The implication of the "Greek Gods" being aliens

[Citiprime]

I've always wondered about the implications of "Who Mourns for Adonais?" for Earth history and the larger Star Trek universe.

If Apollo and the Greek Gods were really aliens, would that imply other creatures and figures in Greek/Roman mythology (e.g., minotaurs, satyrs, etc.) might have been other alien species on Earth at the time? Also, if Greek/Roman mythology is based on an actual history with aliens, would that open the door to other mythologies actually being aliens?

Beyond that, since the names Romulus and Vulcan are derived from Roman mythology, is it possible Apollo and his people not only visited ancient Earth but also ancient Vulcan too? And their influence is where the names of the Vulcan and Romulan people come from?

 

[Maurice]

Names like Vulcan and Romulus might be exonyms, like how we call Deutschland Germany.

 

[Warped9]

Chariots Of The Gods was a book written by Erich Von Daniken and published in1968. It posits that ancient aliens visited Earth and influenced many cultures as evidenced by the construction of massive structures that were believed to be beyond the capabilities of primitive humans of the time. It also interprets ancient writings and art as depicting aliens, astronauts and flying vehicles. It also suggests ancient mythologies were stories based on human contact with aliens.

So the idea wasn’t new, but it was popularized by Von Daniken’s book. Scientists such as Carl Sagan and others have long dismissed Von Daniken’s assertions as fiction and pseudo science based solely on amateurish interpretation—I can’t understand it so it must be aliens.

 

[Santa Kang]

Beyond that, since the names Romulus and Vulcan are derived from Roman mythology, is it possible Apollo and his people not only visited ancient Earth but also ancient Vulcan too? And their influence is where the names of the Vulcan and Romulan people come from?

Just happy coincidences

 

[Christopher]

If Apollo and the Greek Gods were really aliens, would that imply other creatures and figures in Greek/Roman mythology (e.g., minotaurs, satyrs, etc.) might have been other alien species on Earth at the time? Also, if Greek/Roman mythology is based on an actual history with aliens, would that open the door to other mythologies actually being aliens?

"The Magicks of Megas-tu" established that some of our myths of demons and the like are based on the Megans.

My problem with "Adonais" is the timing. 5000 years ago is a couple of millennia too early for the heyday of Greek mythology. Unless the idea is that the myths developed by Greek civilization were a distorted remnant of a long-lost ancient history.

Beyond that, since the names Romulus and Vulcan are derived from Roman mythology, is it possible Apollo and his people not only visited ancient Earth but also ancient Vulcan too? And their influence is where the names of the Vulcan and Romulan people come from?

Of course not -- why would the aliens who were the basis of the Greek gods use the names of the separate Roman mythological figures that the Romans identified with them millennia later? Romulus and Remus don't even have counterparts in Greek myth.

The obvious intent was that those names were coined by humans. Vulcan was probably originally intended to be the Solar planet Vulcan that was once speculated to exist inside Mercury's orbit, as an explanation for its orbital anomalies. The idea of the planet was discredited early in the 20th century when Einstein's General Relativity was proven to explain the anomalies, but the idea of the Solar planet Vulcan persisted in science fiction for decades thereafter. Given that Roddenberry's original series format suggested that Spock was "probably half-Martian," he was likely assuming a Solar origin and intended Vulcan to be that Vulcan, until his science advisors set him straight. But since Vulcan was portrayed as a hot desert planet, it was still implicit that the name had been coined by humans to reflect that quality of the planet.

Lora Johnson's Worlds of the Federation proposed T'Khasi as Vulcan's indigenous name, while the Last Unicorn Games RPG proposed Ti'Valka'ain, which could easily be Anglicized to "Vulcan." But since Enterprise, I tend to suspect that the Vulcans' name for their own planet is Minshara. (The novel The Tears of Eridanus by Steve Mollmann & Michael Schuster listed all of those as alternate names for the planet in its various different languages, just as Earth is called Tierra, Erde, Chikyuu, Dijiu, etc. depending on the speaker's language.)

And the obvious intent in "Balance of Terror" was that humans named the twin planets Romulus and Remus after the twins from Roman mythology. The reasonable assumption was always that they had different names for their own planets. (In Diane Duane's novels, they were named ch'Rihan and ch'Havran, and the "Romulans" called themselves Rihannsu.) One of the stupidest things in Star Trek: Enterprise was in "Minefield" where it was established that "Romulan" was their name for themselves. How culturally illiterate did the writers of that show have to be not to realize that the name came from Earth mythology? (On a par with the astronomical illiteracy of not knowing that Rigel is a real star.)

