gods in Trek

[O'Dib]

The gods of Trek are often like super-powered petulant children, who toy with humans because they can, and must be brought to their senses by our superior intellect. The story requires them to have some limits on their power so that our heroes might triumph. This is usually a basic goodness that restrains them, or if they're evil, they'd invariably been imprisoned by someone else and must be stopped from escaping.

These appearances, as frequent as holodeck episodes but not as useless, have several purposes. One, to show that gods don't actually exist, as all turn out to be aliens instead. And two, to demonstrate how one should approach religion: with doubt and defiance. I would venture as far as to say that Klingons are the bearers of Trek's most fundamental message about religion: kill your gods.

Given all this I was surprised with the outcome of the events in the TNG episode "Survivors", which I happened upon today for the first time ever. Picard, as usual, sees through the ruse and figures out the true identity of the old man, and calls it on the bs. However, upon being told of the god's genocide of an entire race, Picard states that we have no laws for what it did, and decides that it is to be left alone. I have a problem with this, as Picards was essentially acting in fear.

Obviously, we do have laws for genocide. Humanity's inability to punish a deity for crime shouldn't have stopped Picard from appealing to its conscience to extradite itself to others of its species for judgement. We could have had Picard as a witness in a celestial trial, culminating in the execution of a god. This would've been a nice reversal on the overarching theme of TNG, which is Q judging humanity, with a clear message: who are you to judge? Instead, this episode left a bad taste in my mouth. There's an actual god out there who is guilty of horrible things, and we are subject to its whims, so we'd better leave it alone. A little too Olympian for my tastes. Any thoughts about this or other episodes dealing with such things?

 

[Timo]

I'd say Trek does a pretty good job at portraying gods as a continuum. Picard himself is god to the Mintakans in "Who Watches the Watchers"; other sapient lifeforms (basically already a sufficient if not necessary definition of god) fall in various places below or above Picard in terms of godlike powers.

Somebody like Apollo is above humans in terms of power to get things done, but only by the merest smidgen, and none of his motivations seem particularly alien or difficult to associate with, nor is he difficult to communicate with; it's no wonder our heroes give him comeuppance with their own divine powers (those coming out of their phaser emitters). Charlie X is more difficult, in that he greatly overpowers our heroes, and has strong moral convictions as well, plus isn't particularly open to communication on human level; our heroes rightly fear him and cower in front of him. The Q have seemingly infinite powers, although our heroes are right to suspect there may be limits; the Q also communicate cryptically to create at least the impression that their thinking, ethics and goals are more evolved than their human counterparts. But Picard doesn't fear the Q, which is only logical considering how the Q don't seem to be a particularly wrathful variant of deity. Again there's a nice continuum of divine qualities, with the "inifinite benevolence" variety apparently covered by the Q folks.

With the Trek universe filled with gods of all sorts, it shouldn't come as a surprise that our heroes deal with them case by case. Kevin Uxbridge wasn't the sort to communicate through banter; Picard could debate morals with him, but not in the playful manner he debated them with Q. Picard only had one point to drive home here - that Kevin had been a naughty god - and Kevin already knew that perfectly well. Why attempt any sort of righteous harassment when that would have been not just completely futile to begin with, but unnecessary as well?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[T'Girl]

I would venture as far as to say that Klingons are the bearers of Trek's most fundamental message about religion: kill your gods.

And yet they're still with them, the Klingon retain a well defined religious structure in their culture. While the Klingon "Adam" did kill the gods, this happen in the Klingon's garden of eden after the creation of the first two people. The Klingon faith possesses all the usual things that compose a Human faith, an after life (heaven/hell), the choices you make determines which reward you obtain. And then there's Kahless, who very obviously serves as the prophet of their society. Christian's had their God killed at one point, isn't slowing us down.

I don't think that the Douwd (Kevin Uxbridge) was ever intended to be a deity within the structure of the story, he was just a being with special natural abilities, not supernatural. Some stories did depict the gods of people, the Edo was a god. So were the Bajorian gods The Prophets, in Sacrifice of Angels the prophets use supernatural means to destroy a vast fleet threatening the Bajorian people, you know doing that gods thing.

 

[StarryEyed]

Some stories did depict the gods of people, the Edo was a god. So were the Bajorian gods The Prophets, in Sacrifice of Angels the prophets use supernatural means to destroy a vast fleet threatening the Bajorian people, you know doing that gods thing.

No way. I suppose the definition of "god" with a small "g" is not very well defined and somewhat subjective but the term "supernatural" definitely does not apply to anyone or anything in Star Trek. Everything operates in accordance to natural laws; not understanding them (yet) doesn't make them supernatural. This is even canonical as Q told Riker that the Human race could evolve even beyond them.

We know very little about the Edo "god" but we do know that they don't consider themselves gods. Data stated that they felt it was natural and harmless for the Edo to look at them that way at that point.

The wormhole aliens could be hurt or killed with chronoton radiation - putting them well in the natural realm. Obviously, their control of the wormhole which they built allows them send objects within it elsewhere. No need to invoke the supernatural.

 

[RobertScorpio]

I'd say Trek does a pretty good job at portraying gods as a continuum. Picard himself is god to the Mintakans in "Who Watches the Watchers"; other sapient lifeforms (basically already a sufficient if not necessary definition of god) fall in various places below or above Picard in terms of godlike powers.

Somebody like Apollo is above humans in terms of power to get things done, but only by the merest smidgen, and none of his motivations seem particularly alien or difficult to associate with, nor is he difficult to communicate with; it's no wonder our heroes give him comeuppance with their own divine powers (those coming out of their phaser emitters). Charlie X is more difficult, in that he greatly overpowers our heroes, and has strong moral convictions as well, plus isn't particularly open to communication on human level; our heroes rightly fear him and cower in front of him. The Q have seemingly infinite powers, although our heroes are right to suspect there may be limits; the Q also communicate cryptically to create at least the impression that their thinking, ethics and goals are more evolved than their human counterparts. But Picard doesn't fear the Q, which is only logical considering how the Q don't seem to be a particularly wrathful variant of deity. Again there's a nice continuum of divine qualities, with the "inifinite benevolence" variety apparently covered by the Q folks.

With the Trek universe filled with gods of all sorts, it shouldn't come as a surprise that our heroes deal with them case by case. Kevin Uxbridge wasn't the sort to communicate through banter; Picard could debate morals with him, but not in the playful manner he debated them with Q. Picard only had one point to drive home here - that Kevin had been a naughty god - and Kevin already knew that perfectly well. Why attempt any sort of righteous harassment when that would have been not just completely futile to begin with, but unnecessary as well?

Timo Saloniemi

Great post Timo..I think you pretty much nailed it.

Rob

 

[T'Girl]

This is even canonical as Q told ...

Yes yes, let's go off something that Q said.



.

 

[StarryEyed]

This is even canonical as Q told ...

Yes yes, let's go off something that Q said.

We already know we can injure or kill the so-called prophets so your claim about them fails whether you believe Q or not. I don't recall him telling a single lie though. I believe Picard admitted as much in one episode.

 

[Arpy]

With Uxbridge, I felt the same thing when I first saw the episode, though I didn't have a word for it - genocide. I felt he should have been punished for his crime, regardless of whether or not our heroes had any way of actually doing it. I didn't understand how there could be no law for such a thing, before, again, later realizing there are indeed laws against genocide. So either the writer was a moron and no one else realized the error here, or there's more going on than the above facts, is what I
took away from the ep originally.

Today I interpret the resolution (there being no law for what happened) as meaning that there was no law for such a crime with such extenuating circumstances. Uxbridge's crime was essentially a crime of passion. For one moment, when he lost everything, he was out of his mind and acted without thinking. Juries let mortals off for that in our world. Unfortunately, he's of a species unlike any other in the Federation so there are no Federation laws for this crime - there are no gods in the UFP...or in the US or anywhere else, so who goes around making up laws for them? Or laws that are unenforceable?

It's a tragedy the universe created such a species that could do such a thing - both for us (who need fear such a powerful and fallible people) and for them (who can regret and suffer for their actions).

PS: Occasionally we hear of "Interstellar Law" beyond individual star-nations. That wouldn't apply here either, but could the Federation taken up this wrong with other "gods" who maybe police their own? Uxbridge's people are unknown to the Federation, but petitioned to act?

