The Salvation War: Pantheocide Epilogue Up

[Bayonet]

Somehow, Michael-Lan reminds me of Goering.

Without considering this a "rip-off" of Goering... are you surprised, considering what Stuart has previously said about Goering?

Oh, it's not a rip off of Goering, the characters are enough different, as are the settings.

I guess I'm not really surprised. Both are pretty complex characters.

[Werrf]

Remember, the thing that was nuked was the nine cohorts that Enatenael (whom Elhmas later claimed was the big angel that was mistaken as him) WASN'T leading. It really isn't clear or hinted at that Elhmas had peaced out before the nuke hit. That probably should have been foreshadowed.

uh...yes, it should have been, and um...was? Remember the other point I raised, that Ehlmas appeared to be responding during Michael and Yahweh's battle? Seriously, foreshadowing that you missed <> no foreshadowing. Of course it's not clear that he left before the nuke, otherwise the entire impact of his return would have been lost.

Ellie's disappearance was a masterpiece of non-specificity - A stunned, shell-shocked, dying soldier reported that he saw someone in shiny armour who he assumed was Elhmas flying over the army, and that's it. That's the only report we have about his presence. It's a pretty suspicious way to describe the death of an apparently major character, and leaves plenty of room to get out (as we saw) - that's the first bit of foreshadowing. Then, after a carefully vague wording of his disappearance, we got a hint that he was still alive in the Yahweh/Michael battle. Sure, it's fairly subtle, but it's still there.

[Peptuck]

Remember, the thing that was nuked was the nine cohorts that Enatenael (whom Elhmas later claimed was the big angel that was mistaken as him) WASN'T leading. It really isn't clear or hinted at that Elhmas had peaced out before the nuke hit. That probably should have been foreshadowed.

uh...yes, it should have been, and um...was? Remember the other point I raised, that Ehlmas appeared to be responding during Michael and Yahweh's battle? Seriously, foreshadowing that you missed <> no foreshadowing. Of course it's not clear that he left before the nuke, otherwise the entire impact of his return would have been lost.

Ellie's disappearance was a masterpiece of non-specificity - A stunned, shell-shocked, dying soldier reported that he saw someone in shiny armour who he assumed was Elhmas flying over the army, and that's it. That's the only report we have about his presence. It's a pretty suspicious way to describe the death of an apparently major character, and leaves plenty of room to get out (as we saw) - that's the first bit of foreshadowing. Then, after a carefully vague wording of his disappearance, we got a hint that he was still alive in the Yahweh/Michael battle. Sure, it's fairly subtle, but it's still there.

Its worth noting that this may be building on the story's thus-far prevalence of anticlimaxes. By this point in TSW, we're sort of used to the idea of such a major character getting obliterated without warning or buildup. Thus it really is somewhat surprising that Elmas is still alive.

[Gogyra]

Quick size question: is Ehlmas Yahweh/Uriel-sized, or Michael-sized?

[The Vortex Empire]

I just thought of something. Angels have an exponentially larger body volume compared to humans, so would it take a exponentially larger amount of marijuana for Michael or Elhmas to get high? I can't help but picture them smoking 3 foot long joints.

[Nematocyst]

And Ehlmas requiring many of those to actually get high.

[westrim]

No one has said it yet? All right, I will; sweet merciful Jesus* that was good! Only two more chapters to go- hopefully we'll get some teaser interaction with U-3 or the other bubbles.


*Yes, pun and reference intended.

[Ilya Muromets]

I'd love to see Michael's expression when Elhmas pops out. I bet it'd look something like the face of someone experiencing a barely aborted pants-shitting. For all his magnificent bastardry and smooth-talking, he genuine did not see that coming.

[Gogyra]

I just thought of something. Angels have an exponentially larger body volume compared to humans, so would it take a exponentially larger amount of marijuana for Michael or Elhmas to get high? I can't help but picture them smoking 3 foot long joints.

Their volume is not exponentially larger. Volume varies with the cube of scale. Qualitatively, though, you're correct: the larger angels would need massive joints to get high.

[MysteriousDarkLordv3]

Now I can't get that scene from History of the World Part I out of my head. Does this mean that any Heavenly counter-revolutionaries will be armed with Mighty Joint?

[Darth Yan]

Just for the record, did any angel (Gabriel) actually approach muhammed in this universe? Jesus said he possessed people and made several goes. So was mu one of those people? From what I've seen of the quran it has good parts and bad parts.

[Deebles]

A few hundred years later, I tried again and that was even worse. Centuries of slaughter and destruction and they weren't over when this blew up.

Has to be Islam, surely.

I had one last shot a few hundred years after that and it got even worse. Everything I has taught turned into an excuse for wars upon wars with more wars to argue the results of the first set.

