With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Fourteen)

[Duke Long]

"Ah, of course. So, in summary, I'm a member of species that lives for thousands of years, knows more about everything that your entire species, is responsible for spreading humans to thousands of worlds, has devices that can do things you can't comprehend and is literally worshipped by a religion. Yes?"

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'than your'

 

[crazygrox]

I did not know I needed more star gate in my life but now I am re watching the series just because of this. Please keep this going.

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Honestly the Stellar Reich fanfic timeline ?I think it was Zoat? mentioned in the thread is making me want to rewatch stargate so I can write a fanfiction of that continuing it.
Into my pile of fanfics I'll write a couple dozen pages for then never finish I guess.

There are some very interesting directions to take things, as comparing where that left off to the timeline puts it ending shortly before contact with the Orbanians, contact is re-established with the Tollan having captured Skarra, first contact would have been made with the Aschen in a timeline where they didn't use time travel to prevent that, and an infested Asgard ship nearly brings Replicators to earth.
And in the absence of an overriding threat, and having just gotten access to their own space fleets, a decent blueprint for how to go about building an orbital defense infrastructure, and being liable to get a non-goa'uld seat on the council of system lords where negotiations will likely pit them against the other system lords, the earth nations in that would be quite likely to start pushing around the edges and trying to indirectly conflict with the Space Nazis.

I'm saying it ended right before some interesting, though open-ended stuff is all.

 

[Razorfloss]

Either she's pandering to Mammon out of fear, or she's an idiot.

Because there are so many ways someone even half way intelligent could have picked that little speech apart. That there's really not other options.

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She's not a debater and Paul spring this on her.

 

[Prince Charon]

i wonder how much of a debate this would have started back in ye day had this been an actual SG episode

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I don't think the show would have been willing to go there in this manner, since it would probably hit the censors and the argument would get canned. Having a snake (especially one with a name like Mammon) win a debate like that just wouldn't have been acceptable, IIRC.

Having done some religious debates in my time, I have to say that Paul's argument is pretty shallow. Semantics is just... semantics, and you're not addressing the real issue, which is whether he is a being worth worship and respect.

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Duxley wasn't anywhere near a skilled enough debater to make that issue clearly the point, and anyone who would be, would also probably understand enough about the political implications to not get into this situation in the first place.

 

[Mr Zoat]

Agreed. Finding this more interesting than recent Young Justice parts. Might be because I'm a Stargate fan and not a Young Justice fan though.

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WHAW, you've been... Toughing this out like a champ.

'than your'

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Thank you, corrected.

Having done some religious debates in my time, I have to say that Paul's argument is pretty shallow. Semantics is just... semantics, and you're not addressing the real issue, which is whether he is a being worth worship and respect.

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Was Odin? Loki? Do you have any idea how many people God murders in the Bible? Do the Aztek pantheon stop being gods because they eat hearts?

 

[012345]

Not exactly the greatest debate in the history of the System Lords, but neither participant was especially talented in that respect, Paulmon's showmanship aside. Still, he got some measure of agreement out of the lady, and set a precedent about certain derogatory terms visitors might use for Goa'uld. Now, how will Bastet react to hearing of this discussion...

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I think Paulmon dumbed down his explanation so that his audience would get it.

He wasnt trying to convince her but tell it in such away his people would get it easly without him needing to talk over hours.

As he said that conversation is probably going into holy text.

Because there are so many ways someone even half way intelligent could have picked that little speech apart. That there's really not other options.

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Can you give us an example somedody could come up on spot while in debate watched by who knows many people?

Maybe she could come up with counter arguments if she had more time to think in peace but he wasnt debating to convince her.

He was convinicing people watching debate in such a way they would understand what he means and would fit their worldview.

 

[Lord Ernest]

That was a bit weird, but I think I understand. Mrs. Duxley wasn't really a debate opponent, she was just a semi-useful tool to entertain and lightly educate Paulmon's subjects.

Mrs. Duxley "understands" that Goa'uld are not gods, probably because she logically sees them as enemies and because of her religion, but I don't think she can properly explain or defend her position. The humans of Paulmon's world probably can't follow all the monologue that was expressed there, but they might understand enough to dismiss future attempts at undermining the "divinity" of Mammon (and maybe other Goa'uld, who knows).

Still, it was interesting seeing Paulmon explain the position of "Yes, I'm not your god, which by the way may not exist, but I'm still a god, thank you very much".

 

[Lokpik]

It's going to be interesting if Paul manages to find nirti's planet where she is trying to make haktar. It might be power intensive but the scan of the machine would be incredible. Being able to bless underlings with psychic powers, such as his first prime and personal guard, maybe even the host of bastet.

