The way of the Krynn

Conquering the galaxy through faith

Published on December 5, 2007 By Draginol In GalCiv Journals

The sad narrative of our galaxy is that races seem inclined to commit genocide against other races on their home worlds. The Altarians and Drath once shared a home world. The Yor and Iconians once shared a home world. The Drengin and Korath once shared a home world. The Arnor and Dread Lords used to share a home world when they were known as the Precursors. Even the diplomatic humans shared a home world with the Neanderthals who were exterminated prior to the rise of modern human civilization.

But the Krynn are different. The Krynn home world started out with multiple sentient races. The Krynn, you see, are not a race but rather a people made up of many different sentient species. Tied together with a unifying culture, the Krynn (which loosely translates into "the way") believe they have unlocked the secrets to the universe and are on a holy mission to share these secrets with the universe.

The Jihad of Krynn is split between two technological branches. The first branch outlines the laws and order of the Krynn. These allow the construction of powerful centers for indoctrination which uniquely increase morale while spreading influence. The second branch spreads the way into the galaxy in extremely powerful influence modules for starbases.

What the Krynn may lack in technological sophistication they make up for in their ability to convert other species to their way. They can, after all, make the case that the Krynn have learned to share their world successfully for eons. With the galaxy full of evidence that other species, even the peaceful Altarians, ultimately fall into genocidal tendencies, the Krynn way of life has a growing appeal in a hostile galaxy.

The power of the Krynn lies in their ability to work together. This is best shown in their technological advantages in fleet combat where the whole is really greater than the sum of its parts. As the recent intelligence analysis from the Terran Alliance indicates, one could easily imagine a future where The Krynn dominate the galaxy without a shot fired.

The religion explained

The Way represents the ultimate direction for people to live their lives. The Krynn believe in a supreme being (what humans would call "God") who created the universe and then sent 4 guardians to safeguard the universe.

These guardians looked over the a massive crystal that the creator has put into the universe for the time when life would be added to the universe. The crystal would be used at a time when the universe was ready for life to exist. However, a 5th entity, a demon, came into the universe and attempted to corrupt the crystal. In doing so, the crystal was shattered and every tiny fragment of the crystal that came into contact with the right conditions began life across the universe.

The Krynn have put this belief to the test and have proven to their satisfaction the existence of what others call "dark energy". It is the invisible energy that the Precursors use. Their belief also predicted the existence of a "big bang" long before the science existed to provide rationale for that theory.

The Krynn believe that only through intensifying their sentience can they achieve salvation. Salvation, to the Krynn, means being able to exist as a sentient being of energy after the body has perished. The only way to intensify ones sentience is through converting others to The Way. The Krynn believe that all Krynn are connected and thus the more Krynn there are, the more intense the connections between them.

The existence of machinery that can harness the sentient energy of creatures (such as what the Drengin and Korath have) helps prove (according to the Krynn) that The Way ultimately requires no faith once one has full understanding.

Therefore, the Krynn must convert all sentient beings into being the Krynn even if it means bloodshed. The very afterlife of the Krynn is dependent on bringing the universe over to The Way. Even those who have long perished in body gain in sentience when new converts are added. Thus, the Krynn do not convert merely to save their own souls but to save the souls of all the Krynn who have ever lived.

Comments (Page 3)

catwhowalksbyhimself

on Dec 07, 2007

Out of interest what was the actual word used to describe early Christianity since ‘Way’ is obviously English a language the early Christians wouldn’t have spoken or at least few of them would, as Christianity did take a while to spread to and across Europe. I would guess something in Hebrew and wonder if it’s a direct translation or a modern interpretation.

Greek actually. Give me a second. . .

transliterated in English characters, it would be hodos, which can be translated way, road, or path. Most commonly it is translated road. (Yes I can ready Roman era, Greek. Not fluently, but I can make out what it says with the help of a few dictionaries.)

There likely was a Hebrew equivilant, but as Christianity spread into various language groups and areas very quickly, Greek is what was commonly spoken as the unifying language.

Anyway, it isn't that important to me. The other examples are stupid, though. Civ 4 has several religions and doesn't actually portray them at all. All religion acts exactly the same. Game with a historical context have nothing to do with what I mean anyway.

