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[Druur Monakh]

Well looking at the Scriptures themselves, the only real parallel the Amarr seem to have with modern religions is monotheism.

There is only one?

Oh dear - I think I accidentally turned into a closet pagan.

I'd clarify and say modern monotheistic religions and more specifically, the aspect of having a single prophet/messiah figure who hands down the word of God that is transcribed into a single book is absent in the Amarr faith as far as I can see.

And you're silently implying that there is not only a single messiah and a single book, but also a single god.

While in my writings I have deliberately steered clear of religion (various reasons, including "initially it didn't matter" and "PF made my eyes glaze over"), at the same time without really thinking about it I have Druur swearing to multiple gods.

I could probably handwave it away, claiming that Druur's background in the Special Forces made her a cynic, and she makes sure never to swear in public, but it's now an interesting detail to think about.

(The homogenous depiction of sci-fi societies is a pet-peeve of mine. I just can't imagine that every single Amarr/Khanid is deeply religious, or that every single Klingon likes Opera.)

[V. Gesakaarin]

And you're silently implying that there is not only a single messiah and a single book, but also a single god.

Where? The PF I've read points to a lot of religious figures of importance or significance in the Empire -- there's the Emperors, the saints, the prophets and more but there hasn't been an implication that there's a single figure above all others like Abraham or Moses for the Amarr or that the Scriptures are a single book like the Torah, Bible or Qur'an.

[Vic Van Meter]

Well looking at the Scriptures themselves, the only real parallel the Amarr seem to have with modern religions is monotheism. Because they don't have a single book that is the source of all dogma that can never be changed or amended, they have a living body of work that has both been collected over thousands of years and is continuously updated, added to, and changed as required or demanded.

The whole Catholics in space or WH40k Imperium of Man dynamic to it seems a bit odd to me, because the closest I see the Empire being to is something more like the society of Frank Herbert's Dune, where you have this element of science and underlying religion/feudalism combined with the crushing weight of history.

Really?  I mean, they use a lot of Catholic title and language work, so I definitely use it as a reference for those, but I thought most of us played it as if it was the Roman Empire.  It's exceptionally close to the Roman Empire.

[Lyn Farel]

Isn't it ? 

Edit : I have always tried to do something about that but all I got was "hurrdurr heretic hurrdurr". Not that I stopped trying, but there are mainly 2 enemies to that :

- Amarrian RPers that do not have the same interpretation and rely more on spanish inquisition tropes, which means, at least half of them if not more.
- Outside RPers that just are here to bash Amarrians in their RL crusade against christian/muslim religions, even if Amarr religion has absolutely nothing to do with it.

I don't know... if I played an Amarr character I'd be all like, "Do you want to know where I found my faith? It was in my youth. In the ineluctable spaces between man's knowledge. In my ignorance of the world around me. I sought the truth of God's will as a rational man. In the understanding of His creation around me. As I looked upon the stars I wished to know Him and His work. God is the perfection of the universe all around us, and we are imperfect men who can only hope to achieve degrees of imperfection through our own work...

It is you, the barbarian and the heathen who live in your own ignorance and it is our mandate to free you from it. To liberate you from your own darkness and into the light of God's truth."

You know, it's odd though, if you look at history and say some of the Islamic Caliphates of the past they were both based on religious doctrine just as much as the realization that in order to run a well ordered Empire you need good administrators, intelligent bureaucrats, and creative scientists. The Scriptures are just as much religious/philosophical as they are scientific/administrative/legal because they're the embodiment of millenia of collected works in how to run a well-ordered Empire, no?

If the Amarr were as dogmatic and intolerant or as "anti-science" as some portray them as then it doesn't explain how they rose up into the stars on the backs of advanced spaceships.

This might also seem odd to some, but is out of the realms of possibility that the Amarr would give sainthoods to scientists?

It would be interesting if they did, like the Amarr equivalents of Saint Einstein the patron saint of relativity, or Saint Feynman the patron saint of nanotechnology.

