<![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction - io9 Comments]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction - io9 Comments]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> @Gyrus: Star Trek: Next Generation was planning an episode with Trelaine and Q (that would reveal Trelaine as a Q), but the actor who played Trelaine died before they finished the script.

They also talked about bringing back Harry Mudd, but that actor died, too. Apparently, the only thing that kept TNG from becoming an endless series of sequels was that actors kept dying!

Michael Bauser

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> How could this blog entry be written without mention of the coolest alien god I've ever seen: Babylon Five, the Vorlon goddess who Commander Sheridan spoke to during the big battle (Into The Fire). She was shown in an aspect of reality instead of as person with a fancy costume - a woman encased in a block of ice with a glowey thing at her throat. Very strange depiction. One got the impression that there was more here than was being said or otherwise conveyed.

www.ntua.gr/lurk/synops/072.html

timwayne

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> I can't pass by without throwing in my two cents worth of love for the New Gods! It's a mixture of sheer high-intensity thrill-power and strange quests for the cosmic truth behind truth. Granted, it's the property of a corporation, which means that they cut Kirby off in mid-story and then passed it through a vast number of less talented hands until all the life and soul was drained out of it, but drop your irony shields for a second and those original Kirby issues will take you on a journey into hyper-meaning that will bring you right to the shores of ultimate existence!! DON'T ASK! JUST BUY IT!

Al-Ewing

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> let's not forget the giant floating stone head gods of "zardoz" (1974, w/sean connery)...

hot_sake

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> Dont' forget that the Black Guardian was played by Valentine Dyall, star of the spooky original "The Haunting" and the voice of Deep Thought from "Hitch-Hikers' Guide." Plus, nobody goes "Nyeah-heh-heh!" quite as well as he did.

SeeingI

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> Dude seriously you don't want to mess with Muad'Dib and Darkseid, really.

You are just buying a ticket to a "world of pain"...

Kirth Gersen

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> Oh Mileron, not the f*cking Ori. The main reason I gave up on that show. Lets bring in a really good character actor (Julian Sands) as the head bad guy, and give him 2 F*CKING LINES in the whole show.
What a piss-poor concept by a bunch of hacks who couldn't use the existing mythos and resurgent cast to come up with anything better.

Even the excellent satirical 200th episode didn't save that last season.

doctor_cos

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> Speaking of annoying Gods. Has anyone here read Illium and its sequel Olympos? Great stuff. In a nutshell: Hyperdimensional post-humans masquerading as the Greek gods pull the entire Trojan War through time and space to Mars using quantum dangly bits while the last bit of non-post-humanity struggles to survive on increasingly dangerous Earth.

Grimakus

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> 2nd worst were the Elders in Charmed. 3rd worst were the Avatars in Charmed. For heaven's sake, they had their secret meetings on the top of the Golden Gate bridge!!!!

JohnW

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> The gods on the original BSG were the worst. And by the way, I LIKED the Organians. And Trelane. And Q. And Apollo. And all the ST godlike beings. Even DS9 had some good godlikes in the wormhole people (whatever they were called).

JohnW

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> @ElijahDProphet:
You sir, are a genius.
COTW

H.P.

HiroProtagonist

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> @Evil Tortie's Mom:
@elizabethm:

:)

@ElijahDProphet:

:D


JennaW

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> There's no mention of the tackiness of the Goa'ulds, or the insanity of the Ori?

Mileron

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> @JennaW: FUNNY!

I've been missing out on all the fun on io9 b/c my damn job has been busy but it is worth it to play rush catch up for comment threads like this one.

elizabethm

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> @JennaW: You, miss, win teh intarwebs. (we need to meet at a con sometime)

And I agree monoliths were just machines, not gods.

But many LOLs at "the bathroom graffiti of Hermes".

Evil Tortie's Mom

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> @JennaW: Harlan Ellison? :-P

ElijahDProphet

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> Yes, you're probably right. But then, if I'm boring it's not likely I would actually be missed.

spudzill

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> Somewhere, a SF convention is missing a really, really boring panelist.

JennaW

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> Whatever Docgratis. You cannot prove that my opinon is wrong.The very concept of labelling a preference as "wrong" is somewhat strange. This whole thread is about subjective belief, and not about objective fact. Therefore, I have a perfectly valid point.

spudzill

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> Do I win if I think Gaiman and Ellis are both wankers? :-P

Nah, they both have their place, and it is an entertaining one at times, but I don't consider either of them great.

