It might be just a matter of semantics, though. "No, we are not Gods, we are Founders!" could be translated just as well into "No, we are not Supreme Gods, we are Gods!".
It's semantics. The word "God" doesn't even translate exactly between different human languages; often, the attempt of English-speaking explorers/settlers to apply that word to another culture's concept of divinity has led to misunderstandings because there is no one-to-one correspondence of concepts. And when we're dealing with mechanical translation, even something as magical as Trek's UTs, there's even more potential for a formulaic substitution of terms leading to a misunderstanding of conceptual nuances.
Guys, it's written plain on the page. Questions of the UT do not apply, since it's a conversation between the Founder and a Jem'Hadar; the fact that it's written in English is because it's an English-language book, and there's no reason the author could not have chosen the terminology he best saw fit to use. If you consider this passage suspect, then essentially all parts of the novel written from non-anglophone perspective (which is most if not all of it) are likewise suspect, degenerating into utter solipsism. I mean, if you won't accept "We're not Gods" as evidence that the Founders don't think of themselves as deities, what will you accept? At this point, I worry that you're arguing from a desired conclusion.
Exactly so, Trent. It seemed to me that a people as militant in their behavior and beliefs as the Founders would best be portrayed as honest with themselves (though certainly it is possible to have reasonably depicted them in a diametrically opposite manner). My point was that, having a belief in a divine entity would allow them to understand firsthand how such a belief, whether true or not, could be employed as a means of control. I posited that they had set themselves up as gods to the Jem'Hadar and to the Vorta (and no doubt to countless other races) not because they cleaved to their own press, but because they recognized the relative ease with which they could then maintain their stranglehold on power.
But what bugs me is this: recognizing that religion can be used as a means of control and manipulation should cause a reflexive reevaluation of their own faith; I don't understand how one can pose as a deity without that raising significant questions about the reality of their own deity (unless the Founders as a species are so incredibly compartementalized, as
Marian suggested, to the point of being incapable of introspection - ironic, that their mindset would be so rigid when their bodies are so flexible). I was trying to think that perhaps Founder theology wasn't so rigid, that in the normal course of the culture there were doubts and dissenters (certainly the skepticism of Laas and Odo demonstrate that it's not innate unlike other Founder impulses, but culturally determined), particularly after the God supposedly goes missing. The display of religiosity on the part of the Great Link in the book could be related to the appearance of the nova; after all, after all, the appearance of a religious symbol is bound to trigger greater religious sentiment in what could have been a more moderate population. There's the female Founder, but she's in jail, and we know contemporaneously that religious belief and observance spikes in incarcerated inmates, and the psychological reasons for that spike could apply to the Founder even if the practical ones--group formation and protection, brown-nosing theocratic judges--do not. But there's still the matter of the Hundred, which has Abraham/Isaac written all over it. A doubtful culture does not decide to engage in what is almost tantamount to mass child sacrifice. So, again, I bump up against the hurdle of how you can have such deep, abiding belief in a divinity when you know for a fact how empty such claims can be.
Unfortunately for me, I (somewhat irrationally) equate Prime Directive wishy-washyness with Janeway on Voyager. Yes, yes, I know it's irrational. And I know my quibbles with what I perceive as Janeway's inconsistency are not necessarily about the Prime Directive. But the character's actions drove me NUTS, especially the one in which some alien technology mind-raped a bunch of Starfleet people to the point they experience true post-traumatic stress syndrome.... and Janeway concluded, oh well, we'll leave the mind-rape technology there. We'll put up a warning beacon. Hello! Mind-rape!
That was an incredibly dumb resolution, and I quite agree that it was the wrong decision to make. But I'm pretty sure that the unified planetary government thing is only for Federation membership; we've seen a number of times when Our Heroes get caught up in civil conflict, so unity is not required for contact.
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