This might also seem odd to some, but is out of the realms of possibility that the Amarr would give sainthoods to scientists?

It would be interesting if they did, like the Amarr equivalents of Saint Einstein the patron saint of relativity, or Saint Feynman the patron saint of nanotechnology.

I think, having grown up in societies where science and religion are somehow diametrically opposed, it's harder for us to understand the concept of theocracy or even religious and scientific harmony.  It's been a very long time since even the Deist philosophies, much less a time when the western world didn't make that distinction.  Unfortunately, Amarrian culture is very heavily based on Roman and Holy Roman Empire thinking, where great scientists were often priests and monks struggling to understand God's work, usually because they were their cultures' most educated people.

Amarrians probably would sanctify scientists especially since the idea of advancing warp drive technology and discovering a new complete text of Scriptural work are held in equal esteem as works of God in Amarrian society.  Being a complete theocracy, helping the empire is helping God's work and discerning God's work helps the empire.  It's all seamless, and Amarrian society seems like a very practical theocracy as opposed to less rational real-world examples.

That's sort of the challenge of playing an Amarrian, because you have to be able to weave the religion subtly into your RP.  Most people RP religion a bit like a sledgehammer, they're either calling for the execution of everyone else on charges of heresy or they never talk about it.  I guess that, especially nowadays, it's hard to have an undercurrent of religion even in matters that don't seem very religious because it's seen as a mutually exclusive dichotomy.  For Amarrians, though, they've grown up in a society where everything they do is based around a universal religion they've been learning since birth and have been practicing along with everyone they grew up with.  It's not just going to church on Sunday and forgetting about it the rest of the week, people research wormhole science or transport freighters full of frozen food religiously.  They don't even think about it; it's there for them the way we think of such universal things as the economy or government administration.

So yeah, it's probably a lot softer than most of our conservative nutters are playing it, but also a lot more pervasive than we sometimes play it.  But it's elements like that which make roleplaying fun!  Nobody wants to just roleplay a character where all the questions are already answered and all your reactions are already decided.

Hell yeah.

[Druur Monakh]

And you're silently implying that there is not only a single messiah and a single book, but also a single god.

Where?

Yeah, I misread you - I apologize for the non-sequitur.

[Arista Shahni]

I responded to the other thread.

I do weave religious crap into everything I RP.  Then again, I RP a zealot.

Most people don't notice because it is NOT a sledgehammer.

Instead I get (and the most recent person to have said this to me will think I  mean only them, there has been more than one) "There's a poetry to how you speak." 

Should be obvious to ppl who have RPed with me and then seen my tumble of typos in OOC channels that I am pretty careful about Ari's sentences and it's not just because I suspect my RP is being logged at every turn, it's because I am usually weaving 'grace' into everything she says; thinking, backspacing, etc.  Some days I don't RP because I am not in the right mindset to do it.

Sure, I could spout scripture like a fountain.  But again, the Amarrian religion, imo, is ALIVE, because the AMARRIANS ARE ALIVE.  IMO again, every Amarrian could end up finding themselves in the Scriptures 1000 years down the line and damned well should be carrying themselves that way -- if they're believers.  They're supposed to be the blessed people, not neener neener I'm better than you and this is why.  Their position shouldn't even need be said. It should be shown.  (which makes me giggle OOC when people say that Ari is being stuck up or 'talking down' etc etc.. nothing in a single sentence points that out -- it's just a Khanid being a Khanid and eventually it becomes apparent that she's so .. soo what she IS..  that it either makes other people IC question their own positions or make their brain snap to "Fuckin' Amarrians!".  As it should be, which means, damnit, I'm doinitright.)

Slaves and the ignorant should recite scripture.  Amarrians should live it.   

.. damn that sentence sounds evil.  I like it!   (I only get to be evil OOC   )
 

[Safai]

Just noticed this thread, good discussion and great posts, and read some of the IGS thread too. Sadly I think I'm seeing a bit of an echo here, and was disappointed to see the same people using untenable PF as a strawman to paint broad strokes over the values of real people in a clear effort to get their opinion heard. It's jarring and a buzzkill, and arguably hypocritical.

