The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Eighty One Up

[Ryan Thunder]

...What are you replying to?

You were trying to convince people that there's no reason for nuking the place into a glass parking lot. I wasn't really replying to anything specific along those lines, just the notion of trying to convince these people of that in the first place.

[Simon_Jester]

Ah.

Well, it's a pet peeve of mine. I don't like people calling for genocide against civilizations that aren't actually worse than ones that, historically, we wouldn't commit genocide against.

[Deebles]

Just thought of something. What about Azrael?

IIRC, when last heard of, Michael had his docs looking after Azrael under heavy sedation. I doubt he'll be an issue for the time being.

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.

Agreed, except for the "they" part. Most of the Angels seem little more than unimaginative patsies in this narrative, and to some extent victims themselves; it's Yahweh that's the problem.

Another problem with glassing the city is, of course, that as well as being genocide against Angels that would constitute genocide against the heaven-sent second-life humans. I rather doubt this story will take that route.

[Erra]

<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.

I think you're absolutely wrong on that, and that you're talking out of your ass just to be contrary. There are 128 pages of discussion in this thread alone that are about far more than "superficial" things. You're insulting the story and the readership.

If you don't like the story, that's fine. If you want to express your opinion, that's fine too. I just think you have bullshit reasoning behind it.

[Mew]

Ryan Thunder, I think you kind of miss the point.

The main premise (and draw) of The Salvation War is what would happen if the Armageddon, as writen in the Revelation, was to happen. One would note that Stuart tried to 'realism-ize' the demons and angels as much as possible while making the circumstances such that they would get as many advantages as possible without breaking the realism.

One can admit that the balance is definitely tipping on the 'humans' side ; even with the advantages Stuart give them, the demons and angels' chances of victory are null (especially this late in the story) but the fact is, if he wanted to merely write 'Humans destroy Hell & Heaven AND KICK ASS!', the story would have been a whole lot shorter and would have included a whole lot more nukes.

Yes, it is noted that the angels & demons don't really stand a chance. This is more due to the power of the modern military machine and less to the demons & angels being shown as target pratice for humanity. Stuart has stated many times that if we took the demons & angels as shown in his story and pitted them against the WW1 or even WW2 era humanity, the fight would have been infinitely bloodier and the issue would have been uncertain for a very long time. The demons & angels are actually given powers that are very effective. The problem for them is that taking on a modern military force with a modern mindset while you're still primitive is a crippling disadvantage and no amount of insane healing (demons survive *direct headshots*, mind you) or fancy lightning bolt-throwing will help you.

[Deebles]

even with the advantages Stuart give them, the demons and angels' chances of victory are null

Actually, I'm not sure the Angels' chances were null. If Michael's motives had been different, and he'd gone in for, say, popping open portals for high-altitude drops of rocks on Earth then shutting them again, he could quite rapidly have driven humanity into Hell (plus one or two very secure locations, perhaps, like that old Russian nuclear silo that's being used as an HQ), it might well have been a bloody segue to a pretty cost-free stalemate for Heaven - something that any politician could spin as a victory ("see how we drive them before us!" etc.).

But yeah, as soon as a way is found into Heaven, it's game over.

Incidentally, I'm not quite sure how Second life, and the very real possibility of Third life etc. factors into the morality of killing. Seems to me it's suddenly not as bad as it used to be. I wonder if the penalties for murder or manslaughter might be reduced? Certainly, euthanasia and assisted suicide should be made legal under such circumstances... (which they possibly should anyway, but that's another debate).

[darksoul]

One can admit that the balance is definitely tipping on the 'humans' side ; even with the advantages Stuart give them, the demons and angels' chances of victory are null (especially this late in the story) but the fact is, if he wanted to merely write 'Humans destroy Hell & Heaven AND KICK ASS!', the story would have been a whole lot shorter and would have included a whole lot more nukes.

