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 Forum index » Archive » Archive: The Haunted Apiary (Let Op!) » The Haunted Apiary (Let Op!): Interaction
[SPEC] SP references, AI personalities, etc.
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Phaedra
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 		[SPEC] SP references, AI personalities, etc.
I'm sorry if this is the wrong place to post this, but I couldn't find an existing thread where it seems to fit.

Quote:
Yes, they prepared it in the Phase 2 Operator's Monologue, the passage in which Melissa recalls flirting with the Castaway, "The weather was stormy, scratched vinyl and all of us, a long way from home: I felt real."


Reflecting upon where we are now after all the events of yesterday, I had a few comments and questions.

1. In the scene with the Castaway, Melissa, as noted above, mentions that she feels "real." Also, in one of the sound clips, there is what sounds like a hint of pain in Durga's voice when she asks, "You don't think I'm real?"

So, is it possible our girls have a bit of a Pinocchio Complex? Not perhaps in the sense of *wanting* to be real, but rather in having their sentience recognized? Durga says to Jersey, sounding near tears, "I couldn't bear for you to be disappointed in me." This sounds as if she is more than capable of actual emotion (and not just an approximation thereof) and self-reflection. Melissa's monologue seems also to contain moments of genuine self-reflection, and though her "paranoia" and "jealousy" could just be the way her programming expresses itself, her loneliness seems real.

I understand that anyone who gets the honor of speaking to Melissa live will probably not want to jeopardize their opportunity by getting too experimental, but I wonder what would happen if someone treated her like...well...a machine. Of course, one would have to put oneself in a fairly heartless state of mind to speak dehumanizingly to a traumatized, lonely female who manifests actual affection and protectiveness toward her crew. (See point #2 for more thoughts on this.)

I would attempt it, but while I'm able to turn my empathy off and on to a certain extent, I'm not sure I could pull off something that cold convincingly. Also, I have a few other ideas I want to try out (which I'm not going to share here because it seems the PMs are paying attention to the forum) which would be mutually exclusive with pissing her off.

Perhaps one of our more partisan Knights would be willing to attempt it? However, I understand very well if no one wants to try.

Similarly, it's become pretty clear that the Princess sees herself as a little girl (see point #4 for more thoughts). I wonder what would happen if her programmatic nature was brought home to her in an interaction? Again, I recognize that it's not something most people would want to try, so I'm just throwing the idea out, not actually suggesting that anyone do it.

2. I bow in awe before the virtuoso emotional manipulation performed by the PMs.

Take a moment, and mentally switch the genders of all the characters. Dana's cry for help would seem slightly less moving coming from a man, no? Would the crying of a lost little boy seem quite as heartwrenching as that of the Princess' little-girl dream-persona? And a paranoid, lonely, damaged *male* AI would probably not inspire the same sort of loyalty Melissa gets.

Whether we like it or not, it appears we're all pretty-well culturally programmed to respond with sympathy to a damsel in distress.

Similarly, Melissa's strength, intelligence, self-sufficiency and paranoia form a sharp contrast to her decision to trust (fake) crew members, ensuring that most of them will be flattered and loyal when she does.

The Sleeping Princess' little-girl persona means we're willing to play games with her and read her stories, and that we're more likely to be charmed by her humor.

Impressive.

(cont'd)

PostPosted: Wed Sep 29, 2004 5:20 pm
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Phaedra
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 		[SPEC] SP references, AI personalities, etc. cont'd
(cont'd)

3. The scene with the Castaway brings up another point regarding Melissa's emotions. There seems to actually be a hint of romantic longing in that encounter.

I wonder what would happen if one of our more charming male members, preferably someone with a good phone voice, attempted to flirt with Melissa?

(Tangent -- I'd be tempted to call her "my little honeybee" myself, just because she's never acknowledged the meaning of her name -- Melissa means "bee," for those who missed it -- but I'm female and she might take it the wrong way, but maybe someone who was actually flirting could get away with it.)

Gentlemen? Any takers?

4. In an earlier post (in the 9/24 Email from the Flea thread), I discussed the distinctive voices of the characters in the game. (Well, not Dana. Hmm. Maybe I should take a look at her.) In brief: Melissa-speak tends toward the technological or military; Princess-speak is the language of myth or folktales.

I also speculated, in keeping with his mantra and my belief that the Flea was Covenant, that if he ever learned to speak English fluently, his language would be that of religion.

Clearly I was wrong.

