I was watching an episode of Babylon 5 last night titled "The Parliament of Dreams". The premise of this particular episode is that aliens from all over the known galaxy are meeting on the Babylon 5 station to have a festival of religious ceremonies. The Centauri throw a big feast with small statues of all their deities on the table watching over them. The Mimbari have a solemn ceremony with bells and chants and little red fruits (which, oddly enough, also doubles as a marriage ceremony). When it comes time for Earth to showcase its major religion, JMS (the shows creator) did something really cool. He had a long line of people representing all of the faiths of earth (including an atheist), showing just how diverse our world is when it comes to religion.

The point I want to make is that it seems most science fiction shows and books depict alien cultures as homogeneous. There's usually a single world-wide government and one religion (if any). Oh, and everyone dresses the same. The diversity comes from the fact that there are many worlds instead of many different types of people from each world. I think that science fiction writers could take some constructive criticism here and make each of their worlds as diverse culturally, politically, and religiously as is earth today. Combine that with multiple worlds and you really get a dizzying array of interesting material to work with.

I realize there's a lot of room for argument in here. Anyone have any differing opinions?

What? A Utah Mormon condoning diversity? Blasphamy!!! LOL You know, I've never really thought about the lack of diversity in science fiction aliens... I guess the new Cylons make an attempt, though they still have a unified religious belief--though with some variance in belief and practice, I suppose... Interesting. It's pretty cool when people can actually think while watching The Glowing Box :)

All comments are moderated

Your comment:

Author (*):

E-mail:

(not displayed)

URL:

Comment (*):

 

Remember me?

 

 

Live Comment Preview: