The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Forty One Up

[fb111a]

One thing with regards to George H. W. Bush... he was VP for eight years, not four.

[K. A. Pital]

I've downloaded the whole story and I'll be cleaning it up and reworking a few bits so that it fits in. However, by and large its canon, hence the mention of the problems the Russians are having. Eventually, it'll form part of the third book.

Wow... thanks. Never expected my work to have any relation to canon Armageddon. That's awesome to hear - I'm quite sad I never got to finish it and the fates of the characters I created there, but basically, all their fates are mostly irrelevant, including the psycho hybrid and her daughter. I was expecting the hybrid to finally come to an understanding of the new humanity, that it has (sort of) passed the age of the Inquisition (which is part of why she hates humans) and ally with the Earth and Earth-allied Armies. Oh, and the Leviathan definetely was to be a major headache, until Russia used chemical weapons on it and the hydrozoa colony dissolved...

Hope it'll make a worthwhile contibution to the Armageddon universe.

P.S. I presume the "unexpected problems" are either the psychos controlling Hell megafauna or even taking parts of human armies under control. Neat.

[CaptainChewbacca]

One thing with regards to George H. W. Bush... he was VP for eight years, not four.

That was discussed previously by Stuart, it was a joke at how uninvolved George H.W. Bush was during his term.

[Edward Yee]

So there's... THREE competing Russian/soviet states in the Russian occupation zone?

That's the thing... last I saw the UVR and the CIS/Russian Federation (whatever) had a deal: Russia wouldn't interfere with the UVR internally if the UVR let Earth-Russia run things on the military end, seeing as the UVR is essentially Voroshilov's answer to undead officers discontent with the state of post-Soviet Russia... but is armed/supplied by post-Soviet Earth-Russia.

Peter the First however hasn't revealed his hand, and I don't recall Stas Bush writing if Earth-Russia was even aware of his setting up an (even less formal) power base... but Guillaume seems to such a right fucknut I was hoping that Lenin would somehow spawn with an eyepatch dual-wielding pistols and save the undead rodina from him.

Oh, and that pissed-off female demon who took control of some humans in control of a Russian helicopter

[CaptainChewbacca]

Are the stories somewhere on this board, because I don't remember this at ALL. Got a link?

[K. A. Pital]

Here's your link Chewie.
Spoiler

The Voroshilov Republic (or Soviet Republic of Dis) is not a "competing state" - it's a self-proclaimed civil administration that acts as Russia's occupation zone "sidekick" policing the former Armories of Dis, and whose head Voroshilov fully understands that he and his "state" are 100% dependent on the supply of modern weapons by Russia. Basically, it's one of the more powerful "Hell states", but it's still dependent on humans just as much as humans are dependent on Hell humans for providing additional policing manpower.

Peter the Great does not have any state. He has only a castle and some people flocking to his rule. His castle is a small outpost on the outskirts of the aforementioned Soviet Republic of Dis, and is supplied modern weapons by the SRD itself in turn, in exchange for brutally policing his own swath of territory. Guillaume is just a rogue undead, not a major figure by Earth means, but by Hell means he has modern weapons and he can roam through Hell quite easily.

In essense, it is a police vertical where Earth humans rely on the more advanced (more recently dead) humans to police larger areas, who are in turn relying on more primitive era humans to police their own areas and so on down to the very bottom of policing houses and blocks in Dis. Basically the Russian Zone, as all other occupation zones, is made up from various undead claimants, rulers, wannabe-rulers and "nominally controlled territory" (which is the majority of territory actually), where no one really controls anything due to Hell being obscenely large.

The female hybrid and the Leviathan were slated to be the megafauna antagonists for the story, which would be defeated by a chemical artillery barrage, and that would also show that humans in Hell have one thing in common regardless of whether they are communist, monarchist, capitalist, confucian or hell knows what - they don't want to die a second time "Final Death Problem" I think is not getting it's share of attention, because unprotected undead are so much more vulnerable to death, and they are also so much more afraid of it (now) than Earth humans would ever be...

...Actually, I could write up some sort of conclusion to the story and all that - I doubt it would take me much more than 1-2 chapters to do it. It wouldn't be too hard I'd believe, I'll cut out some time from my studies so that this story isn't left without a proper conclusion. It might take me a few weeks to do it, but I guess the Third Book is a long time from now, right?

