The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Eighty One Up

[Seggybop]

Lying about torture isn't worse than torturing people. Handing someone over to be tortured when they were trusting you not to do that and you had the full power to protect them *is* worse than torturing.

How do you know that Yahweh "had the full power to protect them" ?
Entirely cutting off the flow of humans to Hell might not have gone over well with Satan.
Do we even know what the the original agreement for human soul distribution was?

[xthetenth]

So, here's my guess: The economy is going to go for one hell of a ride. I'm predicting a spike of close to 15% unemployment on Earth after the war as the wheels come off, combined with a massive slug of inflation. Think the early 1980s in the UK for a good analogue (which, by the way, had all of these problems: A budget getting cut, inflation running wild, and a banking system that was a bit of a mess). This should start to cool off after a year or two as new infrastructure gets put online, but I also predict that you're going to see outsourcing to Hell on a respectable scale. Even if that assembly-line worker only works two shifts a week for a year to save up for a new wardrobe, if they're working for a low enough amount it won't matter.

I'm not sure that real world precedents work properly here, because the entire industrial base is on earth, and there's a massive market that just arose for manufactured goods. I think the only people who won't have jobs are the ones who don't want them, as more and more second-lifers save up for things like farm machinery and just simple tools. I can kinda see an economy a lot like the English one at the height of its empire for a while, since Heaven and Hell only have resources to trade for desperately needed manufacturing goods.

Think about what you're saying. "Little wonder that" we hate someone who said they'd save us from the torturing fiends if we were really nice (but didn't) more than the torturing fiends? How does that make sense? How is lying worse than raping people and throwing them into giant pits of flame to burn for millenia?

Lying about torture isn't worse than torturing people. Handing someone over to be tortured when they were trusting you not to do that and you had the full power to protect them *is* worse than torturing. If someone puts throw a baby into a tiger pit, do you go after the person or the tiger?

I know you made a point about how not all the angels were behind that decision, but if we can want to kill baldricks for supporting Satan's rule and not stopping it from happening, then we can do the same for angels. At the very least, they're equally responsible.

Tigers aren't sentient beings and they derive their nutrition from food. I'd say it's equal, the demons automatically torture, and the angels send them knowing full well that it happens to everybody the demons get. Only difference is the angels pretend their hands are clean, and that's just dishonest.

[Erra]

Just a side thought on this whole "those who came before us" matter.

Is it possible that forces outside the Angels or Daemons could be partially responsible for "prodding" us in the right direction? A different bubble world inside Universe B? Or maybe even whatever lies beyond the Minos Gate (Universes C or D)? It was stated that Caesar had otherworldy protection that the daemons couldn't touch, and he was a very important part of getting humanity to where it is today. Couldn't it be possible that other great leaders, thinkers, revolutionaries, etc may have been similarly protected or guided? To say nothing of whoever is pulling Memnon's strings.

If so, what possible motivation could these unkown forces have for the destruction and subseverance of heaven and hell, and the advancement of humans into a transdimensional force?


Anyway, before any of that. I'm really excited to see the showdown between Yahweh and Michael (and maybe Michael and Lemuel, as things seem to be developing on a line of thought I had earlier). Great chapter! Please don't keep me on the edge of my seat for too long

[Simon_Jester]

Tigers aren't sentient beings and they derive their nutrition from food. I'd say it's equal, the demons automatically torture, and the angels send them knowing full well that it happens to everybody the demons get. Only difference is the angels pretend their hands are clean, and that's just dishonest.

So, accepting that "allowing X to be tortured" is just as great a crime as "actively torturing X," we have a few problems. One is the one that crops up in real life- if you are an American, your nation has participated in quite a few cases of torture over the past few years. You haven't stopped it. Does this make you as bad as the people clamping electrodes to Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib?

Or: you're not an American citizen, but you probably haven't lobbied your government to attack the US to force them to stop torturing captives. You probably haven't even lobbied them to carry out minor steps like sending diplomatic notes or declaring an embargo. Are you as bad as the people clamping electrodes to Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib?