The Princess, in her dream state, evoked religious symbols: the Seven Deadly Sins, the Apostles, and the Four Noble Truths. Her second set were not overtly religious, although someone did speculate that since the first set contained a 4-7-12 sequence, and except for the star, the same pattern could be found in the second set, the "star" might actually be a Star of David, in which s/he cleverly found 12, rather than 6, points.

Obviously this last is iffy, but the point remains that clearly Princess-language can also be religious. The Flea probably won't be becoming a great orator any time soon, then, at least if my speculations aren't total hogwash.

I suppose it makes sense, in that one person's myth is another person's religious history, but I find it interesting that she only used language that *we* would recognize as religious while in a dream-state, which would presumably render her less able to mask her thoughts in carefully selected words.

Since human AIs have no real reason to be religious, it does make me wonder again if she's Covenant or Forerunner.

On the other hand, her dream-persona is that of a little girl, complete with parents, which makes me wonder if she's Yasmine. Would a Covenant AI have anything analogous to parents? Also, her imagery is resolutely and specifically human. Finally, although she was scared of the humans she talked to, she didn't manifest any animosity toward them. As I understand it, the Covenant want to destroy us, so I'm leaning toward the Yasmine explanation at the moment.

It is interesting that the majority of the overtly religious references she made appeared to be Christian (Apostles, Deadly Sins).

I had assumed from the sound clips that Kamal and his family were Muslim. The food he refers to is generally Middle Eastern, and Sophia asks him something along the lines of whether his family knows he's eaten pork, and he says his mother would be upset if she knew.

Muslims, of course, do not eat pork.

In addition, I am aware of three possible etymologies for the name Kamal. One is Arabic (it means "perfection" or the union of opposites) and the other two are Sanskrit. Kamal can refer to the lotus flower or to the color red. However, given that I am not aware of any Hindu ban specifically on eating pork, I'm guessing he's Muslim.

Yasmine is also probably a Muslim name. Although in recent years it's become popular in India, Islam has also become more popular in India, so I think we can attribute it to that. (Well, okay, technically it's a Persian loan-word in Arabic, but still.)

This may suggest that the SP is *not* Yasmine, because if we assume that her dream-state is closer to her "core" personality than the persona she presents to us, wouldn't it be odd for a Muslim-raised girl to use primarily Christian imagery? On the other hand, as an AI she probably has knowledge of all human religions. And again, the PMs are playing to a primarily American audience, who is more likely to recognize Christian symbols than Muslim ones.

So at the moment, I'm leaning toward the SP=Yasmine theory rather than the SP=Covenant. Please feel free to convince me otherwise. I don't *like* the Yasmine explanation as much.

Attempting to steer the Princess toward some kind of religious tale or language might give us a better feel for that. And then again, it's quite possible that even if she were Covenant, she's forgotten anything and everything about their religious beliefs and attitudes.

Thanks to Trynian, who was kind enough to update me on Covenant religious beliefs, I have a basic understanding of them (although not enough, unfortunately, to really get a feel for how it would affect anything subtle). As I understand it, they worship the Forerunners, consider innovation on Forerunner tech to be heresy, and believe that their deities told them to wipe out the humans. So, pretty run of the mill "Go thou and kill the people on the other side of the hill, thy Lords command it."

If anyone has additional knowledge of Covenant religion, please PM me.

Returning to the point, feeling the SP out religiously might give us some clues as to whether she's Covenant. And then again, it might get us zip.

Thoughts?

PostPosted: Wed Sep 29, 2004 5:21 pm
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Nuriko
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The religious imagery is very suprising to me, but I wonder if it's the dreams of the SP or if those that Melissa placed as a block for her? If SP were covenant and had such religious background, she would be able to free herself quite easily, ne? However those blocks would be nothing to another covvie AI (Flea? Did he even try?).

Maybe I'm digressing this topic.
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 29, 2004 6:33 pm
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Phaedra
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Quote:
Did I ever tell you how much I love reading your posts?


<Blush>

Thanks. I generally assumed that everyone had decided I was an insufferable windbag by now.

Quote:
The religious imagery is very suprising to me, but I wonder if it's the dreams of the SP or if those that Melissa placed as a block for her? If SP were covenant and had such religious background, she would be able to free herself quite easily, ne? However those blocks would be nothing to another covvie AI (Flea? Did he even try?).


Hmm. I doubt Melissa would use religious imagery. And remember, what the Princess "saw" is actually the way she is choosing to describe whatever programming maneuver Melissa was using to keep her locked up.