Like that Golden Compass movie, I read that people are getting *issedoff because it says there are multiple universes....losers

You don't know what you're talking about. Folks are getting upset not because of multiple universes. The church in the movie has a problem with that. People in real life have a problem because of the very strong anti-Christian themes in the books. The author in interviews about the books has said that they are about "killing God" (which literally happens in the last book) and that he wants to undermine the basics of the Christian faith through his books. Hey, he has a right to write anti-Christian fatansies if he likes, and folks have a right to get offended at it and not see the movie.

I've said my piece and don't consider it that big a deal personally anyways, so I'll shut up now and let this thread get back to it's otherwise awesome main topic.

talon012754

on Dec 07, 2007

I would say The Path aptly describes the Krynn more than The Way as it leads to militant techs ,one even being described as Jihad.Tao or the way is to a large extent an attitude one can adopt as following the way of nature in one's life.The militancy brings up more of the images of the marxist Shining Path in its violent intent.

After playing the Krynn in the new release I find spying really 'alien' to the krynn cause.
First it really does no good for the more aggressive approach of the Krynn.It is not a subtle takeover you are trying to achieve but an overt one even with the influence goal.
Although the Krynn already get a high diplomacy skill maybe Super dominator or something could work.
In my present game I have hardly used spying at all and I am making out pretty well on tough level.

Galacticus

on Dec 07, 2007

I agree with Zenicetus that the Kryn are merly a synthesis of religous ideals that the devs used to portray an alien religion. I am also a Christian and would find it silly to be offended even if the Kryn were based off of Christianity, because in reality Christianity has a fairly blood soaked history. Only recently have we begun to turn back to the original meaning of the faith. And has for the whole Golden Compass thing, I have no problems with someone trying to undermine and kill my faith. I saw something somewhere that I found kind of comical it went something like:

"God is dead" Nietzsche

"Nietzsche is dead" God

That is actually my view on the whole thing. Everyone has a right to believe what they want. Just as long as they understand the consequences if they are wrong.

The Rusty Gamer

on Dec 20, 2007

Are the Kyrn not supposed to have Stellar Cartography? I see it's in their XML tech tree but they don't get it when I play them and I can't see it on the tech tree in the game anywhere.

Zenicetus

on Dec 20, 2007

Are the Kyrn not supposed to have Stellar Cartography? I see it's in their XML tech tree but they don't get it when I play them and I can't see it on the tech tree in the game anywhere.

It's there on the Krynn tree, but you have to go way down the line through Planetary Improvements and Xeno Research to get it.

I'm pretty sure that's a bug, because I thought only the Terrans didn't have Stellar Cartography. Also, by the time you can research it that far down the tree in anything but a huge galaxy map, you don't really need it.

The Rusty Gamer

on Dec 20, 2007

Maybe it's not a bug then? The potential is for each race to have their own timing for these things since they have individual tech trees.

Though I;m preety sure when I looked at the XML, there wasn't a prereq. But it doesn't appear in their starting techs list.

idunno116

on Jan 17, 2008

I was thinking a new Krynn super ability could be that they only need x2 or x3 native influnce to culture flip a planet rather than the 4x everybody else needs.

Loupdinour

on Jan 19, 2008

I was thinking a new Krynn super ability could be that they only need x2 or x3 native influnce to culture flip a planet rather than the 4x everybody else needs.

The RP reason behind their super ability I'll buy, so I won't go as far as changing their ability. I wouldn't be against a galactic wonder though.

di55ec7ion

on Apr 05, 2008

I`ll just quote my statements in another topic here, because it fits well better here:

just a matter of taste maybe, but i think the term "jihad of krynn" is weird. Maybe you americans are using the term colloquially for any form of fanatism, but actually it is a definite term for a part of human muslim culture. Putting it into a futuristic game for a nonexistent alien species creates a similar sensation like giving the Yor the "Christian Crusade" technology...

Wikipedia states:

"Jihad (Arabic: جهاد‎ IPA: [ ʤi'haːd]), an Islamic term, is a religious duty of Muslims. In Arabic, Jihad means "strive" or "struggle". Jihad appears frequently in the Qur'an and common usage as the idiomatic expression "striving in the way of Allah (al-jihad fi sabil Allah)".[1][2] A person engaged in jihad is called a mujahid, the plural is mujahideen.

A minority among the Sunni scholars sometimes refer to this Islamic duty as the sixth pillar of Islam, though it occupies no such official status.[3] In Twelver Shi'a Islam, however, Jihad is one of the 10 Practices of the Religion.

