God Guise: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

{{quote|''"If they say that I'm a god, that's what I am!"''|'''Tulio''', ''[[The Road to El Dorado]]''}}

* In the opening chapters and episodes to ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'', Edward and Alphonse Elric stumble upon a small town that worship a new religion founded by an out-of-town priest, who seems to flagrantly violate Alchemy's "immutable" laws.

* One of the episodes of the first season of ''[[Vandread]]'' combines this with [[Cargo Cult]]. The Nirvana crew descends upon an aquatic planet who mistakes them for their "God" and prepares for sacrifices for them. They don't mind the crew too much when they mentioned that they weren't the Gods, but they do mind when the aforementioned crew was "hurting their true Gods". The Gods that they refer to? The machinelike Harvesters.

* The backstory of the original ''[[The Wicker Man]]'' describes how the first Lord Summerisle introduced new crops and farming methods, as well as his Pagan faith. When the crops were incredibly successful, he had no difficulty convincing the locals that there was a connection between their survival and the appeasal of Celtic deities.

* In the animated [[Alvin and The Chipmunks]] movie ''A Chipmunk Adventure'' Theodore is mistaken for a god by jungle natives, and he forces his brothers to be his slaves. Until all three are almost made a [[Human Sacrifice|Chipmunk Sacrifice]].

== [[Literature]] ==

* [[Older Than Feudalism]]: In ''[[The Bible]]'', Barnabas and Paul are briefly worshiped as Jupiter and Mercury by the people of the city of Lystra. (They obviously did not approve...)

** Unfortunately it backfires {{spoiler|because Louis can't keep a straight face.}}

* Mildly subverted in ''[[Dune]]'' with the Bene Gesserit's Missionaria Protectiva, wherein false legends were implanted in various cultures all over the galaxy by a cult specifically so that its members could fulfill them to take advantage of the natives in an emergencies. {{spoiler|Then ''[[Deconstruction|massively subverted]]'' when Arrakis' version of the Missionaria Protectiva turns out to be ''right''.}}

* Averted twice in ''[[Discworld/The Science of Discworld|The Science of Discworld]] II'', where the Lecturer In Recent Runes proposes that the wizards proclaim they're the creators of Roundworld so its natives will cooperate. A double aversion, as the wizards really ''did'' create Roundworld (though they're not Gods), and [[Genre Savvy]] Ponder Stibbons shoots down the idea, saying that mortals who claim to be gods are likely to come to the same bad ends on Earth as they would on Discworld.

* In the [[Enid Blyton]] adventure story ''The Secret Mountain'', published 1941, this is how the main characters escape from the titular mountain. They find out that there's to be a [[Convenient Eclipse|solar eclipse]] the next day, so at the appropriate moment their father throws his hunting knife off the mountain. The lights go out and the tribe think he's killed the sun, at which point the [[Cool Plane|"big white bird"]] turns up to carry the heroes to safety before the tribe realize they've been had.

* Given that the [[Big Screwed-Up Family|royal family]] from the ''[[Book of Amber]]'' can walk across the [[The Multiverse]] as one of their powers, is it really surprising that they've chosen to go to worlds where they just happen to resemble the local gods? (This includes both for reasons of in a little private [[A God Am I]] time and to recruit huge, fanatically loyal armies in an attempt to claim the throne.)

** The Multiverse in question is "Shadow," the vast number of worlds radiating away from Amber, the True City. The Amberites' ability to walk between worlds is half-blurred into ''creating'' these worlds to order. Which is to say, the natives may have a ''point'' in this case. The Amberites themselves don't really know, either.

* Played with in Alfred Bester's ''[[The Stars My Destination]]'', where the Scientific People have rituals built around the scientific paphernalia of the ship, but ''don't'' worship or deify the main character at any point. Although in the end they {{spoiler|consider him a holy man...and they might be right (in a sense)}}.

* In Isaac Asimov's ''[[Foundation]]'', during an early phase of their history (as the infrastructure of the galactic empire was crumbling) the people of the Foundation provide prosperity to their neighbors while keeping them dependent on the Foundation. This is done by reducing the operation of technologically advanced equipment to rituals governed by a religion operated by the Foundation, with acolytes as technicians who can run and (sometimes) repair equipment, but who don't understand how it works.

** Also from Weber the [[Safehold]] series has the Church Of God Awaiting,in which a bunch of megalomaniacs set themselves up as "archangels" through [[Brainwashing]] and [[Clarke's Third Law|sufficiently advanced technology]].

