During a recent discussion regarding the prayer comments posted by my aunt and myself, an idea struck me. It’s one of those story premise ideas I mentioned earlier. It’s an idea, that upon reflection, has probably been used before, but I’m sure it’s rich enough to last a few more interpretations. The idea was that prayer worked, and its working was a common fact and highly utilized. So, praying becomes a kind of resource. In my initial imagining there would be elite pray-ers, like elite scientists and elite warriors, that could sway the balance of power in global conflicts. Perhaps nations could remain powerful, despite weak militaries and weak economies, if they had strong prayers on their side. I also imagined the pray-ers, that’s those praying, being embroiled in the mundane parts of intrigue, being bought, or going rogue or flipping sides, targeted for assassination, and the like.
I’ve given the idea a little bit of time to simmer and have a few addendums. Really, options that would have to be selected depending on the type of story one wants to tell. One of these choices is whether the elite pray-ers are born with the ability, or if it’s trained, or both. And what is the nature of the training. Has the prayer industry been developed, are the secret prayer research labs developing national prayer secrets? Can certain prayers counter certain other prayers more effectively than certain still other prayers? Does a pray-er have to truly want the thing he prays for?
Another aspect of interest would be the way the prayers were answered. Perhaps powerful pray-ers essentially have magical powers, able to summon what they want with a wish. Perhaps the power never reaches that high, a powerful pray-er able only to tip events slightly in his or his countries favor. Maybe the power of a pray-er is measured by how frequently his prayers are answered, but the timing and method of reply is not certain.
Going the route of super powered pray-ers seems somewhat tedious to my mind. Essentially, writing a book about wizards, but calling their power prayer to rile up the religious. To me it would be more interesting to investigate the idea of institutional prayer, manufactured providence, grace to order.
Maybe in this fantasy world the god is a benevolent accountant, attempting to maximize happiness, with prayers as his measuring stick. He takes all the prayers, determines what will result in maximum happiness, maybe does some tweaking to favor certain individuals over others, and then the course of events unfolds accordingly.
I like the idea.