Salvation War Criticism Thread

[Sea Skimmer]

How was 28 Days Later bullshit? Fact of the matter is that as an epidemic, the Rage Virus infects and turns people in seconds.

Yes, your badass military mofos can killfuck all the unarmed hordes of zombies because guns are so awesome and the military is totally cool and they've got planes and tanks and bombs and planes.

But unlike traditional zombies, the whole point of the 28DL thing was that the infection was very fast - and despite the use of weapons, the infection's still going to spread at such a virulent rate that it'll infect significant numbers of people and decimate a population.

Which means it cannot spread faster then a walking human (its in the movie that the zombies stop running if they can’t quickly catch something, meaning they still get tired, and no doubt grow slower over time as they starve) which means merely blowing down bridges would already put a huge crimp in its ability to spread. A virus with a longer incubation period would be far more of a threat then a fast acting virus which can only spread from a single point in a linear fashion. This is why Ebola has not wiped out the world. Plus you can kill the zombies any old way you can kill humans, unlike most zombies which need headshots, which means simply running them over with tanks and trucks would have worked.

[RobinSure1234]

Most of what's been said before about execution I agree with, but the two things that annoyed me the most about the story were minor really.

Baldricks. Bloody stupid name. Really doesn't fit them, and there's no fucking way Brown would use the term. Or indeed even make a joke.

Kitten. "Don't use a capital K." What? How the fuck would anyone speaking tell the difference. Fine, if you're going to be pissy about it, your official documentation could include such a facile piece of information, but that wouldn't affect the medium you're written into. And no soldier in the world is going to cry just because you happen to go "ow it hurts" occasionally. Who was Stuart trying to pull with this nonsense?

[Mayabird]

Kitten. "Don't use a capital K." What? How the fuck would anyone speaking tell the difference. Fine, if you're going to be pissy about it, your official documentation could include such a facile piece of information, but that wouldn't affect the medium you're written into.

Because kitten is based on an actual person, and that's how she spells it. That description of the nicer (or, less shitty) parts of Hell that the character of kitten gave? That's what the actual kitten said about it. That's why.

[Rahvin]

Kitten. "Don't use a capital K." What? How the fuck would anyone speaking tell the difference. Fine, if you're going to be pissy about it, your official documentation could include such a facile piece of information, but that wouldn't affect the medium you're written into. And no soldier in the world is going to cry just because you happen to go "ow it hurts" occasionally. Who was Stuart trying to pull with this nonsense?

The capital letter thing is a common theme in the BDSM subculture. Submissives (as kitten plainly is) typically do not capitalize their names, while even pronouns are capitalized for Dominant individuals.

kitten is actually one of my favorite characters, more so because she's based on someone real. You don't have to understand her lifestyle, and you can even think it foolish, but not all people are the same. I enjoyed her inclusion in large part because she demonstrates that one can make choices and intrinsically be very different from what is considered "normal" by society and still be an extremely well-adjusted person.

As for the "ow, it hurts..."

The pain of the early portal opening process is described as nearly unbearable. Remember kitten's intended relief, who was drafted into the military for his avarice? As I recall, he was screaming because it hurt so bad.

I know several military types who would feel sympathy, guilt, and regret that a person had to make such a sacrifice to help them. Imagine inducing an unbearable migraine for long enough to fully supply the initial forces in Hell. Frequently. And the pain wasn't occasional - every time they opened a portal, kitten was made to feel unbearable pain until it was through, and she stoically endured it far beyond the call of duty on multiple occasions.

[Peptuck]

And no soldier in the world is going to cry just because you happen to go "ow it hurts" occasionally. Who was Stuart trying to pull with this nonsense?

Because as we all know, once you join the military the concepts of empathy, feeling for others, gratitude, guilt, regret, and appreciation for the sacrifice and suffering of others goes right out the window. Everyone in the armed forces the world over is an unfeeling, unempathetic robot. So, when any soldier from any military in the entire world looks at a noncombatant who is willingly allowing herself to undergo intense, agonizing pain repeatedly to help that soldier out, they should not feel any empathy for that person.

[Shroom Man 777]

Which means it cannot spread faster then a walking human (its in the movie that the zombies stop running if they can’t quickly catch something, meaning they still get tired, and no doubt grow slower over time as they starve) which means merely blowing down bridges would already put a huge crimp in its ability to spread. A virus with a longer incubation period would be far more of a threat then a fast acting virus which can only spread from a single point in a linear fashion. This is why Ebola has not wiped out the world. Plus you can kill the zombies any old way you can kill humans, unlike most zombies which need headshots, which means simply running them over with tanks and trucks would have worked.

I guess that's precisely why they just waited the zombies out until they just effing died.

