It's xortex. Bizarre, nonsensical posts that completely miss the point of everything are his modus operandi.
Praising Allah in the trek universe
- Thread starter Min Zife
- Start date
It's xortex. Bizarre, nonsensical posts that completely miss the point of everything are his modus operandi.
Well the novel title was pulled. Does it have anything to do with the mullahs over there stoning married women for looking at other guys?
Oh yea, this is way off topic and nonsensical, but did DC Fontana get the name for the Vulcan God from the Muslim Sharia's Law? Just a yes or no question.
Oh yea, this is way off topic and nonsensical, but did DC Fontana get the name for the Vulcan God from the Muslim Sharia's Law? Just a yes or no question.
I'd say no. Other than the slight similarity, why do you think she would? My guess is she wanted a name similar to those of angels: Michael, Gabriel, Nuriel and so on. "El" being a name for God.
I feel a combination of pride and chagrin that the most prominent Sikh in the Star Trek continuity is the most memorable villain. And Mexican.
There was another Singh, an engineer that wore a metaphorical redshirt in TNG, but he wasn't explicitly portrayed as Sikh. Singh is a common name in Rajasthan which isn't linked to religion.
In Trek Lit, I've encountered a character named Jasminder Chaudhury, which is a Panjabi name, but there was no explicit discussion of her faith in the book that I read.
There was another Singh, an engineer that wore a metaphorical redshirt in TNG, but he wasn't explicitly portrayed as Sikh. Singh is a common name in Rajasthan which isn't linked to religion.
In Trek Lit, I've encountered a character named Jasminder Chaudhury, which is a Panjabi name, but there was no explicit discussion of her faith in the book that I read.
What would be controversial about it? Especially in the 1960s? How is it any odder than Sarek, Stonn or Surak?
And perhaps Mohamed Jahma, a native of North Africa to whom Uhura speaks with in Arabic - JM Dillard's "Mindshadow" (1986):
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=DIWL7-mXA9gC&pg=PA43&lpg=PA43&dq=mohammed+%22jm+dillard%22&source=bl&ots=eWjem2xkiQ&sig=QYAtuZJP2cupnw-lVBaMstfccTs&hl=en&sa=X&ei=X1OAT7abBcuXiQedoJGpBA&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
Heck, you don't have to be of a particular ethnicity or speak a particular language to be Muslim. It's a religion, not a race. There are hundreds of millions of Asian Muslims, and noted American Muslims include not just people with names like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Fareed Zakaria, but people with names like Dave Chapelle, Lewis Arquette, Art Blakey, Jermaine Jackson, former Georgia mayor C. Jack Ellis, current Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison, O'Shea Jackson (aka Ice Cube), Dante Terrell Smith (aka Mos Def), etc. So a character named, say, Ralph McGraw or Susan Murray could just as easily be Muslim as a character named, say, Ahmed Hussein could be Jewish or Christian or Hindu.
... one that I'd like to avoid.
In the Romulan War novels, the Romulan Star Empire is already responsible for enough atrocities committed in the course of the war--the warp-speed bombardment of Coridan and Draylax, the use of biogenic weapons against the Haakonans, the bombardment of cities on Earth and massacre of Earth colonies, et cetera.
While the Romulans were aware of Earth in detail long before the reverse was true, I don't see any particular point bringing the Romulans in to explain something that can be fully explained by Earth's own problems.
All true. However, Cleante al Faisal is Egyptian and, while she has never actively practiced her faith, she does whisper "Allah' akbar!" when she's caught in a hailstorm in the Vulcan desert.
What I was going for was the idea that "there are no atheists in foxholes."
I love threads like this. Troll's been vanquished, and discussion continues.
I also think it undermines part of the point of Star Trek's fictional history. The basic idea was that it took the combination of humanity almost destroying itself and making contact with aliens for the first time to inspire humanity to unite and fundamentally change. It's the sociological equivalent of an alcoholic needing to hit rock bottom before he sobers up. If you take away the idea that World War III was humanity almost killing itself by having it be the work of Romulans (or whoever), then that undermines the idea of humanity seeing the full consequences of its own faults and learning to change because of them.
Well, that's different, because he changed his name to an Arabic one after converting to Islam, just as Cassius Clay became Muhammad Ali, Ferdinand Alcindor, Jr. became Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, etc. I'm not talking about that, I'm talking about people who have non-Arabic names while being Muslim -- or who have Arabic names and aren't Muslim (there have always been and still are a lot of Arab Jews and Christians).
Good point. I wasn't seriously suggesting that Romulans were involved in WWIII. I was just throwing that out there to stress that there could be any number of explanations for WWIII that aren't particularly tied into the politics of any given era . . . .
Indeed, in retrospect, Trek was fairly shrewd in not tieing WWII explicitly to the Cold War. Just think how dated it would seem if Trek history was stuck with a canonical nuclear war between the USA and the Soviet Union!
There's still a Leningrad Oblast.
Who knows how historical memory will mutate in coming centuries? St. Petersburg was named after Peter the Great's patron saint, and regained its name notwithstanding that tsar's brutalities.
Right!
It was clearly the Bajorans, doing what they needed to do to ensure The Sisko's birth.
Entirely too true! Hell, the folks at Memory Alpha are convinced that the Soviet Union must have been resurrected somewhere along the line because the dedication plaque on the S.S. Tsiolkovsky in "The Naked Now" mentioned it being built in the U.S.S.R.
it was the New Soviet Union, formed in the 2020s when democracy failed in Russia with the rise of a new wave of ultranationalist communists.
and, you know, that's still not an entirely implausible idea...
and, you know, that's still not an entirely implausible idea...
It's not implausible to imagine an aggressive, nationalist, authoritarian Russia becoming a new empire in the regions the Soviet Union once controlled.
It's very implausible to imagine a reformed Soviet Union. The Russian elites have gotten a taste of extravagent wealth, and they won't be letting go of that any time soon. A new Russian empire may revive some of the tropes of Soviet authoritarianism (e.g., Puting bringing back the old Soviet anthem with new Russian nationalist lyrics), but the actual concept of a Soviet Union based on a Socialist/Communist economic model is dead and gone and will never come back.