You misunderstood the cliche, it is not "religion le bad", it is literally the oldest scifi trope in existence "religious story but in Le future with technology", see for example 2001: a space Odyssey. It is supposed to parallel/be an allusion to the biblical story but having it being science fiction elements instead of religious or supernatural ones. It is a bland uninspired story, Emil/Bethesda wouldn't in a million years actually write a story that makes an statement because that could hurt sales, which is all they really care about
I realize now that a lot of what I was talking about does not come across in the little bits I posted about. I know religion in space is a classic thing, but the way this game handles it just feels like it hates religion and any idea of there being intelligent design. The story is very 2001, but 2001 did not have NPC companions that openly mock the single religious character in the group and then reveal that the religion of said character is a cult created by
a Starborn who traveled through universes acting as a god.
Even 2001 does not frame the religious connotations as a bad thing. It does not reveal what created the Monolith other than that it gave humanity the gift of knowledge, it could be aliens, it could be something divine, it does not frame anything as 'wrong', it just tells the story and the religious connotation is left to the viewer. Much of Clarke's work is like this. In Starfield,
the Starborn are partially in the same role as the Monolith in a sense, they seek the relics to achieve 'gnosis' in some sense. The Hunter believes that only the strong should reach Unity (gnosis essentially), and the Starborn dude believes only the worthy should, and that because he is Starborn he is more worthy to control the people. Sorry if this is messy, but all of this comes right after the discussions with the religious characters and it is clearly framed as a commentary on organized religion and how they lead the world because they believe they are right. Again, most of this is lost with me just transcribing things and it would be best if other people played the game to get a better picture of what I'm trying to say
I've read my fair share of sci-fi, and a lot of it is biblical, a lot of stories in general are biblical in some sense, but I can't think of any that are written in a way that feel like they are trying to one up those who are religious or mock the reader for believing in something beyond. Starfield throughout its entire main story up until the very final moment has this feeling, except right at the end
when you ask yourself at the center of the universe who created the artifacts, he replies that it was a Creator, and leaves it up to you.
Perhaps my interpretation of this is tainted by my disdain for Emil's writing and knowing that he resents being raised a Catholic. Perhaps someone else can provide their interpretation of the story. I would like to discuss the plot but perhaps later when more have played it and people aren't just reading my quick notes I posted that leave a lot out. But as I've said before a few times, your companions, every one of them except the single religious guy will get a 'disliked that' if you pick any dialogue option that even somewhat goes against a completely scientific answer. I'm personally not religious, but I believe there is something to it and that life itself is a miracle and should be sacred, I picked a dialogue choice saying that life is a miracle when discussing with the religious leader for the main quest, and my companion gave me a 'disliked that', not even denying science or anything, just saying life is a miracle, that really bothered me and kind of soured everything after that, which is when the atheism stuff picked up as well.
To me it comes across as tainted by the authors own beliefs, and that the stuff that you can say against that (when the game even lets you) only exists so that the other characters can counter you and destroy your beliefs with facts and logic of science.
Lol, Star Trek is for faggots, it is literally communism is space, Gene made next generation as his perfect Communist fantasy, a world "free of religion, ownership, marriage and discrimination". Star Trek is literally goyslop.
That's why DS9 is the best one, because he was dead when it was made. Although there is something I very much enjoy about the optimism for the future Roddenberry's stuff had, I like the motion picture quite a bit because of it, even if it has weird sex stuff. Dune sucks though, its a political drama that exists under the pretense of being sci-fi, then takes place on a fantasy desert planet the entire time and is just about politics, sure it was influential, but its a SLOG.