Chariots of the Gods was a book written by Erich Von Daniken and published in1968. It posits that ancient aliens visited Earth and influenced many cultures as evidenced by the construction of massive structures that were believed to be beyond the capabilities of primitive humans of the time. It also interprets ancient writings and art as depicting aliens, astronauts and flying vehicles. It also suggests ancient mythologies were stories based on human contact with aliens.

So the idea wasn’t new, but it was popularized by Von Daniken’s book. Scientists such as Carl Sagan and others have long dismissed Von Daniken’s assertions as fiction and pseudo science based solely on amateurish interpretation—I can’t understand it so it must be aliens.

The basis of Von Daniken's beliefs was much uglier than that. The "ancient astronaut" theories he popularized were inspired by Nazism and the occult, and he believed ancient non-European cultures lacked the intelligence or drive to achieve great things on their own and thus must have needed pasty white aliens to show them how. The whole thing is just 19th-century eugenicism with space aliens tacked on, presented as pseudoscientific conjecture as camouflage for the implicit white supremacist messaging.

https://badarchaeology.wordpress.com/2014/01/12/is-pseudoarchaeology-racist/

http://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/the-astonishing-racial-claims-of-erich-von-daniken

https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/01/02/close-encounters-racist-kind

 

[Set Harth]

One of the stupidest things in Star Trek: Enterprise was in "Minefield" where it was established that "Romulan" was their name for themselves. How culturally illiterate did the writers of that show have to be not to realize that the name came from Earth mythology? (On a par with the astronomical illiteracy of not knowing that Rigel is a real star.)

geez

 

[Santa Kang]

"The Magicks of Megas-tu" established that some of our myths of demons and the like are based on the Megans.

My problem with "Adonais" is the timing. 5000 years ago is a couple of millennia too early for the heyday of Greek mythology. Unless the idea is that the myths developed by Greek civilization were a distorted remnant of a long-lost ancient history.




Of course not -- why would the aliens who were the basis of the Greek gods use the names of the separate Roman mythological figures that the Romans identified with them millennia later? Romulus and Remus don't even have counterparts in Greek myth.

The obvious intent was that those names were coined by humans. Vulcan was probably originally intended to be the Solar planet Vulcan that was once speculated to exist inside Mercury's orbit, as an explanation for its orbital anomalies. The idea of the planet was discredited early in the 20th century when Einstein's General Relativity was proven to explain the anomalies, but the idea of the Solar planet Vulcan persisted in science fiction for decades thereafter. Given that Roddenberry's original series format suggested that Spock was "probably half-Martian," he was likely assuming a Solar origin and intended Vulcan to be that Vulcan, until his science advisors set him straight. But since Vulcan was portrayed as a hot desert planet, it was still implicit that the name had been coined by humans to reflect that quality of the planet.

Lora Johnson's Worlds of the Federation proposed T'Khasi as Vulcan's indigenous name, while the Last Unicorn Games RPG proposed Ti'Valka'ain, which could easily be Anglicized to "Vulcan." But since Enterprise, I tend to suspect that the Vulcans' name for their own planet is Minshara. (The novel The Tears of Eridanus by Steve Mollmann & Michael Schuster listed all of those as alternate names for the planet in its various different languages, just as Earth is called Tierra, Erde, Chikyuu, Dijiu, etc. depending on the speaker's language.)

And the obvious intent in "Balance of Terror" was that humans named the twin planets Romulus and Remus after the twins from Roman mythology. The reasonable assumption was always that they had different names for their own planets. (In Diane Duane's novels, they were named ch'Rihan and ch'Havran, and the "Romulans" called themselves Rihannsu.) One of the stupidest things in Star Trek: Enterprise was in "Minefield" where it was established that "Romulan" was their name for themselves. How culturally illiterate did the writers of that show have to be not to realize that the name came from Earth mythology? (On a par with the astronomical illiteracy of not knowing that Rigel is a real star.)




The basis of Von Daniken's beliefs was much uglier than that. The "ancient astronaut" theories he popularized were inspired by Nazism and the occult, and he believed ancient non-European cultures lacked the intelligence or drive to achieve great things on their own and thus must have needed pasty white aliens to show them how. The whole thing is just 19th-century eugenicism with space aliens tacked on, presented as pseudoscientific conjecture as camouflage for the implicit white supremacist messaging.

https://badarchaeology.wordpress.com/2014/01/12/is-pseudoarchaeology-racist/

http://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/the-astonishing-racial-claims-of-erich-von-daniken

https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/01/02/close-encounters-racist-kind

How much to we know about "author intent" for those names?

 

[Christopher]

How much to we know about "author intent" for those names?