According to scholar John Esposito, Jihad requires Muslims to "struggle in the way of God" or "to struggle to improve one's self and/or society."[3][4] Jihad is directed against the devil's inducements, aspects of one's own self, or against a visible enemy.[1][5] The four major categories of jihad that are recognized are Jihad against one's own self (Jihad al-Nafs), Jihad of the tongue (Jihad al-lisan), Jihad of the hand (Jihad al-yad), and Jihad of the sword (Jihad as-sayf).[5] Islamic jurisprudence focuses on regulating the conditions and practice of Jihad as-sayf, the only form of warfare permissible under Islamic law, and thus the term Jihad is usually used in fiqh manuals in reference to military combat.[6][5]The term "Jihad" used without any qualifiers is generally understood to be referring to war on behalf of Islam.[5] In broader usage and interpretation, the term has accrued both violent and non-violent meanings. It can imply striving to live a moral and virtuous life, spreading and defending Islam as well as fighting injustice and oppression, among other things.[7] The relative importance of these two forms of jihad is a matter of controversy."

As you see the term Jihad has a definite role in muslim religion and nowwhere else. In my humblest opinion you cannot just rape the religious vocabulary of one world religion and use it as a commonly slang word for "holy war", which may be the literal meaning in its native language, but does not keep track of the whole deepness of its meaning. By the way - i am christian and i would as well not appreciate everyone calling taking a sh*t by the word "genesis".

Imho this is just plain disrespectful towards muslims. As said, i am no muslim, but as a supporter for freedom of belief i think it is these small things that go unnoticed, that add together with more serious things in terms of cultural disrespect towards the tension between the nations. If you live as a peaceful muslim and get treated as an terrorist everywhere and this even crawls into the use of the language - would you not develop a sense of hostility as well - because your environment does seem to perceive you hostile as well? I do not know how deep you are actually into muslim history, actual politics and structure of the muslim culture, but its just way more complex than jihadist wanting to destroy christians...

Call me nitpicking but to me the use of the word jihad for a fanatic religious war in general represents a negative tendency towards muslim religion. The terroristic activities of muslim fundamentalists are destructive to the whole perception of the islam and moderate muslims get serious pressure. Most people do not understand the term jihad and do not know, muslim culture has different ways of interpreting it. Actually understanding the Jihad as destroying all other religions is only the interpretation of a few fanatics. The problem is, it historically originated in times of religious war, so the formulation in the Quran is very drastic and can be of course interpreted this way. The difference between fanatic fundamentalists and moderate muslims is, if they are able to accept its historic context and put it in a modern way of living their religion. Its the same with the bible - who still believes it is gods word and was given to us by him in this form as kind of ultimate law does quite the same thing and proves, he does not know anything about the historical context in this time. Just go to a theologian and ask him if he believes the bible was written by humans and why he does believe so - you will be astounded how many political and social influences of the time it was written in are captured in it. BTW - ever asked, whats the case with number 666? There are some interesting theological theories around, just search for it. It is the same problem with creationism - if you are ignorant you would use the bible as argument against evolution theory.

Talked myself into offtopic a bit - what i wanted to state here is, that i believe, using a definite term of one existing religion in a fictional game is not only weird but also quite disrespectful to members of this religion. In this case specially because the usage of the word jihad in this context creates a negative association towards the religion itself. Although the word jihad is a important part of it, Muslim culture does not explicitly aim towards a holy war; at least one should accept, that it is only a small fraction of fanatics, that do, because they ignorantly dont deal with history.

If Christians already become offended by the term "the way" what might be with muslims, that see the term "jihad" used in a way that shows it was absolutely not understood in its meaning and used in a very negative context?

Keilworth

on Apr 05, 2008

You don't know what you're talking about. Folks are getting upset not because of multiple universes. The church in the movie has a problem with that. People in real life have a problem because of the very strong anti-Christian themes in the books. The author in interviews about the books has said that they are about "killing God" (which literally happens in the last book) and that he wants to undermine the basics of the Christian faith through his books. Hey, he has a right to write anti-Christian fatansies if he likes, and folks have a right to get offended at it and not see the movie.I've said my piece and don't consider it that big a deal personally anyways, so I'll shut up now and let this thread get back to it's otherwise awesome main topic.

Now, the real question is: does the Magistorum make the Papacy look bad, or does the Papacy make the Magistorum look good?

Decide for yourselves

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