of a vanished sea. And they still watched over the experiments their ancestors had started, so long ago.
Kazwa: The donors lost their individual personalities and began part of a gestalt intelligence that controlled the planet. A unified entity that sped up the creation of the biosphere from millions of years to barely three. Creation was no longer in the hands of random chance: it was controlled by this intelligent gestalt — which we believed would be under our control.
Lister: Then why are you, uh, still here?
Kazwa: We used DNA extracted from Cyberian inmates. After the gestalt had been created, we discovered it was a malign entity — because it had been created from the scum of our society. It was a deceitful and wicked god who punished the just, rewarded the wicked and encouraged evil. The gestalt only allowed the dark side of our natures to prosper and soon the planet became inhabited by the cream of evil. Finally, the Black Planet, as it became known, passed through the ring and now exists in some other dimension of reality.
Lister: So then you started again?
Kazwa: With a new gestalt on a new planet. But this time we didn't use the guilty inmates of a penal colony — we used the innocent.
Lister: Then why are you, uh, still here?
Kazwa: We used DNA extracted from Cyberian inmates. After the gestalt had been created, we discovered it was a malign entity — because it had been created from the scum of our society. It was a deceitful and wicked god who punished the just, rewarded the wicked and encouraged evil. The gestalt only allowed the dark side of our natures to prosper and soon the planet became inhabited by the cream of evil. Finally, the Black Planet, as it became known, passed through the ring and now exists in some other dimension of reality.
Lister: So then you started again?
Kazwa: With a new gestalt on a new planet. But this time we didn't use the guilty inmates of a penal colony — we used the innocent.
— Red Dwarf: Last Human
"I made your atomic matrix slightly lighter-than-air, and now your shoes are heavier than air: which makes you neutrally buoyant. Which I find personally more oppressive conceptually than walking on water. But what do I know? I wasn't born into the god business. I fucking earned it."
— Rick Sanchez, Rick and Morty, "Rattlestar Ricklactica"
"Blessed are the warmongers, for they shall be called man-made gods"
— Extreme, "Peacemaker Die"
"Make great the Messians of old; If there is no god, make your own."
— Ferris, Shin Megami Tensei NINE
"God?" said Mark. "How does He come into it? I don't believe in God."
"But, my friend," said Filostrato, "does it follow that because there was no God in the past that there will be no God also in the future?"
"Don't you see," said Straik, "that we are offering you the unspeakable glory of being present at the creation of God Almighty? Here, in this house, you shall meet the first draught of the real God. It is a man — or a being made by man — who will finally ascend the throne of the universe. And rule forever."
"But, my friend," said Filostrato, "does it follow that because there was no God in the past that there will be no God also in the future?"
"Don't you see," said Straik, "that we are offering you the unspeakable glory of being present at the creation of God Almighty? Here, in this house, you shall meet the first draught of the real God. It is a man — or a being made by man — who will finally ascend the throne of the universe. And rule forever."