[MKSheppard]

So has Saint Curtis been found? ?

[Stuart]

One thing with regards to George H. W. Bush... he was VP for eight years, not four.

It was a snide joke running around the Reagan Administration that the Vice-President was physically present but mentally absent during most of his official duties therefore he only counted as 50% present. Therefore only one of his two terms as VP counted. It's just a Beltway in-joke, there are a lot of them in both this story and Armageddon.

[Stuart]

So has Saint Curtis been found? ?

Not yet - although I leave you to guess whose opening line will be. "Just what have you dumb bastards done to my Air Force? You can do better than this."

[Setzer]

So, what if assassins start showing up in hell? I don't think every person on Earth is going to be content to let their ancestors continue to accumulate wealth.
Some will pay to have grandpa bumped off for good, and what happens then?

[tim31]

It was a snide joke running around the Reagan Administration that the Vice-President was physically present but mentally absent during most of his official duties therefore he only counted as 50% present. Therefore only one of his two terms as VP counted. It's just a Beltway in-joke, there are a lot of them in both this story and Armageddon.

I'm going to have to bone up on my GHWB, but I seem to recall a similar label being applied to Dan Quayle?

[Darth Wong]

It was a snide joke running around the Reagan Administration that the Vice-President was physically present but mentally absent during most of his official duties therefore he only counted as 50% present. Therefore only one of his two terms as VP counted. It's just a Beltway in-joke, there are a lot of them in both this story and Armageddon.

I'm going to have to bone up on my GHWB, but I seem to recall a similar label being applied to Dan Quayle?

Not the same thing. George HW Bush was invisible during much of Reagan's term in office. In contrast, everyone in the party wished Dan Quayle were invisible during Bush's term, because every time he opened his mouth something stupid came out.

[tim31]

Ah, thanks for the clarity. When I did '20th Century History' in year twelve we spent the first semester on WWI and the twenty years either side of it, a few weeks on WWII, and covered the cold war in another couple of weeks. The eighties and nineties were referenced here and there, but my own personal research into the matter seems to have focused on the actions/consequences of the last four US administrations and not on the people themselves. I will have to set aside some time to recitfy this.

[CaptainChewbacca]

When I hear about people studying the 1980's and 1990's in school, it makes me feel old.

[tim31]

Eh, this was at the turn of the century, and as I said, we didn't cover it much because it was on the blurry line between 'history' and 'current events'. In fact, the first day back at school after September 11, this history teacher brought it up at the start of the lesson, and suggested some background that we may be interested in reading about, and then never mentioned it again.

[JN1]

Ah, Dan Quayle, nice to be reminded of him.

[Vehrec]

So has Saint Curtis been found? ?

Not yet - although I leave you to guess whose opening line will be. "Just what have you dumb bastards done to my Air Force? You can do better than this."

I feel like pointing out that by the time he died, it hadn't been his air force for 25 years. And that he had seen almost every plane now in service fly by the end of his life, with only the B-2, Superhornet and F-22 coming online since then. So really, I'm not sure what the hell he's complaining about that he already didn't gripe about at the time of his death.

Here's a thought. Maybe we should lock him, Patton and Halsey in a room together and go with the strategic plans of whoever walks out in one piece once their egos are done with each other.

[Agent Fisher]

So no one liked my idea of Yahweh holding the recently deceased as hostages?

[Pelranius]

So no one liked my idea of Yahweh holding the recently deceased as hostages?

Yahweh might not like the idea too much. The hostages might disrupt his source of praise something (maybe just be being fearful or making a lot of noise, thus creating a distraction of sorts. The metaphysics, if I may use such a term, involving the usages of souls in the afterlife have consistently eluded my understanding).

[FedRebel]

So has Saint Curtis been found? ?

Not yet - although I leave you to guess whose opening line will be. "Just what have you dumb bastards done to my Air Force? You can do better than this."

I feel like pointing out that by the time he died, it hadn't been his air force for 25 years. And that he had seen almost every plane now in service fly by the end of his life, with only the B-2, Superhornet and F-22 coming online since then. So really, I'm not sure what the hell he's complaining about that he already didn't gripe about at the time of his death.

Likely he'd be pissed about the destablishment of SAC and the severe nuclear atrophy

The first story started in January 2008, so the nuclear 'procedural violations' in 2006 and 2007 still happened, The Materials Command and Minot AFB are sure to get a mouthful.

