Actually I've made the same point consistently throughout this argument. The one trying to pull a gotcha based on one word in my argument is you, I'm sorry to say. If you don't see the parallels between the Book of Genesis and a story where a mystical white-robed figure starts out alone in the universe and creates humanity in its own image, you don't see them, and that's fine.
You're free to stop responding any time you like.
You keep referring to "a white-robed figure." How is an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, formless being who transcends time and space itself "a white-robed figure?" In the Bible, when God shows himself, he appears as a number of things. White-robed is merely one of them, I don't get why people get so hung up on that one. Maybe it's Bruce Almighty.
Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved 800 lives, including your mother's, and yours.
It's worth noting that the quote does not actually establish the AGE of the Guardian. Merely the amount of time it waited for a question.
Although this raises another mind-boggling question. If the Preservers didn't even exist yet, WHO asked the Guardian a question first?
Then there's this enigmatic phrase: I am my own beginning, my own ending. What's THAT supposed to mean? Did it somehow create itself?
Given that the Guardian can access any point in time or across dimensions, maybe it hasn't been created yet but will exist at its physical location across all points in time once it is created. Maybe it was created in another dimension and just exists here simultaneously with its existence in other dimensions. Maybe it predates this universe altogether. I think if trying to understand something like the Guardian, the normal rules of our level of existence kinda go out the window. To borrow a line,
You keep referring to "a white-robed figure." How is an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, formless being who transcends time and space itself "a white-robed figure?" In the Bible, when God shows himself, he appears as a number of things. White-robed is merely one of them, I don't get why people get so hung up on that one. Maybe it's Bruce Almighty.
I take it you've never seen God depicted in pop culture. He's almost always depicted as an old man in a white robe. Except maybe in South Park, I guess.
But again, you're getting caught up on what colour the icing on the cake is.
Genesis: A mysterious being - usually depicted in a white robe - appears at the dawn of the universe, finds it lifeless, and creates man in his own image, by his design.
Preservers: Mysterious white-robed beings appear at the dawn of the universe, find it lifeless, and create man in their own image, by their design.
Star Trek does dress it up with sci-fi, but the core story of a mystical being from before the dawn of time creating life in its image is the same thing. The Ancient Humanoids are a callback to Genesis the same way Darmok is a callback to the Epic of Gilgamesh. The fact that one is sci-fi and one is ancient myth doesn't remove the fundamental story elements. Call it subtext, allegory, whatever you like. The icing might be pink or yellow or white, but it's still a chocolate cake.
The artist formerly known as PlanetofHats.
Actual join date: Open beta, 2009ish.
The Universe is supposedly close to 13-15 Billion years old. Its possible that the early point in which our Galaxy formed there was intelligent life...But something occurred on a galactic level that killed everything off. Now I have no clue what could of done it.
But like we see in Earths History. Life has bounced back numerous times from very devastating events. The Earth has had 4 Extinction Level events in its history. And theres no telling how many more it might experience. What if theres something on a galactic level that also does this (in the Star Trek Universe)?
After the Wipe, the Preservers rise and because their evolution to sentience is closer to the Wipe they are essentially alone. They then set out to seed the Galaxy. Which may or may not have been necessary.
If we look at science, there was the potential for life before the Preservers, but it probably never made it into space. The first stars in the universe were Population III stars, and they were extremely deficient in metal, except maybe a bit of lithium. Metal seems to be the key building block for planet formation, so most Population III stars had no planets. It's possible a few small, metal-poor gas planets may have formed, but any life there wouldn't be life as we know it. It also would not have lasted long: The Population III stars were extremely short-lived. When they reached the end of their lives, they formed metal particles when they went nova. Those metal particles became the building blocks of old, semi-metal-poor Population II stars and the more metal-rich Population I stars like Sol. The Preservers probably appeared on a planet orbiting a Population II star.
The Preservers may have been, if not the first beings in the Milky Way, then probably the first beings in the galaxy capable of space flight, in part because nobody before the Population II stars would have had metals or much of a planet at all.
The artist formerly known as PlanetofHats.
Actual join date: Open beta, 2009ish.
I take it you've never seen God depicted in pop culture. He's almost always depicted as an old man in a white robe. Except maybe in South Park, I guess.
But again, you're getting caught up on what colour the icing on the cake is.
Genesis: A mysterious being - usually depicted in a white robe - appears at the dawn of the universe, finds it lifeless, and creates man in his own image, by his design.
Preservers: Mysterious white-robed beings appear at the dawn of the universe, find it lifeless, and create man in their own image, by their design.
Star Trek does dress it up with sci-fi, but the core story of a mystical being from before the dawn of time creating life in its image is the same thing. The Ancient Humanoids are a callback to Genesis the same way Darmok is a callback to the Epic of Gilgamesh. The fact that one is sci-fi and one is ancient myth doesn't remove the fundamental story elements. Call it subtext, allegory, whatever you like. The icing might be pink or yellow or white, but it's still a chocolate cake.
I mentioned Bruce Almighty, what do you mean "I've never seen God depicted in pop culture"? I would have to have been blind and deaf since birth.
The point I am attempting to make is that an ancient alien race seeding life on another planet is a far cry from a wholly supernatural, transcendent being creating an entire universe (or multiverse) from nonexistence with spoken words alone.
Your post says, 'appears at the dawn of the universe and finds it lifeless.' That isn't a parallel, as in Genesis, God transcends and "predates" the universe, causes the beginning of the universe, and creates life from non-living matter which he had previously created, all from total nonexistence. These are two very different scenarios.
Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved 800 lives, including your mother's, and yours.
Genesis: A mysterious being - usually depicted in a white robe - appears at the dawn of the universe, finds it lifeless, and creates man in his own image, by his design.
More like, usually not depicted, at all.
Your point was interesting several pages back. By now, it's just tiresome.
"Tolerance and apathy are the last virtues of a dying society." - Aristotle
And it took thousands of years before another intelligent species came along, whether naturally, or by direction, is unclear and unknown at this time.
If I'm not mistaken, by all canonical accounts, it took billions of years for other another sentient species to arise. At least, one that we know of.
Personally, I'm turned off by equating the ancient humanoids with the Preservers. Seems like some writier's nerd-gasm, no matter how great an authority the writer was.
And there's nothing which would contradict the ancient humanoids having been seeded by an even earlier race. The only evidence of the ancient humanoids' efforts is the DNA existing in the life they seeded. An even older race could have seeded the ancient humanoids in a pristine galaxy, leaving no other trace of their own existence behind, exactly as the ancient humanoids themselves did. Well, except for the Guardian.
What I find amazing in all of this, is that no one points out that the Guardian existed in the midst of ruins, ruins estimated to be approximately 1,000,000 years old. I find it difficult to believe that the no being living in that city ever asked a question of it; in fact, the evidence suggest the city itself was built around or alongside the Guardian.
To me, this suggests that at least some of the Guardian's statements have been misinterpreted. For example, while it may have existed prior to the formation of Sol, it has not been waiting that long for a question. Only that it's purpose, since at least as far back as before the formation of Sol, has been to await questioning.
Ultimately, I'm inclined to believe my earlier hypothesis regarding the Guardian's origins; that it exists (at least partially) outside of time, and once constructed (even if that construction takes place in the future), it immediately assumes a presence in all of time. Further, in existing outside of time, it no longer needs to be constructed. It is, in effect, an ascended machine.
"Tolerance and apathy are the last virtues of a dying society." - Aristotle
To me, this suggests that at least some of the Guardian's statements have been misinterpreted. For example, while it may have existed prior to the formation of Sol, it has not been waiting that long for a question. Only that it's purpose, since at least as far back as before the formation of Sol, has been to await questioning.
It basically speaks in riddles anyway, so who knows how much of what it says is intended to be taken literally.
I've always assumed the city was built around it, like Mecca around the shrine.
The artist formerly known as PlanetofHats.
Actual join date: Open beta, 2009ish.
As always there is going to be someone like the OP. Plaease just sit back and wait for the story to unfold. I am positive there is more to come. And by the way OP nice spoilers for someone who hadn't done the new stuff yet. Maybe you could have kept your mouth shut for a week before blabing spoliers?
Nah, you're trying to sneak out and nitpick and then retreat back to your moral high ground.
Not really.
I agree that there are some parallels, but disagree with how significant you believe them to be.
Cryptic's ripping off TNG, TNG was ripping off some earlier work, which ripped off some earlier work, etc., etc., etc., which ripped off the Bible, possibly at a time when the Bible was both the centerpiece of religious authority and also the pop culture of its day.
At some point, you get over the fact that there are religious overtones, which there are.
Or you don't.
"Tolerance and apathy are the last virtues of a dying society." - Aristotle
I agree that there are some parallels, but disagree with how significant you believe them to be.
Cryptic's ripping off TNG, TNG was ripping off some earlier work, which ripped off some earlier work, etc., etc., etc., which ripped off the Bible, possibly at a time when the Bible was both the centerpiece of religious authority and also the pop culture of its day.
At some point, you get over the fact that there are religious overtones, which there are.
Or you don't.
I don't particularly like Trek's handling of evolution vs. religion.
