Spiritualism in the OTU

[Sifu Blackirish]

Note to Mods: this is not an attempt to sneak in a discussion on real world religion. Feel free to lock the thread if I have stepped over the line.

I enjoyed this discussion today, and it got me thinking about what sort of spiritual forces are at work in the OTU...

*Is the Vargr 'Church of the Chosen Ones' thoroughly discredited, or is it still being used for propaganda purposes?

*Can one consider the K'Kree 'militant vegetarianism' a spiritual movement or a political philosophy?

*Any OTU references to Hiver religious viewpoints?

Let's see where this goes...

 

[Sir Brad]

Hivers don't believe in religion, but they did make up their own Hindu God partly for fun and partly to fit in on earth, Hivers are more Philosophical than Spiritual.

though the 'Church of the Chosen Ones' has bean discredited in many circles it has many who Believe and put the Discredit down to Heathen Hate Groups and jealous lesser beings.

Don't know about the K'Kree.

 

[kafka47]

I think that canon (JTAS) makes it quite clear that the K'kree are Platoists and follow a regimented philosophy and hence their spiritualism is a reflection of what they believe to be a perfectible society.

Church of the Chosen Ones is probably the piece that is missing in Vargr society...whenever, you need to have a motivation for bad doggies other than the usual cliche of the pirate/corsair then you have the Church of the Chosen Ones step in. So, while, not discredited but has its wanes and waxes like everything else in Vargr society.

IMTU, spiritual forces are just one of the many forces that motivate, inspire and unite different populations but the discovery of memes both enforces and causes organized religion/spirituality to fall by the wayside...as all species come to a realization of the universe simply does not care yet there might still be a higher power that does or does not. It is this tension that allows one to use the best of religion and the worst of religion in different Traveller games.

ps I agree the Hivers do not have a religion per se...but different Nests might try to organize something...

 

[Keklas Rekobah]

My understanding of 'Spirituality' is that to be 'Spiritual' is to:

0) Focus on development of personal ethics and morality.
1) Reject comfort and materialism, even to the point of poverty and pain.
2) Reject sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery.
3) Reject idolatry, superstition and witchcraft.
4) Reject arbitrary doctrine and dogmatic ritual.
5) Reject conceit, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factionism and envy as abominations to the spirit.
6) Reject deception, falsehood, hypocrisy and lies.
7) Reject ignorance and foolishness.
8) Reject drunkenness, intoxication and mind-altering substances.
9) Embrace love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control as universal rights and obligations.
10) Seek true knowledge, understanding and wisdom.

However closely a species fits this profile determines their level of 'Spirituality'.

Or not...

 

[Seriayne]

My timeline's still during the Interstellar Wars era, so a lot of Terran faiths are still -very- strong, especially on a lot of of the "Quick, colonize planet with our culture to preserve it!" worlds during the panic/diaspora/great inferiority complex of the Terran Confederation.

As I'm playing a quasi-generational game, or will be when the current set of characters retire, I'll start introducing faith quirks and shifts, derivatives that are still recognizable - hell, already doing that a bit with the ethnic Russian colony world the PC's call home atm. - Classic faith holidays still exist, but the local calender's already having a drastic effect on how people see the seasons, the years, etc. and some are adapting the old faiths to new memes, some are keeping the faith 'old school' and an awful lot are just abandoning it.

Alien faiths are going to come into play fairly shortly - The PC's have scouted out a TL11ish Droyne colony nearby, out of contact with interstellar society, as well as a post-avian race with several disparate, but very influential faiths - one of the governments on their balkanized homeworld is run by a religious oligarchy. I'm thinking that once contact with the post-avians has advanced far enough (50+ years) some cultural bleed both ways will occur, with some of the Neu Samarans folding into the Hunter's Eye faith, and lots of cults modelled after Terran faiths showing up on the post-avian world.

The Droyne will pose an odd cultural influence, once their psionics becomes common knowledge - I'm still working out whether to form faiths around the pursuit of psionics, or to have current existing ones either adopt them, or, more likely rail against it as 'magic' ... The Executive Director (think Pratchett's Patrician) of the campaign's core world will be thrown a curveball when it comes up.

 

[Keklas Rekobah]

I submit these Definitions That Work for Me so that we might all use them in the same context:

belief : Opinion that is derived from provable things -- "Based upon my research and the extrapolation of known data, I believe that the next solar eclipse will occur on..."

faith : Belief in improvable things -- "There is a realm beyond ours, in which those who have passed into that realm (what you humans call 'death') observe and guide those who haven't..."

religion : The outward expression of faith -- "Whatsoever thou shalt do unto others in this life shall be done unto thee in the next."

YRMD...

 

[far-trader]

Thread closed because someone just couldn't keep real world religions out of the discussion. Not surprising really. From now on I'll just close and delete these topics right off and infraction anyone starting one and anyone participating will be warned, so don't. Just report it.

There are always going to be some who can't keep it entirely in the game and out of the real world which is why politics and religion are not subjects for discussion here.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

I'm going to risk unlocking this thread. Don't make me regret it.

 

[HG_B]

Other than as backdrop (he runs around the corner and into that church) I never really paid attention to religion IMTU.