Because the second position is related to that of the angels (not Yahweh personally, but the species as a whole). They were citizens of a nation other than the one committing the torture, and the most they could conceivably have done was lobby their government (Yahweh, a being not known for tolerance of those who make suggestions to him) to take steps to end the torture. They did not do so. Is that a mortal offense?

Finally, even IF this is a mortal offense, IF "failing to convince your autocratic ruler to act to stop torture in another country" is just as bad as "being one of the torturers in that other counry..." How is being dishonest even noticeable on that scale?

I mean, we're talking about human misery on a scale roughly five to six orders of magnitude greater than the Holocaust here. How is lying about how much you're willing to do to reduce the suffering (not if you're going to do anything, how much) even remotely comparable to being one of the people involved in making the suffering happen?

Lying about torture isn't worse than torturing people. Handing someone over to be tortured when they were trusting you not to do that and you had the full power to protect them *is* worse than torturing. If someone puts throw a baby into a tiger pit, do you go after the person or the tiger?

I know you made a point about how not all the angels were behind that decision, but if we can want to kill baldricks for supporting Satan's rule and not stopping it from happening, then we can do the same for angels. At the very least, they're equally responsible.

Demons don't automatically torture people the way tigers might automatically eat babies thrown to them. So your basic argument is flawed- people not taken into Heaven were not automatically tortured by some kind of nonsentient machine; they were tortured only by the free will of other entities who were responsible for their actions and who could stop any time they pleased.

On top of that, the angels were not direct willing participants in Satan's atrocities. They weren't even on the same side- they were at least nominally civilians or soldiers of a nation opposed to Satan's actions. This nation did not do enough to prevent Satan's atrocities, nor did they do as much as they implicitly said they would. But they did more than nothing: they took 10% of the human race in and put them into conditions that, while far worse than life today, are also far better than being raped by demons or spending a thousand years soaking in burning pitch.

Now, with the change in the status quo following the Message, things change. Yahweh's condemns of all humans to Hell, and invites demonic armies into Earth. Yahweh can now be viewed as an ally of Satan against us, and can thus reasonably be seen as having to go- a view that is further supported by his decision to wage war on us even after Satan's forces were defeated.

But even so, the great war crime of the Salvation War, the one major issue at stake beyond self-defense for humanity, is the prolonged torture in Hell- torture prolonged over tens of trillions of man-years. And while Yahweh personally bears a very great degree of responsibility for that (his capricious "I love me" attitude condemned many billions who would otherwise have been saved from that)... the angelic race as a whole did not bear such responsibility, not as the demons did.

Responsibility for something on the scale of the torture in Hell is the only thing that could possibly justify an act of vengeful genocide. If we're not doing it to the demons, we shouldn't be doing it to the angels.

So when do we stop hitting them? When Yahweh is dead and the survivors surrender? When their last organized and trained field army is gone? When no surviving angel is physically capable of lifting a sword against us?

I think that would be decided on a case by case basis, and with the decisions not uniform across all formations and units. As an example, look at the Battle for Berlin. Some Germans were surrendering. The surrender of some individuals was accepted. The surrender of others was rejected. Meanwhile, the Russians were still trying to conquer the City. That is one scenario of how a war can peter out to nothing. On Iwo Jima, it wasn't over until essentially the last Japanese defender became a crispy critter. OTOH, Italy surrendered as an entity and pretty much came over to our side.

The parallels are far from perfect, but they indicate the complexity of deciding when it's over.

But we have to go in with some notion of what the surrender condition is.

For example, we accepted the full surrender of each of the WWII Axis powers when the government surrendered. The Italian government sacked Mussolini and surrendered before the Italian peninsula proper was more than scratched, and got off lightly. The Japanese government surrendered after intense fighting across the Pacific and heavy bombardment of the Home Islands, but before they were invaded. The German government (Hitler's successors in the days after the fall of Berlin) didn't formally surrender until practically the entire country was physically occupied.

The most likely specific foreseeable outcome, as I see it, is what happens if Michael wins his upcoming fight with Yahweh. Michael immediately comes marching at us with a white flag waving in one hand and Yahweh's head on a pike in the other. That's closely equivalent to what happened to Italy: a rapid coup and regime change after the defeat of their field forces outside their core territory (in Italy's case the peninsula, in Heaven's case the Eternal City).