Well, it's just common sense, isn't it? I mean, there's no plot reason in "Balance of Terror" for the mention of the Romulans coming from a twin planet system; the only possible reason for that to be mentioned is to implicitly establish that humans named the planets after famous mythological twins. And since our names for real planets come from classical mythology, it just logically follows that classical-myth names for fictional planets were meant to have been coined by humans as well.

Also, keep in mind that the Federation wasn't created until late in season 1 and wasn't clearly defined as a multispecies alliance (beyond humans and Vulcans) until "Journey to Babel" in season 2. Early TOS portrayed an entirely human-centric interstellar society. The Enterprise was a United Earth ship, and "The Conscience of the King" stated that Vulcan had been conquered, perhaps implicitly by Earth. If you read between the lines in "Balance of Terror," it's implicit that Paul Schneider intended Earth to have been the aggressor in the Earth-Romulan War -- because the Romulans were said to have no warp drive, and obviously a society without warp drive could never be the aggressor in a war against a warp-capable power.

So the writers in the early first season were working from a very Earth-centric, culturally imperialist set of assumptions, the kind of assumptions made by the decades' worth of prose science fiction that TOS drew on -- which, in turn, were influenced by the real-world history of the British and American empires and their reflexive ethnocentrism. So the writers would've taken it for granted that Earth explorers would've named alien planets after things from Earth (particularly Western) culture, history, and mythology rather than using indigenous names.

Even discounting all that, "Balance" makes it clear that humans and Romulans had very little contact during the war, not even knowing each other's appearance. So it follows that they wouldn't have known their respective names for themselves either, and would've had to coin their own names for each other.

And yes, there are certainly works of science fiction that portray aliens using names from Earth languages for themselves or their planets or whatever, but that's obviously implausible, and the original Star Trek was meant to be more intelligent than that, though some later writers (like those who wrote "Minefield") have sadly not held themselves to the same standard of plausibility.

 

[Santa Kang]

Well, it's just common sense, isn't it? I mean, there's no plot reason in "Balance of Terror" for the mention of the Romulans coming from a twin planet system; the only possible reason for that to be mentioned is to implicitly establish that humans named the planets after famous mythological twins. And since our names for real planets come from classical mythology, it just logically follows that classical-myth names for fictional planets were meant to have been coined by humans as well.

Also, keep in mind that the Federation wasn't created until late in season 1 and wasn't clearly defined as a multispecies alliance (beyond humans and Vulcans) until "Journey to Babel" in season 2. Early TOS portrayed an entirely human-centric interstellar society. The Enterprise was a United Earth ship, and "The Conscience of the King" stated that Vulcan had been conquered, perhaps implicitly by Earth. If you read between the lines in "Balance of Terror," it's implicit that Paul Schneider intended Earth to have been the aggressor in the Earth-Romulan War -- because the Romulans were said to have no warp drive, and obviously a society without warp drive could never be the aggressor in a war against a warp-capable power.

So the writers in the early first season were working from a very Earth-centric, culturally imperialist set of assumptions, the kind of assumptions made by the decades' worth of prose science fiction that TOS drew on -- which, in turn, were influenced by the real-world history of the British and American empires and their reflexive ethnocentrism. So the writers would've taken it for granted that Earth explorers would've named alien planets after things from Earth (particularly Western) culture, history, and mythology rather than using indigenous names.

And yes, there are certainly works of science fiction that portray aliens using names from Earth languages for themselves or their planets or whatever, but that's obviously implausible, and the original Star Trek was meant to be more intelligent than that, though some later writers (like those who wrote "Minefield") have sadly not held themselves to the same standard of plausibility.

So nothing then. I'm more inclined to believe they were going for Poetry than plausibility.

 

[Christopher]

So nothing then. I'm more inclined to believe they were going for Poetry than plausibility.

I don't see why it's even worth considering that the Romulans used that name for themselves. I mean, it's just a given that humans would've coined our own name for them given the lack of contact during the war. Why wouldn't we?

And there's no "poetry" in the idea that aliens would give themselves names that coincidentally match words from human mythology or history. That's not poetic, it's just stupid and ethnocentric.

 

[Santa Kang]

I don't see why it's even worth considering that the Romulans used that name for themselves. I mean, it's just a given that humans would've coined our own name for them given the lack of contact during the war. Why wouldn't we?

And there's no "poetry" in the idea that aliens would give themselves names that coincidentally match words from human mythology or history. That's not poetic, it's just stupid and ethnocentric.

Nah. They (The writers) do it for the audience. A shorthand to invoke certain connections. It's a bit outdated approach that no longer flies with modern "sophisticated" audiences

 

[Maurice]

If you read between the lines in "Balance of Terror," it's implicit that Paul Schneider intended Earth to have been the aggressor in the Earth-Romulan War -- because the Romulans were said to have no warp drive, and obviously a society without warp drive could never be the aggressor in a war against a warp-capable power.

