The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Eighty One Up

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Re: The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Seventy Eight Up

Post by Junghalli »

Lonestar wrote:O think that anyone who has participated in the TSW threads(not necessarily you, mind) that tries to insist upon a "cut" is a cad of the first order.
Weren't there some people who actually wrote sections of the story for him? It would seem fair for them to recieve some financial compensation for their efforts.
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Re: The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Seventy Eight Up

Post by Lonestar »

Junghalli wrote: Weren't there some people who actually wrote sections of the story for him? It would seem fair for them to recieve some financial compensation for their efforts.
For them, maybe(I don't know if Stuart already worked something out with them, and I'm not going to ask). Random peeps going "well I thought this up and then it was in the story...where's my cut"? Nope.
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Re: The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Seventy Eight Up

Post by PaperJack »

I was thinking, can portals be used as weapons ?
like, create a portal in the middle of a person and then close it quickly and poof where did his lungs and heart and most of his chest go ?
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Re: The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Seventy Eight Up

Post by JN1 »

Lonestar wrote:
Junghalli wrote: Weren't there some people who actually wrote sections of the story for him? It would seem fair for them to recieve some financial compensation for their efforts.
For them, maybe(I don't know if Stuart already worked something out with them, and I'm not going to ask). Random peeps going "well I thought this up and then it was in the story...where's my cut"? Nope.
I'm certainly not looking for any financial compensation. I wrote for the enjoyment of contributing to TSW, not for the money. Seeing some of what I've written in print will be compensation enough. :D
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Re: The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Seventy Eight Up

Post by darksoul »

PaperJack wrote:I was thinking, can portals be used as weapons ?
like, create a portal in the middle of a person and then close it quickly and poof where did his lungs and heart and most of his chest go ?
I would say yes, but that puts a whole new meaning to high energy weapons...
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Re: The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Seventy Eight Up

Post by PaperJack »

darksoul wrote:
PaperJack wrote:I was thinking, can portals be used as weapons ?
like, create a portal in the middle of a person and then close it quickly and poof where did his lungs and heart and most of his chest go ?
I would say yes, but that puts a whole new meaning to high energy weapons...
it would probably ignore all sorts of armor apart signal jamming

actually instead of opening a portal and using artillery to blow apart the wall, can't they just create an one-way portal inside it, and then close it, punching a portal sized hole istantly ?
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Re: The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Seventy Eight Up

Post by Mew »

I wouldn't be surprised if a specie could have found a way to weaponize portals in some way or another.

To do so in an effective way would mean developing long-range detection (technological or not) and an accurate way of opening portals (the ability to open them in a very precise manner and quickly).

Such a species would be far more difficult to fight against than the angels and daemons ; such an opponent would not only benefit from mobility (due to the use of portals) but from a weapon that has range and destructive capbilities required to go toe-to-toe with human beings.

And if those beings have found ways for their portal weaponry to form weapons of mass destruction (and considering even the primitive angels & daemons could do it given a minimum of creativity)... such a species would be one that humanity would most definitely not want to run into. Especially that conventional armor and other such protections against normal weaponry would be useless ; humanity would need to develop ways to jam and 'block' portals in an effective way. And although current jamming technology would probably work against weak signals, the weaponized version of a portal would probably have a much 'stronger' signal (in order to punch through the species's own counter-measures) that would require new jamming or creative use of more advanced jamming techniques.

Then, there are the other possible applications of precise, quickly opened portals...

For example, a tank-like vehicle equipped with a portal generator that would open micro portals when a threat (such as an incoming missile) is detect to 'deflect' the projectile and its effects away from the vehicle itself...

Or even better. If the species has the native power of creating portals like daemons and angels, have suits with amplificators that allow them to have the above effect on a personal level and to generate their own weaponized portals.

Humanity going against such a species that mastered portals would be... quite interesting to say the least.