That said, I don't feel the need to harp on it unless I'm prodded. Which I have been several times in this thread.
The artist formerly known as PlanetofHats.
Actual join date: Open beta, 2009ish.
First, a preface, all living things reach a point of senescence, even societies, though this would take larger amounts of time depending on the "personality" of the society. The "Ancient Humanoids" quite obviously took the "long view" so their senescence would have taken longer than something like humanity who's view of the future is dreadfully short and getting shorter by the generation.
My thoughts on this thread's running themes: The relationship between the "Ancient Humanoids" and The Preservers:
If the "Ancient Humanoids" and the Preservers are the same race, then it is logical that instead of them running around for 5+ billion years, individual groups have been released from stasis at different intervals to check on the progress of their experiment. So it's entirely possible for them to be the same group of people.
The Preservers and the "...and found none like ourselves..." line:
I interpret this to indicate that their explorations found no humanoid life that reasoned as they did. This does not exclude non-humanoid life, nor even non-Preserver humanoid life from having been encountered. Simply humanoid life that was "like" the Preservers. This is a complicated concept and I won't be surprised if people don't understand it.
The Guardian of Forever and The Preservers:
The Preservers, their trick with not only encoding genetic traits that would force a certain path of development, but also encoding a computer program sophisticated enough to modify a piece of technology developed billions of years after the program was written, have been shown to have perfected at least two physical sciences and we can extrapolate that perfection to the rest of their knowledge. It's entirely possible that the Preservers are the ones who constructed The Guardian, perhaps to ask it a single question, "What of our Experiment?" The Guardian perhaps answered this question with the statement, "Not the remaining life of your race." Which could have led a group of The Preservers to lock themselves away in stasis to await the day when there would be more "like ourselves" with alarm clocks set to go off every few hundred millennia for them to check their progress.
This perspective allows for them to know of the Iconians, have saved the "native americans" and pretty much any other "appearance" you care to assign to them. It even allows for them to reappear later.
Comments
"I am the Bad Wolf. I create myself. I take the words, and scatter them, a message to lead myself here."
Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved 800 lives, including your mother's, and yours.
I dare you to do better.
You keep referring to "a white-robed figure." How is an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, formless being who transcends time and space itself "a white-robed figure?" In the Bible, when God shows himself, he appears as a number of things. White-robed is merely one of them, I don't get why people get so hung up on that one. Maybe it's Bruce Almighty.
Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved 800 lives, including your mother's, and yours.
I dare you to do better.
Given that the Guardian can access any point in time or across dimensions, maybe it hasn't been created yet but will exist at its physical location across all points in time once it is created. Maybe it was created in another dimension and just exists here simultaneously with its existence in other dimensions. Maybe it predates this universe altogether. I think if trying to understand something like the Guardian, the normal rules of our level of existence kinda go out the window. To borrow a line,
"I hate temporal mechanics."
I take it you've never seen God depicted in pop culture. He's almost always depicted as an old man in a white robe. Except maybe in South Park, I guess.
But again, you're getting caught up on what colour the icing on the cake is.
Genesis: A mysterious being - usually depicted in a white robe - appears at the dawn of the universe, finds it lifeless, and creates man in his own image, by his design.
Preservers: Mysterious white-robed beings appear at the dawn of the universe, find it lifeless, and create man in their own image, by their design.
Star Trek does dress it up with sci-fi, but the core story of a mystical being from before the dawn of time creating life in its image is the same thing. The Ancient Humanoids are a callback to Genesis the same way Darmok is a callback to the Epic of Gilgamesh. The fact that one is sci-fi and one is ancient myth doesn't remove the fundamental story elements. Call it subtext, allegory, whatever you like. The icing might be pink or yellow or white, but it's still a chocolate cake.
Actual join date: Open beta, 2009ish.
But like we see in Earths History. Life has bounced back numerous times from very devastating events. The Earth has had 4 Extinction Level events in its history. And theres no telling how many more it might experience. What if theres something on a galactic level that also does this (in the Star Trek Universe)?
After the Wipe, the Preservers rise and because their evolution to sentience is closer to the Wipe they are essentially alone. They then set out to seed the Galaxy. Which may or may not have been necessary.
The Preservers may have been, if not the first beings in the Milky Way, then probably the first beings in the galaxy capable of space flight, in part because nobody before the Population II stars would have had metals or much of a planet at all.
Actual join date: Open beta, 2009ish.
I mentioned Bruce Almighty, what do you mean "I've never seen God depicted in pop culture"? I would have to have been blind and deaf since birth.
