Hey, everyone! DRG's DS9 novel after Sacraments is called ASCENDANCE!

[Markonian]

Re: Hey, everyone! DRG's DS9 novel after Sacraments is called ASCENDA

isn't a member of Aventines command staff Portuguese? He's very likely to be catholic.

Not necessarily. That's more than three hundred years from now, and Christianity has seen a steep decline since the 20th century. In 24th century Portugal, people have been exposed to centuries of intercultural and interspecies contact, and education in the Federation must be better than our current systems by a magnitude.

In Mosaic, Kathryn's parents were depicted a traditionalists, and they favored a 19th-21st century lifestyle but had not reverted to religion either.

On a personal note, there's barely any Catholic among my Irish and Spanish friends. For them or their descendants to suddenly revert to believing into deities would be anachronistic.


Anyway, I'm looking forward to Sacraments of Fire and Ascendance. I'd like to be surprised whether Ascendance is set completely during Season 9, or includes flashbacks/flashforwards/sideflashs.

 

[jaime]

Re: Hey, everyone! DRG's DS9 novel after Sacraments is called ASCENDA

isn't a member of Aventines command staff Portuguese? He's very likely to be catholic.

Not necessarily. That's more than three hundred years from now, and Christianity has seen a steep decline since the 20th century. In 24th century Portugal, people have been exposed to centuries of intercultural and interspecies contact, and education in the Federation must be better than our current systems by a magnitude.

In Mosaic, Kathryn's parents were depicted a traditionalists, and they favored a 19th-21st century lifestyle but had not reverted to religion either.

On a personal note, there's barely any Catholic among my Irish and Spanish friends. For them or their descendants to suddenly revert to believing into deities would be anachronistic.


Anyway, I'm looking forward to Sacraments of Fire and Ascendance. I'd like to be surprised whether Ascendance is set completely during Season 9, or includes flashbacks/flashforwards/sideflashs.

This post is full of exactly the kind of anti religion sentiment I was talking about. Gentle though it may be.

And Portugal had plenty of interculture contact through various things like empires and whatnot in the preceding centuries to now. I think you may also be overestimating christianitys steep decline more than a tad. So I am sure that something will be around for us to regress to.

My experience differs from yours, and I am married into a Portuguese family. Of course, there's a rise in Protestantism too, especially in the evangelical church popular in brazil as it spreads back to continental Europe.

 

[Christopher]

Re: Hey, everyone! DRG's DS9 novel after Sacraments is called ASCENDA

^Acknowledging that a decline in religiosity exists is not "anti-religion," any more than acknowledging colony collapse syndrome is "anti-bee." Simply reporting a fact is neither endorsing it nor condemning it. Facts exist regardless of whether we like them or not.

I read a while back that the majority of people in Britain today consider themselves non-religious. There's still a strong tradition of church and religion in the culture, but many of the people who identify as Christian do so more as a matter of cultural heritage than actual belief or commitment. And there have been rises and falls in the level of religiosity in many cultures. Religion was relatively less important to the American founders in the 1700s; most of them were Deists who didn't necessarily believe in the supernatural or the divinity of Jesus, and they made a point of establishing the US as a secular nation. It was in later generations that religious influences in the US became stronger. So these things can rise and fall.

 

[Enterpriserules]

Re: Hey, everyone! DRG's DS9 novel after Sacraments is called ASCENDA

I think the biggest thing that we see, is that religion and faith do play a part in human development from the beginning to now, so it is not much of a stretch to see that it will continue. I think DS9 does a fantastic job showing how faith can have a positive impact and is not in conflict with science, but can work with, or explain what science never can. IDIC lives.

 

[Christopher]

Re: Hey, everyone! DRG's DS9 novel after Sacraments is called ASCENDA

^Religion and faith are not necessarily the same thing, though. There are many ways to have spirituality that are distinct from organized religion, or even actively hostile to it. There are faiths that are atheistic, like Theravada Buddhism, Jainism, or Confucianism. There are approaches like the Deism of America's founders, the rejection of religious authority and supernatural belief in favor of the view that reason, science, and the study of the physical universe were the right way to determine the existence and nature of a creator. (I daresay you could call Gene Roddenberry a Deist, though he probably wouldn't have accepted any label but "humanist.")

Religions like to claim that religion and faith are the same thing. But faith is an individual relationship with the universe, while religion is a social institution and authority structure. Religion uses faith as the basis of its authority, but it is absolutely possible to have faith as an individual without the need for some higher authority to mediate or structure it for you. There have often been conflicts between religious authorities and those who sought to know the divine through their own personal exploration, like mystics of various sorts.

Star Trek looks to me like a future where religious institutions have become less common or prominent, and faith and spirituality are generally approached on a personal level, filtered through a Deist/humanist/rationalist approach that sees science as the path to cosmic enlightenment rather than an adversary to spiritual belief. Of course it's a diverse and inclusive future, so those who still follow religious institutions are welcome to do so, but it seems that most people's spirituality takes a different, more secular form.