Anyway, I guess 28 Days Later really gets a pass by actually depicting the infection actually burning itself out, and by focusing on the human characters, their situation and stuff rather than "RARGH ZOMBIES RULE THE WORLDS". Discounting the shit-sequels, of course.

Baldricks. Bloody stupid name. Really doesn't fit them, and there's no fucking way Brown would use the term. Or indeed even make a joke.

I'm alright with the name. Come on, Blackadder!

[LadyTevar]

And there's a new Chapter up!

I have to admit that Michael covered his ass neatly, explaining away the Nuke as the "Fourth Bowl of Wrath". Mikey's damn lucky YawYaw's blinded to what's REALLY going on outside his temple. It's also pretty damn callous that he dismisses Uriel death away that easily, when the death of Fluffy sent him into a rage.

[Blayne]

Michael had been slowly discrediting Uriel for many days if not weeks to the point that Yayah didn't really care for him anymore.

[Medic]

Well I agree with Michael-lan Michael (I suppose it is), Belial's been a huge disappointment. I hope Stuart has something relevant in mind for him yet and he doesn't just fade away like Richard Dawkins in Armageddon.

[NecronLord]

Baldricks. Bloody stupid name. Really doesn't fit them, and there's no fucking way Brown would use the term. Or indeed even make a joke.

For all the perhaps justified politician hate, they are still people. They get colds like the rest of us, they defacate like the rest of us, and they like TV shows. Offhand, Baroness Ashton, who he's appointed as the EU High Representative has a life-sized dalek in her living room. Sir Gus O'Donnel the head of the Civil Service (and thus of course, not a politician, but the cabinet secretary, I expect you imagine such people to be equally humourless), is known to half multiple dalek toys scattered about his office, in some game with a collegue. That's just known Doctor Who fans, I don't find it hard to imgine that Brown's reply in a time of extreme stress would be a quip from a similarly regarded British TV insititution.

As for suiting them; perhaps not, but as was explained in the story, this is what Brown came up with on the spot, and it stuck.

[Jamesfirecat]

The other major explanation for the "Baldrick" line was one that it was based on a mental slip of the tongue. The Prime Minister saw this big honking demon from hell though "Balrog" but somewhere between his brain and his mouth it ended up becoming "Baldrick" which is more or less as reasonable way of arriving at that destination as the above poster's theory...

[NecronLord]

His words were "Sod off Baldrick, don't worry folks, I have a cunning plan." or something to that effect. It's very definately deliberate.

[Stuart]

Well I agree with Michael-lan Michael (I suppose it is), Belial's been a huge disappointment. I hope Stuart has something relevant in mind for him yet and he doesn't just fade away like Richard Dawkins in Armageddon.

Belial still has his role to play. At the moment, he's sitting in the wings, thinking evil thoughts. Richard Dawkins likewise, he also has his role to play but he isn't thinking evil thoughts. Well, not very evil ones.

Neither have actually faded away, they're still on the play list.

His words were "Sod off Baldrick, don't worry folks, I have a cunning plan." or something to that effect. It's very definately deliberate

very deliberate, its not something Brown himself would say but remember he doesn't write his own speeches. It's very definately something a speechwriter would come up with under the "raising morale" heading. Pinch a line out of a great TV classic simultaneously raising a laugh and belittling the opponent. Note it got slightly distorted in becoming common usage. Baldrick originally applied to Satan himself, but it became used for any daemon. By this point (mid-Pantheocide) it's starting to fall out of use, being regarded as tacky and also stirring up guilt feelings over the way the daemons were slaughtered.

[CaptainChewbacca]

I wouldn't worry much about the Cancer-Man blog, it hasn't had an update in about 2 months.

[Mr Bean]

very deliberate, its not something Brown himself would say but remember he doesn't write his own speeches. It's very definately something a speechwriter would come up with under the "raising morale" heading. Pinch a line out of a great TV classic simultaneously raising a laugh and belittling the opponent. Note it got slightly distorted in becoming common usage. Baldrick originally applied to Satan himself, but it became used for any daemon. By this point (mid-Pantheocide) it's starting to fall out of use, being regarded as tacky and also stirring up guilt feelings over the way the daemons were slaughtered.

Fast forward to twenty years down the line and a daemon punching out a human because he called him a Baldrick "No! Only we can use that word"!

[Ryan Thunder]

It's almost as if the entire point of this story were to render the supernatural in the most utterly mundane manner possible...

[NecronLord]

very deliberate, its not something Brown himself would say but remember he doesn't write his own speeches. It's very definately something a speechwriter would come up with under the "raising morale" heading.

