No Such Thing as Space Jesus/Playing With
Basic Trope: God-like beings are encountered in a science fiction setting, and turn out to not be gods.
- Straight: God-King Tropelor rules Tropia, worshipped by the masses, but turns out to be from another planet using advanced technology.
- Exaggerated: Tropelor actually has god-like powers, is immortal, and is worshipped by most of the galaxy, but it all turns out to still be technology somehow.
- Justified: The people of Tropia are naive and are yearning for gods.
- Inverted: Tropelor is obviously a giant computer that isn't worshipped, but turns out to have created the universe.
- Tropelor is a Sufficiently Advanced Alien Reality Warper who's existed since the dawn of time. He claims not to be a god, even when others point out that the only real difference is a matter of semantics.
- Subverted: The technology is all fake, and the powers are still divine in origin.
- Double Subverted: The divine origin is actually another set of even more advanced technology.
- Parodied: Tropelor is played up like The Wizard of Oz, complete with curtain.
- Deconstructed: When revealed, Tropia society splinters and collapses.
- Reconstructed: Until they join under a new, harmonious society - one of reason, and not blind faith.
- Zig Zagged: .. Until another religion starts up and begins a holy war.
- Averted: Tropia has a regular beard-and-clouds god that is never seen or proven.
- Enforced: Every sci fi series has to do it sometime.
- Lampshaded: "Yeah, that 'I'm a god oooooh' shtick gets old. How'd you do it? Teleporters?"
- Exploited: Tropelor decides to pretendd to be a god to make the natives strip-mine the planet for him.
- Defied: "You're no god, and it's wrong for you to fool these people!"
- Discussed: "A God-King? I bet it's just an alien with a fancy hat."
- Conversed: "What's with this show and false gods? Doesn't anyone believe in a non-physical god in this show?"
- Played For Laughs: Tropelor tells his subjects to do things like make silly faces.
- Played For Drama: The people of Tropia are under the thumb of a tyrannical God-King, and things only get worse when their belief system is shattered.
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