Of course... this is given that the species has indeed reached such a level. A species that has reached such a level of mastery with portals will probably have other technologies. For example, the development of detection technologies and communications. They will also have either a certain level of bio-technology in order to understand how portal generation work and how to create amplifactors, targetting systems adapted to portals, beacons to facilitate the establishment and maintenance of both mundane portals and the 'firing' of weaponized portals, and other such things. Most certainly, a species that have the level of mastery I implied would most definitely be far more advanced than the angels/daemons and much closer to humans overall.

Not to say that a species that has weaponized portals but not the long-range detection & targetting wouldn't be a danger. But they wouldn't pose the same level of threat as a species with full mastery & support technologies.




Now, unrelated to this... I have a question.

I do not live in the US so although I would like to get the paper version of the Salvation War books when they are released, I am really not sure I will be able to get them.

So... will the old stories really be deleted when the paper versions be released?
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Re: The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Seventy Eight Up

Post by Edward Yee »

Most likely, but again, consider that they're not yet near publication. I admit to actually having the "Web version" of Armageddon saved, but plan on buying the print version when I can, since that will include (TBO) editing, possibly new scenes, and I'll be interested in how some scenes were revised due to excising (i.e. how the lack of the fetuses thing is worked around, since that was the only appearance of apparently Polish SF).
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Re: The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Seventy Eight Up

Post by GrayAnderson »

JN1 wrote:
Lonestar wrote:
Junghalli wrote: Weren't there some people who actually wrote sections of the story for him? It would seem fair for them to recieve some financial compensation for their efforts.
For them, maybe(I don't know if Stuart already worked something out with them, and I'm not going to ask). Random peeps going "well I thought this up and then it was in the story...where's my cut"? Nope.
I'm certainly not looking for any financial compensation. I wrote for the enjoyment of contributing to TSW, not for the money. Seeing some of what I've written in print will be compensation enough. :D
I don't think any of us were/are looking to make money. If I write anything in-universe that's passable, I'll more than likely be happy to hand over the keys to Stuart if he wants to publish it in a short story collection or something. If a nominal dollar (or something else) has to be involved, that'll suffice as well...this universe is fun to work and think in, and for the most part that's reward enough.
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Re: The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Seventy Eight Up

Post by Seggybop »

I was randomly going through Wikipedia and came across this indicating that 'living beings' is actually the translation of Chayot Ha Kodesh, which would throw a wrench into the idea of them being the survivors of a previously-quashed race. =/
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Re: The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Seventy Eight Up

Post by darksoul »

PaperJack wrote:
darksoul wrote:
PaperJack wrote:I was thinking, can portals be used as weapons ?
like, create a portal in the middle of a person and then close it quickly and poof where did his lungs and heart and most of his chest go ?
I would say yes, but that puts a whole new meaning to high energy weapons...
it would probably ignore all sorts of armor apart signal jamming

actually instead of opening a portal and using artillery to blow apart the wall, can't they just create an one-way portal inside it, and then close it, punching a portal sized hole istantly ?
Yes, i was thinking some along those lines myself. I just can`t find an instance in the novel where it is said that a portal is open in a solid. I did found that apparently for the Detroit portal eurydale pushes the portal INTO the lava before it colapses itself, but Im not sure if she accomplishes it. if she did, then yes, portals can be opened into solids, and yes, destroying the gates with portal would be nice. A portal on each juncture of the door with the wall and it can come down swinging. But since the angels are not using portals that way, maybe there is a catch somewhere... or maybe it just didnt occur to them :)
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Re: The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Seventy Eight Up

Post by Stuart »

Lonestar wrote:
SirNitram wrote: So will I be getting a cut from my kicking off the thought of the invasion of hell? Glad to hear it!
O think that anyone who has participated in the TSW threads(not necessarily you, mind) that tries to insist upon a "cut" is a cad of the first order. I think an acknowledgement of the board will probably be in there, if the TBO series are anything to go by.
The way I've worked it is that the title page lists the real names of everybody who contributed sections of text to the final story as authors under the heading of "major contributions by". The board as a whole is listed in "acknowedgements". As to money, it's pretty near impossible now to divide out who did what due to the process of getting the thing ready for publication, editing and re-editing. Also, one person may have thought of an idea, another written it up and a third turned the text into publishable copy. Finally, there were some contributions that couldn't be used for one reason or another yet the person who wrote them still put the effort in. Sorry, Sir Nitram, if anybody gets the credit for thinking up the idea of fighting back, its Her Grace. Anyway, what'll happen is that when the royalties start coming in, Mike will be getting checks as contributions towards the running costs of this board. That way, everybody gets to benefit from the joint efforts.