 

[StarryEyed]

It's a tragedy the universe created such a species that could do such a thing - both for us (who need fear such a powerful and fallible people) and for them (who can regret and suffer for their actions).

PS: Occasionally we hear of "Interstellar Law" beyond individual star-nations. That wouldn't apply here either, but could the Federation taken up this wrong with other "gods" who maybe police their own? Uxbridge's people are unknown to the Federation, but petitioned to act?

That's a good question. There is some indication of such "divine" police. We had the 29th century time cops in Voyager's Relativity, the 31st century equivalent in Enterprise's Temporal Cold War, The Q-continuum punishing Q for his actions and making him look after his obnoxious son. There are other examples:

1. The Organians forced a peace treaty between the Klingons and the Federation.

2. Trelane's parents reigned in their god-like, toddler from Hell.

3. The Thasians sent Charlie to bed without his supper.

It may be that Kevin Uxbridge did face consequences and/or perhaps some power like Q or the Organians restored the Husnock.

 

[T'Girl]

The Douwd killed no Federation citizens, the Douwd was not a Federation citizen, the species he "genocided" (the Husnock) were not Federation citizens. According to Picard's dialog with the Douwd, the only Federation crime he committed was the simulated attack upon the Enterprise. In destroying the entirety of the Husnock exactly what Federation law did he violate? Humans can create a law that says that Humans can not genocide Humans, but the Federation can't create a law saying that one non-Federation race can't destroy a second non-Federation race. It's a matter of jurisdiction and sovereignty.

The best that could be hoped for would be for the Douwd's conscience to exact some level of self-punishment, because that's as good as it's going to get.

 

[Timo]

Besides, humans themselves have double, triple or quintuple standards on how to deal with the killing of humans. It's perfectly okay to "genocide" fellow humans today, provided those are established to be naughty humans: the law of nation X doesn't forbid the nuking of nation Y till it glows. OTOH, the law of nation X certainly forbids nation Y or any other entity from attempting the same in reverse.

If Kevin Uxbridge defined the entire Husnock race as enemy combatants and then dealt with them like one does with enemy combatants, who're we to argue? He probably has a point even from the human POV: if he fought back a subset of Husnock, a greater set of Husnock would attempt to retaliate, and eventually the entire Husnock species would be caught up in the conflict with Kevin Uxbridge... Down to the last baby, cripple and cute space spaniel.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Python Trek]

"The Survivors" and "Who Watches the Watchers?", both eps about god-like (or at least supposed god-like) beings are in my TNG top five. It's really great to see such a thought-provoking thread about them!

 

[RobertScorpio]

Agree with WHO WATCHES THE WATCHERS. I think its one of the best Trek episodes ever because of not only the message, but the acting as well.


Rob

 

[Cheapjack]

It was shown on British TV, the day GR died. It was so apt and made me squeeze a tear out.

 

[Ryan8bit]

Christian's had their God killed at one point, isn't slowing us down.

Their god didn't really die though. Sure, there was a masquerade of his human avatar dying, but that's not really dying, especially when you live eternally.

When Worf said the Klingon gods were dead, he probably meant it. It's possible they were beings like Apollo and the Klingons really did kill them.

 

[T'Girl]

I though Apollo more "spread himself upon the winds" as opposed to actual dying.

 

[Marten]

I though Apollo more "spread himself upon the winds" as opposed to actual dying.

Yes, he said his fellow "gods" did that, and we can assume he did the same.

 

[A beaker full of death]

TOS's attitude toward dieties sprang from the humanist philosophy that permeated science fiction in the middle of the 20th century.

 

[StarryEyed]

TOS's attitude toward dieties sprang from the humanist philosophy that permeated science fiction in the middle of the 20th century.

Did it? I know the Great Bird was definitely a Secular Humanist but I never associated that with other sci-fi of the era. Admittedly, you said "humanist" with a small "h" with isn't the same as Secular Humanism but all Trek series and movies are Secular Humanism heaven. Secular Humanists tend to be rosy optimists (at least when considering the big picture) but most sci-fi before Star Trek (or since for that matter) is anything but optimistic.

 

[RobertScorpio]

^^ yep..which is one reason, I think, TOS stands the test of time. I did a thread a few months ago where I asked, other than Star Trek, which future 'Earth' depicted in SCIFI would you want to raise a family on...

Rob