The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Eighty One Up

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah, and the first dozen or so of those disasters will discourage people from doing it any more. Possibly to the point where it becomes impossible for the famous dead to do more with their reputation than speaking tours.

There will be exceptions: relatively recent dead, people who were on top of the game until a decade or two ago (especially those who died young)... but the exceptions will be just that. We won't be seeing Tesla revolutionizing electrical engineering again the way he did in the late 1800s, because he doesn't have the background knowledge or the temperament to do it properly.

[GrayAnderson]

Yeah, and the first dozen or so of those disasters will discourage people from doing it any more. Possibly to the point where it becomes impossible for the famous dead to do more with their reputation than speaking tours.

There will be exceptions: relatively recent dead, people who were on top of the game until a decade or two ago (especially those who died young)... but the exceptions will be just that. We won't be seeing Tesla revolutionizing electrical engineering again the way he did in the late 1800s, because he doesn't have the background knowledge or the temperament to do it properly.

Yeah. Hence my Disney example. As of right now, he's got a personally marketable name and a generation of people grew up with him on TV (edit: Who are still alive, importantly). I'd be surprised if Disney (the company) didn't try another revival of the Wonderful World of Disney if he's interested, for example...the worst-case scenario you'd get is a bust for one season on TV. And who knows...maybe he'd try and make a go of selling Disneyville (what Epcot was initially slated to be) in Hell (or...who knows, if he can round up the support, he might be able to pull it off in Heaven). The main thing, though, is that someone has to have an individually marketable name and/or be pretty recent (as you noted).

Of course, I'm waiting for the name-and-likeness suits to start flying with some of these guys. J.P. Morgan can be argued to have sold his name, but I think Shakespeare may have a good claim to call for an injunction against the use of his name for marketing purposes without his permission going forward.

[Eevin]

Stuart is specifically trying to keep the human dead from dominating the story line, partly because of problems like the one I mentioned with Tesla. A lot of people who were wildly successful in the past would be colossal failures today, especially if they jumped into the fray without stopping to figure out how the world has changed.

19th century financiers made fortunes by doing stuff that would get them arrested in weeks today. 19th century inventors changed the world, often with so little education by modern standards that they wouldn't even be able to get in the door of a modern engineering firm. And so on.

That is a good point, modern physics depend a lot in the mathematical rigor. And of course, many of the "great scientists" just recapitulated the ideas that where floating around in the era. So the majority will have a hard time adapting to modern science. However I hope the real geniuses, the ones that loved knowledge and always where open to new ideas will manage to join. But of course, they will be a minority.

One way or the other the scientific establishment will have to change. Think about tenure, it is completely useless with eternal professor. We will have to create new ways to make sure that grants and laboratories are given because someone is a great scientist, not because that person is socially talented. Things that are marginal problems nowadays can become terrible if not attended.

[PaperJack]

What will happen once Darwin is found :

[Spekio]

What will happen once Darwin is found :

Lamarck, on the other hand....

[Night_stalker]

When we finally manage to find Lee Harvey Oswald, do you think we can finally settle the stupid rumors about JFK's assassination?

[Darth Yan]

hopefully monsters like hitler, stalin and mengele would get real trials.

[Night_stalker]

Yeah, but who gets to try some of them?

[ANTIcarrot]

That is a good point, modern physics depend a lot in the mathematical rigor. And of course, many of the "great scientists" just recapitulated the ideas that where floating around in the era.

Also remember the 'great engineers'.

I can imagine von Braun (for example) reading up on a book on recent NASA history and thinking, "What are these fools doing? That's not how you build rockets!" And he'd be quite correct. NASA is truly magnificent at probes and rovers and aircraft-research - but they suck at manned spaceflight and haven't built a decent launcher in forty years. Engineers Kelly Johnson and von Braun would both be rather qualified to attack the wasteful politics that hog-tie many government projects.

Going further back in time, Brunel, Telford, or Stephenson might even be more successful. The Hell nations (and presumably Heaven nations) might find great utility in Victorian engineering for very long time to come.

[Night_stalker]

Yeah, but I wonder how the Wright brothers would react seeing how far their little invention has propelled humanity.

[Kuroji]

The Wright brothers would probably be tickled pink that it was taken as far as it was, I expect, just as Tesla would react to seeing a lot of modern tech like wireless power being tinkered with; going 'you know, I had the idea for that way back when' but not having the means to do it. But they do get to see it in use. As for Wernher von Braun, he essentially created the science of rocketry; anyone would jump at the chance to get him on their side, and I'm sure he can do a lot more in the science of rocketry without having the need to sleep, eat, and so on.

I'm more concerned that someone would see to it that Lee Harvey Osward is killed and quietly buried himself. 'Who, him? No, we still haven't found him. We're still looking.'

[Night_stalker]

Ohh, how about Billy Mitchell, how would he like the importance of aircraft carriers?

[ANTIcarrot]

hopefully monsters like hitler, stalin and mengele would get real trials.

What about all the other Monsters of history? If we're going to invoke go after ALL the monsters of history, there are going to be at least one or two American presidents and generals in that long and terrible list. (By Modern standards, Custer was a war criminal guilty of ethnic cleansing, as was the administration that supported him.)