ElijahDProphet

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> You are correct about that internet thing. peace and goodwill to you.

spudzill

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> @spudzill: Fair enough. Sorry for the shoutiness. I don't think Transmet is bad, by the way -- it just doesn't resonate with me anywhere near as strongly as it does with so many other people. If we all liked the same things, though, the Internet would be really boring. So peace and goodwill and rap at ya later, amigo.

moff

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> What is up with the 2001 hate man?
The monolith isn't god, or a god or even alive.
It is a tool.

And
@spudzill: Give it up man, you like Kirby, you hate Gaiman. Your opinion. Your horribly thought out, wrong opinion. If this were a discussion of merit then we could talk, but you clearly aren't interested in information just your point of view..

DocGratis

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> @spudzill: *koff*CivilWar*koff*

JennaW

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> Contact... such an awful, awful movie.

Of course the book was a charm though.

IrisMR

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> Well, I disagree. And Transmet seems highly realistic in its treatment of people. I'm not a big fan of Gaimans stuff okay? The Book Political Ponerology was written by a man who suvived both Hitlers Germany and Communist Poland. I think he might have some insight into human evil. It's on that sight because, in America, the UFO community was the first in America to embrace the concept that the U.S. Government isn't always acting in the best interest of the people.

spudzill

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> @Huxleyhobbes: Neighbor, speaking tautologically, most things badly done are fails.

moff

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> @spudzill: Can't type! Laughing!

JennaW

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> @spudzill: I can only assume that you are either trolling or commenting from some mirror universe where words mean the opposite of what they mean here. In case it's the latter, to recalibrate you, let me share with you something that "wasn't even that imaginative": A famous reclusive writer who can't stand people but loves the masses! He misses deadlines! He fights with his editors! He drinks hard and drugs harder! He isn't nice to women, but they can't help wanting him! Above all, he may seem like a jerk, but he is motivated by a sense of justice -- and when evil strikes, he stops it...with typing. Just like in real life.

As for his feelings about religion, I just remember my eyes kind of glazing over at that point, since most of us have heard it all before, starting in high school with the kids in Iron Maiden T-shirts offering their pithy analyses. Yup, yup, opium of the masses. Very revolutionary. Check.

I have not read the book you mention. I may someday, although I have to say it doesn't bode well that the first result that comes up from a Google search of the title is this one, which also links to "The Truth about Hyperdimensional Beings and Alien Abductions."

And as for Scott Free and the Surfer being better examples of Shakespearean tragedy, um, no they're not, even if they are kind of tragic. Know why? Because in Shakespearean tragedy, the hero has to die, dude. For good. They don't even qualify.

moff

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> I dun think BSG is the show for people who don't like prophecy kind of things, seeing as some of its deepest questions revolve around that very issue.

Just sayin'.

But I agree that a badly done godlike being is fail.

Mister Adequate

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> Azazoth, The Monstruous Nuclear Chaos, sounds pretty dumb to me, in a literal non-judgemental way.

Shoggoth to the People

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> Whatever. Gaimans stuff was like reading someone who had read Joseph Campbell too much. Wasn't even that imaginative. Unlike Kirby. Scott Free and Orion, or even the Surfer was a much better version of Shakespearian tregedy than Sandman. Transmet was truly awesome, sorry but it was. and if one were to read the book Political Ponerology (from the Greek poneros=evil) Evil really does work like that. And Spiders rant about religion, oh yeah.

spudzill

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> @moff: Oh, and of course, Gaiman also made Sandman a Shakespearean tragedy to boot. While working Shakespeare himself into it. Good craftsmanship, that.

moff

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> @spudzill: Dude. Neil Gaiman's Sandman: Elegantly interlocking multiplot epic commenting on, among other things, the meaning of story and art, the nature of personal responsibility, and the power of hope. Not to mention the sheer genius of using a variety of illustrators to tap into the shifting imagery of dreams.

Warren Ellis's Transmetropolitan: A hackneyed, tossed-together plot about a Hunter S. Thompson stereotype who's angry at the Man. To make matters worse, the Man actually is that bad of a guy, which is of course not at all simpleminded and a keen reflection of how good and evil really work in the real world.

moff

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> they should do a New Gods animated series, and have it released right when Lucas sets his TV-bomb off.

