Star treks vs gods

[Thebestoftherest]

Would modern day star treks be better if we got the current roster shows facing beings like Odin, Ra, maui, and the like. I think it be a different take from the ship battles of the week of Discovery.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

I feel like classic trek and TNG covered the territory of our heroes vs gods, god-like-aliens, and beings claiming to be gods pretty bloody thoroughly. Part of what made DS9 fresh is taking out the "vs" part and engaging with faith from an entirely new angle.

Why do you even want that in new trek?

[Thebestoftherest]

Why not, could be fun. Better than having yet another here 200 ships attack each others.

[Deledrius]

Only if they have a new story to tell. It's been done pretty thoroughly (sometimes well, sometimes not) over the course of the franchise.

I certainly don't have any confidence that the current team(s) would be able to tackle it in a way that doesn't fall flat at best, or make some moralizing equivalence validating bad faith systems at worst.

[CrypticMirror]

Would modern day star treks be better if we got the current roster shows facing beings like Odin, Ra, maui, and the like. I think it be a different take from the ship battles of the week of Discovery.

Well it would be called Stargate, for a start.

[Beastro]

I can understand Trek doing this in TOS given Roddenberry's bugbears, but I don't see how it could fly with modern Trek without it just being Stargate.

That, and no surprise, Sci-Fi has a very literal and materialistic perspective of deities that misses crucial parts of them. The assumption behind Stargate is that the Goa'uld aren't real gods because they use advanced technology to act like they're supernatural when the advance tech wouldn't make any difference to people with a paganistic outlook; they are more powerful beings than people and impart favours for service to them, which is all that matters to that outlook.

[Rocketboy1313]

We are currently living in the post "Game of Thrones" era of genre TV, so the emphasis is going to be on political and social conflict, playing with expectations in regard to genre tropes, and completely blowing the ending. A more episodic approach will come back in a decade or two and Trek will be there.

That being said, let's talk about the trope.
The idea of "Science kills the God(s)" is not a theme limited to Star Trek.

"Ghostbusters" has the climax of the film with a voice in the clouds yelling at the heroes about what apocalypse they want to suffer, and the BEAT BACK THE APOCALYPSE...

Wait, I am sorry, I was thinking of "Pacific Rim" where they CANCEL THE APOCALYPSE!

"Godzilla: King of the Monsters" explicitly calls the monsters Titans (and they very much take the stance that they are metaphors for natural forces/disasters/sciences that humans as a species are a part of).

"Babylon V" is all about getting rid of the demonic "what do you want" Shadows and angelic "who are you" Vorlons so that humanity and the other races can reach their potential free of their shitty parents.

Should Star Trek fight gods? Maybe, but I don't think you would get any more story impact than you would with Q or the Organians or the Crystalline Entity. And when you are writing it is important to identify what the thing you are writing about stands in for.

When you fight Apollo are you saying that the god of light and learning is still too confining for humanity and we must stop anthropomorphizing rationalism to keep moving forward? Or is Apollo just the name they drew from a hat and he is a stand in for YAHWEH? How does the story's message change if Apollo is replaced with Dionysus (hedonism) or Hera (traditional gender roles)?

[Thebestoftherest]

We are currently living in the post "Game of Thrones" era of genre TV, so the emphasis is going to be on political and social conflict, playing with expectations in regard to genre tropes, and completely blowing the ending. A more episodic approach will come back in a decade or two and Trek will be there.

That being said, let's talk about the trope.
The idea of "Science kills the God(s)" is not a theme limited to Star Trek.

"Ghostbusters" has the climax of the film with a voice in the clouds yelling at the heroes about what apocalypse they want to suffer, and the BEAT BACK THE APOCALYPSE...

Wait, I am sorry, I was thinking of "Pacific Rim" where they CANCEL THE APOCALYPSE!

"Godzilla: King of the Monsters" explicitly calls the monsters Titans (and they very much take the stance that they are metaphors for natural forces/disasters/sciences that humans as a species are a part of).

"Babylon V" is all about getting rid of the demonic "what do you want" Shadows and angelic "who are you" Vorlons so that humanity and the other races can reach their potential free of their shitty parents.

Should Star Trek fight gods? Maybe, but I don't think you would get any more story impact than you would with Q or the Organians or the Crystalline Entity. And when you are writing it is important to identify what the thing you are writing about stands in for.

When you fight Apollo are you saying that the god of light and learning is still too confining for humanity and we must stop anthropomorphizing rationalism to keep moving forward? Or is Apollo just the name they drew from a hat and he is a stand in for YAHWEH? How does the story's message change if Apollo is replaced with Dionysus (hedonism) or Hera (traditional gender roles)?

I just want people on star ship to fight people in viking or egyptian cosplay with lightning.

[Nealithi]

Two god like beings faced in TOS being Trelane and Apollo. Trelane faked needing machinery for his mischief. Apollo had his altar, but even then he was actually a being of power and the last of his kind.

TNG, had Q and the Traveller among a few others. Except for Q most were one shots. Like Kevin Uxbridge (Rather surprised to see that was season three. I thought it was first season.)

But the point is while Trek has had its share of powerful beings. What would the point be? Beyond costuming. . .

[Thebestoftherest]

I don't know I just think It would be fun to see.