Take Caesar for example. The real one that is. He started a pointless war that killed 1/6th population of of France, and enslaved another 1/6th. It was done as a cynical grab for political power and to clear his massive debts. He almost certainly was a rapist, a racist, and genocidal butcher. Even if we assume the Romantic Literature version of Caesar (which Stuart seems to have gone with) there were plenty of people just like him.

How far back do you want to take it? I guarantee you, whatever country you're from, then by the time you finish some of your national heros will have been drug through the mud and hung from the gallows. As we make our way through hell not only will we unearth criminals (on every scale) but also their victims and accomplices. The fog of history will lift to reveal every inconvenient ugly detail that anyone ever tried to airbrush from the official record. Eventually the question will be asked, "Why them and not others?" and then no one will be able to stop it or control it. If you start down that path.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying I'm entirely opposed to such an exercise. I can think of a rather long list of British Generals who thoroughly deserve to spend a little longer in Hell than anyone else. Chelmsford springs to mind. But I'd still be cautious about starting something like this.

[Nematocyst]

Why condemn people again for their atrocities when they were alive? They did their time.
OK, if they keep the ideologies that made them do those atrocities, then back to the pit they go.

[Night_stalker]

Not to mention Caesar's diplomatic immunity, as per his being a head of state.

[Spekio]

The Wright brothers would probably be tickled pink that it was taken as far as it was, I expect.....

Santos Dumont was depressed that his inventionwas being used for war.

Fortunately, the Wrights wouldn't suffer 'cause I'm pretty sure no one used glorfied slingshots for war... or anything, for that matter.

[spartasman]

I would love to see Tesla replicating his teleforce weapon for the U.S government. So many of his inventions went unrealized and he supposedly created many gems of scientific descovery and never had the means or resources to complete them.

Also, I would like to see the trial of Adolf Hitler, I would hope that it would be something like his speech in "The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H".

[Tamahori]

"Once we have cleared up here, we will go back home and I will inquire at The League of Holy Court. They will tell me where Maion has been taken and we will rescue her from her plight. I fear Onniel was a more spiteful and vindictive ex-wife than you realized old friend." And if she is, then it will make her fate even more deserved. By now she will be dead and her body will never be found.

I wonder if I'm the only one here feeling sorry for Onniel here. I don't disagree she was being fairly bitchy near the end, and her attack on the maid is unforgivable, however Lemuel was also being a shit to her. Frankly I think their relationship says a lot more about how screwed up things are in heaven when it comes to marriage then it does about either person involved.

She did a very wrong thing with the attack on the maid, I really don't think death is the fair response for it.

Don't get me wrong here, life isn't fair, and this is a story where some very bad things happen to good people that don't deserve it (Maion herself being a prime example) but yeah. Another "I can understand why Michael does the things he does, and in many cases, why he has to do the things he does, but it doesn't make them good things." moment, which I suppose is Michael in a nutshell. Magnificent Bastard, being both Magnificent, and one hell of a Bastard.

I expect once this is over, Lemuel is going to have some problems anyway. While it does look like Maion has a non-trivial level of Stockhome Syndrome going on (and I just bet that Michael planned it that way), I'm not sure that things are well set up for a long-term relationship between those two. Though his one with Onniel was fairly screwed up to, and regardless of anything else, Heaven will never be the same anyway.

Poor Onniel.

-- Brett

[Edward Yee]

Re: Oswald -- someone probably already was on it, unless events in Hell were actually moving too fast for "certain somebodies" (i.e. organized crime, or "shadow conspiracies") to insert anybody into the military forces or non-combat relief personnel entering Hell during the events of Armageddon.

Heaven: Never did figure out the whole thing about how to deal with work/relationship stress... maybe because the official idea was that subversion of such stressed-out Leaguers was impossible, because It's FREAKIN' YAHWEH~?

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah, but who gets to try some of them?

And how do we punish them properly, commensurate with their crimes? For that matter, how do we stop them from pointing to senior demons and saying they deserve the same for torturing thousands of people for thousands of years?

The Wright brothers would probably be tickled pink that it was taken as far as it was, I expect, just as Tesla would react to seeing a lot of modern tech like wireless power being tinkered with; going 'you know, I had the idea for that way back when' but not having the means to do it. But they do get to see it in use. As for Wernher von Braun, he essentially created the science of rocketry; anyone would jump at the chance to get him on their side, and I'm sure he can do a lot more in the science of rocketry without having the need to sleep, eat, and so on.

With von Braun, what's important is that he himself was not such a great rocket engineer. What he excelled at was organizing rocket engineers. And organizational skills are nearly timeless; von Braun would probably be just as good a choice to manage Constellation as he was to manage Apollo, for instance.

I would love to see Tesla replicating his teleforce weapon for the U.S government. So many of his inventions went unrealized and he supposedly created many gems of scientific descovery and never had the means or resources to complete them.

Spartasman, his "teleforce weapon" didn't work. Couldn't work, even in theory. Math does not work that way.