DSTRYA

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> You know, I think the differences come from the fact that Kirby was an American. So his stuff had all that Hard-boiled, fightin' and drinkin' full speed ahead feel to it. I get the same feling when reading detective fiction of the same period. The English made Miss Marple and all those genteel locked room mysteries, but in America we had the Hard-Boiled school of detective fiction like Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Mickey Spillane. In fantasy the English had Tolkien. In America we had Robert E. Howard. Oddly, in comics, the dynamic seems to have reversed somewhat, where American writers are full of conservative, gentle, feel-good stuff and the Brits are are making with the crazy. I wonder if that is a function of Empire?

spudzill

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> @spudzill: *snort*

JennaW

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> Kirby's New Gods may be goofy, but Darkseid was the best thing to come out of it. He's the ultimate villain: immortal, immensely powerful, and very ambitious. Unlike other baddies who want to destroy mankind/universe/superheroes, Darkseid's goal is to remove free will from the universe (via the anti-life equation). And he's extremely difficult to stop, as evidenced in an episode of the Justice League where he bitchslaps Superman.

Plus, Death on skis is actually Black Racer.

sweetea

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> Sorry, but New Gods and EVERYTHING else Kirby did rocked. And Fuck Gaiman! His Endless were a bunch of Emo Goth poncing twits! Hated them. Kirbys Sandman. Gold. Pure crazy straight out of the subconscious gold. Like everything thing else Kirby did. Only Warren Ellis comes close.

spudzill

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> @JennaW: mmmmm Romana.

Ignatzybanjo

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> The trouble with the Guardians is that, the Key to Time is such a definitive part of the Doctor Who series, the exception to make the rules. But the Guardians themselves get a much better payoff later on in the run of the show.

Slatz_Grobnik

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> @ignatzybanjo: Yeah, Key to Time was great (Romana!) Also the nice twisty moral gotcha at the end of it was a cool touch.

JennaW

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> @NefariousNewt: Personally, I liked the Cosmic Key story arc. I thought it was the best storyline of the Baker era. The point of a quest for an object of ridiculous power? Dunno. Let's ask Arthur...or Jason...or Gilgamesh. Heroes are often set on off on their quests by beings of superior wisdom or power (cf. Dorothy and Glenda) who are easily more capable to complete the task. I reckon the point is (and dubiously obtained in the Cosmic Key storyline) is personal growth in the hero, yeah?

Ignatzybanjo

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> @CrispyShot: Well, when you read all the books in the series, you get the point eventually. The Monoliths were simply machines, left behind by their creators to look over the experiments they left behind. While they have awesome powers (turning Jupiter is a pretty good trick), they're pretty much dumb machines. Strangely, Contact's transportation system seems to bear some resemblance to the pod-ride Dave Bowman took in the movie.

NefariousNewt

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> I vote for The Guardians. Let's overlook the ridiculous costumery -- what were they thinking? Did the whole quest have a point, really? Why couldn't they just do it themselves? Talk about getting lazy.

NefariousNewt

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> @JennaW: Everything is cool when you're 12... ah, 12....

NefariousNewt

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> @ignatzybanjo: I like to think of Death of the Endless as Neil Gaiman's little way of saying, "Hey, Jack -- Death would be much cooler if he wasn't skiing around in a bank-robbing outfit. Just sayin'." I'm sure he didn't mean it that way, but that's how I *interpret* it in a literary sense.

JennaW

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> Nice Crichton quote.

Poormojo

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> @Macloserboy: Yes, and THOSE were lamer, though when I was 12 they were AWESOME, and when they brought Apollo back to life, I was so happy! (please note: 12)

JennaW

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> Disclaimer: I haven't read the book 2001, but I saw the movie, and the monolith ain't no obelisk.

Also spracht Wikipedia: "An obelisk (Greek ὀβελίσκος [obeliskos], diminutive of ὀβελός [obelos], "needle") is a tall, narrow, four-sided, tapering monument which ends in a pyramidal top"

CrispyShot

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> The New Gods...the Eternals...what's the difference? Oh. Oops.

Ignatzybanjo

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> Kirby may have mis-stepped with the Eternals, but his enigmatic Celestials are "thumbs up!"

Ignatzybanjo

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> Your article is nice and witty, but doesn't live up to the title. First, the Contact "contact" - wasn't god-like. It was an alien. It may have been too daisy-tripping or too marshmallowy, but it's not a good case in point for dumb space gods. Secondly, mentioning that your eyes glaze over during Battlestar prophecies shows your bias quite a bit - BG one of the few shows that seems to actually deal intelligently with the tension of religion vs science, faith vs fact. It doesn't "prove" either side, but leaves it as a continual point of uncertainty in the show.