I agreed with the idea of your reply, yet the assertion of the chances of victory of angels and daemons, not quite. As a matter of fact, The main disadvantages baldricks and angels had(have) are Satan and Yahwe. OK, even taking into consideration the baldrick mindset and their ignorance of human capability, things were written for them to fail. There were obvious ways available to them to at least put some resistance. Say, for example, trickery. they could use some lackeys to missdirect the humans into ambushes. While humans would learn eventually not to trust second lifers, this in itself would be a victory. Belial was the only one worth of fighting there. And the way the naga and Eurydale got away... too simplistic. They had thousands of prisoners that could testify to their crimes. And they weren't punish because The Big Bad got away... Nuremberg, anyone? Just because Hitler died, that doesn't mean the others got away.

Angels, in the other hand, haven't put a fight at all, taking into consideration their huge advantages. In each case, human has survived through luck, and luck alone. I mean, the anthrax thing. Seriously? Anthrax, in a primitive strain... out of all the highly infective diseases with no cure, this one? And don't say that Michael was sticking to the book to fool Yahwe, since he himself is the one giving the news to the man. He could pretty much do anything, he had the power, the oportunity and the knowledge.

Ah, another thing... the tinfoil hats. ahem. So baldricks and possibly angels (I dont remember if it's stated that they can control minds) can't control humans because of the tin foil hat? so? how about taking the hat of one isolated human by force, and interrogate that one throughly? angels could do that easily, they move easily through portals.

I'll only say this, even with Satan against, with Yahwe against, and all the others, if Michael wouldn't be so focused in overthrowing his boss, he could have made the war far bloodier for us. FAR. I don't like that.

[xthetenth]

One can admit that the balance is definitely tipping on the 'humans' side ; even with the advantages Stuart give them, the demons and angels' chances of victory are null (especially this late in the story) but the fact is, if he wanted to merely write 'Humans destroy Hell & Heaven AND KICK ASS!', the story would have been a whole lot shorter and would have included a whole lot more nukes.

I agreed with the idea of your reply, yet the assertion of the chances of victory of angels and daemons, not quite. As a matter of fact, The main disadvantages baldricks and angels had(have) are Satan and Yahwe. OK, even taking into consideration the baldrick mindset and their ignorance of human capability, things were written for them to fail. There were obvious ways available to them to at least put some resistance. Say, for example, trickery. they could use some lackeys to missdirect the humans into ambushes. While humans would learn eventually not to trust second lifers, this in itself would be a victory. Belial was the only one worth of fighting there. And the way the naga and Eurydale got away... too simplistic. They had thousands of prisoners that could testify to their crimes. And they weren't punish because The Big Bad got away... Nuremberg, anyone? Just because Hitler died, that doesn't mean the others got away.

Euryale and Deumos got out because they had a coherent group which stayed together vouching for itself, and that the second-lifers would not have seen much, and only in capacities which are forgivable under duress. In addition, the better things got for the demons, the worse they would have actually been off. If air cover wasn't available, the HEA would've been free with their nukes. In addition, using trickery and deception on a large scale requires a huge effort and postulates that the demons hadn't been torturing the tremendous majority of second-lifers to the point of incoherence. Plus, using deception on a strategic level as a bronze age army against a modern one is a fool's errand. You wouldn't even know what you could do.

Angels, in the other hand, haven't put a fight at all, taking into consideration their huge advantages. In each case, human has survived through luck, and luck alone. I mean, the anthrax thing. Seriously? Anthrax, in a primitive strain... out of all the highly infective diseases with no cure, this one? And don't say that Michael was sticking to the book to fool Yahwe, since he himself is the one giving the news to the man. He could pretty much do anything, he had the power, the oportunity and the knowledge.

Anthrax was chosen for a very specific reason, that being its sheer age, which makes it the most likely one and least likely to strain credulity. In addition, they're being cautious for a very good reason. Plus, Michael isn't the only source of info to Yahweh, and he wasn't ready to try the coup yet. I seem to recall Yahweh having been previously informed about one of the 'bowls' before Michael got there. Plus, he had enough of a hard time trying to figure out how to fill in for the nuke one.

Ah, another thing... the tinfoil hats. ahem. So baldricks and possibly angels (I dont remember if it's stated that they can control minds) can't control humans because of the tin foil hat? so? how about taking the hat of one isolated human by force, and interrogate that one throughly? angels could do that easily, they move easily through portals.