Other outcomes (various versions of "Michael loses") are more problematic, because there are a lot of potential outcomes. The war ends a lot faster if Yahweh decides to take the field himself, gets killed, and the Heavenly forces crumble a la Desert Storm. It ends with a lot more megatonnage if he remains in the Heavenly City for house to house fighting.

One interesting outcome is the possibility of a decapitation strike. It is unlikely that the Host will continue to fight effectively if Yahweh is killed, and even the other senior archangels are likely to surrender in that case. Or I'd think so.

[CaptainChewbacca]

I really don't think levelling the Eternal City is an option. There's simply too many civilians and human slaves in there to make that palatable. I can see taking out the Temple Mount and government complex to break the leadership, but there's probably a hundred million humans in there.

[Bayonet]

But we have to go in with some notion of what the surrender condition is.

I don't think we can, simply because the beings are sufficiently alien that we don't know how they will behave or how they will express surrender. There's your Michael postulate, which is entirely reasonable, because Michael-Lan understands us well enough to present us with something we understand.

Other than that, we must just hope we get it right. We're not in communication with Yahweh, so we have no way of demanding or accepting terms.

What if all the angels just go home, turn on the TV, and hope we go away?

The only thing I think we can safely guarantee is confusion and things turning out differently from what either side expected.

As to your detailed analysis, I agree with it.

[MGlBlaze]

Tigers aren't sentient beings and they derive their nutrition from food. I'd say it's equal, the demons automatically torture, and the angels send them knowing full well that it happens to everybody the demons get. Only difference is the angels pretend their hands are clean, and that's just dishonest.

So, accepting that "allowing X to be tortured" is just as great a crime as "actively torturing X," we have a few problems. One is the one that crops up in real life- if you are an American, your nation has participated in quite a few cases of torture over the past few years. You haven't stopped it. Does this make you as bad as the people clamping electrodes to Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib?

Or: you're not an American citizen, but you probably haven't lobbied your government to attack the US to force them to stop torturing captives. You probably haven't even lobbied them to carry out minor steps like sending diplomatic notes or declaring an embargo. Are you as bad as the people clamping electrodes to Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib?

Because the second position is related to that of the angels (not Yahweh personally, but the species as a whole). They were citizens of a nation other than the one committing the torture, and the most they could conceivably have done was lobby their government (Yahweh, a being not known for tolerance of those who make suggestions to him) to take steps to end the torture. They did not do so. Is that a mortal offense?

Finally, even IF this is a mortal offense, IF "failing to convince your autocratic ruler to act to stop torture in another country" is just as bad as "being one of the torturers in that other counry..." How is being dishonest even noticeable on that scale?

I mean, we're talking about human misery on a scale roughly five to six orders of magnitude greater than the Holocaust here. How is lying about how much you're willing to do to reduce the suffering (not if you're going to do anything, how much) even remotely comparable to being one of the people involved in making the suffering happen?

He wasn't referring to 'allowing' torture, he was referring to aiding with it. I have a problem with your analogy too, in that a citizen and the government have vastly different levels of power; in the case with angel society this is also quite literal. Any civilian (or any other angel) trying to oppose Yah-Yah is essentially suicide. On that note, I don't forsee things ending well for Michael...

In either case, though, I agree that humanity has no right to wipe every one of them out, especially considering a lot of angels would be civilians, a heavy blow was struck to Heaven's military resources with that nuke and the morale decimation that took place for pretty much every angel around because of that same nuke. Not to mention we've already taken in Maion, Lemuel and the angels that were held at that camp. It'll probably be a similar situation to Hell; Yah-Yah gets taken out of the picture somehow, the rest of the angels will (hopefully) do the smart thing and surrender, at which point efforts will probably turn to integrating angels with human society like what is happening with the daemons.

Or I could have no clue what I'm talking about.

[Deebles]

Looking at the quote of the week above, what happens if when Michael goes in, it turns out Yahweh wasn't quite as crazy as all that and has in fact done a runner? (Unlikely, I know - I'd suspect that the author wants to bring things to more of a conclusion than that).

