"Your world as I see it"

With Star Trek burning up the Nielsens in reruns, Paramount rehired Roddenberry and put him to work on ideas for a low-budget Star Trek feature. His first attempt was begun in May of 1975 and submitted to studio head Barry Diller on June 30 of that year.

"I handed them a scr1pt and they turned it down," Roddenberry stated. "It was too controversial. It talked about concepts like, 'Who is God?' [In it] the Enterprise meets God in space; God is a life form, and I wanted to suggest that there may have been, at one time in the human beginning, an alien entity that early man believed was God, and kept those legends.

Gene had obviously been reading his Von Daniken, just like everyone else at the time. But since the devil's (due) in the details around here, we might want to get another look at the script, which Roddenberry titled The God Thing†:

Director Richard Colla, who had helmed Roddenberry's The Questor Tapes, was very familiar with that particular screenplay and recalls it fondly.  "They went off in search of that thing from outer space that was affecting everything. By the time they got to the spaceship and got into its [the alien's] presence, it manifested itself and said, 'Do you know me?' Kirk said, 'No, I don't know who you are.'

So it shift-changed and became another image and said, 'Do you know me?' Kirk said, 'No, who are you? It shifts shape again and comes up in the form of Christ the Carpenter, and says, 'Do you know me?' and Kirk said, 'Oh, now I know who you are.' And he says, 'How strange you didn't know these other forms of me.'

A god-like being presenting himself as many different figures is startling reminiscent of the sessions Roddenberry would conduct at Lab-9 in the weeks and months following the submission of his scr1pt to Paramount, though Roddenberry didn't seem to notice.

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42Jesus said to them, If God were your Father, you would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me. 43Why do you not understand my speech? even because you cannot hear my word. 44You are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and stayed not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. 45And because I tell you the truth, you believe me not. 46Which of you convinces me of sin? And if I say the truth, why do you not believe me? 47He that is of God hears God's words: you therefore hear them not, because you are not of God.

48Then answered the Jews, and said to him, Say we not well that you are a Samaritan, and have a devil? 49Jesus answered, I have not a devil; but I honor my Father, and you do dishonor me. 50And I seek not my own glory: there is one that seeks and judges. 51Truly, truly, I say to you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death. 52Then said the Jews to him, Now we know that you have a devil. Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and you say, If a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death. 53Are you greater than our father Abraham, which is dead? and the prophets are dead: whom make you yourself? 54Jesus answered, If I honor myself, my honor is nothing: it is my Father that honors me; of whom you say, that he is your God: 55Yet you have not known him; but I know him: and if I should say, I know him not, I shall be a liar like to you: but I know him, and keep his saying. 56Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad. 57Then said the Jews to him, You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham? 58Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, Before Abraham was, I am. 59Then took they up stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going through the middle of them, and so passed by.