For what? You don't tell the grunts your operational plans, and even if it would occur to a bronze age person to ask about an industrial base (protip: it wouldn't unless they'd put in a lot of thought on the subject, see Belial), they wouldn't have been able to establish one in anywhere near enough time.

I'll only say this, even with Satan against, with Yahwe against, and all the others, if Michael wouldn't be so focused in overthrowing his boss, he could have made the war far bloodier for us. FAR. I don't like that.

Yep. But he's sane. I'd much rather have a sane antagonist playing at his own game than some mindless butcher just trying to rack up kills on the protagonists without any thought to having a plausible motivation. (And I like even better that I'm a little bit hesitant to use the labels antagonist and protagonist).

[Stuart]

OK, even taking into consideration the baldrick mindset and their ignorance of human capability, things were written for them to fail.

No, it wasn't. I actually wrote things to give the Daemons in particular the best chance possible. I had to tie physics into knots to do it but that was the plan.[/quote]

There were obvious ways available to them to at least put some resistance.

None of which stand up under close examination.

Say, for example, trickery. they could use some lackeys to missdirect the humans into ambushes. While humans would learn eventually not to trust second lifers, this in itself would be a victory.

Doesn't work because the HEA in Hell never used Second-life humans as intelligence sources. They used their own organic recon gear -drones and aircraft. So this plan falls flat on its face.

Belial was the only one worth of fighting there. And the way the naga and Eurydale got away... too simplistic. They had thousands of prisoners that could testify to their crimes. And they weren't punish because The Big Bad got away... Nuremberg, anyone? Just because Hitler died, that doesn't mean the others got away.

Remember teh society tehy come from, one that imposes absolute loyalty to one's liege-lord. Until said liege lord gets deposed in which case one has absolute loyalty to the successor. So Euryale took over and was in that position. In any case, a moment's thought should tell you it was very convenient for humanity to accept her explanation of events.

Angels, in the other hand, haven't put a fight at all, taking into consideration their huge advantages. In each case, human has survived through luck, and luck alone. I mean, the anthrax thing. Seriously? Anthrax, in a primitive strain... out of all the highly infective diseases with no cure, this one?

That's right, anthrax. Because the quoted symptoms fit anthrax exactly,

And don't say that Michael was sticking to the book to fool Yahweh, since he himself is the one giving the news to the man. He could pretty much do anything, he had the power, the oportunity and the knowledge.

Except he doesn't know, or can't guarantee, that Yahweh has his own intelligence sources. Michael plays a veryd elicate game here.

Ah, another thing... the tinfoil hats. ahem. So baldricks and possibly angels (I dont remember if it's stated that they can control minds) can't control humans because of the tin foil hat?

Eletromagnetic shielding is the first thing one looks at when designing a system to resist interference - which is what shielding does. Aluminum isn't actually a very good shield but its dealing with very weak signals. The signals have to be very weak because if they were strong we would have spotted them a long time ago. Until we had a hint of what to look for they were lost in the noise. Aluminum hats are actually a scarily good solution to this particular problem.

so? how about taking the hat of one isolated human by force, and interrogate that one throughly? angels could do that easily, they move easily through portals.

Actually happened in the middle-late part of Armageddon. First though the daemons/angels have to work out what happened and what to do about it.

I'll only say this, even with Satan against, with Yahweh against, and all the others, if Michael wouldn't be so focused in overthrowing his boss, he could have made the war far bloodier for us. FAR. I don't like that.

Michael had to be focussed on overthrowing his boss because if he wasn't it was only a question of time before humans found a way into Heaven. Or, even worse, Yahweh insisted on an angelic invasion of Earth. Either way, humans get into Heaven and start throwing nukes around like ping pong balls. End of Angelic host. That's what Michael has been desperately trying to avoid

[Junghalli]

The main premise (and draw) of The Salvation War is what would happen if the Armageddon, as writen in the Revelation, was to happen. One would note that Stuart tried to 'realism-ize' the demons and angels as much as possible while making the circumstances such that they would get as many advantages as possible without breaking the realism.