[Night_stalker]

Well, we might have a problem, but that would imply that Yaw-Yaw has enough of a IQ to run. More than likely, he's still his usual belligerent, stupid self.

[Werrf]

Going back in time a wee bit, but a thought occurred to me a while back while I was lurking and reading through Pantheocide for the first time. When I read this comment:

How about an Invincible class carrier with its flight deck liberally covered with AS-90s. (With the odd Challenger II and Stormer for point defense.)

Do Portals make aircraft carriers obsolete in the Salvation-verse?

After all, think about it: Why build a big, slow, expensive, vulnerable carrier that needs an entire fleet of support ships to carry your aircraft to the front lines, when you can build a much smaller ship equipped with portal generators and move it to the same place? You get all of the advantages of a land-based air force – range, weapon loads, aircraft size, less airframe wear – with all the advantages of a carrier. The only advantage you don't get is that a Portal-cruiser isn't nearly as intimidating as an aircraft carrier, so sending one into a trouble spot may not be quite as good at gunboat diplomacy as a carrier is.

And with that said, what would it mean for the future of naval warfare if our capital ships ARE obsolete? Would we bring back battleships, now that we don't need to build and crew aircraft carriers? Unlikely, as battleships are obsolete for their own reasons. Would this be the death of capital ships entirely? Will future navies consist of nothing but cruisers, destroyers and frigates, equipped to generate portals, roaming as packs or singletons but ready to bring in their entire home air force when needed?

Dunno...I muse on the oddest things driving home from work...

(Edited to fix quotes)

[Junghalli]

And with that said, what would it mean for the future of naval warfare if our capital ships ARE obsolete? Would we bring back battleships, now that we don't need to build and crew aircraft carriers? Unlikely, as battleships are obsolete for their own reasons. Would this be the death of capital ships entirely? Will future navies consist of nothing but cruisers, destroyers and frigates, equipped to generate portals, roaming as packs or singletons but ready to bring in their entire home air force when needed?

On a world with start-anywhere go-anywhere portal technology, would we even use the ocean for much beyond fishing and mining? Would a navy in anything like the present definition even really make sense? There's no cargo shipping to protect, and the oceans aren't particularly useful as routes along which force can be projected.

Well, that assumes the need for human sensitives isn't a big limitation on portals. To be honest I haven't been keeping up with the story for a while now.

[Werrf]

On a world with start-anywhere go-anywhere portal technology, would we even use the ocean for much beyond fishing and mining? Would a navy in anything like the present definition even really make sense? There's no cargo shipping to protect, and the oceans aren't particularly useful as routes along which force can be projected.

Fair point, but I think navies will still be useful even in this situation, though probably much more green-water navies than blue-water. If you need to get a battery of anti-air weapons into position, and there happens to be water nearby, you could either a) try to organise a few dozen ground-based platforms into place, wait for them to organise themselves, issue maps, equipment, ammo to all the units, get them all into position, push them through a portal, send through some tanks to keep them protected, wait for them to get in place and situated...or b) you could send a frigate through. There's a reason ships are used today to move bulk cargoes between places that have a land link - a big ship is a lot easier to move than a similar-sized ground vehicle, making a portal-based navy a very useful method of getting lots of guns somewhere really really fast.

[Nematocyst]

The size of the vessels would require huge portals, which have the particularity of being permanent.

The sea would be littered by portals. Cue horrible weather changes as currents change course, sea flora and fauna (there are things living in Hell's ocean, and perhaps it is best not to know what they are) interchanges that could affect the equilibrium, and other problems.

[Simon_Jester]

I don't think we can, simply because the beings are sufficiently alien that we don't know how they will behave or how they will express surrender. There's your Michael postulate, which is entirely reasonable, because Michael-Lan understands us well enough to present us with something we understand.

What I mean is, we must have some notion of what minimum conditions they must meet before we will stop coming up with increasingly devastating way to hurt them. They may be alien, but that just amplifies the perceived need to keep hitting them harder and harder until we're sure they won't hit us back.