 

[jasonh23761]

Honestly he's not trying to convince her, so much as use it as a moment to reinforce his own standing among his subjects. Like it or not, undermining the sovereign even by accident tends to invite retaliation of some degree, being used as a prop and then having a letter sent home is pretty minor on the scale that a near literal God-King could do.

That being said, if the point had been to convince her and not just force her down a path for the eyes of others, it would be a pretty crap theological debate. Still, it didn't hurt my head the same way as The Last Church did so that's a plus.

Also, SGC, come and get your girl.

 

[Doc Sithicus]

Was Odin? Loki? Do you have any idea how many people God murders in the Bible? Do the Aztek pantheon stop being gods because they eat hearts?

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It all comes down to one thing - Power. If you have enough of it, you might as well be a divine being compared to those who are powerless.

 

[Rogos]

Paulmon's arguments may not be the best, but in his defense, it can be hard to argue in favour of something you don't believe yourself, especially on such short notice. Sure, he doesn't think of himself as a god, but given his position, it's not like he could've publically agreed with Ms. Duxley and let her spread around the idea that all goa'ulds are false gods. And anyway, this discussion was mostly for the benefit of his people, who I imagine weren't taught a lot about critical thinking.

Still, I agree that the semantics do matter, since Paulmon and Ms. Duxley are operating out of different definitions of what a god is. For most of human history, a god was either a pretty alien being with inhuman thought processes (think most nature spirits) or a human noble/king writ large. Such beings were commonly accepted to be powerful (most of the time, but there were also plenty of minor deities who only had power over a single tree, rock or spring and were otherwise on the level of a human except for being unageing), but not all-powerful (and the few that were all-powerful were generally eldritch abominations), and certainly not without flaws. There were many stories about mortals outwitting gods, or besting them at various things, or even about gods being depowered without their magic trinkets, but they were still acknowledged as gods ; hell, gods could even die, and mortals could become gods ! The idea of a single, perfect God (as in, one who exhibits the "four O's" : omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience and omnibenevolence) is pretty recent when compared to the entire length of human history, and actually fares worse from the perspective of the Problem of Evil, forcing theologians to perform some pretty impressive mental gymnastics, which used to be largely unnecessary for the worshippers of several imperfect deities.

As for the accusation of being a parasite, there is a handy way to deflect it : "Actually, the body you see before you is vat-grown. I made it from a DNA sample, and curtailed its cerebral development so it never developed its own conscience. In other words, it never had a soul of its own and without me in it, it's just a vegetable". A lie, of course, but a plausible one given the capabilities of goa'uld technology, and one that's pretty difficult to disprove.

 

[Doccer]

Having done some religious debates in my time, I have to say that Paul's argument is pretty shallow. Semantics is just... semantics, and you're not addressing the real issue, which is whether he is a being worth worship and respect. And equalizing the terms "god" and "snakehead" seems like a remarkably bad idea; people might start using them interchangeably, which will greatly offend the other Goa'uld.

This conversation would be best kept as suppressed as possible, since it really just undermines Goa'Paul's dignity without meaningfully convincing Duxley of anything.

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This is probably less about making excellent arguments and more about the teachers religious leanings causing frustration in her and correcting her students (then referring to Paul as a snakehead of I'm reading between the lines here right) and the students more ardent beliefs causing a ruckus with the parents enough that the teacher and Paul had to have this surface level discussion to settle things. The teacher might find herself replaced with someone who is less of a believer. Eventually.

ATLA/SG crossover

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Link?

My symbiote never actually left its rightful place.'

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I think you mean "I never left my rightful place "

 

[Darko]

Link

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It's called The Dragon King's Temple.

 

[Vaermina]

Can you give us an example somedody could come up on spot while in debate watched by who knows many people?

Maybe she could come up with counter arguments if she had more time to think in peace but he wasnt debating to convince her.

He was convinicing people watching debate in such a way they would understand what he means and would fit their worldview.

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"Just because you claim a thing doesn't make it true."

That sentence alone would have shot down a good half of his arguments.

 

[012345]

"Just because you claim a thing doesn't make it true."

That sentence alone would have shot down a good half of his arguments.

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And so it would work on all of her arguments?

Plus frankly if she would resort to such Statement when he calmly discuss things with her she would came looking out like petulant child.

That she doesn't like his arguments so they must be false despite her agreeing moments earlier that what he is speaking is true.

 

[Vaermina]

And so it would work on all of her arguments?

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Assuming he didn't confirm her argument by doing something like showing off his snake, yes.

Plus frankly if she would resort to such Statement when he calmly discuss things with her she would came looking out like petulant child.

That she doesn't like his arguments so they must be false despite her agreeing moments earlier that what he is speaking is true.

