Discussion Fanfic / ReunionsAreABitch

I do, and I repeat my earlier points, which you seem to have ignored completely.

Point No. 1: I say again, the Assyrians! They launched holy wars, lots and lots of holy wars. Whether they were under the pretense of conversion or not is irrelevant, it's still a war waged on religious grounds and people are still being killed.

Point No. 2: I say again, the Colonials are THOUSANDS OF YEARS removed from the Greeks! American culture is descended from that of the early Anglo-Saxons, and most Americans worship the same god as the ancient Israelites. Now I ask you, does American culture look ANYTHING like those cultures?! Does it even look anything like it did a hundred years ago? Two hundred years ago? Your argument doesn't even try to factor in things like history, time, or distance.

People change, cultures change, and it's insane to believe that a culture would stay the same over thousands of years, especially when you're comparing an iron age civilization to a interstellar civilization! Actually, there's a trope for that, Medieval Stasis, and I have the distinct feeling that the author didn't even consider using that trope.

Ahh, the Assyrians. Could you elaborate on instance where the force their enemies to convert to their own religion? I know that they practiced forced deportations and other nastiness, but I know of no instance where they forced people to convert. Also, were they really polytheists? Take the following passages:

"The story of the Assyrians has a rather uncertain beginning. Towards the end of the thirst millennium BC, a mixed population of local people, unconnected with the Sumerian or Semite races, settled in norther Mesopotamia along the River Tigris and its tributaries, the Great and Lesser Zap Rivers. These people worshiped one god, Assur or Ashur, and they named their capital city Assur in his honour. Indeed the name of their country comes from this god's name." (Panini, Giorgio P., The Children's History of Civilizations, 1986, Hamlyn Publishing, Bridge House, London Road, Twickenham, Middlesex, England, p 267)

“Religious leaders were rich and powerful. The land belonged to the god and to the temple, although the king and his nobles also own land.” (p 268) Note the singular.

If the Assyrians were polytheists and did force those they conquered to convert, then that would make them the exception that proves the rule. As far as I know neither the Persians, nor the Babylonians, nor the Medes, nor the Etruscans, nor the Egyptians, nor the Nubians, nor the Phoenicians did so. Neither did the Celts, the Norse, the Slavs, the Indians, the Han Chinese, the Mongols. (The Aztecs are an interesting case - their attitude seemed to be “We don’t care what gods your worship, if we don’t sacrifice somebody the universe will fall to bits, and we just kick your rear-ends in battle sooo...”)

You say that societies change over time. Quite true, but you do not say what kind of change colonial society experienced. Take the Western world for example. Over the last several centuries we have seen an increase in literacy and education, the breaking down of communication barriers, falling inequality of the sexes (although this is a much more recent development).

As a consequence of these changes Christianity has liberalized considerably. Even the United States was headed in this direction until the rise of the ‘Religious Right’ in the 1980's. And said Religious Right may have burnt itself out given that it could not prevent the election of Obama. But I digress.

In contrast, Saudi Arabia has heavy religious censorship, the treatmeant of woman as second class citizens, and a poor literacy rate. According to the CIA World Factbook the rates for the total men, women, and the total population are 84.7%, 70.8%, 78.8% (2003 est.), respectively. Compare that to the rates of 99% for Canada, the US, the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark. Small wonder that 15 of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi!

When we look at Colonial society, we see a civilization that has gone through the same ‘revolutions’ as our own. There is equality between men and women, a free media (as shown by extensive use of news radio), and widespread literacy. In some ways, Colonial society is more progressive then our own, given that nobody bats an eye at homosexual relationships. And as one would expect, religious toleration is the norm here. Indeed, the only persecution that the ‘Cult of Baltar’ faced came from the Sons of Ares, and that started after Baltar disrupted a religious ceremony.

I repeat again, intent to conversion is worthless, a holy war is a holy war. Either way people are dying for religious purposes, it really doesn't matter a wit what their intention is. Besides, religious conversion was only one reason the Colonials went to war in the story, to ignore every other reason would be no different then ignoring every reason the US went into Iraq besides "nuclear weapons."

I'll have to do more research on the Assyrians one day, I admit. I specialize in World War 2 history, not ancient history.

As for the Colonials' "religious tolerance": Are. You. Insane?! Monotheism was illegal in the Colonies. Heck, in the prequel series Caprica they treat monotheism like some kind Eldrich Abomination that needs to be purged from the universe. In fact, I'd have to imagine that if the Colonials ever did come across a planet populated mostly by monotheists they react much like they did in the story and invade with intent to kill.

During Capricia monotheism was illegal, yes. On the other hand, the Soldiers of the One did blow up a train and were considered terrorists by the Caprican government, suggesting that 1. the STO had committed previous acts of terrorism, or 2. the crackdown on monotheism was a massive overreaction in response to a single train bombing. (I missed the Capricia pilot, had monotheism been banned prior the bombing of Maglev 23?) Also, we have no idea if other colonies have banned it as well.

However, after the Cylon holocaust, Baltar, despite crashing a ceremony, is only persecuted by the Sons of Ares, who themselves have no support among the Fleet government (this is quite a clever touch - Ares in Greek myth and religion was not well regarded*). Baltar’s religion rases eyebrows (one character compares them to Mithraists), but only the Sons take action against them.

• http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/Ares.html

As for the Colonials attacking Earth using the cover story “we have to convert you to our religion - by force if necessary” makes as much sense as the US invading another country with the cover story “we have to do something about your lenient laws regarding marijuana - by force if necessary”. The average Colonials citizen would not have cared. And besides, having the Colonial government tell it’s own citizens and solders that the reason they were going to war was "religion " should have raised a lot of questions.

I can think of three better cover stories right now: 1. the Colonials think that Earth’s AI research is overly reckless and needs to stopped, lest Earth create Cylons of their own, 2. Earth is under Cylon occupation and needs to be freed, or 3. the the old classic, the false flag operation. Alas, instead we were given an Idiot Plot!

To answer your question: yes, monotheism was illegal before the bombing. In fact, I suspect that one of the STO's stated goals is "freedom of religion," if only to put on a good public face.

Also, like I said before, you're focusing way too much on religion being one of the justifications for going to war at the expense of ignoring every other reason. In fact, before the failed attack on Earth the main justification given for the invasion by the Colonial government was — surprise, surprise — colonialism: they felt that they had dominion over all of mankind, or more specifically the Twelve Thirteen Colonies of Man, and that since Earth was the Thirteenth Colony they should logically come under the control of the Colonial government. We can all see the result of that in the fic proper.

Also, here's something else to consider: post-apocalyptic societies rarely keep the values of their pre-apocalypse counterparts. It's a logical fallacy to assume that the person who's biggest concern is survival is going to feel the same way about, say, inter-religious conflict then the person who's got a full stomach, a roof over his head, and works a nine to five job.

So after the monotheistic Cylons murdered 20 billon (or 50 billion, depending who’s statement is correct) Colonials, and killed another few thousand of the survivors during the New Capricia Occupation, the survivors would be willing to allow the Baltar and friends to hold services because their values were different after the Fall of the Twelve Colonies? Sorry, but seeing over 99% of one’s countryfolk butchered is not going to make one more tolerant of the religion of the people who did the butchering. It’s like if the 9/11 attack killed all but 700 about of a popluation of 280 million, and a handful of the survivors converted to Islam. How much do you think said converts would be treated? If anything, the ‘new values’ of the survivors should be telling them to “toss these psychotic maniacs [the Cult of Baltar] out the airlock before they betray us to the Cylons or otherwise kill even more of us”.

That they allow Baltar to practice at all is quite frankly amazing.

Another point is that the message broadcast by the Colonials spoke of return to the “true gods”. There was nothing about forcing Earth to abandon monotheism (if my memory is correct).

About the decision to conquer Earth, I got the impression that for the most part individual colonies were left to their own devices regarding internal matters. For example, the rest of the colonies find the Sagittarons attitude towards modern medicine annoying, but they don’t bother to force their own views on them. Same with the Gemenon. This “live and let live” policy i.e., “tolerate the Gemenon’s slightly nutty views as long as they don’t force them on the rest of us” doesn’t really jibe with the idea that whey would try to conquer Earth (which most of them regard as a myth).

Also, given the Translation Train Wreck the Colonials made of Earths science fiction entertainment, would they even know that some of the Earth humans are monotheists? (“The Thirteenth Tribe follows several gods, among them are Christ, Jesus, Allah, Vishnu, Diana, Elvis...”)

Do you agree or disagree with my point that the average Colonials citizen would have gone “What the hell?” at Colonial government’s announcement that they were going to war in the name of religion?

By the way, what did you think of James Cameron’s Avatar? I realize that this is an entirely unrelated question, I’m just curious.

First question: I honestly have no idea. Not only are the Colonies an entirely different culture, but the Colonials in this story are also from an alternate universe in a crossover story. Besides, I think Adar was just throwing everything, including the kitchen sink, into the justification for war so that something stuck and his political "friends" wouldn't skin him alive because the invasion never left the drawing board. Besides, as we've seen in the chapters set after the attack on Picon, there are quite a few people out there in the Colonies who are thinking, "The politicians tried to play a game with a nuclear fire and the rest of us got burned."