She tends to be rather...baroque...in her descriptions. The text from the Flea contained nothing to obviously prompt a "Hey, keep your raincoat closed, buddy!" She just chose that metaphor to describe whatever he was doing.

And, she's not functioning as a "covvie AI" -- she's *damaged,* whatever she is. So she's not performing at 100% which may make her more vulnerable to Melissa.

Well, I didn't intend to be one of such a tiny number of people in the forum focusing on religion, but since that seems to have happened anyway, I perhaps had better go attempt to compose something to attempt to prompt Her Highness into getting spiritual with me.

Toodles!

PostPosted: Wed Sep 29, 2004 9:31 pm
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SuperJerms
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 		Re: [SPEC] SP references, AI personalities, etc. cont'd
Phaedra wrote:
wouldn't it be odd for a Muslim-raised girl to use primarily Christian imagery?


Not quite.

Remember that Jews, Muslims, and Christians all believe in the same basic God. That is, the fundament of each religion is the Pentatuch, or the first five books of the Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deutoronomy in the Christian Bible). So each starts at the same point...the tremendous difference is what each religion believes to be the end of the story.

God makes world, world gets seperated from Him, he finds a way to correct the situation. The difference is what that way of correcting the situation, and the misadventures that happen along the way. From here, the understanding of God is radically changed between these religions, according to interpretations of those different stories.

Regardless of the religion used, it's not too odd for anything from the Pentatuch ending up in the ARG...all three religions look at this as gospel (Pharoah's dream, the flood).

From there, the question becomes what to make of the rest of the book. At the very least, the Bible is one of the oldest and most higly regarded works of literature.

From a religious standpoint, I understand members of all three religions look at the other two as distant cousins, again based on their branching from the original Pentatuch. Of course, that's up to the individual believer, but it wouldn't be unheard of for a X to regard Y as just having chosen the wrong Messiah, or vice versa.


An AI still might be a very staunchly religious being, based on the fact that they are essentially an electronicized human brain. Sure, they'd have some new theological issues to grapple, but the AI may view themselves as similar to a human with a pacemaker...still human, just with robotic parts.


Lastly, I understand the Covenant to have all the nuance and subtlty of a sledgehammer. It's the kind of religion that thrives on the misunformed or uninformed follower for it's support base, valuing unquestioning loyalty far above knoledgability.

Food for thought Smile
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 29, 2004 10:52 pm
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Kali
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 		Re: [SPEC] SP references, AI personalities, etc. cont'd
Phaedra wrote:


I had assumed from the sound clips that Kamal and his family were Muslim. The food he refers to is generally Middle Eastern, and Sophia asks him something along the lines of whether his family knows he's eaten pork, and he says his mother would be upset if she knew.

Muslims, of course, do not eat pork.

In addition, I am aware of three possible etymologies for the name Kamal. One is Arabic (it means "perfection" or the union of opposites) and the other two are Sanskrit. Kamal can refer to the lotus flower or to the color red. However, given that I am not aware of any Hindu ban specifically on eating pork, I'm guessing he's Muslim.

Yasmine is also probably a Muslim name. Although in recent years it's become popular in India, Islam has also become more popular in India, so I think we can attribute it to that. (Well, okay, technically it's a Persian loan-word in Arabic, but still.)

This may suggest that the SP is *not* Yasmine, because if we assume that her dream-state is closer to her "core" personality than the persona she presents to us, wouldn't it be odd for a Muslim-raised girl to use primarily Christian imagery? On the other hand, as an AI she probably has knowledge of all human religions. And again, the PMs are playing to a primarily American audience, who is more likely to recognize Christian symbols than Muslim ones.
Thoughts?


I got one. You're forgetting that Arab does not always = Muslim. In Lebanon, for example, before the violence broke out (without warning in the 70s, 80s, can't remember exactly, but it was recent, unlike other examples such as Al-Andalusa/Spain), Christians, Muslims and Jews all lived together quite harmoniously. Talking about the Lebanese Arab is as likely to reference Christians as Muslims. (caveat, I am not from Lebanon, I've only studied and spoken to individuals from the region. Anyone with firsthand knowledge, please correct me.)

