L'Empire du Baphomet

mehdimauteur
10 févr. 2024
2 min de lecture

Baphomet's meteor by Pierre Barbet, 1972

A Summary...

In our timeline, Guillaume de Beaujeu, 21st master of the Templars was killed during the Crusades, at the siege of Acre : unfortunately, he hadn't had atomic grenades to help him, as notes the author. This is not true in Barbet's alternate history...

In this fiction, an alien, fallen from the sky, gives advanced weapons to Templars in order to build a great empire in the East. Of course, the Baphomet has his own interest...

My opinion...

Asia is depicted with a local color, as well as the Templars which makes the book particularly enjoyable. I just expected to read more discussions about nuclear weapons, which is still a major issue (check Kurzgesagt last video for instance).

1) I particularly liked the fact that the Baphomet don't really manage to enslave the Templars. They learn from him and build similar weapons afterwards. Therefore this is not a written in a « the Evil and its henchmen versus the Good » style. As a matter of fact, the Good and the Evil as envisioned by the knights are shifted to new notions.

2) When the Baphomet meets Hugues de Payn, he proves him that he is not the Devil as we know it. Reassured, the founder of the Templars accepts nuclear weapons. When we look in history, there has been a change between what we can deem bad or good since the Templars and Pierre Barbet makes the two notions coexist. It leads to an initial debate about wether atomic weapons are moral, especially in the case where it can bring peace and progress. Unfortunately, the « good »Templars are not lucid and make the wrong choice, claiming that the enemy has already his special weapon (naphta, black powder!).

3) Even if Templars can destroy a castle in a flash, their conquest are not easy. It makes the book very dynamic