If they all go home and watch TV or whatever, we have a problem, and must risk sending emissaries to investigate, for example. We need to know what that means, because we need to match their reaction to our minimum condition for victory. If "they all went home and watched TV" means that they are no longer a threat, for example, good enough. If our goal is more than that, or if that doesn't end the threat, we need to escalate to get their attention.

He wasn't referring to 'allowing' torture, he was referring to aiding with it. I have a problem with your analogy too, in that a citizen and the government have vastly different levels of power; in the case with angel society this is also quite literal. Any civilian (or any other angel) trying to oppose Yah-Yah is essentially suicide. On that note, I don't forsee things ending well for Michael...

That's kind of my point. You're a citizen of an absolute autocracy; you have no power over anything but your own private actions, and not much of that.

Even so, though, the angels haven't really aided in torture. Even Yahweh restricted his actions to refusing to prevent the torture in Hell, by allowing Satan free access to human souls.

Well, we might have a problem, but that would imply that Yaw-Yaw has enough of a IQ to run. More than likely, he's still his usual belligerent, stupid self.

It's more plausible that Yahweh has decided to take the field himself, which gives us no problem at all

[Bayonet]

What I mean is, we must have some notion of what minimum conditions they must meet before we will stop coming up with increasingly devastating way to hurt them. They may be alien, but that just amplifies the perceived need to keep hitting them harder and harder until we're sure they won't hit us back.

I think I understand that.

My point is that the situation is fluid. We have a few clues about what is going on. If we're smart, we will know we only have a few clues, and not take our own supposed knowledge too seriously. Our responses will be based on what we think the Enemy's capabilities and intentions are. My crystal ball is filled with smoke, and my hovercraft is full of eels.

I'd guess that, if they are massing and looking belligerent, we'll nuke them again. If they look like they're digging into the Eternal City with the intention of turning it into another Iwo Jima, then we'd probably reduce them with nuclear weapons. How many? Where laid down? I'd have to see the maps and dig out the pie cutter.

If they do little, we'll probably do little. Remember the circular barrage fired around Abigor's formation. The ball is in their court and our reaction would be based about how we understand or misunderstand their intentions.

It is difficult to offer or accept a surrender while you are in contact.

I cannot overstate the peril in this situation.

That's just my guess. I'm not privy to Petraeus' fictitious thoughts. Seriously, I don't know enough about how the real guy thinks, let alone how he'd fight angels. So, I guess it's the way I would react if I had to wear his hat.

[GenghisQuan]

Man, time zones make you miss out on a lot.

Anyways, to Simon_Jester: I mean, yes, my tiger pit analogy isn't entirely correct, so change it to a room with Jack the Ripper in it. Plus, as far as the demons know, the torture *was* necessary, that they derive pleasure from it is just a bonus. I do not think angels are so much the American citizen or citizen of other country in your example, as one who upon knowing about the homoerotic human pyramids at Gitmo, sends someone they find suspicious there anyway. Now, reading upon your points, I will say that hating the angels more is just a reflection that they seem more "cowardly" than the daemons, but I still think it's a bit of a stretch to say we ought to hate them less.

On a side note, the fact that the banner ad depicted at the bottom asks me to accept Christ as my savior and become a God's Children amuses me.

[Simon_Jester]

Thing is, the typical angel didn't do anything to send humans to Hell. Yahweh is responsible; his senior subordinates might be considered responsible too just because of their proximity to the throne. But some random cherub in the streets of the Eternal City? He didn't have a thing to do with it; he may have participated in the Great Celestial War as a foot soldier, but no one asked his opinion about the fate of human souls.

So there's no collective responsibility, because there was no collective influence over the decision-making process. Not even collective participation.

With the Holocaust, there were individual actions on every level that contributed to the overall horror, and thus you could make a sane case for blaming the whole country for the atrocity. With the torture in Hell, same thing: it was so pervasive and involved so many people that any demon can be held partly responsible. But in Heaven, only the very top angels on the totem pole had even the slightest chance of influencing the outcome, and there was no direct participation by the angelic rank and file in either the decision or its implementation. Blaming the entire species would be insane in that situation.