Once TSW:A is out, the next step will be to get TSW:P ready for publication (this won't take so long) and get TSW:LoW written.
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Re: The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Seventy Eight Up

Post by Arachnidus »

Stuart, have the cover arts been hammered out yet?
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Re: The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Seventy Eight Up

Post by Raesene »

Stuart wrote:Once TSW:A is out, the next step will be to get TSW:P ready for publication (this won't take so long) and get TSW:LoW written.
Do you have a possible/likely timeframe for us ?

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Re: The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Seventy Eight Up

Post by Heatherine »

How strong were Yahweh's barriers? Could he have withstood missiles like those that killed Satan?
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Re: The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Seventy Eight Up

Post by impatrick4life »

Heatherine wrote:How strong were Yahweh's barriers? Could he have withstood missiles like those that killed Satan?
Almost certainly, I should think. If they were already up, then it would be difficult to kill him. If hit from behind by supersonic missiles (or nearly silent general purpose/laser-guided bombs), he would not have time to get defenses up, however, and would have died quickly.
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Re: The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Seventy Eight Up

Post by Simon_Jester »

Then again, Satan could probably have done something about the missiles if he'd known they were coming. We know how powerful his telekinesis is; he might well have been able to deflect or destroy them if he'd had time to spot the target instead of having the missiles pop out of a portal no more than a hundred feet or so from his nose.
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Re: The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Seventy Eight Up

Post by Chris OFarrell »

Having just read back through the last ten or so chapters again, I have to admit I was struck at how...human...Michael and his people were being.

Not just in their plotting and cunning of course.

Just looking the way Michael went to face Yah-Yah alone, albeit backed up at a distance...but he was actually surprised when his people later appeared without warning, and very much against their best interests, to openly and directly support him in the battle. Its clearly not something that is seen in either Heaven or Hell, where it is clearly all about backstabing each other in the dark sidestreets, but it shows how things have already changed, and how even Micahel is underestimating how 'human' influence has changed him, and changed the perception of him by his underlings.

I wonder when the last time was a major figure in either Heaven or Hell had earned and inspired REAL loyality was...
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Re: The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Seventy Eight Up

Post by Chris OFarrell »

impatrick4life wrote:
Heatherine wrote:How strong were Yahweh's barriers? Could he have withstood missiles like those that killed Satan?
Almost certainly, I should think. If they were already up, then it would be difficult to kill him. If hit from behind by supersonic missiles (or nearly silent general purpose/laser-guided bombs), he would not have time to get defenses up, however, and would have died quickly.
Thats why you fire a missile that explodes in a cloud of Sarin Gas, like what the Russians did to the armies of Hell. Nasty, NASTY stuff.
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Re: The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Seventy Eight Up

Post by Arachnidus »

Chris OFarrell wrote: I wonder when the last time was a major figure in either Heaven or Hell had earned and inspired REAL loyality was...
July 20th, 2010. And the years leading up to it.
Chris OFarrell wrote:
impatrick4life wrote:
Heatherine wrote:How strong were Yahweh's barriers? Could he have withstood missiles like those that killed Satan?
Almost certainly, I should think. If they were already up, then it would be difficult to kill him. If hit from behind by supersonic missiles (or nearly silent general purpose/laser-guided bombs), he would not have time to get defenses up, however, and would have died quickly.
Thats why you fire a missile that explodes in a cloud of Sarin Gas, like what the Russians did to the armies of Hell. Nasty, NASTY stuff.
Yeah, chemical warfare...doesn't necessarily end too well. Even against supposed deities.
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Re: The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Seventy Eight Up

Post by Erra »

PaperJack wrote:I was thinking, can portals be used as weapons ?
like, create a portal in the middle of a person and then close it quickly and poof where did his lungs and heart and most of his chest go ?
Indeed, you could put the portal generation equipment into a gun of some sort. First shot starts the portal, second one opens up the path. It would need massive testing though. Perhaps some sort of lab could be set up, run by an intelligent AI, to test the portal gun.