[Tiwaz]

Also, I would like to see the trial of Adolf Hitler, I would hope that it would be something like his speech in "The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H".

There would be no trial.

Either Hitler or other historical "unwanteds" would be quietly eliminated before they were "found" or they would be untouchable.

Drag Hitler to trial for crimes committed during his life and, as said here earlier, you are opening a huge can of worms.

Let us say you did take Hitler to trial and punish him. What would you do when first victims of allied warcrimes would walk up to media and tell their story?
History would no longer be written by winners alone, and you could not quietly ignore actions of your troops when their victims can describe their fate to every gory detail.

And then you have problem of WW2 having established leaders being responsible for crimes within their area of command, or command responsibility, as per Yamashita trial.

It would not take long before people like Patton, MacArthur and whatnot had their name in the list of people demanded to be taken to the gallows.

So, those who would be likely candidates for trials would either quietly eliminated or there would be international agreement that what was done in first life remains there.

[Edward Yee]

There would be no trial.

Either Hitler or other historical "unwanteds" would be quietly eliminated before they were "found" or they would be untouchable.

An analogous example has already happened at the end of Armageddon, at the surrender of Palelabor:

Beside them, a Humvee pulled up and a man got out, one whose uniform was subtly different from the Marines. He walked over to General Waldhauser, and saluted crisply. “Sir, may I have permission to see the names of those we have recovered.

“Yes, of course Major.” Waldhauser waved and carter passed a notebook computer with the latest records on it.

The strange major loaded a flashdrive into the side and pressed a key. Then his eyebrows went up. “With your permission Sir, I would like to take this one.” He passed the notebook back.

“Obersturmbannfuhrer Herwijer. Guard at Majdanek. Sure, Major you can have him. Take good care of him.”

“Yes Sir, I will take very good care of him,” said Major Ben-Ari of the Israeli Defense Forces.

[Tiwaz]

Except that was very overt.

You can pull that off with nobody, specially since not one of the marines is going to wonder if Herwijer is not heard of.

But oh man if you do it with Hitler or Stalin. It is destined to leak out, and then the questions begin.

If Hitler is found but this knowledge is never made public, someone is bound to mention "But we found him at xxxx and this guy came and picked him up" somewhere and rumor will star spreading.

From that point onward it is going to be a bitch to prevent political disaster when everyone starts asking who else has disappeared. Then someone asks why Patton is not put into trial.

Even worse it gets when we remember that one man's terrorist/madman is a national hero for another. One example might be Soviet partisans who operated in Finland during WW2 (though they were more like long range patrols since they were based on Soviet side of frontlines). Over here they are pretty much considered warcriminals and animals, due to their habit to attack undefended civilian villages. On opposite side of border, they have lots of medals.

Situations like that will easily cause whole lot of bad blood if one party decides to punish "criminals" and other side hears that their "heroes" are being mistreated.

It is going to be extremely challenging to keep something like that hidden from public or other governments. And could easily lead to loss of any shred of unity present in humanity.

[Ilya Muromets]

I would love to see Tesla replicating his teleforce weapon for the U.S government. So many of his inventions went unrealized and he supposedly created many gems of scientific descovery and never had the means or resources to complete them.

Not gonna happen. As mentioned before by Simon-Jester

Tesla, specifically, was a weird case. He never really knew physics; he was just a brilliant intuitionist at the tail end of the era when useful discoveries about nature were simple enough to be intuited.

It hurt him in some ways, because a lot of his inventions were completely useless, and if he'd been inclined and trained to sit down and do the math before wasting months trying to power a lightbulb using a nondirectional antenna, he'd have gotten a lot more done.

Just because Tesla got some things right and some of his inventions worked doesn't mean he got everything right, or that they would have worked if only he had the resources. You have to remember that Tesla was also known for making outlandish claims, claim he never made good on. Even ones he supposedly already accomplished in small scale he didn't submit for public viewing. This was also the man who claimed that placing enough explosives in certain parts of the planet could split it in half. Just because someone claims he can build something doesn't mean he could, or even can.

He also criticized Einstein's theory of relativity, and was particularly contemptuous about the parts of the theories which stated that, in the presence of large masses, space curves thanks to gravity. Given what we now know about modern science, Einstein was right and Tesla's criticisms were wrong. Space does curve around massive objects thanks to their gravities. This has been proved by observations of the apparent positions of stellar bodies as opposed to their actual positions.

As for his teleforce weapon, he claimed that it could down a fleet of 10,000 planes at 200 miles. Even a cursory glance at those figures and a grasp of basic physics already poses a number of practical problems. There's a reason the US military wasn't interested historically -- Tesla's claims about the weapon were dubious at best. Even the parts of the device he claimed to have already done, he never showed to anyone. And there was no proof at all that he even started working on any such device after his dead. No plans, not prototypes, nothing.

[Simon_Jester]

I ignore whether Tesla had views on relativity; I honestly don't care. His life's work was in the field of electromagnetism, and if in that area he had been generally competent and reliably right... then I'd take his death ray claims more seriously.

But he wasn't. He had some sparkling moments of genius, but he made a lot of mistakes, too, and a lot of bold claims he never did back up.