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<blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 4894549" data-attributes="member: 2067">&quot;I wanted Ben to help me on this mission!&quot;&quot;But sir...we ARE Ben!&quot;&quot;What, all of you?&quot;<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Though politics and religion are taboo here, I will note that sci-fi by its nature involves itself in the muck of that more than a lot of fantasy does. I can buy Islam as a future monotheism, being currently the second-largest religion and also the fastest-growing (meaning that, if you draw it forward in time, it would become the largest religion in short order, assuming nothing else tinkers with the growth rates/numbers), and speculating on such a universe seems kind of a keen way to make it distinct without making it entirely alien, to me. I can't speak to the politics of the thing, but that's also kind of par for sci-fi stuff: the conflict-free Federation was basically an extension of some of the &quot;we're all equal&quot; Civil Rights '60's, no? It would be a bit disappointing to just turn a political figure into a villain, without some depth and distinctiveness, That's speaking broadly about the genre, though. Totally possible that an EP author had a bit of an axe to grind; certainly they wouldn't be the first. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink&nbsp; &nbsp; ;)"&nbsp; data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></blockquote>

[QUOTE="I'm A Banana, post: 4894549, member: 2067"] "I wanted Ben to help me on this mission!" "But sir...we ARE Ben!" "What, all of you?" :) Though politics and religion are taboo here, I will note that sci-fi by its nature involves itself in the muck of that more than a lot of fantasy does. I can buy Islam as a future monotheism, being currently the second-largest religion and also the fastest-growing (meaning that, if you draw it forward in time, it would become the largest religion in short order, assuming nothing else tinkers with the growth rates/numbers), and speculating on such a universe seems kind of a keen way to make it distinct without making it entirely alien, to me. I can't speak to the politics of the thing, but that's also kind of par for sci-fi stuff: the conflict-free Federation was basically an extension of some of the "we're all equal" Civil Rights '60's, no? It would be a bit disappointing to just turn a political figure into a villain, without some depth and distinctiveness, That's speaking broadly about the genre, though. Totally possible that an EP author had a bit of an axe to grind; certainly they wouldn't be the first. ;) [/QUOTE]

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