I guess it could make for interesting Merc opportunities. Like a religious war on some planet and, one or both sides need to hire outside "help".

 

[aramis]

I've made a lot of use of religions IMTU. Some real-world, most not. But I've never had much in the way of religion for Aslan, Hivers, nor most of the minors.

The K'Kree don't seem to separate religion from society and culture; they have a sense of manifest destiny, and preach it by the gun.

The Vargr are a wide spectrum; the Church of the Chosen Ones is important because it drives them to Vargr Superiority movements. It's ugly because it recognizes no other sentient as "perfected by the ancients"... As with al supremicist faiths, being generally discredited won't have much impact on it's march to violence, and in fact, given the issues of Vargr cultural instability, and the lack of knowledge of the ancients in general, calling it discredited is a stretch, unless and until Yaskodray pops up in a TL 22 cruiser and starts publicly humiliating them.

The Solomani appear to have carried all their religious panopoly forward; the unofficial "Children of Earth" in Traveller Chronicle gave that very impression. Religious themes seemed highlighted by the TNE collapse process, and resulting governments.

And the Droyne have ritualized life.

Traveller is rife with religions...

 

[Keklas Rekobah]

Any sufficiently detailed fictional religion is indistinguishable from real-world religion.

Be careful, everybody.

 

[kafka47]

Yes, even BITS has a nice supplement called 101 Religions which is Approved For Use for Traveller. I get the sense that religions in the Far Future are viewed as memes until the Long Night which crystallized those memes into full blown religions.

This might account for why the other races did not experience the same revival that happened on the worlds of Humaniti.

 

[robject]

Do it the Traveller way: make a toolkit that playably describes religion (or perhaps any social organizations?) in broad, simplistic terms.

I don't know anything about the Vargr's Church of the Chosen Ones, but if I were to take a guess it would be suspended from their defining social characteristic; i.e. Charisma.

So let me make an hypothesis: social characteristic defines the general tendency of a sophonts' religion.

CHA religions focus on the force of personality. The chosen one.
SOC religions focus on appointed hierarchy. The high priest.
CAS religions focus on heredity. Grandfather.

Specific religions don't have to follow these patterns, but the above are a (potentially) useful generalization for the social characteristics listed. Other social characteristics might presumably offer other possible organizational tendencies.

"Those Vargr and their Prophet of the Month club! Bah!"
"Those Vilani and their Shugilii-for-life! Bah!"
"Those Droyne! Always mooning over some mythical Grandfather! Bah!"

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

Nice.

Rob, seriously cool, I like that. Could use some modifiers though. The basics are pretty decent.

 

[Cryton]

Do it the Traveller way: make a toolkit that playably describes religion (or perhaps any social organizations?) in broad, simplistic terms.

Heres an example .... The CT module Divine Intervention. and for detail you can use SPICA Career book 1.....

 

[sabredog]

What about mysticism and animists? Don't forget the pagans and shamans among the stars.

Also, what about heresies for the religions?

As an example I have a major race IMTU that believes they were created by their god/goddess (they have one for each sex representing the social and spiritual ideal of each in life) in their image and given the gift of psionics to combat demons sent by rival gods. There is lot more to it than that, but the basic idea is that they believe they were their gods' chosen people and the heretical cult says they were actually created by someone else to fight as jannisaries in a war among the ancient races who had manipulated them genetically for this conflict, including the psionics. After the conflict they were abandoned, though the ancient "gods" can be found on the other side of a stellar rift if they want to go there and try. To make it more interesting these heretics also say that the evil gods were actually the ones that created them but they were rescued by the good ones when the evil ones were defeated.

There is tantalizing proof in the make up of these aliens, their lack of a cohesive fossil record, and some activities and rumors surrounding a sect that keeps the secrets of their past locked away lest "spiritual contamination keep the gods from returning."

My point is that religion and challenging heresies might lead to interesting adventures for players that could have long-lasting and very interesting results on the campaign. But I may just be babbling, too.

 

[mike wightman]

Isn't the plural of shaman - shaman?

Anyway - back to the topic.

DGPs Grand Census/World builders handbook incluses a couple of sections about the religious practices of a world. Some useful stuff in those tables.

 

[Gray Lensman]

Snip.... DGPs Grand Census/World builders handbook incluses a couple of sections about the religious practices of a world. Some useful stuff in those tables.

Mr. Wightman beat me to it .

I have always used religion as a component in first contact scenarios, mostly designed with the WBH and some old magazine articles.

I have used it sometimes as an obstacle, sometimes has a help. However, please note: I actually offended a player (completely unintentionally and I had no idea he was what he was) so much that he never played with the group again. In retrospect, many years later I believe he overreacted to the situation but one can never be sure. It was sad to lose him at any rate.

My learned the hard way opinion is that religion has as much place in traveller that the GM And players want it to have.

I also am of the opinion that we can have a rational discussion of such on this board.

And thank you Andrew.

 

[Keklas Rekobah]

Isn't the plural of shaman - shaman? ...

Human --> Humaniti

Shaman --> Shamaniti (?)

 

[Cryton]

dunno if this helps, but the MT World Builders Handbook had a section that could be used for designing the religious profile of a world. Just add a few details and there it is.