Honestly, I'd imagined it was an immediate reply, and I certainly can imagine Brown coming out with it. To my mind he's not really the robot he's made out to be. He just seems to adopt a policy of remaining professional, because he knows he's never going to succeed at being approachable and charisma.

Your mileage may vary, of course.

Pinch a line out of a great TV classic simultaneously raising a laugh and belittling the opponent. Note it got slightly distorted in becoming common usage. Baldrick originally applied to Satan himself, but it became used for any daemon. By this point (mid-Pantheocide) it's starting to fall out of use, being regarded as tacky and also stirring up guilt feelings over the way the daemons were slaughtered.

I question how much pity they'd actually get. There should be a never-ending torrent of tales of torture; never mind that most people don't 'get' the brutality of warfare, and wouldn't really comprehend the slaughter as much as they could comprehend the fifty pages of daemonic child rape in The Sun. People will get much more wound up about that sort of thing than they will about demons being ground under tracks.

I think to even get tolerance of demons - rescue efforts or no - you'd need to have substantial censorship. They're not very nice people. Humans have a very low capacity for pitying people they've never met who look nothing like them, let alone people that kick puppies and eat babies.

It would, of course, rather undermine the story if the demons were casually abused or exterminated. But then, the human protagonists in this story are paragons of nobility - I'm sure if the story focussed on the treatment Baldricks are getting by the gangsters Putin sent in, it would look rather different.

[Stuart]

To be honest, I question how much pity they'd actually get. There should be a never-ending torrent of tales of torture; never mind that most people don't 'get' the brutality of warfare, and wouldn't really comprehend the slaughter as much as they could comprehend the fifty pages of daemonic child rape in The Sun. People will get much more wound up about that sort of thing than they will about demons being ground under tracks. I think to even get tolerance of demons - rescue efforts or no - you'd need to have substantial censorship. They're not very nice people.

I don't think so; remember what happened in the last days of ODS when some helicopter gunships worked over a stream of Iraqi troops leaving Kuwait (with their loot by the way. We'd had all sorts of horror stories coming out of Kuwait as well (I know a lot of them turned out to be untrue but that wasn't known then). The media were full of howls about the "Highway of Death" and so on. I agree that the daemons are not nice people, nor were the Iraqis in Kuwait. What was a perfectly legitimate job of making sure those units didn't retreat to a new position and kill more of our people turned into a wailing mass of pathos. The strategic consequences were gruesome and included a premature end of the fighting. So, frankly, I can see public opinion doing a heel turn when film of a battlefield where the heaps of mangled, gassed and burned daemonic corpses goes on for square mile after square mile hits the television. The fact they tried to stop tanks with bronze tridents would add to that picture.

[Blayne]

It's almost as if the entire point of this story were to render the supernatural in the most utterly mundane manner possible...

Aaaah kinda, pretty much yeah. Its called "Doing in the Wizard". And I like it that way.

[CaptainChewbacca]

The fact they tried to stop tanks with bronze tridents would add to that picture.

Demons facing down an oncoming armor column with tanks, knowing they're about to die could even be considered noble. At least... to a hollywood director.

[Simon_Jester]

The dead Iraqis had the PR advantage of not being the actual Legions of Hell, whereas the demons didn't. I think that would make a big difference; it would take numerous, repeated massacres of demonic troops to even begin to have the effect the Highway of Death did. I mean, much of Stuart's premise in this story is that humans are mad over the whole issue, to the point where support for the war is nearly universal right after the message, and where people are far more willing to make sacrifices for the war effort than Americans were for the first Gulf War.

That sort of anger doesn't fall apart in a few weeks, or even a few months.

[Blayne]

We also have that what was it 1 or more million dead demons in a relatively small area? That widely televised should seem much much worse to human sensibilities then the highway of death.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Humans (and especially Americans) have a short memory for hatred. The fact is that while the demons have been eating/harvesting/torturing humans for millennia, WE HAVN'T KNOWN ABOUT IT. The knowledge that it has happened is largely informative, with almost no real-world experience of Baldricks inflicting harm on humans. That fact, combined with the massive carnage we've inflicted on the demons and the knowledge that YAWEH is the real enemy is likely enough to turn things around PR-wise.

It would be like if we suddenly found out a nation was behind the creation and dissemination of HIV, but they had recently been stopped. 'Oh, ok. Well, you gotta pay for that but lets rebuild your infrastructure'.

[Morilore]

I’ve heard of things like that happening. I never thought I would actually be present to see one. If somebody was to write that into a novel, nobody would believe it.

I were you, Stuart, I would rephrase that to "put that in a movie" or "put that on TV." This version seems to tackily wink directly at the reader.

[Blayne]

Except the person in question is Israeli, maybe they're just more well read?