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Re: The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Seventy Eight Up

Post by Ilya Muromets »

Arachnidus wrote:Stuart, have the cover arts been hammered out yet?
That reminds me, I almost forgot. I've been putting together an attempt at making cover art by Photoshopping a bunch of images together. So far, all I have is this:

Image

I wanted to put in a demonic army on the left, but couldn't find any public domain images on Google that would fit. All I could find were a swarm of bats which I hope makes for passable harpies.
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Re: The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Seventy Eight Up

Post by Stuart »

SAS Detachment, Eternal City, Heaven

"We've just got word. The excitement in Dempsey's voice was obvious. "Michael-Lan is surrendering unconditionally. The war is over."

"Don't jump to that conclusion lad." Crowleigh was very cautious. "The Septics made that mistake back in the old world. What you mean is that major combat operations are over. We and our children will be sorting out the mess up here for generations. And not everybody will be honoring that surrender, you mark my words. There'll be a lot of shooting yet. What are our orders?"

"We're to get into uniform and make ourselves obvious. Start patrolling around this area, make sure everybody sees armed humans on the streets. And we're to make it obvious we're in charge. The message says, don't throw our weight around but make it clear our word is the one that counts. Got the message flimsy here." Dempsey passed the yellow paper over.

Crowleigh nodded. Dempsey had summarized the message very well. Time to give orders. "Right lads. Into uniform and pick up our arms. You heard Dempsey, we're to patrol our patch in a military manner and take no shit from anybody." There was a chuckle around the team. Crowleigh's Scottish burr had added a note of class to the orders he had summarized.

Street of Ceaseless Exaltation, Eternal City, Heaven

"This can't be happening." Rubibael-Lan-Dasarapael didn't actually know who he was speaking to, if anybody at all. He wasn't even sure if he was speaking to himself. He was simply trying to comprehend the unbelievable sight that was now unfolding before him. It was as if saying the words was enough to bring them into a reality in which he had a place. As a humble Ishim, he had never had any ideas above his station but, lowly as he was, he had always had the humans to look down on. The doors set in the massive gate before him were open and humans were pouring in as if they owned the place. That was when Rubibael-Lan had expressed his disbelief. Only, it wasn't an expression, it was a howl of anguish.

"Move back. Get away from the gates." The human spoke sharply, without much attempt at friendliness. The steel helmet that covered his head and the nape of his neck gave him a ferocious look that was out of place in the Eternal City.

"I cannot. It is my place to y . o. . o. .o. .o . . w." Rubibael jumped in the air and howled with pain as a rifle butt slammed down on his foot. He hopped up and down on one leg, trying to nurse his bruised toes with his hands. His wings fluttered as he used them to stay balanced.

"When I tell you to move, you move. Understand? We're going to blow the gates and you don’t want to be here when they come down."

Rubibael nodded and hobbled off down the street, abandoning his position as marker distributor for the Mahatalabhuva Gate. He looked behind to see if the human was laughing at him but the man had seemingly forgotten all about him and was doing some of the mysterious things that these humans did. Somehow that made it all the more humiliating.

USS Turner Joy, DD-951 AUTEC Transition Point, Earth

"It's really all over?" Sophia Metaxas was hanging on the hatch leading to the comms room, listening to the roar of cheering and singing that was spreading throughout the ship. If the news was false, there would be a very unhappy crew.