This doesn't fit with the more recent Abrahamic offshoots (LDS, Ba'hai, or Rastafarianism). However, Lutheranism could just about be considered a big enough departure from the traditions of Catholicism and the Orthodox churches to qualify, I suppose.

EDIT: Unless anyone can see something in this list that I can't, of course.

[Stuart]

Elhmas probably should have been foreshadowed. Him just showing up, infodumping, and then getting stoned seems awfully forced. I'm not sure I like how easily Lemuel was convinced by Michael either, though Michael did pull the age old trick of forcing Lemuel to feel responsible enough for what happened (and carefully omitting his own role in things) that Lemeul is too guilty to go further with this.

I didn't want to foreshadow what was going to happen because that way, the reader feels the sheer shock that Michael felt when a character he had presumed to be dead suddenly appeared. There were a couple of hints that Elhmas was alive; the vagueness of the accounts of his death (which should have tipped Michael off, that was his big mistake) and the near-response to Yahweh's attempt to draw on Elhmas during the battle. That was all that Michael had to go on and so that was all I gave the reader. Other than that, I wanted Elhmas's appearance to be a shock. The model is in the end of some films (for example Rush Hour 3 and a lot of westerns) where the Big Bad has apparently won and is about to whack the hero when there's a shot and the Big bad is brought down by an apparently minor character

There's a parallel to this in an excellent Spaghetti Western called Qien Sabe. Basically its set in Mexico and features two protagonists; one is a good old-fashioned Mexican 'revolutionary' who is really a good, old-fashioned bandit who spends most of his time drinking and womanizing. The other is an American who is the new breed of revolutionary, cold-blooded, meticulous and devious. The film is essentially about the American trying to teach the Mexican how to be a revolutionary only to see all his lessons being ignored or derided. Spoiler

Then, in the last frames of the movie, the Mexican suddenly and completely without warning draws a pistol and shoots the American dead, his reason being that the American will go on to teach other 'revolutionaries' and that will threaten the Mexican's position. In those few frames, we realize that the Mexican has, in fact, been watching the American and learning from him all the time, he just hasn't revealed it. When we go back and watch the film a second time with that knowledge in mind, the hints that this was in fact the case are there. They are few but they are there and they do tell you what is really happening.

Also, I did much the same thing with Armageddon. Michael appears there in a few places, coming over as just another member of Yahweh's court, as deluded and seduced as the rest. Only in his last appearance do we see the situation through his eyes and realize that he is actually plotting against Yahweh and holds Yahweh in utter contempt. That's the first indication as to how devious he is.

[Darth Yan]

ok, but islam wasn't all destruction. Certainly not more then it's neighbors. It did have some good aspects bout it.

[Erra]

Freaking great job Stuart. IMO, I loved the way Elhmas appeared without warning, I really felt like it put the reader in Michael's shoes in terms of surprise and Holy Shit Quotient. Plus, he provides a great foil to Michael that can really get developed in the next book. If he was too foreshadowed, it would be like, "how the hell did Michael not tie that end up".

I was a little disappointed with the way the Lemuel confrontation worked out, much in the same way Lemuel was disappointed, so I guess that works for reaching out to the readers emotions as well.

Looking forward to the last couple of chapters, the books coming out in dead tree form, and the next book being written!

[Deebles]

ok, but islam wasn't all destruction. Certainly not more then it's neighbors. It did have some good aspects bout it.

True that, but it fits within the same family of belief, it's still around and still in (violent) conflict with other faiths in the real-world present day, and the timing fits.

One other interesting possibility, however, visavis the world's younger faiths is that Ehlmas may not have been the only one up to this. I'd be particularly interested about who may have kicked off Manicheanism, as the balance of power between good and evil in that religion is a bit closer to the uneasy truce between Yahweh and Satan than the Abrahamic religions' version of an all-powerful creator...

[Brovane]

Thanks Stuart for the response. Given this reason, I am suprised that the decision was made to then nuke the army of light in Heaven. It seems the human conventional forces where well equipped to go after and destroy this army. I mean three well equipped army groups where been brought into Heaven. They seemed to have the situation much more in hand than when they faced Satan's armies in Hell. I know there was more concerns about the Eternal city. Was it pay back and revenge for Tel Aviv and everything else the Angels did to the humans? Was it the fact that with Putin as overall head that the Russians are less reluctant to go nuclear than the US? Do the Russians have the same feelings about going nuclear that the US has?