To be perfectly honest I don't particularly feel like another argument over it, but note that this is not an uncontested opinion. The Trumpets of Revelations, for instance, can be rationalized in a fairly scientifically hard manner (much harder than stuff like Uriel's death power or Baldrick mind control) and imply a Heaven much more dangerous than the one Stuart presents us with. Let me see if I can dig the post up, ah yes...

Can you give me a physical mechanism consistent with the laws of physics (more or less, I'll accept limited modifications) by which it could be done? Remember, traditions were written by people without understanding of what they were seeing. We now understand some of what we were seeing. Old-style. "The Universe exists - HE must have created it". New style. "The Universe exists. Now, for a long explanation of the Big Bang, see . . . . . .).
And remember, for interaction to be possible, there must be extensive similarity of physical laws. If there is not, they cannot exist here, we cannot exist there, therefore we can't interact, therefore to all intents and purposes they don't exist (The aether argument). This leads to an interesting conundrum which resulted in a fundie running off with his tail between his legs.

No, there isn't, but let's go through Revelations and see how we can rationalize some of Heaven's strategic weapons.

The first angel sounded his trumpet, and there came hail and fire mixed with blood, and it was hurled down upon the earth. A third of the earth was burned up, a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up.

This isn't too hard to rationalize, they bombard the planet with assloads of some napalm-like incendiary, enough to ignite firestorms large enough to burn much of the Earth's terrestrial biomass. Obviously you'd need ridiculous quantities of the stuff to do that (about 150 million tons or the equivalent of 25 Great Pyramids if it's dispersed at an average of 1 ton per km^2 of the Earth's land surface), but that's a question of scale, not of whether or not it's physically possible. This is going to do plenty of damage to human civilization; I'm pretty sure our fire departments aren't exactly up to fighting continent-scale firestorms, and I'm pretty sure a lot of agricultural and inhabited land will burn.

The second angel sounded his trumpet, and something like a huge mountain, all ablaze, was thrown into the sea. A third of the sea turned into blood, 9a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.

Now "something like a huge mountain, all ablaze, was thrown into the sea" sounds remarkably, one might almost see eerily, like a primitive's attempt to describe the sight of an asteroid crashing into the ocean. So God has weaponized asteroid deflection capability. That doesn't require anything physics-breaking, only that Heaven apparently has some sort of space program. An asteroid that big (I'd say "huge mountain" implies size comparable to terrestrial mountains of the Middle East, which suggests kilometer dimensions) would do all sorts of nasty things. First it would cause a huge tsunami, and then it would throw up vast quantities of dust which would block out the sunlight, killing photosynthetic organisms, changing the climate, and generally completely disrupting agriculture planet-wide. Remember that discussion on what would happen if the Yellowstone caldera erupted? The climatic effects of this would be comparable or worse. This attack by itself would be the worst natural disaster since the Toba Catastrophe if it happened in isolation. I got nothing on how it would turn the sea to blood by itself but God simultaneously seeding the coastal waters with red tide as you had them do in Pantheocide would manage the trick well enough, and would compound the effects of the asteroid strike and mass napalm attacks on our food production.

The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water— 11the name of the star is Wormwood.[a] A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter.

God contaminates 1/3 of the world's drinkable surface water with some kind of poison. Doesn't require anything particularly physics-shattering or mysterious, just chemical warfare on a massive scale. The wording might be taken to imply the waters permanently become bitter, which could be done by instead releasing some kind of organism that produces the toxin as part of its metabolism (God does have a fondness for bioweapons - e.g. the torture bugs and flamethrower horses). That doesn't require anything physics-breaking either. 1/3 of the planet's drinkable water becoming poisonous, even temporarily, would obviously be a massive inconvenience at the very least. Especially when you consider this is happening in the context of a world that has already been devestated by some of the worst environmental disasters in human history (the First and Second Trumpet).

The fourth angel sounded his trumpet, and a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of them turned dark. A third of the day was without light, and also a third of the night.

Taken literally that does require magic, but I'd be inclined to write it up as a poetic, not literally accurate description of the effects of the asteroid strike in Trumpet # 2. Throw enough particulate matter into the air and you can dim the sun and make it hard to see the stars - that's nothing magical, we see it happen every cloudy day and night. Alternately, God throws an assload of particulate matter into the atmosphere from somewhere. Again, doesn't require magic if we interpret if we write up its more blatantly impossible aspects to distortion.

The fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth. The star was given the key to the shaft of the Abyss. 2When he opened the Abyss, smoke rose from it like the smoke from a gigantic furnace. The sun and sky were darkened by the smoke from the Abyss. 3And out of the smoke locusts came down upon the earth and were given power like that of scorpions of the earth. 4They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but only those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads. 5They were not given power to kill them, but only to torture them for five months. And the agony they suffered was like that of the sting of a scorpion when it strikes a man. 6During those days men will seek death, but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will elude them.

7The locusts looked like horses prepared for battle. On their heads they wore something like crowns of gold, and their faces resembled human faces. 8Their hair was like women's hair, and their teeth were like lions' teeth. 9They had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the thundering of many horses and chariots rushing into battle. 10They had tails and stings like scorpions, and in their tails they had power to torment people for five months. 11They had as king over them the angel of the Abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek, Apollyon.

God releases huge swarms of venemous insects. The venom apparently isn't fatal but causes extreme pain, so they're not so much weapons as a sort of torture device. Again, doesn't require anything magical, we could probably create creatures like this in a few decades or centuries with genetic engineering if we wanted to.

The sixth angel sounded his trumpet, and I heard a voice coming from the horns of the golden altar that is before God. 14It said to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, "Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates." 15And the four angels who had been kept ready for this very hour and day and month and year were released to kill a third of mankind. 16The number of the mounted troops was two hundred million. I heard their number.

17The horses and riders I saw in my vision looked like this: Their breastplates were fiery red, dark blue, and yellow as sulfur. The heads of the horses resembled the heads of lions, and out of their mouths came fire, smoke and sulfur. 18A third of mankind was killed by the three plagues of fire, smoke and sulfur that came out of their mouths. 19The power of the horses was in their mouths and in their tails; for their tails were like snakes, having heads with which they inflict injury.

Heaven's Army. 200 million horse cavalry, apparently armed with (biological) flamethrowers and perhaps some sort of crude chemical weapon ("plague of sulfur"). Honestly along with the torture bugs these are the least impressive attacks, a modern army could probably defeat these guys relatively easily. Of course, the problems of dealing with them will be magnified by the lingering effects of the first three attacks. Yeah, veneomous insects and horsemen with flamethrowers aren't too scary, but they might be more of a problem in a world where the environment has turned to shit and human civilization is having a hard enough time just keeping everybody from starving to death. They'd be nuisance attacks for us, but nuisance attacks on top of really devestating attacks.

There's more but I think that's good enough for now.

Now I'm not saying this is the only way to interpret these passages or that you have to do it this way or should have done it this way, but I am pointing out that if you look at the source material you can have the opposition be much more powerful than you've made them and still have it stay reasonably within the boundaries of known scientific reality.

From here.

[iidave]

Junghalli pretty much nailed it.
Also even Satan could have won if he wasn't carrying a pile of idiot balls in each hand. A hundred Baldrick fighters aren't much when sent against a tank company, but when released in the White house / Pentagon / downtown Manhattan / anywhere heavy equipment isn't waiting for them, they are quite deadly.
So if Satan had realised that Humans won't just lie down before demons (and if he as much as considered finding out how his heralds could have been killed), he could have had newcomers into Hell tortured for information. Eventually he would get enough information to bring him up to speed.
And to end my post a little pet peeve of mine: those aluminum hats. They were designed to protect your brain from mind control sattelites that make you vote Republican (don't look at me like that, I didn't make this stuff up). An energy signal coming through a direction other than from above (say through your face), wouldn't be blocked.

[SilverHawk]

Nuking angels into oblivion would be fun, but rather pointless. Why spoil all that pristine land (And literal spoils such as all the jewels, etc.)? Use Thermobarics instead.

[Scorpio]

quick question, has it ever been revealed in story that the angles were created by Yahwe or Satan. They could have been created by the entity or entities that created the minos portal and then found by Yahwe and his brother at a later date. This could explain the 3 million years ago split between angles and humans and why Yahwe didn't try to conquer us earlier.