As for the second question: I hated it. The visuals were pretty darn good, but everything else just had so much stupid in it that it almost made me blind with rage. Seriously, it took me all of ten minutes and a calculator to find out that the entire premise of this movie was complete bunk, not to mention the events during the movie. The fact that all the characters were pretty much cut-and-pasted tropes certainly didn't help any.

When read it, (up until chapter 7 or so) it didn’t say anything about being an alternate universe story. What really annoyed me was the way the Colonials were acting out of character, during the series we see nothing to indicate that would be willing to go to war with the Thirteenth tribe if contact had occurred before the Fall of the Colonies. Adar may have been overly militaristic regarding the teacher’s strike, and fifteen people did die when he sent troops to Aerilon. However the first was an internal dispute, and the second is the equivalent to four Kent States incidents. Adama thinks of him as a “moron” for an unspecified reason. Over all, I’d say he was no worse then Richard Nixon. Spying on Earth I could understand, but invading? Sorry, but you can only stretch things so far before the story’s credibility falls apart. Even if you use an alternate universe.

I mean, if a story had O’Neill was a member of a death squad, or Kimball Kinnison as a drug addict, or the Jedi were actively conspiring with Palpatine (wait - that last one was actually written by Karen Traviss).

Also the Cylons were far too willing to align themselves with SG 1, when in the series it took them until the episode “Downloaded” (sometime between days 189 and 270) for them to be willing to try an approach that was not Kill All Humans or biological experimentation.

As for Avatar, a lot of the stuff I’ve heard about it boils down to “Great CGI, shame about the characters”, so yeah, good thing I missed it. Thankfully, there is a Lensman move coming along, assuming it doesn’t get stuck in development hell.

I'm still interested in continuing this debate, by the way.

If you don't respond, I'm going to assume that you admitted defeat.

He hasn't. As the other troper appears to be unresponding, I shall take up the defense in his stead.

Krisnak, I believe you are suffering from a rather well entrenched case of what is known around here as Completely Missing The Point.

You are aware there are usually two major categories of crossover, right? One where both universes exist unhindered by the others rules, where often their obvious incompatibilities collide like sacks of bricks - and the other, perhaps slightly more common type, where one media is (sometimes carefully, sometimes not) folded into the other. In this second type of crossover, the rules of the "superior" (for lack of better word) media's canon overrides the canon of the "lesser" work whenever these two points happen to clash.

In Reunions Are A Bitch, the Stargate-verse, because of it's 50 million year long fake history, larger setting, larger tech, larger cultural, and far larger real-life media base, is the "superior" canon. This is not simply, say, the Battlestar-verse setting around a year before the movies running into the SG-1 setting. This is the Battlestar verse running by Stargate's rules. In the story, there is no "Battlestar Galactica 2003" and "Stargate SG-1"; it's ALL Stargate SG-1. It just happens to have the Stargate Universe's version of the Colonials and Cylons in it.

The Twelve Colonies aren't running by Galactica rules; they're running by Stargate rules. In the Galactica setting, the Twelve Colonies of Kobol are a transplanted (perhaps) or separately evolved culture that had minimal to no interference above hypothesized encounters with "Angels" or agents of God, in its past. Assuming no real interference, a.k.a. the Colonials were dropped of on Kobol and later left and that was the end of it; then they would have had a cultural development exactly like you said: little to no wars of religion, characters who are moderate like modern day Westerners (and Easterners, too) and a president who is not a complete maniac.

In the Stargate setting, however, all humans transplanted off of Earth within the last ten-thousand or so years were taken by the Goa'uld. As demonstrated almost episodically within the series' later seasons, the Goa'uld were viciously competitive, fighting and murdering each other for dominance with every resource at their disposal (the Council of System Lords was only a stop-gate measure; it was not really an actual government, just a place for the System Lords to talk without ripping each others throats out). To the zealously religious slaves of the Goa'uld, this extended pantheocide between the gods, between religions, was practically a way of life. Is it any wonder that a society sprung from such roots would not keep such a deeply embedded trapping? Even on our world, no religious holy text tells you to actively exterminate and forcibly convert worshipers of all other gods. There has been much forced converting of infidels, yes, but actual slaying of gods? Wars of pantheocide embedded that deeply into the very base of your entire culture would be hard to erase.

So, it doesn't matter that the Colonials are polytheist, and that on Earth, almost all nameable polytheistic religions have never had crusades, or jihads, or whatever equivalent you wish to name. The Goa'uld have been messing with their original culture; The Colonial's aren't worshiping the Greek Gods, they're worshiping Goa'uld. And Goa'uld most certainly waged holy wars.

If you don't respond, I'm going to assume that you admitted defeat.