The point I am attempting to make is that an ancient alien race seeding life on another planet is a far cry from a wholly supernatural, transcendent being creating an entire universe (or multiverse) from nonexistence with spoken words alone.
Your post says, 'appears at the dawn of the universe and finds it lifeless.' That isn't a parallel, as in Genesis, God transcends and "predates" the universe, causes the beginning of the universe, and creates life from non-living matter which he had previously created, all from total nonexistence. These are two very different scenarios.
Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved 800 lives, including your mother's, and yours.
I dare you to do better.
Your point was interesting several pages back. By now, it's just tiresome.
They are the first the ancient humanoids were aware of.
Again, the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Again, the first known sentient species.
If I'm not mistaken, by all canonical accounts, it took billions of years for other another sentient species to arise. At least, one that we know of.
Personally, I'm turned off by equating the ancient humanoids with the Preservers. Seems like some writier's nerd-gasm, no matter how great an authority the writer was.
And there's nothing which would contradict the ancient humanoids having been seeded by an even earlier race. The only evidence of the ancient humanoids' efforts is the DNA existing in the life they seeded. An even older race could have seeded the ancient humanoids in a pristine galaxy, leaving no other trace of their own existence behind, exactly as the ancient humanoids themselves did. Well, except for the Guardian.
What I find amazing in all of this, is that no one points out that the Guardian existed in the midst of ruins, ruins estimated to be approximately 1,000,000 years old. I find it difficult to believe that the no being living in that city ever asked a question of it; in fact, the evidence suggest the city itself was built around or alongside the Guardian.
To me, this suggests that at least some of the Guardian's statements have been misinterpreted. For example, while it may have existed prior to the formation of Sol, it has not been waiting that long for a question. Only that it's purpose, since at least as far back as before the formation of Sol, has been to await questioning.
Ultimately, I'm inclined to believe my earlier hypothesis regarding the Guardian's origins; that it exists (at least partially) outside of time, and once constructed (even if that construction takes place in the future), it immediately assumes a presence in all of time. Further, in existing outside of time, it no longer needs to be constructed. It is, in effect, an ascended machine.
And yet you still see fit to engage me on it. :rolleyes:
It basically speaks in riddles anyway, so who knows how much of what it says is intended to be taken literally.
I've always assumed the city was built around it, like Mecca around the shrine.
Actual join date: Open beta, 2009ish.
If I wanted to engage you on the topic, I would.
As I said, your point was interesting, but you've effectively trolled yourself by belaboring it.
Nah, you're trying to sneak out and nitpick and then retreat back to your moral high ground.
But it's cool, I'm down with it.
Actual join date: Open beta, 2009ish.
I agree that there are some parallels, but disagree with how significant you believe them to be.
Cryptic's ripping off TNG, TNG was ripping off some earlier work, which ripped off some earlier work, etc., etc., etc., which ripped off the Bible, possibly at a time when the Bible was both the centerpiece of religious authority and also the pop culture of its day.
At some point, you get over the fact that there are religious overtones, which there are.
Or you don't.
I don't particularly like Trek's handling of evolution vs. religion.
That said, I don't feel the need to harp on it unless I'm prodded. Which I have been several times in this thread.
Actual join date: Open beta, 2009ish.
My thoughts on this thread's running themes:
The relationship between the "Ancient Humanoids" and The Preservers:
If the "Ancient Humanoids" and the Preservers are the same race, then it is logical that instead of them running around for 5+ billion years, individual groups have been released from stasis at different intervals to check on the progress of their experiment. So it's entirely possible for them to be the same group of people.
The Preservers and the "...and found none like ourselves..." line:
I interpret this to indicate that their explorations found no humanoid life that reasoned as they did. This does not exclude non-humanoid life, nor even non-Preserver humanoid life from having been encountered. Simply humanoid life that was "like" the Preservers. This is a complicated concept and I won't be surprised if people don't understand it.
The Guardian of Forever and The Preservers:
The Preservers, their trick with not only encoding genetic traits that would force a certain path of development, but also encoding a computer program sophisticated enough to modify a piece of technology developed billions of years after the program was written, have been shown to have perfected at least two physical sciences and we can extrapolate that perfection to the rest of their knowledge. It's entirely possible that the Preservers are the ones who constructed The Guardian, perhaps to ask it a single question, "What of our Experiment?" The Guardian perhaps answered this question with the statement, "Not the remaining life of your race." Which could have led a group of The Preservers to lock themselves away in stasis to await the day when there would be more "like ourselves" with alarm clocks set to go off every few hundred millennia for them to check their progress.
This perspective allows for them to know of the Iconians, have saved the "native americans" and pretty much any other "appearance" you care to assign to them. It even allows for them to reappear later.