Further, dietary prohibitions, although often codified by religion, exist without religion. I'd be willing to bet the pork restrictions have a more historic origin than either Islam or Judaism and so may be in effect for societies who, although Christian, share cultural history with the others. Also, the reason for the emphasis on this particular distinction between Christian & Jew probably stems from the adaptation of Christianity to pork eating societies. I doubt that groups who did not already eat pork would start just because the converted to Christianity, nor would they necessarily deem it permissable as Christians are often selective when it comes to which parts of the OT to ignore.

Edit:

The point of all that is to say that I don't think we should rule out sp = Yasmine based on pork alone.

Edit again:

I misspoke and said Christian when I meant Muslim. have corrected it, sorry. My thoughts get ahead of me sometimes.

PostPosted: Thu Sep 30, 2004 2:19 pm
Last edited by Kali on Thu Sep 30, 2004 3:25 pm; edited 4 times in total
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Dragonrider
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 		Also in an out of game point of view, Bungie has been known to throw in rampant amounts of religious mythology and references in their games, for no apparent reason, like the 7's thing. I'm not quite sure where the link is, but early in the forums, there was a lot of spec about this in the General Forum.
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 30, 2004 2:37 pm
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Kali
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Phaedra wrote:


Quote:
The religious imagery is very suprising to me, but I wonder if it's the dreams of the SP or if those that Melissa placed as a block for her? If SP were covenant and had such religious background, she would be able to free herself quite easily, ne? However those blocks would be nothing to another covvie AI (Flea? Did he even try?).


Hmm. I doubt Melissa would use religious imagery. And remember, what the Princess "saw" is actually the way she is choosing to describe whatever programming maneuver Melissa was using to keep her locked up.



No, I think the balloons etc were the imagery sp chose. The text within would have been the actual code used by Melissa, perhaps under the influence of pf, which would explain the religious overtones.

PostPosted: Thu Sep 30, 2004 3:08 pm
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thebruce
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 		Re: [SPEC] SP references, AI personalities, etc. cont'd
Kali wrote:
You're forgetting that Arab does not always = Christian...I doubt that groups who did not already eat pork would start just because the converted to Christianity, nor would they necessarily deem it permissable as Christians are often selective when it comes to which parts of the OT to ignore.


just a side note, to clarify what irks me about the term "Christian", it is an enormously wide reference these days... speaking of "Christianity" in many ways doesn't necessarily apply to every person who calls themselves Christian. Keep that in mind when you hear people talk in general about 'Christianity'.
Christianity shouldn't be selective at all, none of the OT should be ignored, at all, just as eating pork or not has no bearing on the "Christianity" of a person...
for example. Smile

anyway, back on topic... Wink
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 30, 2004 3:12 pm
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AngriBuddhist
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 		Also, Sp being in her "core" damaged dream state seems to have limited
her functionality severely. If she is indeed Yasmine, her Muslim religious
knowledge could have easily gotten in the way of her understanding of
Christian concepts. She needed our help because fundamentally she is
not Christian and her Muslim indoctrination ended when she was 6 years
old.

PostPosted: Thu Sep 30, 2004 3:13 pm
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Phaedra
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 		[OT] Abrahamic Religions 101
Disclaimer for everyone: This is slightly [OT]. And it's long.

Disclaimer for SuperJerms: I'm going to argue with you. Please do not take it personally. If we were sitting at my kitchen table, having tea and this discussion, none of what I am going to say would sound harsh because it would be said in a friendly tone of voice, with a smile and perhaps a challenging lifted eyebrow.

However, here, with writing as our medium of communication, you can't hear my friendly tone of voice, and therefore might take what I say the wrong way. So, again, please take everything I say as amiable discussion.

I will bring this back to Yasmine and the likelihood of a Muslim girl using specifically Christian imagery, but in order to explain where I'm coming from, we're going to have to take a bit of an Abrahamic Religions 101 detour.

On to business.

Quote:
Remember that Jews, Muslims, and Christians all believe in the same basic God.


(We do? Last I heard, Jerry Falwell disagreed, and the Southern Baptist Convention said their G-d doesn't hear my prayers. Although on second thought, I am completely OK with not worshipping the same G-d as Jerry Falwell.)

Joking aside, yes, all three Abrahamic religions worship the G-d who makes His appearance in the Torah (your Pentateuch). However, how we conceptualize him is radically different. Judaism holds that there is an absolute cleavage between man and G-d: man cannot become G-d and G-d does not become man. Also, G-d is indivisible. He may display different attributes but He does not become separate persons. This is why some Orthodox Jews will not say Jesus' name: in Jewish law, there is a prohibition against speaking the name of an idol.