Commander Reynolds was already in the crowded compartment. "Hi Sophia. It's true. It hasn't been announced over the civilian networks yet, not officially anyway, but it is confirmed. We won. Heaven's folded. Yahweh is dead, Michael is in charge. Temporarily at least."

Sophia gave a piercing scream of delight and her hat hit the overhead. Halfway through the celebration, the comms equipment started to rattle again. The message came in and was spooled out. Reynolds tore it off and read it carefully. "Uh-oh."

Her stomach clenched as the words came out. Surely it wasn't going to be revealed as a hoax or simply denied was it? "Problems? Please don’t tell me the war is still on."

"It isn't. It's over all right. But there's a portal being punched through from Heaven to here. We're to be first through."

"You mean we're going to lead the fleet into Heaven?" Rochelle Emerson had just come up from the engine rooms. "That's wonderful."

"No, it isn't. Reynolds was profoundly cynical. "They're sending us in because we're an old, steam powered destroyer with a crew of hired misfits that nobody will really miss if everything goes sour. Oh yes, and because we still have our spray equipment on board so if we run into the crap that killed off the seas around here, we can start to get rid of it."

Sophia looked around at the wreckage that had once been a near idyllic tropical island. The island was a brown wasteland, scoured of life. The beautiful green trees and parks, the white-roofed houses, they had all gone. Swept away or shattered into fragments by the succession of super-hurricanes that had devastated Bermuda. The one-beautiful beaches were scarred by the wrecks of ships that hadn't made it to the Hellgate before being overwhelmed by the storms. Just off Turney Joy's port bow was the wreckage of a Spanish destroyer that hadn't made it through. She was red with rust now and had rolled over, partly crushing a French corvette alongside her. The seas themselves were dead, the Red Poison had killed nearly everything in the area off and the sealife was taking a long time to recolonize the area. In a way, Bermuda was symbolic of Earth after the Salvation War. Battered, bloody and hurt so badly it would take a long time to recover. But, recover it would and it was something else as well. Victorious. Bermudans would come back and rebuild their homes, Sophia knew it and in a way she envied them. This old destroyer was just about the only thing left of her life. When it was gone, she really would have nothing.

"Where are we going?" Her voice was subdued as the realization of what this victory had cost sank in.

"A place called Lake of Placid Contemplation. Apparently, it's right in the middle of the Eternal City. If we get there and rule it safe, then all of these will be following us." Reynolds waved at the ships surrounding them. The aircraft carriers George H.W. Bush, Enterprise and Harry S Truman, the cruisers Pyotr Veliky, Sejong Daewang, Cowpens, Port Royal and Almirante Grau. Two dozen destroyers at least, most of them AEGIS ships or their equivalent. Then there were the amphibs. There hadn't been a collection of amphibious warfare ships like this since Inchon more that half a century before. At least six LHDs, a dozen or more LPDs and LSDs, two French LHAs, the Mistral and Tonnerre, a seven-ship British amphibious squadron, some of the big Russian amphibious hovercraft. Those were just the ones she could see. The sea was studded with ships and Sophia realized they were all waiting to go to the Lake of Placid Contemplation. She hoped it was a big lake.

"We've got a picture of the lake coming through now." Reynolds held it up and Sophia sighed with relief. It looked as if it was indeed a big lake.

Just Inside The Himilheothon Gate, The Eternal City, Heaven

"Who the hell are you? We're trying to decide how to blow this thing up." The Officer of Engineers was irate for a number of reasons, one of which was he'd had a conversation with his doctor a few hours before. The lump in his tongue was cancer, a fast-growing, very malignant cancer. It was already spreading and it was far too late to operate. It always had been, this type of cancer was a killer. Lieutenant Chard would be going home soon, to spend the last couple of months with his family before the cancer got so bad there would be no point in going on. He had already decided to sign out when that happened.