Most sci-fi either portrays their godlike figures as petulant vindictive children, as flowery soft-spoken hippies, or as control-freak power mongers. This speaks a lot about sci-fi writers developmental run-ins with institutional religion, but doesn't do much except present a hollow caricature of people of faith.

chipsndip

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> Weren't there space gods on the orignial Battlestar Galactica too?

Macloserboy

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> "Basically, he fell asleep in the bath and totally lost track of his sponge."

Hilarious. Thank you for this.

mumblingmynah

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> @zenpoet: I'm not a sir, but thanks! Glad you liked it!

Charlie Jane Anders

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> @elizabethm: Yay I'm so glad you liked that!

Charlie Jane Anders

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> @Jeff-Minor: we could literally be here all weekend listing dumb space gods from Star Trek.....

Charlie Jane Anders

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> "until you feel like you're getting a marshmellow enema"

HAHAHA! I feel exactly like that during any sanctimonious but metaphorical speech given by a god-like alien/being in almost every movie or t.v. show. Blech.

elizabethm

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> Rodenberry had a weekend to turn "encounter at Farpoint" into a two-parter. So he apparently threw in Q at the last minute after watching "The Squire of Gothos". That's the same weekend he wrote in the totally pointless scene where Picard strolls through engineering, because he knew if he didn't get an engineering set built for the pilot, he never would.

Chris Wren

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> God like? So is that just anyone with such good technolgoy that it is indistinguishable from magic? I would guess so. I would like to nominate Veeger (Voyager), a truly God-like being in search of its creator.

Jeff-Minor

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> @BloggyMcBlogBlog: Enjoy your lawsuit for mentioning him. :P

urukhaifive

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> @Gyrus: So spake wikipedia:
"Q-like behavior

It is suggested by some Star Trek fans (and at least one Star Trek Expanded Universe novel, Q-Squared by Peter David) that Trelane is a young member of the Q Continuum, a race of near-omnipotent beings who harass, in various ways, beings much weaker than they are.

Like Q, Trelane viewed humans as playthings, appeared in many guises, could instantly rearrange matter and energy, and even subjected Kirk to a mock trial. He initially relied on a machine to assist his self-described "instrumentality," but after it was destroyed he displayed even greater feats. When Kirk asked about this, Trelane responded, "Did you really think that was the only medium of instrumentality at my command?" At the end of the episode Trelane is revealed to merely be a child of his race-this may explain his partial reliance on the machine.

Peter David's novel attempts to resolve the apparent discrepancy by suggesting that Trelane is (in essence) developmentally disabled relative to other Q; the machine analogous to crutches or a wheelchair."

Looks like he was never _officially_ retconned.

urukhaifive

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> What about Xenu?

BloggyMcBlogBlog

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> Ok, Obelisk dudes rocked. Paul never became the Kwisatz Haderach, he tells the reverend mother exactly that, he says "I am something else." More powerful, more terrifying, and in more control. Sure in the movie he becomes the Kwisatz Haderach, but seriously, Lynch was on some spice himself there. And I don't think CHOAM space guild people were all that godlike, they could only do one thing, fold space, that's it. They sat locked in a frelling glass tube full of spice otherwise. Leto II was the godlike being, though he didn't feel like one. And in Contact he wasn't godlike, he was just, a more advanced alien who was being nice to Ms. Foster, as those who came before were nice to his species.

Oh, and as for Farscape and "And they literally wear tunics and have crappy beards" when they met Moya's deity, he didn't have the beard, but everything else fit. The only good part of that storyline was Zha'ans reaction to it.

aspiringexpatriate

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> Hee. Nice article. I hated the Hybrid too.

Seth L

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> Didn't they retcon Squire Trelaine into being one of the Q? For some damn reason that sounds likely.

Gyrus

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> "And they literally wear tunics and have crappy beards." I could just about hear Eric Cartman's voice coming out of my laptop screen. Awesome.

But I think you should cut the word "famous" from the Dune bit, because while he may be an incredible writer, who the fuck is Norman Spinrad???

moff

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> Charlie, with "Beautiful sweaty wormhole" and "super-fetus," you sir win the award for greatest descriptions of the day.

zenpoet

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction]]> Dreamworks 4 salinity-purifiers

EncephelanetRepairHelperGuy

]]>