[Saint_007]

Just thought of something. What about Azrael? While Micheal-Lan presumably has enough dirt on him to keep him quiet and obedient (until such a time that Micheal hands him over to the humans for the war crimes trial, and trust me, I'm pretty sure that's what Micheal-Lan meant by "getting exactly what's coming to him"), keep in mind he's still not neutralized, not the way Micheal neutralized all his other opponents (terrorist bombings and subsequent incarceration and torture of those who survived). Azrael might have survived the attack on New York with the skin of his teeth, but that's no guarantee he's not still thinking of beating the humans, or that the humans are just cattle to be subjugated in his worldview. He might decide to back-stab Micheal just as Mike's trying to take Yahweh out, or just as he succeeds in killing Yahweh. Either way, Azrael, while not exactly a Chessmaster (his mole's destruction of Tel Aviv was as subtle as a sledgehammer, and Michael had him pinned down rather easily) is going to be trouble if he's not watched. And supposing Azrael takes command of Heaven, it's going to be the hard path; hammer Heaven until the survivors cry uncle, at which point the UN would have to release a mandate declaring Angels an endangered species.

The Angels might metaphorically turn on the TV, stick their fingers in their ears, then hum until we go away, but as we know, the HEA is here to finish the game. It's going to be ugly, but we're going to keep hammering Heaven until *somebody* accepts our surrender. Fortunately, we have Gabriel, Raphael, and the rest of Micheal's group, as well as Lemuel who, as head of the Inquisition, has some pretty vast powers. Once they sign the surrender,they'll figure out a way to send out the message. By that time, Yahweh should be dead, and Azrael either dead or in custody.

Notice how we keep saying "Yahweh must die" in these scenarios? It's because he's the worst and most deluded of the bunch, and he's the one in command. People who put their delusions above everything else tend to be the hardest to catch and incarcerate, since they actually believe they're invincible - right until they're bleeding through a giant hole in their chests. We can't put him on trial since he probably won't be caught without a fight, and given his size and powers, that's going to be one hell of a fight. Still, I'm looking forward to seeing Yahweh stare in disbelief at the sucking wound in his gut, and proceed to cry and piss himself like a little bitch as he realizes all his millennia of Godhood were a lie, right before he kicks the bucket.

As for Michael, we finally see the little details that kind of messed up his plan. It's still salvageable, but he clearly didn't forsee the fact that the humans aren't going to hold back like they did against Hell. One has to wonder what else he miscalculated.

As for the "destroy all the Angels", well, we hated the Nazis and Imperial Japan, yet I still see modern Japan and Germany exist (meaning they haven't been wiped off the map). They (the Angels) lied to us, treated us like dirt, and then tossed us to the Demons, but once we win, they're just like everybody else; we're going to re-educate and rebuild them. There would still be the issue of the US$80 billion Heaven owes the US Government, and the war crimes tribunals (Azrael definitely counts), but for the most part, Heaven is going to avoid the worst, assuming the Angels can surrender before the HEA glasses the Eternal City.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Didn't Azrael buy it already? I thought he died during the rescue of Maion.

[Edward Yee]

That's just my guess. I'm not privy to Petraeus' fictitious thoughts. Seriously, I don't know enough about how the real guy thinks, let alone how he'd fight angels. So, I guess it's the way I would react if I had to wear his hat.

Technically the impacts formed a hexagon, but just as a reminder, the HEA going "heavy" from the get-go instead of a steady escalation was to surprise the angelic commanders, who'd thought that the HEA would have probed with small units first -- just as Petraeus had wanted the angelic commanders to think. I still believe that the decision to use a nuclear device was rather political (see why he was given release authority to begin with), but once the tanks are at the gates... we'll see. Though, if it's decided to attack "conventionally," he's essentially been told to be (First Life) casualty-averse, so I'd expect Second-Lifers (i.e. Gui-MUTHAFUCKIN-llaume) and demons to be "spearheading" any dynamic entry into the Eternal City.