Another thing annoying him was the task he had been set. Blowing this gate open. The problem was, if he just blew the hinges, the gate would fall down all right. Only it weighed somewhere between 38,000 and 88,000 tons and that weight of door hitting the ground in a 100-meter arc would cause a fair earthquake. From what he had seen of the buildings around here, it wouldn’t take much of a shock to bring them down as well. So, he was going to blow the gate in a series of sections using linear shaped charges to carve off large sections of the meter-thick wood. That was another part of his forward planning. He already had a truck waiting and it would rush some of the wood back to Earth where he could spend his retirement carving it into furniture. After all, a man had to leave some heirlooms to his descendants.

The final straw was this man who had suddenly appeared in front of him, waving documents that gave him permission to film something or other using this gate. Just what he needed when he was running against the clock. Every kind of clock.

"We've been given permission to film an episode of our show here." The man with the moustache seemed to have enormous patience. "If everything goes the way we plan, we should be finished in a few minutes."

"And how often does everything go the way you plan?" Chard was not a patient man.

"This is a quite simple test. Nothing much can go wrong with it. We just need to have some people go backwards and forwards through the gate and that's it. We'll be out of your way in . . . ." The man hesitated slightly. "Thirty minutes?"

Chard nodded. "Very well. You have thirty minutes. Not a minute more. Then we're going to start demolishing the gate."

The man with the moustache looked up at the huge gates with interest. "Now that will be a really big boom."

Shin Meiwa US-2 Flying Boat, Atsugi Air Base, Japan.

"Welcome to our aircraft, kitten." Captain Oushi Terukata bowed respectfully as the couple stepped on to his aircraft. "We have set your portal generation equipment up in the stern of the aircraft. It will be ready for you to use as soon as we transit to Heaven. Before then, the forward cabin is quite comfortable. Our flight plan is quite simple. We will take off from here and fly through the Heavengate at Yokosuka. This will bring us out over our Third Army Group. There may be some delay there due to portal movements. We have yet to hear from the Chinese air traffic control. After we have transited to Heaven, we will fly to The Eternal City and land on the lake in the middle. Our estimated flight time is two hours."

"Thank you Captain." As usual Dani spoke for kitten. "You have an interesting aircraft here, I've never seen a flying boat before."

"There are very few large ones like this left now. We have less than ten and the Chinese have five. They are the last of their kind." Oushi paused for a second. "kitten, we understand you like ginseng tea? His Imperial Majesty has sent some from the Palace's own stocks for you. If you would like a cup now?"

Dani glanced at kitten then nodded. "That is very kind of you Captain. I know kitten will enjoy that."

Outside The Himilheothon Gate, The Eternal City, Heaven

"Of course, what we really need are those two maniacs on television who spend their lives finding different things to blow up." Colonel Paschal looked at the massive structure with something close to trepidation.

"They're already here. Apparently their viewers asked them about the myth that rich people can't get into the Kingdom of Heaven. So they've got Bill Gates, Michael Dell, Paul Allen and Larry Page plus four street people they found in San Francisco wearing accelerometers and walking backwards and forwards through the doors in that gate. Seeing if there is any difference to the resistance they experience when entering the City."

"Gonzo science." Doctor Kuroneko spoke dismissively.

"Better than no science at all." Doctor Surlethe protested. "It may not be science as we know it but they are teaching people to think about problems logically and carry out experiments to test their conclusions. And put proper controls on those experiments. That's a big step forward from making assertions and then repeating them."

"Apparently Gates asked the one with the moustache whether they were going to blow the gate open and the only reply he got was 'Jamie want big boom.' You'll note they don’t actually handle the explosives themselves on the show." Colonel Warhol shook his head. "Those gates are a real problem though. The demolition teams are having fits all around the city. Their consensus is to bring them down in sections."

The DIMO(N) team got into their Humvees and set off for the Himilheothon Gate. They were strangely aware that this was likely to be the last time their team would get a chance to come together like this. With the war ending, DIMO(N) would be losing its primary reason for existence and would be wound up. James Randi's team was already being demobilized, its primary function of finding sensitives who could contact the Netherworld was already obsolescent. Warhol sighed gently to himself, remembering the frantic early days of the war. Then, everything had been thrown together, haste being the over-riding driver. It hadn't mattered how much something had cost or how jury-rigged the system had been, if it happened quickly and got results, it had been funded. Then had come the jarring feeling of disbelief as Abigor's army had crumpled under the massive firepower of the human armies in Iraq. Somebody ought to write a history of DIMO(N), Warhol thought. We lost so much of our heritage in this war, we need more to replace it.