In-universe CGHEA Petraeus was granted release authority by the Yamantau Council for both military and political reasons -- militarily so that he would have an option to minimize casualties, and political because the Yamantau Council intended to use the lack of (many) casualties to stem the Second-Life "defections" from their nations to the New Roman Republic... the US had already lost Jade Kim, McElroy, and MaDeuce to Caesar. Petraeus' decision to use that authority against a large-enough body to put First-Lifers at risk* thus fit both the military and political rationales and objectives.

* I will note of course that Elhmas had sent a forward force as a "diversion" that had fought one of Caesar's legions, but it was unlikely that Petraeus would have forced it to take on the whole of the Incomparable Legion of Light. The nuclear option actually gave him a tad bit more plausible deniability about the whole "discriminating against Second-Lifers" thing... and a way to prevent that Second-Lifer military from having as much "war honors" to show off if protesting their treatment. (Strangely I'm thinking of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team here.)

The second-life "defections" I don't see as a huge issue. I could see the Military just saying your enlistment term isn't up yet. It isn't like the military allows people to leave in the middle of a deployment or major conflict. Even now they do "stop-loss" for military personeel. The personeel could argue that they are dead and no longer bound by the contract. The Military could argue that by electing to be paid again that the contract is still in-force and fully valid.

I see the major reason for the deployment of nuclear weapons is revenge for "Tel Aviv". The Military command did see a oppurtunity to deploy a nuke against a clearly military force that was grouped together and took it.

[Brovane]

And at that point they would have been able to envelop and destroy the single largest military force on earth, and the only thing between the hellmouth and civilization. They would'nt have gone global, but they would have taken a chunk out of the mideast and Lucifer might have been bold enough to drop a second force somewhere else.

I have a hard time seeing this. The US still had a large military force in the field. If you look at the order of battle. You have the 25th Mechanized Infantry Division, 10th Mountain Division, 15th Marine Expeditionary Brigade, 1st Armored Division, British Brigade and a Iranian Composite Division with over 300+ tanks. In reserve the humans have the 2-brigades of the 4th Infantry Division and the 82nd Airborne. The 1st Armored Division alone is a incredibly destructive force and had maneuvered to cut off the Baldrick army from the Hell mouth. Even if they would have taken out the forces in Battle of Hit, just part of the human army. They would have emerged with a badly mauled force. Also they are a Leg infantry force. The 82nd Airborne, as the theater reserve could have been moved up to slow down any advance. As the Baldricks are not getting any reinforcements, and they have already taken massive casualties, while human reinforcements are starting to pour into the battle area. Remember the Russians where sending large forces also down into Iraqi. The 1st Armored Division had literally run over the Baldricks with there tanks, the British and Iranians had destroyed the forces facing them. So basically the flanks on both sides of the Baldrick's had collapsed which left these forces free to maneuver against the center. It would have been messy, especially for the 10th Mountain and the Marines if the battle of Hit would have been lost by the humans however it wouldn't have altered the course of the war. At the end of the day the Baldricks don't have the speed to envelop human forces, Let alone a US armored Division. Remember these lines from story?

It was far worse even than that. The baldricks were moving slowly, as a professional, Petraeus recognized them for what they were, an infantry army that moved like one. Slowly, ponderously. They had their cavalry out as screens of course but it was a myth that cavalry forces could move much faster than leg infantry, they could in a tactical sense but the difference strategically was marginal at best. The harpies had been more of a worry, there had been an effort to use them as an advance guard but they’d been shot out of the sky by the F-16s based at Kirkuk and Incirlik. The small detachments, usually three at a time hadn’t stood a chance against the fast jets and after a while, their commander had stopped sending them out.

In contrast, the Allied forces were mobile almost to the point of insanity. They could slash at an enemy formation, disengage, regroup and slash again while their enemy was still wondering what to do about the first attack.

Now if Satan would have organized all of his forces in the beginning and sent say 666 Legions through then things could have turned out differently. The front could easily have collapsed just from shear numbers and the human forces start running out ammunition. However he sent out 66 legions because he had no intelligence on what he was facing and couldn't conceve that humans could defeat even 66 legions. This gave the humans time to bring up more forces and ammunition.

[GrayAnderson]

Impressive bit. I'd have gotten to it sooner but for other things tying me up.* Of course, all of this raises an interesting question, namely "If El doesn't plan to cause trouble for Michael, what does he plan to do?"

Also, does the promotion in rank actually have any effect? And if so, does demotion work as well? I'm guessing it was a bit of bluster in that meeting, but you never know.



*and by "other things", I mean a second set of root canals

[Gogyra]

I imagine that if the army had been ten times bigger, Earth may have gone nuclear much sooner. When faced with such an overwhelming force, keeping nukes in reserve would have been a much less appealing option.

