That would be cool. Martian religion seemed based around the nihilistic worm cult or a form of ancestor worship re: Seldon although there is a world of stuff obviously not mentioned.

From what I understand most of theosophy and the like was mostly made up as you say, with a veneer of eastern religion so a Martian-influenced one would be as fanciful and you could probably get inspiration from stuff like Von Daniken and Heave's Gate. They would take worn scribblings on temple walls and claim it showed the Truth.

Seldon could easily be bought in to Christianity as a prophet - I seem to remember the timeline was much further back than 2,000 years ago.

However I don't think it would have affected mainstream Christianity because of the limited numbers. Although the upper classes were involved in theosophy etc, the kind of social norms that would apply would keep such 'foreign influence' to a minimum in the established churches which made up the bulkof the population. I would argue that even the upper classes kept their private activities and public devotion seperate. Eastern mysticism didn't really enter popular conciousness until the late 60's and 70's when lots of people could do the hippy trail and the existing norms had weakened. From a gaming point of view there probably would be all sorts of esoteric lodges for the nobles and

Quote from: RPGPunditI would personally have been far more interested to learn about Martian theology and how it would have affected the European world.

Victorian Stranger in a Strange Land? :cool:

http://www.heliograph.com/trmgs/trmgs2/
The fanzine Transactions of the Royal Martian Geographical Society (TRMGS) had an article on Martian religions in volume 2. CIt's not one of the free online articles but IMNSHO all three printed volumes are worth the price and the 4th volume is completely free online. Canal Martians have a pantheon of gods and some cults and seem fairly Hindi, Hill Martians have a different view of the same gods along with some variations, including ancestor worship and "soulless ones" who many believe to be Humans. Better test every human you meet, they might not have a soul! :eek: High Martians have a lot of cults including the Worm Cult mentioned in the Space 1889 core book. Human religions and why they aren't likely to really take hold is briefly discussed.

AFAIK Space 1889 doesn't discuss the impact of changes on Earth itself. There may have been a split of sorts between wanting to detail a Victorian game and then the alt.Verne & Doyle game. Sometimes the latter seems tacked on or not really integrated well with the stock history bits (the board and miniature games for the series in particular felt like this to me). Don't recall any Earth book or adventures set on Earth either except for some wargame scenarios which were largely recreations of actual battle or plausible "what if?"s.

I think the Temple of the Beastmen (?) adventure/game had something about Humans and Martial religion but I never had it and it gets uniformly bad reviews.