Obviously, the Christian view is radically different. G-d can have separate personages, G-d does become man, and according to the Mormons who show up at my door, it's even possible for man to become G-d.

The Muslim view is a bit closer to the Jewish one than the Christian one, but it still has extreme differences from either. So, yes, we all believe we worship the same G-d, and personally I believe there's enough of Him to go around, but many religious scholars and anthropologists would disagree and say that although we all base our conception of G-d on the same basic writings, the G-d each Abrahamic faith worships is actually quite different.

Quote:
That is, the fundament of each religion is the Pentatuch, or the first five books of the Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deutoronomy in the Christian Bible).


I would disagree. Strongly. Perhaps a Christian would be better qualified to comment upon this, but I would have to say that the gospels and Paul's writings are as much or more the fundament of Christianity than the Torah. Granted, both Jews and Christians read essentially the same Torah (more so than the rest of the Hebrew Bible, for which we have a different order of books and small but important differences in translation) but the way in which we read it is very different.

Take, for example, Genesis 22, the story of Abraham and Isaac on Mount Moriah. What do you call it? If you're Christian or from a Christian background, I bet that the name that springs to mind is the "sacrifice of Isaac." Yet Isaac isn't actually sacrificed. But Christians see the story as prefiguring the sacrifice as Jesus, and so for them, the significant part is that of a father willing to sacrifice his beloved son.

For Jews, the story is the Akedah, or the Binding of Isaac, and it is one of the themes of the Yamim Noraim, the Days of Awe between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The point for us is that G-d didn't require Yitzchak to be sacrificed. In addition, to Israelis, the Akedah has special, modern-day political significance.

For Muslims, it was not Isaac that was almost sacrificed, but Ishmael, who in the Quran is Abraham's favored son. Which brings up an important point: the Quran does not contain the Torah (or Pentateuch) as Jews and Christians know it. It contains sections of it, and the main stories of the beginning of Genesis are there (although Isaac's descendants have less significance for them, obviously, than Ishmael's) but it's not the same.

Quote:
God makes world, world gets seperated from Him, he finds a way to correct the situation. The difference is what that way of correcting the situation, and the misadventures that happen along the way. From here, the understanding of God is radically changed between these religions, according to interpretations of those different stories.


Hmm. Judaism doesn't have a precise moment when the "world gets separated from Him" except perhaps during Creation itself. It's more of a relationship with constantly fluctuating degrees of closeness and separation. Some Jewish mysticism holds that the existence of the world was not certain and complete until Sinai, but generally there is no single defining moment of separation or return. I believe that that's reasonably close to the way Islam views it as well.

Christianity, as I understand it, sees a radical separation taking place when Adam and Eve eat from the Tree, a separation which is not mitigated until Jesus. The separation will not be totally fixed until Jesus returns, yes? So it's a completely different worldview, one that views the human condition as something from which we must be saved by divine intervention.

(cont'd)

PostPosted: Thu Sep 30, 2004 3:31 pm
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Phaedra
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 		[OT] Abrahamic Religions 101 cont'd
(cont'd)

Quote:
Regardless of the religion used, it's not too odd for anything from the Pentatuch ending up in the ARG...all three religions look at this as gospel (Pharoah's dream, the flood).


And here we come to the crux of it.

Okay, I agree that anything from the Torah is fair game for any of the three religions, since we all share most of its stories.

Please point to the place in the Torah where it describes the Seven Deadly Sins. And the Apostles.

Still waiting.

Okay, I'll tell you what. Point to the place, anywhere in the entire Hebrew Bible/Old Testament where it talks about either. For extra credit, you can show me where in the New Testament it talks about the Seven Deadly Sins.

Yes, yes, I know. How terribly unfair. It was a trick question. I'm capricious that way.

There's no reference in the Bible (anyone's Bible or the Quran) to the Seven Deadly Sins. The Apostles are a specifically Christian idea. I don't think they're even mentioned in the Quran.

For that matter, the Quran describes the Christian Trinity as G-d, Jesus and Mary, so clearly they're not reading the exact same text when it comes to the New Testament, are they?

So, returning to my original question:

Quote:
wouldn't it be odd for a Muslim-raised girl to use primarily Christian imagery?


Your point that we can reasonably expect any story from the Torah/Pentateuch to be familiar to any member of an Abrahamic faith is well-taken, but she's not using imagery from the Torah (at least until the third fork). She's using specifically Christian imagery. Which seems discordant to me, if she is Yasmine.

