Re: MT VOID, 11/01/24 -- Vol. 43, No. 18, Whole Number 2352

On 11/3/24 10:36 AM, Evelyn C. Leeper wrote:

 STAR TREK: THE ORIGINAL SERIES: "Bread and Circuses" has a lot of
Roman tropes, but is ultimately a really bad episode.  (This is my
opinion, not Aldrete's, as is much of what follows here.)  The
premise is that there is a planet very similar that has a Roman
Empire, where people and concepts have Roman names, there is a
Roman political structure, and it is in fact Rome with a
technology level of 20th century earth (including internal
combustion engine cars that look just like out cars).  And
everyone speaks English.  This is a stupid idea, probably even
worse than having planets named Romulus and Vulcan.  And they get
it wrong anyway: there is a new religion that the Enterprise crew
thinks worships the "sun", but it turns out it's really the "son"
[of God], and the crew thinks it with replace Imperial Rome just
as it did before.  Except that Christianity did not replace Rome,
Rather, Imperial Rome absorbed Christianity and lasted until 1453.
The crew also claims there was no sun worship in Rome; this was
absolutely not true.

I figured the natives of the planet spoke Latin or a Latin-derived language (it makes as much sense as any of the other Roman analogues), and the universal translator rendered the words for "sun" and "son" as homophones, creating an ambiguity which the locals weren't aware of.
I haven't been posting much lately because my connection to Eternal September is so glitchy. Hopefully this post will show up.
--
Gary McGath    http://www.mcgath.com