Postscript

[brin_bellway]

(also, and I guess it's not fair to blame Ross for not thinking of this part because Zek kept it as quiet as possible: remember that time the Prophets brainwashed the leader of an interplanetary alliance into doing a 180 on his goals? you do *not* wanna piss off the Prophets.)

(and why are the Feds so reluctant to call them Prophets? local word for a local species, and it's not like it's inaccurate or overly worshipful, they *do* see the future, it's not like we're calling them *gods*)

Comments

[thedarlingone]

My immediate thought about the Prophets thing is... well, in the sort of zipfile version in which it exists inside my head it's "and Mohammed is his prophet", which definitely doesn't say what I mean. Trying to expand it coherently produces something like "American Christianity has this shibboleth where if you call someone a prophet you are doing all of (1) assigning them respect and (2) associating them with a divinity (3) whose authority you personally acknowledge". Which probably doesn't say everything I mean either, but... I can feel exactly why a Starfleet "there is no religion in space" admiral would refuse to call them Prophets, and it has to do directly with rejecting their claim on Ben as the Emissary, but I'm struggling to word it in a way that doesn't depend on that unconsciously Christian "everyone has the same connotations to this word that we do" background.

I mean, I'm happy to try to expand on it more if you're interested, but the best I can do for a short answer is that it skates way too close to calling them gods, in the particular Christian-not-Jewish way where you have to obey your gods without arguing. Also it probably ties to the more general insistence on using deadnames and such, "if I use your term for yourself I'm giving you a legitimacy I don't want". But "prophet" specifically is a super loaded term in this context.

Edit: I'm on my phone and trying to get ready for work, so not super coherent, but another thing I meant to say is that there's also a definite "us vs them" connotation. "Prophets" are inherently other. Jews have prophets, Muslims have prophets, "we" (American Christians / Federation admirals) don't have prophets. By just calling them "the Prophets", Ben is very much signaling subscription to the Bajoran view of the whole thing, at least compared to the proper behavior of a Starfleet admiral. And getting involved in the Other's worship rites, especially and specifically if not doing so would have bad economic or personal consequences, is Wrong and behavior unbefitting a Starfleet admiral / a good Christian.

I'm probably not being coherent at all, sorry. This is so clear on the partition where I still understand these things, but making it be words is hard.