[Lonestar]

I feel like pointing out that by the time he died, it hadn't been his air force for 25 years. And that he had seen almost every plane now in service fly by the end of his life, with only the B-2, Superhornet and F-22 coming online since then. So really, I'm not sure what the hell he's complaining about that he already didn't gripe about at the time of his death.

Here's a thought. Maybe we should lock him, Patton and Halsey in a room together and go with the strategic plans of whoever walks out in one piece once their egos are done with each other.

The Super Hornet is a USN plane.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I think that, really, since so far Hell has followed Dante's plan, why not Purgatory and Heaven? The hostages could be dropped into purgatory with less concern for Yahweh.

[tim31]

Oh, nice save! Team Sunglasses does it again!

He's been holding large swaths of the population hostage in a figurative sense since organized religion came about, I'm sure he'd do the same literally.

[Vehrec]

I feel like pointing out that by the time he died, it hadn't been his air force for 25 years. And that he had seen almost every plane now in service fly by the end of his life, with only the B-2, Superhornet and F-22 coming online since then. So really, I'm not sure what the hell he's complaining about that he already didn't gripe about at the time of his death.

Here's a thought. Maybe we should lock him, Patton and Halsey in a room together and go with the strategic plans of whoever walks out in one piece once their egos are done with each other.

The Super Hornet is a USN plane.

Just listing two aircraft made the list look very thin, and made me sad. I had to pad it with something extra.

[Mayabird]

All this talk about opening portals to inject energy or cold air or whatnot made me realize that this could be the start, the first baby steps, of real weather control. The National Weather Service would be all up ons. Weaken storms into gentle showers, make it rain to stop droughts, heck, ski resorts would probably pay well to get cold weather and perfect snow for their slopes. Another thing to be explored in the third book?

[Takes off Thinking Cap and puts on Making Up Crazy Shit Cap]

Alright, Uriel promised to cause all sorts of suffering and death in Africa before. And while we haven't been given descriptions of the bodies of the dead in South America, we do know that the rich and their servants are more likely to survive than the poor and the survivors' descriptions of time seeming to slow down, everything getting quiet, and all the animals dying (just animals, right? No plants, I'm guessing).

Now it could be something that effects the central nervous system and that can be blocked with aluminum in the walls or electricity or whatever, but I'm wearing the Crazy Shit Cap right now so I have a much more exotic idea.

Anyone else heard of lake overturn? There are some lakes in the Great Rift Valley that are highly saturated with carbon dioxide and they can "overturn" releasing all the CO2 at once. The CO2 then flows downhill and asphyxiates all animal life in its path. People going to the villages after overturn events noted the incredibly eerie silences there because even the chirping and buzzing of insects had ceased.

So my crazy guess is that Uriel is asphyxiating everyone and everything animal in these towns by pushing in a lot of carbon dioxide (or possibly also taking out the oxygen). It's a quick death, though one could try to struggle against it (but with the caveat that most attempts to fight it, like gasping for air, would be counterproductive). So, how would rich people in their mansions survive?
Firstly, rich people in these countries tend to live on the higher ground. If CO2 is suffocating people, it'd affect the people in the lower areas and not the high ground. Secondly, they can afford to have equipment like air conditioners and fans, so their houses will have more air circulation, making it harder for Uriel to get the CO2 concentration or whatever to fatal levels.
Thirdly...crap, now I forget. Eh, I'll post later if I remember it.

Anyway, why bring up lake overturn instead of just saying "he suffocates them all"? Remember that thing about Africa? There's a giant lake there, Lake Kivu. It is filled with CO2. It is also filled with methane. Cores drilled in the bottom of the lake show alternating layers of sand and then dark organic material, each about a thousand years apart. The lake freaking explodes every thousand years and creates a massive tsunami that kills everything in its valley and washes it all into the lake bed where it creates that organic layer. It takes more than just a cigarette tossed in the lake or something little like that to ignite the methane. Something like lava from the volcano next door to the freaking lake would apparently suffice, though.

Oh yeah, and two million people live around the lake. Maybe a little less in this 'verse from Message deaths, but maybe even more if refugees have been flooding in from whatever chaos is going on in the aftermath.

[removes Making Up Crazy Shit Cap]

I'm probably completely wrong, but I had fun speculating and that's why I have that cap. Now back to the actual discussions.