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That's not saying the argument is false, it's saying there's no proof it's true.

Which is especially poignant given we know for a fact at least this.

I smile, bowing my head. "Ah, Christianity. You do realise that the Abrahamic religions are a product of folk memories of Ra and El, don't you? Ra's dead, but I can take you to meet El if you like. And his wife, Asherah."

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Was, barring a Zoat rewrite, almost pure bullshit.

 

[Mors]

Assuming he didn't confirm her argument by doing something like showing off his snake, yes.


That's not saying the argument is false, it's saying there's no proof it's true.

Which is especially poignant given we know for a fact at least this.

Was, barring a Zoat rewrite, almost pure bullshit.

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The El bit would have to be close to truth in an actual SG world, because El is the god Jews and later others took inspiration from. If Kali can be a snake, so can Yhwh.

I'm just not getting what your main issue is. Paul is claiming to be the same type of god as Odin, Zeus etc are. And those were aliens in this verse too. So - barring the deception that he really isn't one of them - Mammon's claim to divinity as Paul explains it is perfectly fair.

Or is it just that you can't tolerate somebody calling themselves a god without the three omnis?

 

[Darko]

I'm just not getting what your main issue is

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Don't bother trying to figure it out.

Vaermina will have a hundred different issues with every chapter and whatever happens in those chapters, and they usually never elaborate why they have those issues, but when they do, the explanation usually doesn't make sense.

Paul is claiming to be the same type of god as Odin, Zeus etc are

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Odin is technically an Asgard and not a Goa'uld.

 

[Jiro]

Whatever else is going on in Paulmon's world and however competent he might be in other areas - this is shit PR. Neurotypicals will not take away the message you want to impart from this speech.

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I think it's possible Paul will do okay if the people will think "I don't understand this stuff, but the teacher obviously didn't win".

But I would agree that the contents of the argument won't convince anyone and could even backfire.

 

[FreeGod]

i wonder how much of a debate this would have started back in ye day had this been an actual SG episode

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SG never actually gets into any sort of meat of theology. The 'agruments' never get farther then the goa'uld saying that they are gods and SG team say No you aren't. There is never any sort of attempt to define terms.

In Paulmon's defence he is technically an atheist himself, and his knowledge of bible canon is probably a bit fuzzy, yes.

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Atheists at least in America score higher on average then Christians on bible knowledge quizes. After all we are surrounded by outspoken Christians and many used to be Christians.

 

[Celtic Spartan]

Link?

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It's called The Dragon King's Temple.

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Its on FanFiction.net

 

[RoninSword]

Link?

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https://archiveofourown.org/works/6211903/chapters/14231311

 

[Vaermina]

The El bit would have to be close to truth in an actual SG world, because El is the god Jews and later others took inspiration from. If Kali can be a snake, so can Yhwh.

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Not in Stargate? There the Abrahamic religions originated from the waves of returning Ancients.

But I would agree that the contents of the argument won't convince anyone and could even backfire.

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Especially when the SGC eventually has the ability to double check every claim he makes with various first hand sources.

 

[KaiKolo]

This seems like nitpicking the difference between what "God" (big G) and "god" (little g) is, who gets to define what those terms mean, and what does godhood mean for humans both on Earth and across the stars.

Putting away any of our (the readers) personal beliefs, Mrs. Duxley does have faith in the existence in a singular God and her knowledge about the Goa'uld reinforce her beliefs that they are not God and aren't gods. But that being said, this is from the perspective of a human Christian from a modern day Earth.

Humans from other religions and from different planets, as well as Jaffa, aren't likely to share the same belief in what godhood means to them. For all these different people, Mammon, the rest of the Goa'ulds, and even the Asgard would fit the definition of godhood.

Heck, some humans and Jaffa do hold their ruling Goa'uld to be their one true god/God and see others Goa'ulds as heretics or false gods.

 

[crazygrox]

I'll admit, we haven't been the best at explaining things, but that's not something that any goa'uld has ever had to do for another goa'uld because we're born knowing things like that.

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Another of the things I've thought about is that the Goa'uld were badly outmatched during their war with the Asgard.

Any planetary industry that allows a world to be more easily identified as worth investigating is a liability against a radically superior opponent.

Which means no coal or oil use, because they can alter atmospheric composition, and no industrial waste dumping, for similar reasons of it making the world more interesting to ship sensors.

If it's actually impossible to defend your worlds from an Asgard strike, ideally most worlds would be primitive mining worlds which the Asgard can't tell are inhabited from a distance, and can't tell are even in service to a Goa'uld unless someone on the surface talks, rather than just being random human populations which have remnant pro-goa'ils religions.
With actual construction of ships occurring either scattered, or in the tiny handful of locations you can actually invest enough to defend.

