Wow.

So, in a distinctly evasive move, I'd like to posit that Messiah themes and other "spiritual" or "supernatural" elements have been part of Science Fiction for a looooong time.

Frank Herbert anyone? Ender's Game maybe? Sci Fi plays with these things all the time. It's a bleedover from it's sister genre Fantasy, perhaps, but it's there.

Truth is, there isn't really that much pure, hard Sci Fi out there..... because its BORING. Zeep Gork, Mutation, Fire The Lasers, Warp Speed... Boring. ZZZzzzZZzzzz....

All the good stories are about people, and the crazy shit they do, and many of those stories delve into shit we can't explain. Not to vex our intellect or to cynically laugh at our need for tidy logical conclusions, but to lift us our of our ordinary reality and expand our notions of possibility.

Cause face it, weird mysterious shit that you can't explain happens all the time. Might as well use it in your story.

Angels? Yeah, I seen me some....

<<Okay, yeah, ships weapons are an entirely different story. The only thing I can think of to justify them is that they store a lot of energy for quick release with low ejection requirements. In short you CAN create a lot of damage, and store it up, like a bullet, and not waste a lot of energy during the battle. By contrast, lasers either take a huge amount of time on target or a tremendous amount of energy to function.>>

Well, you can use a pulsed-power system with lasers too, storing energy in a capacitor system and releasing it all at once. That way you don't need a high output generator. But my point about plasma weapons is the plasma itself. Plasma by nature wants to dissipate as rapidly as possible - since it's high energy particles, similar to gas only more so - any weapon shooting plasma into space would be like trying to shoot down mosquitoes with puffs of cigarette smoke.

(Things like Pulsed Energy Projectiles aren't actually plasma weapons in the sense that B5 means it - shooting gobs of plasma. Rather, they're just pulsed lasers that on impacting create plasma. But many weapons can create plasma on impact, bombs included, so it's a bit of a misnomer.)

<<Also, I got to thinking last night. J'Kar was a follower of J"kwon. THey made a point of saying that J'Kwon wasn't the dominant prophet on their planet.>>

Hmm... I vaguely recollect that. OK, point for the Narn.

<<Besides Earth's diversity dwindles quickly when you talk to an American contingent (mostly white, christian, capitalist, etc). Also, Historically, Earth has had monolithic cultures: Egypt, Greece, Rome, and the mighty UK.>>

But Egypt, Greece, Rome were all on the same planet. It's believable that a single culture can establish itself in a single region, but for a whole planet - especially in a modern (or future) era where the numbers get into the billions - you'll quickly find multiple cultures. Rome particularly was a bit of a melting-pot, and throughout the Roman Empire many cultures existed (this was more strategically sound for the Empire rather than trying to force everyone to adopt the culture wholesale. And even though they did force some aspects of their culture, like tribute or the Romanized gods, their provinces retained local cultures. Egypt and Greece are examples actually.)

And with America, well, ya got all kinds of culture. Mostly capitalist - except for the anti-capitalists, the commies, socialists, libertarians, democrats and protectionists.... mostly white, except not.... It's a bit of a generalization. Sure, there are dominant religions, dominant beliefs, but if you were to see a television show in which every single American was a White, Christian, Capitalist (etc), you would and hsould decry that as a stereotype. Media actually do portray such stereotypes, but real life samples of the population are not so conveniently packaged.

However, I grant that a single culture can rise to dominance (like with Rome) and then you might not see a more representative sample in something like a space station (or a Roman Fort).

<<Finally, RDM was not only the primary writer for the show, he was the producer. Yes, he had the same freedoms. It's not like Heroes where they foist product placement re-writes on them. As long as he kept the ratings up, he could do as he pleased.>>

Hmm. OK.