The Wanna Be Getting Religion

The Wanna Be “Getting Religion or The Foundation of the Empire”

This week I want to talk a bit about the Galactic Empire. It’s probably a bad idea because I have less than an idea about what the Empire is. More like a rough sketch, a notion. Well, anyway, here’s what I’ve got.

The foundation of the Galactic Empire is religion. I’ll probably lose most of you while describing this. Stay with me.

I’ve decided to get religion. It’s kind of difficult for me since my parents decided to not force any religion on their children. However, around the time I turned ten-years old, my father suddenly became very religious. It was a confusing time for my brother and myself and a stressful time for my parents and eventually led to the breakup of the marriage. I suppose on some level I kind of blame religion for all of that so I’ve never really had one myself.

That’s not an especially healthy attitude. I believe that human beings need to have everything make sense. Whether it’s God or Kharma or Fate or what-have-you we all need it, to understand how the world works, why it’s here in the first place and what our place is in it.

So, I’ve gotten myself a religion. For some reason I’ve just thought about a character on the TV show Mork & Mindy. The character, [blank], was some form of local nut. I remember one exchange between him and Mork played by Robin Williams:

Mork: “What are you up to, [blank]

[blank]: “I’m out preaching the one true religion.”

Mork: “What is it this week?”

Yeah, I’m putting my faith in this, but not really. If you want to, go right ahead. Just don’t make me your freaking prophet or something like that.

A decent chunk is based on the multiverse theory of quantum physics. I learned about it in the novel Timeline by Michael Crichton. Essentially, and as I understand it, this theory states that there are actually and infinite number of parallel universes which interact with each other. Whatever the official theory is, I have postulated a few items based on this idea. ·

Lost yet? Good.

Essentially what this all means is everything is connected. We see the universe linearly since we are a part of it. The idea of us all being the same being of consciousness can be described as s ingle camera that can film the same scene of a movie from several angles, like how the point of view in The Blair Witch Project switched as different actors carried the cameras.

What I have here is a combination of Buddism and quantum theory. Pity it isn’t Hinduism like I wanted but in the western mind most eastern philosophies and religions are very, very similar. What little research I’ve managed to do on Hinduism suggests it has elements I can easily add to my Quantum Buddism.

I happen to like Quantum Buddhism since it makes a bizarre form of sense. Much like The Matrix which had a reason why there was no spoon. I’ve heard similar lines in other Kung Fu movies. The line has an explanation in The Matrix. “Seek without looking,” comes from Eastern philosophy (and a Beatles song). In quantum mechanics it is possible to study a particle by examining all the particles around it, never the specific particle in question. It makes an odd form of sense.

This is the foundation of the Empire.

It also explains the idea that the Empire is a place of understanding and brotherhood. If everyone is the same living being, than when you treat your neighbor badly you are actually treating yourself badly.

That’s how it works in theory. The problem is not everyone in the Empire actually practices this. They may pay lips service to it. There are currently [x] million Catholics in the world. A decent chunk of them attend mass on Sunday and then do whatever they want the rest of the week, and then there’s the Pope who lives with the religion every day of his life.

Now to talking about the Empire itself or to be specific the Emperor. I actually wanted to see the movie The Last Emperor before I discussed this. I have a full week between these articles. You’d think I’d find time to rent a movie. HA!

It doesn’t matter. I did seen a pivotal seen in a preview where the young emperor, must have been four years old or so, is walking out under a large red banner. He’s playing with it as he walks out and then he reaches the end and before him is a large courtyard filled with people. As soon as they see him they all bow.

Can you imagine what that does to a kid? The human race is particularly self-centered and we are all raving maniacs by varying degrees. As children we somehow get the notion that we are the most important person in the world. Imagine if you had gotten confirmation of that from an entire nation.

The Emperor is an extremely important person since not only is he the ruler of the Empire, but he also gives scope to the game. I had gotten this idea when I was thinking of writing a super hero game.

Many super hero games tend to give you big lists of heroes...HEROES! OK, so they can easily be turned into villians (happens all the time in comics) but the players are the heroes. Why would you need a roster of heroes? What you need are villians. So I had planned to only put one hero in my game. All the rest would be villians or non-superpowered NPCs. This grew a bit when I realised I could give the game a wide scope by describing the hero in greater detail, outlining his full career from his beginings during the Thirties as a child super hero to his death in a dark near future. In this way the game has a large scope from the “Golden Age” to dark future. Player could then set their games at any point during the hero’s career or sometime before of after if they desire.

OK, so I never wrote that super hero game, but the idea is still sound. The Emperor’s reign starts when he is chosen by the Council of the Twelve at the tender age of five until his untimely death at about five hundred. Remember, at this point the life expectancy is between nine hundred and a thousand. He was barely past the halfway mark. I figure he died like Alexander the Great. He contracted some disease and the physicians who treated him just plain did the wrong thing to save him and didn’t realise it until he was already dead.

In fact, I like this idea so much I may use the leaders of all the races and political bodies to give the game scope. Of course the Federation president’s reign begins and ends at different times that the Emperor’s reign. This means there will be several overlapping timelines, especially if I describe any of the fringe worlds.

Well, that’s all I have time for this week. There’s an old saying that goes “write what you know.” A similar yet different saying is “know what you write.” I really ought to do more research on the subject.