And the Goa'uld all have personal experience of the lessons learned during the Asgard war, even if they would intellectually rationalize that obscurity through technological restriction is no longer that useful if they seriously rethought their situation.

 

[Vaermina]

Another of the things I've thought about is that the Goa'uld were badly outmatched during their war with the Asgard.

Any planetary industry that allows a world to be more easily identified as worth investigating is a liability against a radically superior opponent.

Which means no coal or oil use, because they can alter atmospheric composition, and no industrial waste dumping, for similar reasons of it making the world more interesting to ship sensors.

If it's actually impossible to defend your worlds from an Asgard strike, ideally most worlds would be primitive mining worlds which the Asgard can't tell are inhabited from a distance, and can't tell are even in service to a Goa'uld unless someone on the surface talks, rather than just being random human populations which have remnant pro-goa'ils religions.
With actual construction of ships occurring either scattered, or in the tiny handful of locations you can actually invest enough to defend.

And the Goa'uld all have personal experience of the lessons learned during the Asgard war, even if they would intellectually rationalize that obscurity through technological restriction is no longer that useful if they seriously rethought their situation.

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It's impossible to defend a world period in Stargate with anything but second strike capability.

Stealth outstripped detection by far too large an amount, and Naquada means you can load up a cargo ship with a big enough boom to vaporize everything in hundreds of miles.

 

[Peanuckle]

Was Odin? Loki? Do you have any idea how many people God murders in the Bible? Do the Aztek pantheon stop being gods because they eat hearts?

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They have nothing to do with whether or not Paul worthy of worship. Would Goa'uld Paul consider himself to be a being worthy of a dedicated religion? The fact that other such beings were monstrous (by modern human standards) has no bearing on Goa'Paul's personal worth. If you really want to compare your divinity to that of bloodthirsty tricksters, then that's a metric you're setting.

He's playing word-games to avoid admitting publicly that he's not a divine spirit in the sense that most people would understand it, but trying to revamp a feudal society's understanding of divinity would just result in mass confusion and probably rebellion, and Paul is a pretty stringent atheist to begin with. He'd probably prefer to just be seen as a capable mortal being, but wrecking the social order without a backup is a bad plan. I understand why he's doing it, but as an outside observer it just falls flat. He's fortunate that the only people watching are either fanatics, uneducated or stakeholders in his act.

 

[Mors]

He's playing word-games to avoid admitting publicly that he's not a divine spirit in the sense that most people would understand it, but trying to revamp a feudal society's understanding of divinity would just result in mass confusion and probably rebellion, and Paul is a pretty stringent atheist to begin with. He'd probably prefer to just be seen as a capable mortal being, but wrecking the social order without a backup is a bad plan. I understand why he's doing it, but as an outside observer it just falls flat. He's fortunate that the only people watching are either fanatics, uneducated or stakeholders in his act.

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Most people meaning most people on modern earth, especially Christians/Christian-influenced atheists who're trained to think of god in a certain way.

I'm not an SG fan but surely in-universe there are trillions of humans on other planets believing in different sorts of gods? Or do you mean if they were more educated, they'd automatically switch to a thrice omni-* Abrahamic God?

Better check your biases.

 

[ForeverShogo]

I don't think there are trillions of other humans. Not every human world out there is under Goa'uld control, but the number of actually thriving, industrialized worlds is a bare handful at best. At least as far as I can remember. It's mostly just low tech, low population worlds that it's easy for the Goa'uld to keep under their thumb. Because they're such shit rulers the humans tend to successfully revolt if they don't artificially limit humanity.

Even the Pegasus galaxy has human numbers kept artificially low because of the Wraith regularly purging it when they feed.

Don't really remember much of anything about the galaxy ruled by the Ori.

 

[Vaermina]

I'm not an SG fan but surely in-universe there are trillions of humans on other planets believing in different sorts of gods? Or do you mean if they were more educated, they'd automatically switch to a thrice omni-* Abrahamic God?

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Let's see...

There are the majority in the Milky Way which worship the Goa'uld.

There are those in the Milky Way which broke away from the Goa'uld and basically buried religion in shame.

There are those in the Milky Way which were freed from the Goa'uld by the Asgard and ended up worshiping them.

There was a native American like group that was freed from the Goa'uld by the Spirits and ended up worshiping them.

And there were those groups that were descended from those whom the Ancients moved around to protect the Sangrail that worshiped the Abrahamic god. Which in reality was a religion constructed by the Ancients to help protect those groups from falling to the Ori.

In Pegasus it was basically just groups worshiping the Ancients or Wraith.

While in the Ori galaxy they just worshiped Origin.