FWIW regarding the general's fictional thinking, he'd wanted Abigor's surrender badly enough to sacrifice CPT Stevenson and most likely even her company, though fortunately it didn't come to that. Then again, in that case CPT Stevenson had reported that the threat level from Abigor's "army" was... reduced.

[MGlBlaze]

He wasn't referring to 'allowing' torture, he was referring to aiding with it. I have a problem with your analogy too, in that a citizen and the government have vastly different levels of power; in the case with angel society this is also quite literal. Any civilian (or any other angel) trying to oppose Yah-Yah is essentially suicide. On that note, I don't forsee things ending well for Michael...

That's kind of my point. You're a citizen of an absolute autocracy; you have no power over anything but your own private actions, and not much of that.

Even so, though, the angels haven't really aided in torture. Even Yahweh restricted his actions to refusing to prevent the torture in Hell, by allowing Satan free access to human souls.

Sorry, it was really late over here and I didn't notice at the time. Seems quite obvious now (naturally), which doesn't really help.

In either case, how bad Yah-Yah is for allowing humans to be tortured in hell seems to be the least of His concerns right now, considering all the other stuff that He actually did have a hand in. The humans did have to sit around and just take the 'natural' disasters and Bowls of Wrath for a considerable length of time, for one.

If possible I'd like to see Him being shot at with a few APFSDS tank rounds to draw it out for Him that little bit more before the stuff that actually will kill him is used. Considering how inefficient that would be, though, I don't think that'll happen. A shame, too. I'd like to see what His reaction would be to a piece of Depleted Uranium being shot through Him.

Well, we might have a problem, but that would imply that Yaw-Yaw has enough of a IQ to run. More than likely, he's still his usual belligerent, stupid self.

It's more plausible that Yahweh has decided to take the field himself, which gives us no problem at all

Assuming He can actually stand up, I don't really think that would be too unlikely a thing for His insufferable self to do.

[darksoul]

HI, first time poster in the forum. Only interested in the Salvation War for the time being, though.

First, I'm foreign to presenting of the series, I came across the novel in the cleanedup fanfics, and I don't know if there is anymore chapters already presented in this or other threads. Posting in this one because it seems the one active. Enlighten me on this particular, if you are so kind.

I can't read all the discussion going on (not sloth, I literally don't have the time or bandwidth to do so), so I'm sorry if I raise already addressed issues.

That being said... A little while ago, some people were equaling Michael to Stauffenberg, and the discussion seems to be what happened when his plots succeds or fails. But why are we not taking into consideration that humans has already seen this kind of plot before? granted, anything written by a human is known in history (MostWritersAreHumans) but still...
I for one have trouble believing that something as straight forward as "overthrow the current leader to keep the status quo" in front of external menace is something new to politics or military command. Angels have proved they lie, and lie well, have proved they know our ways (at least Michael and Jesus had), so is not far fetched to think that the Batman Gambit of Michael can be meet with at least some suspicion by the humans. Again, this is not the first time (From the top of my head, The Nazis tried to pull this individually at the end of the war, In Cuba in 1959 this happened too, two examples I have close to memory from my readings, both failed). I must say though, the characterization of Michael is one of the strongest. I really like the bastard, specially since he seems to have not only cunning, but also some loyalty to his followers. he is someone to be admired from a distance, a good candidate to a God (if humans in Universe needed one any more, that is).

I have some more to talk about, but I believe this is enough for a first post. Looking forward to contribute...

[Night_stalker]

True, Angelic society is going to really get shaken up when Humanity takes over. They will slowily learn how humanity is through being lied to by the Angels, and hopefully they will adapt. However, their hubris doesn't seem to be able to accept that fact, and we might see a guerrila war beign waged by those who refuse to accept their defeat.

[Ryan Thunder]

<snip>

I'm convinced that half of the draw of this story is just the novelty of fucking over the Christian pantheon, if you could call it that. I don't think there are very many readers who are really interested in whether it makes sense or not at more than a superficial level.

[Simon_Jester]

<snip>

I'm convinced that half of the draw of this story is just the novelty of fucking over the Christian pantheon, if you could call it that. I don't think there are very many readers who are really interested in whether it makes sense or not at more than a superficial level.

...What are you replying to?