Aliens? What aliens?

[Skanky Burns]

No Aliens!! NO!!

[Mister Pleasant]

Mr. Pleasant, if you want to write a mod with aliens in it, go right ahead; I might even play it. However, "aliens" have not (to common knowledge) played a part in Earth's history.

That was part of my point. Aliens may not have played a part in our history, but it seems to me that in some possible history of the world, aliens might have played a role. And since civ is about possible history . . .
Nonetheless, I will probably try to make an alien mod. Depends on my amount of free time and the power of editors and scripts (if scripts can be written) to do this. Ideally, I would like a small chance that a SETI program would contact aliens and these would invade, replacing barbarians (i.e. Aliens as tough barbarians). We'll see if such a thing can be implemented.\

I'm afraid that you have confused resiliancy with apostacy, but that is only my opinion. Further, evangelical Christianity is not "virulent" unless God Himself is "virulent". What is commonly known, or at least accepted in our parlance as evangelical Christianity is essentially following a literal interpretation of the Bible. That is not to say that everyone who claims to be an evangelical actually is one. Jerry Falwell's recent remarks, for example, were arrogant and idiotic. Falwell supposed to know the will of God and that is wrong.

No, I have not. Catholicism has embraced the Big Bang theory, and has opened theological discussion to evolution. Catholics do not read Genesis literally. Consider this - time is being measured in "days", but the sun is not created until the third day. But since the sun is the object by which days are measured it makes no sense to talk about proper days until the third Genesis "day". So whatever is being talked about in Genesis cannot be a proper day.

Moreover, there is no reason to suppose that God did not ensoul beings that evolved elsewhere in the universe. Surely God HAS the power to do so, right? Now, whose to say Christ didn't pay these aliens a visit. Now this might be something of a sore point to a traditionalist (almost Christ as avatar), there's no reason to think dogma does evolve so as to conform with known facts. Imagine an alien race that claims in its distant past that it was visited by the son of God. And the son of God preached essentially the message Christ bought. In that case, there's no point in being human chauvanists about Christ visiting different beings.

As for Islam, one might find that aliens had their own great prophet. While the fundamentalists might insist on Mohammed as the only ultimate prophet, more moderate Muslims could except Mohammed as the ultimate human prophet. Note - aliens would actually cause less violence to Islam than Catholicism.

Finally, Buddhism and Hinduism could take aliens completely in stride.

As for virulence and fundamentalism/evangelicalism . . .
Evangelicals should take their Bibles and cut out the entire old testament. Throw the damn thing out. Next, cut out all of the new testament except the Gospels and the book of James. Evangelicals sped far too much time harping on God's vengance and trying to deprive kids of the theory of evolution. Get back to basics. Follow what Jesus actually says. That's the important part - that's the whole point to Christianity. Jesus would not beat up gays, would not bomb abortion clinics, and would not pass laws against sodomy. The point is to love people, but most evangelicals I have met talk wrath, not love. (and don't give me this bull about "love the sinner hate the sin". If you really believed that, you wouldn't harp on the sin so much.) But I guess wrath is easier than love. Also read the book of James. Faith that does not inspire you to do the Lord's work is a dead faith. And the Lord's work is NOT going to church on sundays and protesting abortion clinics. The Lord's work is feeding the hungry, mentoring disadvantaged youths, and the like.

"Tear up the Bible you say?!" Yes. Jesus tells us that if our eye leads us into sin, pluck it out. If our hands lead us to sin, chop them off. Better to lose a part than the whole. Likewise, if the Bible with its old testament stories of wrath and Paul's letters inspire the behavior common to evangelicals, then those parts of the bible are blocking you from getting the point. Namely the stuff Jesus taught about loving your neighbor, turning the other cheek, giving up your coat. All of those other books are leading you away from the teachings of Jesus - sacrifice that part so that you may gain the whole, the essense, of Christ's teachings.

God is never virulent, only opportunists who twist God's word to enhance their own power.

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by Mister Pleasant

Note - aliens would actually cause less violence to Islam than Catholicism.

Catholism should take aliens in their stride. When the idea of other planets with other "humans" was raised at the time of Galileo the Pope was intrigued by the idea. He believed that God's word should be taken everywhere and that this should also include other planets (after all they had succeeded taking it to the new world).

The idea of other planets also lead to the idea of "a mirror" world exactly like our own, somewhere out there, and the only reason that Tyco Brahe (?) got in trouble was because he suggested that they might also have their own Pope!

[JellyDonut]

Originally posted by Mister Pleasant

We might suppose that in some alternate history, aliens do visit Earth, or there is an alien crash at Roswell that becomes public. Since Civ3 is about re-writing history, and we don't know that aliens could not visit us, there is no reason to disallow an alternate history to include aliens.

And it's POSSIBLE in some alternate history that the major war units could be people dressed in banana costumes armed with sporks, so should THAT be a unit? In some alternate history, Neanderthals might have survived and humans gone extinct, so should all the civs be Neanderthals? In some alternate history, Dukakis might win the re-election in a landslide, so should HE be the American leader? All (except the last one) are far more likely to occur than aliens showing up.

I'm sure Firaxis knows better than to put aliens in Civ 3...they said they'd only keep things that *feel* like Civ, which I think means no aliens.

[fluffy]

Originally posted by shade
so afraid for things to be to sci-fi/futuristic(even if those things are already getting a little dated)

futuristic is getting dated now?

[Solver]

I'm not quite getting this. IMHO, future was the best thing about CtP series. I will miss it in Civ 3. While Civ 3 has great additions to gameplay, the tech tree is basically the same as in Civ 2, with a few new techs, but not that much really.

As for the aliens, they must be in! They're a real thing, and as such must be included. Not as a civ you can play for, but as a civilization that travels to you late in the game, and you can contact them.

[KrazyHorse]

However, Mr. Pleasant, we can say the same thing about many factors which could have had an effect, but didn't: catastrophic asteroid strikes, the evolution of lower animals into semi-intelligent forms, etc.

Civ is about alternate history in the sense that it takes well-known historical factors whose effects are independent in some sense of the context in which they appeared; in other words, mathematics was always a prerequisite for astronomy, marketplaces increased trade, etc.

[shade]

Originally posted by fluffy futuristic is getting dated now?

If you call SETI(or the idea behind it futuristic),or the attempts of reaching other planets(and working on ways to build colonies there) then you are getting dated.
If you think magnetic levitation and superconduction is very new well guess again(almost a centurie research on them,but still very much research needs to be done).The maglev from Ctp=> see Tokio,Germany,...
Cloning & Co,how futuristic is that?(the ethics commissions are just a temporal pain)
Cyborg=>cfr British(?) professor.

that's what I mean.

Shade