 

[Enterpriserules]

Re: Hey, everyone! DRG's DS9 novel after Sacraments is called ASCENDA

It will be interesting to see what the future holds. Ds9 is really the only Trek that we have a major discussion of religion or faith, so it is tough to truly judge. Religion is more than an institution though, it is also the place where people of like belief gather to edify, uplift and teach one another; it is faith in action. You are right though faith and religion are not always, or even ever, the same thing. Without those of faith making up a religion, that religion is really just dead.

I think what I like about DS9 is that the Bajoran people are shown as being smart, capable and loving because of their religion and faith. It is those things that helped them create a beautiful world full of art but also help encourage them to build ships that woud explore, as we see in Explorers. As with all religions, there are people who would misuse them for personal gain or power and they don't shy away from that on the show. It's a nuanced look that leaves plenty of room for interpretation by the audience.

 

[Kilana2]

Re: Hey, everyone! DRG's DS9 novel after Sacraments is called ASCENDA

I´m curious if Opaka Sulan makes an appearance again now that she´s back on Bajor.
Jake and Korena, how are they doing?

The Show must definitely go on.

 

[Enterpriserules]

Re: Hey, everyone! DRG's DS9 novel after Sacraments is called ASCENDA

There are so many questions I hope to have answered.

 

[DS9forever]

Re: Hey, everyone! DRG's DS9 novel after Sacraments is called ASCENDA

Rough Beasts of Empire also mentions an event on Endalla, one of Bajor's moons. Sisko and Vaughn are both mentioned to have been there. Sisko's role as the Emissary was important in the event somehow I think it might be the same event as Rebecca's kidnapping.

 

[Paris]

Re: Hey, everyone! DRG's DS9 novel after Sacraments is called ASCENDA

^I love that DRG3 has been dropping hints about these events for the last few years. I imagine he has a whiteboard (or some such equivalent) in his workspace with a shit ton of little connections and pieces of the story just waiting to be told. I'm confident that he'll knock it out of the park

 

[Enterpriserules]

Re: Hey, everyone! DRG's DS9 novel after Sacraments is called ASCENDA

A massive Thrawn style flowchart!

 

[JD]

Re: Hey, everyone! DRG's DS9 novel after Sacraments is called ASCENDA

If this does fill in all of the gaps, then I could see it being really fun to go back afterwards and reread the other post-SK books and see how it all came together.

 

[DS9forever]

Re: Hey, everyone! DRG's DS9 novel after Sacraments is called ASCENDA

I hope the cover of Ascendance will have Deep Space 9 and the Defiant fighting against Ascendant ships.

Speaking of covers, does anyone know how long before June we're likely to first see the cover of Sacraments of Fire?

 

[Enterprise1701]

Re: Hey, everyone! DRG's DS9 novel after Sacraments is called ASCENDA

Well, last year's The Light Fantastic came out on June 24, and its cover was revealed on startrek.com on April 3. So I would wager that we will see the cover to Sacraments of Fire within two weeks.

 

[Avro Arrow]

Re: Hey, everyone! DRG's DS9 novel after Sacraments is called ASCENDA

I hope the cover of Ascendance will have Deep Space 9 and the Defiant fighting against Ascendant ships.

I think it'd be cool to see an Ascendant in art form....

 

[Paul Weaver]

Re: Hey, everyone! DRG's DS9 novel after Sacraments is called ASCENDA

I hope the cover of Ascendance will have Deep Space 9 and the Defiant fighting against Ascendant ships.

I think it'd be cool to see an Ascendant in art form....

I have a mental image of them all standing to the right going up an escalator.

 

[DonIago]

Re: Hey, everyone! DRG's DS9 novel after Sacraments is called ASCENDA

Really? I usually picture the diner Daniel Jackson found himself in in that SG-1 episode...

(ducks)

 

[Defcon]

Re: Hey, everyone! DRG's DS9 novel after Sacraments is called ASCENDA

Speaking of covers, does anyone know how long before June we're likely to first see the cover of Sacraments of Fire?

It has been posted today by startrek.com:

http://www.startrek.com/article/sacraments-of-fire

 

[DimesDan]

Re: Hey, everyone! DRG's DS9 novel after Sacraments is called ASCENDA

Speaking of covers, does anyone know how long before June we're likely to first see the cover of Sacraments of Fire?

It has been posted today by startrek.com:

http://www.startrek.com/article/sacraments-of-fire

And how wonderfully uninspired it is too.

 

[Mage]

Re: Hey, everyone! DRG's DS9 novel after Sacraments is called ASCENDA

Speaking of covers, does anyone know how long before June we're likely to first see the cover of Sacraments of Fire?

It has been posted today by startrek.com:

http://www.startrek.com/article/sacraments-of-fire

Hm..... Always good to see new shots of the new station, as a cover, it really doesn't make me wanna dive in and read. I know you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but it does help with making it look appealing. Like a movie poster.