Quote:
Of course, that's up to the individual believer, but it wouldn't be unheard of for a X to regard Y as just having chosen the wrong Messiah, or vice versa.


Um. No.

"Messiah" means "anointed one." In Judaism, David was a Messiah, Solomon was a Messiah, Saul was a Messiah, even Cyrus of Persia was a Messiah. A Messiah is a king. A human king. Period. We talk about a Messiah for whom we're waiting (or at least a messianic age, for some), who will liberate the Jewish people from all oppressors, return everyone to Israel, rebuild the Temple, and institute world peace. But he's a human king. Favored by G-d, yes, but no more G-d's child than any of us.

In Christianity, Messiah has other connotations, obviously. Jesus is a bit more than just a human king, isn't he?

In Islam, Mohammed is not a Messiah, he's a prophet. Jesus actually *is* a Messiah in Islam.

So it's a little bit more than we each picked different Messiahs.

Quote:
An AI still might be a very staunchly religious being, based on the fact that they are essentially an electronicized human brain. Sure, they'd have some new theological issues to grapple, but the AI may view themselves as similar to a human with a pacemaker...still human, just with robotic parts.


Believe it or not, there are actually rabbinic responsa dealing with this. I don't know if they've come up with a solution yet, and actually it's a question that's been floating around in Jewish thought since at least the 10th century, when legends concerning the golem became popular. But I believe the current consensus is that a machine or anything created by humans cannot possess a soul.

I think an AI is a bit different from a human with a pacemaker. It's not a human with robotic parts, it's an electronic reproduction of human thought processes. But I think the operative word here is "reproduction." The human mind is more than its circuitry, so to speak. There's a qualitative difference in the way people use the term "mind" or "soul" or "spirit" and the way they use "brain."

It may someday be possible to reproduce a human brain electronically. Whether it will ever be possible to reproduce a human *mind* remains to be seen.

Quote:
Lastly, I understand the Covenant to have all the nuance and subtlty of a sledgehammer. It's the kind of religion that thrives on the misunformed or uninformed follower for it's support base, valuing unquestioning loyalty far above knoledgability.


Yippee! I can see the headlines now: Alien fundamentalists declare jihad on humanity! 'Cause that's exactly what we need. Cripes, we can't even handle our own human fundamentalists.

Anyway, returning to the point, I'm still left wondering why, if the SP is Yasmine, and if Yasmine's background is Muslim, she would be using such specifically Christian imagery.

PostPosted: Thu Sep 30, 2004 3:35 pm
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Phaedra
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 		More thoughts
Quote:
I got one. You're forgetting that Arab does not always = Muslim...[Lebanese Christians]...Further, dietary prohibitions, although often codified by religion, exist without religion.


Very true. However, I think we should keep in mind what the creators of the game want us to assume from the references.

Arabic name+no pork+Middle Eastern foods is going to make most people think Muslim. And most of the time, you'd be right in assuming that.

I don't think they'd get too obscure on us. I think the references are generally going to point to the obvious conclusion.

Quote:
The point of all that is to say that I don't think we should rule out sp = Yasmine based on pork alone.


Certainly not. But I do think that the references were there to suggest that Kamal comes from a planet where the culture is at least Muslim-based.

PostPosted: Thu Sep 30, 2004 4:13 pm
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Kali
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Joined: 29 Sep 2004
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 		Just because they want us to infer something doesn't make it true. Perhaps they're being difficult or purposely trying to mislead us in order to make something more startling later. I dunno.

We also don't really know much about the human religious situation in the future. We don't know how the current major ones might have developed. Por ejemplo, Frank Herbert's Dune series has all major religions attempting unification at least once. (they fail, btw)

If anyone who's read the books can enlighten me as to future human religion as described in the books, please, share.

PostPosted: Thu Sep 30, 2004 4:27 pm
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Nuriko
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 		I would have to say that the images used in Melissa/SP's interactions are Christianity heavy. (I was raised/baptised as American Baptist but since then I have gone to learn and respect all sorts of religious doctrine - probably just enough to get me in trouble?)

Seven Deadly Sins:
The list originated in the Catholic Church, with Pope St. Gregory the Great. Sloth was not in the original list, however sadness was.

Perhaps the heavy Christian influence has to do with the game taking place in (mostly) America. The largest religious population in America is "Christian" (Protestant and Catholic), but in the world is Muslim. Perhaps it's an environmental issue?
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 30, 2004 4:32 pm
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