His thought train was interrupted by an excitable red-headed man addressing the television cameras around the gate. "And our data set is quite conclusive. Some of the richest and some of the poorest people in America have been through the gates of Heaven and there was no difference in the resistance they experienced. None at all. I love consistent data. So the myth that rich men can't enter the Kingdom of Heaven?"

"Busted." The entire TV crew echoed the verdict with relish.

Shores of the Lake of Placid Contemplation, The Eternal City, Heaven.

There was much to think about. Ohalam-Lan-Derepael looked out at the great lake and shook his head. The great storms of thunder that had made the whole city shake had dispersed and everything was tranquil again. Except for the great splash that had been seen in the middle of the lake a few hours ago. For the first time in countless millennia, Yahweh was no longer resident in the Eternal City. Ohalam hoped that he would enjoy his vacation, wherever it was. The Great General Michael-Lan was now in charge of Heaven until Yahweh returned. That was what puzzled him. Why had Michael-Lan surrendered so quickly? Could not the Great General think of a way to defeat the humans the way he had defeated the fallen Ones and driven them from Heaven.

Humans. Ohalam had great difficulty getting his mind around the problems they were causing. They had been menial servants, of little account for so long. How had this happened? How had they become the ruthless killers who had destroyed The Morningstar and cast down The Fallen Ones and then proceeded to do the same here? It made no sense.

The drone of turboprop engines interrupted Ohalam's train of thought. It was a human aircraft, one of the steadily increasing number that were passing over the City. Ohalam adjusted his eyes for long-distance vision and looked at it. A white aircraft with a blue stripe down its fuselage and its nose and tail painted bright orange. Quite different from the blue or dark red paint scheme the human aircraft usually wore. He watched as the aircraft circled around, obviously inspecting the area. In awe of the glories of the Eternal City, he thought.

Shin Meiwa US-2 Flying Boat, Circling the Lake of Placid Contemplation, Eternal City, Heaven.

"It's a bit of a dump isn't it?" Dani was looking out of a porthole, using the powerful binoculars the aircraft carried to search for survivors. That was, after all, the primary role of the US-2.

"All the reports say that." Oushi had come back into the cabin to make sure than his passengers were comfortable prior to landing. He was well aware that if kitten got as much as a bruise from a rough landing, his life would not be worth living. The old custom of seppuku might well be considered an appropriate form of apology in that event. "When looking the first time, impressive with all the precious stones but beneath that, not so much. Now, we will be landing on the lake very soon. We have checked it carefully and it is very smooth so the landing should be just like a land aircraft touching down. If there are ripples on the water, they might cause some jolts, so please, be very careful and make sure you are properly strapped in. After we have landed, kitten, my orders are that you are in charge from that point onwards. Just tell us what you need us to do."
Nations do not survive by setting examples for others
Nations survive by making examples of others
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Ilya Muromets
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Re: The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Seventy Eight Up

Post by Ilya Muromets »

Art version resized for book cover dimensions:

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Ones where I drew the lines roughly where the the spine and covers would be:

Image

EDIT: Oh, hey, a new chapter! *reads*

EDIT 2: The Mythbusters in Heaven? It's just somehow appropriate. :lol:

I worry about those ships, though. They're porting from saltwater to fresh water. I hope the buoyancy's been properly taken into account.
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Mr Bean
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Re: The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Seventy Nine Up

Post by Mr Bean »

I love the idea Mythbusters making a last minute appearances but how in Xenu's name did they get there so quickly in what was just an active battlefield?

I think there might be an interesting side story in what strings got pulled where and where they got said paper to film that episode.

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