Sigh ... r/atheism anyone?

[Arista Shahni]

Who are the same people and who are the real ones?

Im just talking about a fictional universe.

[Louella Dougans]

Who are the same people and who are the real ones?

Im just talking about a fictional universe.

I'm not a real person, I just play one on TV.

[Lyn Farel]

Bleh, re reading that topic about the Futility of playing an Amarrian character was rather depressing... After all those years I think i'm just worn out. One can't win against that.

[Gaven Lok ri]

Well looking at the Scriptures themselves, the only real parallel the Amarr seem to have with modern religions is monotheism. Because they don't have a single book that is the source of all dogma that can never be changed or amended, they have a living body of work that has both been collected over thousands of years and is continuously updated, added to, and changed as required or demanded.

The whole Catholics in space or WH40k Imperium of Man dynamic to it seems a bit odd to me, because the closest I see the Empire being to is something more like the society of Frank Herbert's Dune, where you have this element of science and underlying religion/feudalism combined with the crushing weight of history.

Really?  I mean, they use a lot of Catholic title and language work, so I definitely use it as a reference for those, but I thought most of us played it as if it was the Roman Empire.  It's exceptionally close to the Roman Empire.

The Roman empire model is a really really old one, and not a very good one. It was the one that people ran with first at release, so it has a lot of weight, but its not a very close match to how Amarr works. Unfortunately the oldest Amarrian player institutions are all Roman theme named because of this.

Every few years I try to convince PIE to switch to Persian styled titulature, but people like the naval ranks too much.

If you go with Eastern Roman Empire circa 1100 or so, you have the best single historical model. But still not perfect.

If I was going to use real world comparisons to make a more reasonable model I would say that the Religious model ends up being one part Zoroastrian light imagery, another part OT style Prophet narrative and militant monotheism, some catholic titles, and then a few egyptian elements thrown in. For the government and empire model, I find the Sasanian empire (combination of divine right of rule and a central bureaucracy with a decentralized almost feudal state outside of the capital) to be the closest one to Amarr.

Edit: The biggest problem with the catholic model is that the Catholic church has never really had imperial authority, so it actively works to assert its authority against the state authority that kings represent. This means that the church created some pretty strong concepts of separate spheres of authority. This doesn't translate well to Amarr, where the religion pervades every single aspect of the culture and the idea that any action would not be religious to some degree is unlikely to be understood.

[Seriphyn]

Man, I'm so glad a veteran of the Amarr has finally come forward to debunk the Roman thing. People are so quick to assert the French theme of the Gallente; sure, all you gotta do is look at the system and agent names. And yet, there is nothing Roman about the Amarr naming system ingame.

In fact, the only similarity I could see that people were using as their basis was that both the Amarr Empire and the Roman Empire was that they had "empire" in their names. Still, Gaven's explanation that it was a launch thing makes sense. Even then, 1st Praetorian Guard's use of eagle imagery seems out of place given none of if appears on Amarr NPC logos and is everywhere on the Gallente (unless those were different at launch?)

[Lyn Farel]

I have always said the same concerning the Amarr Empire... Except maybe on the societal view of slaves on the amarrian everyday, which is really similar to the one of the roman empire... There is not much else.

[Nicoletta Mithra]

I always played Amarr more kind'a Persian-styled. Anyhow, Latin got used from the start, it has found it's way into PF, even - and it is evoking successfully the idea of ancient empire and religion, while being more easily accessible to people than Avestic Persian or so...

I think there are good reasons to use Latin as fluff language for Amarr. That people don't accept the - for them - esoteric farsi is shown by Gaven's experience with Persian styled titulature in PIE. Also PF indicates that the Amarr (and the Scriptures) used (and maybe still use) several languages aside 'Standard Iperial' Amarrish. So, there's plenty of leeway possible.

[Arista Shahni]

I use indian/pakistani wedding dresses as clergywear. mainly cause it explains why ari has a nose piercing, but also because pretty.