Implicit (maybe) only when projecting backwards from the final result and forgetting that the Star Trek Office gave feedback and suggestions to the writers throughout, and the staff often did rewrites, credited or not. What little original intent there is can only be gleaned from Schnieder's story outlines before all that feedback.

From Schneider's April 14th outline:

Trailing an unidentified vessel. Its size, approximately one-half our own; maximum speed probably one-half ours[…]

Both that and Schneider's April 26, 1966 outline presume the Enterprise is twice as fast as the Romulan ship, which is going .5c. This suggests the writer is assuming the Enterprise's max speed is 1c, supported by a reference to going "to light" taking four minutes and the enemy torpedo closing at .99c In the latter outline there's even an in-dialog question as to whether or not .5c is actually the enemy's top speed. Kirk believes it is based on their behavior and what he would do as their captain; logical deduction on his part, not contradicted, but neither established as a fact.

As to "simple impulse" Roddenberry suggested Schneider make the Romulan ship a copy of the Enterprise saucer to save the costs of a miniature, and that's reflected in the first draft script in the description of the Romulan ship. Supporting that is this dialog from undated page revisions for scene 76, with a Roddenberry-penciled adjustment [in brackets].

SCOTT​

It seems they could copy our main section, but not our galaxy drive pods. I'd guess their power is [simple] impulse.​

That appears to be the origin of the troublesome line. There's zip to indicate what Schneider thought to be the top speed of the ships during that long-ago war, if he even thought about it at all.

 

[Shawnster]

I liked Diane Duane's novels that said the Romulans call themselves Rihannsu

 

[ZapBrannigan]

I liked Diane Duane's novels that said the Romulans call themselves Rihannsu

Star Trek Beyond ends with a pop song whose lyrics have no relation whatsoever to the movie. It's just a product placement for the music industry. But wait, it is sung by Rihanna, obviously the feminine form of Rihannsu. So now it all makes sense— the song is an elliptical reference to the Romulans, and thus the broader Star Trek universe.

I should have known a Kelvin-era Trek wouldn't just put stuff in willy-nilly.

 

[Santa Kang]

Star Trek Beyond ends with a pop song whose lyrics have no relation whatsoever to the movie. It's just a product placement for the music industry. But wait, it is sung by Rihanna, obviously the feminine form of Rihannsu. So now it all makes sense— the song is an elliptical reference to the Romulans, and thus the broader Star Trek universe.

I should have known a Kelvin-era Trek wouldn't just put stuff in willy-nilly.

I've always assumed Duane was "riffing" Rhiannon from mythology (and Fleetwood Mac) fame

 

[Adventerprise]

Isn't it supposed to be from Jaylah's POV? Or at least a song she'd have liked.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Isn't it supposed to be from Jaylah's POV? Or at least a song she'd have liked.

I would absolutely never have thought of that. Huh!

 

[Santa Kang]

Isn't it supposed to be from Jaylah's POV? Or at least a song she'd have liked.

What are the beats and shouting like?

 

[Christopher]

There's zip to indicate what Schneider thought to be the top speed of the ships during that long-ago war, if he even thought about it at all.

Well, there's also the way the Neutral Zone is described in dialogue: "the neutral zone between planets Romulus and Remus and the rest of the galaxy." Disregarding the map graphic (which presumably was created by the art department instead of the writers, since the map and the dialogue don't entirely agree with each other), the line as scripted implies that the zone enclosed only a single star system.

Granted, we can't actually know if the early writers intended Earth to be an imperialist power, in contrast to how the Federation ended up being depicted later on. I just think it seems likely, given the era in which the writers were raised, the tail end of the period when imperialism was the unquestioned default in the world, and during the period in which the typical way that human interstellar civilizations in SF were shown to operate (e.g. in the Foundation Trilogy, where it was assumed that the only way to restore the fallen galactic civilization was to create a second Galactic Empire, with democracy never even considered as an option). It's to the credit of Star Trek's later writers like Gene Coon that they questioned that default assumption of human imperialism and ended up building a Federation whose values counteracted it (notably the Prime Directive being a direct reaction against cultural imperialism and the Civilising Mission mentality), but I wouldn't be surprised if some of the early writers just went with the unexamined assumptions and took it as read that interstellar Earth would have conquered Vulcan or attempted to conquer Romulus/Remus -- for their own good, of course. After all, it's always easier to perpetuate standard assumptions than to challenge them.

 

[Charlie Xmas]

I liked Diane Duane's novels that said the Romulans call themselves Rihannsu

I read her books over and over. I wish one of them had been made into a movie.