* In [[Mark Twain]]'s ''A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court'', a late 19th-century American is sent back in time to the Dark Ages and becomes an important member of King Arthur's court, using his advanced scientific and political knowledge to greatly improve the quality of life of the kingdom, while also discrediting Merlin (revealed to be a fraud) with his own advanced technology and intelligence that makes him look like a true Sorcerer. In the end, he's {{spoiler|kicked out of the kingdom and he and a small number of his allies make a defensive position with 13 Gatling guns, dynamite, and electrical wiring that allows them to defeat 30,000 of England's soldiers.}}

* Since a number of the ''[[Wild Cards]]'' forms and/or powers resemble figures or symbols from various religions, not surprisingly a number of them have been given (or have deliberately cultivated) religious roles. Nur Al'Allah was the most blatant example.

** Not compared to the Living Gods of Egypt, a group of Aces and Jokers (many of whom have animalistic mutations) who claim to be the reincarnation of the Egyptian pantheon. As you might imagine, this leads to... issues when the Nur Al'Allah's Caliphate starts to make headway into Egypt.

* In the fourth book of ''[[Tales of the Magic Land]]'', Urfin Jus uses a lighter to convince a savage tribe he's the god of fire, and uses them to launch a conquest. Unfortunately for him, while lighters are unknown in the Magic Land (his came from an outsider), matches are sold in every shop, so after a short while, the army starts to smell something fishy...

* ''[[The Dresden Files]]'' has the Lords of Outer Night, the heads of the Red Court who posed as the Mayan pantheon - the Red King is implied to have done a stint at Kukulcan. Played with in that there's a point where the Lords of Outer Night show fear in the face of a divine assault, and Harry wonders if they just picked up the mask when the ''actual'' deities got out of town and they're afraid they're being called on the carpet.

* The [[Strugatsky Brothers]]' [[Noon Universe]] novel ''[[Hard to Be A God]]'' is all about this. Explorers from Earth find a world of [[Human Aliens]] stuck in the Middle Ages. During a climactic battle, {{spoiler|the explorers bring their ship with the running lights on right above the battlefield, resulting in everyone dropping to their knees}}.

* The Aleksandr Zarevin's ''Lonely Gods of the Universe'', the [[Human Alien|Ollan]] refugees pretend to be gods to the ancient Atlanteans. For reference, the security guard sent with them is called [[Roman Mythology|Mars]] [[Greek Mythology|Ares]]. They also call the hill when they have their palace Oll-ympus after their homeworld.

*** The episode "Devil's Due" had the crew tangling with an alien con-woman who took advantage of a civilization's legend of a past [[Deal with the Devil]] to pose as said "devil" and thus literally claim ownership to the entire planet.

** ''[[Star Trek: Voyager|Star Trek Voyager]]''. In "False Profits", a couple of Ferengi are mistaken for Gods thanks to their magical replicator, whereas the far better "Muse" has B'Elanna crashing on a planet and being mistaken for an 'eternal' (a powerful being of legend) by a local poet, who uses her logs to write a [[Fan Fiction|play]]. There's a certain amount of give-and-take (the poet needs inspiration for his play which he hopes will turn his fickle warlord patron away from war; B'Elanna needs help repairing her shuttle) before the two gain a mutual respect, with B'Elanna even providing a literal [[Deus Ex Machina]] at the end.

*** But to the audience it comes off as really more of a weird [[Lampshade Hanging]], as this is ignored whenever the plot demands.

**** The prime directive is handled differently by many people in the Federation. Generally, it's accepted as an underlying principle for self-determination (the Federation does NOT interfere in internal wars or politics of other civilizations, even if their own interests are at stake). But in the field and on the front-lines, it is commonly believed that, like principles such as "do not lie" and "do not kill", there are situations where morality calls upon one to violate one principle to uphold another (such as helping evacuate people from a pre-warp planet doomed by natural disaster when they call out desperately for help).

== Tabletop Games ==

* ''[[Traveller]]''

** MegaTraveller supplement ''Vilani and Vargr: The Coreward Races''. At the end of the Long Night, an offworlder from a high tech world came to the low tech world Sikilar and used high technology to make the natives think he was an angel. He used this authority to set up a strict religious dictatorship that continues to the current day.

* In ''[[Exalted]]'', certain characters can take on a group of people who worship them as gods, granting them an extra boost of power. In fact, the Lunars, as part of their social-engineering long game, are not above posing as Gods to influence the development of a burgeoning culture.

*** They used to have their own god. Worshiped a giant bull. That ended sometime around the washed up cargo of burger buns and individually wrapped cheese slices...

*** Interestingly enough, Elan ALSO worships his own hand puppet. But that's just because he has the brains of a five-year old.

* In ''[[Girl Genius]]'', the [[Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter|Villain's Beautiful Daughter]], Lucrezia Mongfish, is worshipped by the Geisterdamen. No one really knows why. {{spoiler|Doesn't stop her from using them as highly convenient minions when she turns [[Big Bad]].}}

** ''She'' presumably knows why, but she isn't exactly the sharing type.