[Zaune]

Hah! And to think I was going to take you to task for making Ehlmas talk like a hilariously unconvincing stoner stereotype. I'm guessing that was part of the elaborate façade of Obfuscating Stupidity that's kept his old man off his back these last two millennia?
Good on the bloke for practicing what he used to preach and not beating seven shades of mana out of the backstabbing little swine, too.

Oh, and the benefit of a newcomer who has neither the time nor patience to wade through two threads whose combined length exceeds Lord of the Rings, did you ever settle the question of why .50 Beowulf/.338 Laupa instead of still-ubiquitous and nearly as good 7.62mm NATO?

[Stuart]

Hah! And to think I was going to take you to task for making Ehlmas talk like a hilariously unconvincing stoner stereotype. I'm guessing that was part of the elaborate façade of Obfuscating Stupidity that's kept his old man off his back these last two millennia?

You got it. When trying to convince A Large Ham of something, one has to ham it up oneself.

Good on the bloke for practicing what he used to preach and not beating seven shades of mana out of the backstabbing little swine, too.

When I was assembling the plot for this (my plots are mapped out in detail before I start writing the full text) I was in two minds about whether Alhmas would kill Michael or simply warn him that he had better behave or else. I settled on the latter for precisely the reason you suggest; it seemed more in character with his motivations and objectives.

Oh, and the benefit of a newcomer who has neither the time nor patience to wade through two threads whose combined length exceeds Lord of the Rings,

Lord of the Rings? Lord of the Rings???. A mere bagatelle. I'll have you know The Salvation War exceeds the length of the 1983 Election Labour Party Manifesto - and it isn't a suicide note.

did you ever settle the question of why .50 Beowulf/.338 Laupa instead of still-ubiquitous and nearly as good 7.62mm NATO?

At their simplest, they blow bigger holes. Homo Caelis doesn't die from critical hits that take out vital organs; they regenerate too fast for that. They die from massive damage that overwhelms their regeneration capability or by bleeding out before they regenerate. In general infantry small arms are not that effective and even the new ones are limited in capability. The benefit of .50 Beowulf and .458 Winchester is that they are large enough to have SLAP armor-piercing explosive/incendiary loads that can do a lot of very nasty damage. 7.62 NATO is better than 5.56x45 or 5.45x39 (both of which merely annoy Homo Caelis unless they get hit by a lot of them) but it's still on the ineffectual end of marginal. .338 Lapua Magnum has much longer effective range than either of the American cartridges.

It's likely that as the years roll by, all of these rounds (and indeed the whole concept of infantry small arms) will get reconsidered and new families introduced.

[Ascaloth]

So Michael's dealt with the Lemuel/Maion issue smoothly, and lucked out of the Ehlmas issue....but don't think the troubles are over for him just yet, oh no.

There's still a certain Miss Kathryn Branch who's looking for answers from our Magnificent Bastard.

[Zaune]

Point taken, though a weapon on the ineffectual end of marginal that's available immediately beats a truly effective weapon that won't become available in useful quantities for a number of weeks, and I'm sure most of the world's armies have at least some old 7.62mm rifles knocking around in the stores. It's a pity they didn't think of producing 5.56mm hollowpoints either, because those might have made an equally good interim measure without issuing new weapons or rendering the old ammo completely worthless.

And that crack about the '83 Manifesto is the closest thing to a hint of who you voted for that I've seen in anything related to the Salvation War series, which is damn tricky to pull off in this genre.

[MarshalPurnell]

I was firmly convinced the little hint about Ehlmas being alive was nothing more than misdirection. Interesting to see his return, and I imagine his role in the broader narrative is not yet over. Being a member of the Yahweh species I imagine he holds a lot of answers to questions that humanity will want resolved.

And speaking of which the ability of Michael to hand out "promotions" is also an intriguing development. Attributing it to the powers beyond the gates may seem a bit unscientific, but then he probably knows a lot more about what is actually beyond the gates than humans do. It would beggar belief that the growth in mass and strength accompanied by a promotion could be psychosomatic. And furthermore there are other hints of outside intervention in the development of the demons; Memnon was on the verge of mentioning that when he was warned off by the mysterious voice in his head. Possibly the mechanism whereby the angels can be promoted was set up by Yahweh with magitech of his species, and similar magitech was used to differentiate the demons from the angels later on. Why control over the promotion process migrated to Michael is a major question, unless Yahweh keyed the process to respond to whoever had leadership of the Angelic Host and there is some form of psychic manifestation involved in said magitech.

And hadn't commented earlier, but at least the Aesir (and I would also assume the Vanir) seem to be confirmed as existing independently. I wonder what other pantheons might be around (the Aztec bunch would make for pretty nightmarish villains) and of course very much hope to see the remaining mysteries of the setting revealed, eventually.