[Temmybear]

[/lurk]
On the topic of the post-war economy, I've been having some thoughts along those lines.

Hell: Hell has massive resources that are going to be easily tapped. We've seen oil, all sorts of precious gems and minerals, the soil is fertile even if the air quality is worse than Mexico City in 40C heat. It's been said that Oil is already being exported from Hell, and since there is currently some slack in refining capacity I think that Hell based refining would be functional by the time Earth based refining capacity starts running out (ignoring any further expansion of Earth refining capacity). The precious gems and minerals may decline in price if the market gets flooded by Universe B pawning off their more liquid assets for quick cash. The image of an angel taking a crowbar to the streets of the Eternal City and portaling into a jeweler's shop is one I find amusing. General mining might be a income source for a long time depending on the methods that can work with Dyson Sphere topography and how thick (deep?) the crust is.

Hell has a steadily growing labor pool from the Hellpit being cleared out, even if they are of widely differing quality. Even though a WWII casualty isn't worth much in terms of modern military thinking, he'd still be useful in a factory and could probably be caught up to speed with modern manufacturing in a reasonable timeframe. Certainly more easily than a pre-industrial Second Lifer or even a pre-agricultural Second Lifer. So I'd expect wages of a Second Lifer to be rather closely correlated with time of death, with more recent deaths being more valuable. We can see some of that going on with the New Roman Republic's advertising blitz to get the soon to be and recently deceased to become Romans as their second nationality. I do expect the number of Hell nations to increase quite a lot, some native and others to be colonies or closely linked to First Life nations. The United States of Hell perhaps?

Heaven: Similar to Hell, Heaven has natural resources in abundance, fertile land, a decent population. It also seems a very nice place in terms of climate and weather, so I'd expect tourism to become something Heaven will get into post-war. It has a few problems that Hell doesn't have, that may give Heaven the worst economic outlook for the near future. First, the population is 99% pre-industrial. Since the humans in Heaven are from the Dark Ages, the only humans that could be expected to have even intellectual awareness of industrial methods would be the handful that Micheal brought in and they're mostly entertainers.

Heaven might end up the Second Life destination of choice for new arrivals, especially if Micheal succeeds with his plan. I'd expect the Eternal City to go through as many upgrades as Micheal can afford as fast as he can afford them. Electrification, good internet connections, better roads for starters. This might mitigate some of the labor force issues they're facing. I still expect that Heaven will be a relatively backwards compared to Earth and Hell for an extended period.

Earth: More specifically, the more advanced nations that have the best chances to take advantage of what's coming. Anything high tech or generally requiring significant amounts of specific knowledge or structural support to produce efficiently are going to be in very high demand for a generation or longer. Just catching up Hell to a reasonable standard of living by modern standards will take a very long time.

In the meantime, there is tens or hundreds of billions of dollars in damage done to the Earth because of the war, the demobilization of the economy and the likelihood of immediate inflation that will be high enough to kill a few central bankers. I think that most of the inflation and pent-up demand will go to fixing all of the war damage, but any inflation related prediction is iffy. I think the employment situation will probably be reasonably good for the short term, the two largest export markets in history just opened up and they are hungry for exactly the sorts of things currently rich nations can do well.

General conclusions: I'd expect the price of most primary goods, and relevant secondary goods to drop like stones. The establishment of reasonably sound currencies for inter-dimensional trade is a priority, as I expect a commodity-backed currency is going to be problematic with steadily falling prices. Some sectors of the economy are going to be crushed as portal technology matures (Hasn't FedEx already gone bankrupt?) and as Heaven and Hell start catching up with Earth.

In the long term, there's possibility of stagnation in a lot of sectors if prices do stay low for a long time. High material prices tend to be the strongest catalysts for experimentation and development of more efficient everything. This might not happen if the lower costs make people feel richer and more willing to invest in R&D, but these conflicting factors are hard to gauge.

And I suspect that Second Lifers are built under rules that are a mix of Universe B and Universe C rules. Closer to B than C, so that they can interact with Universe A on a limited basis, but not for very long.
[lurk]

[Junghalli]

And to end my post a little pet peeve of mine: those aluminum hats. They were designed to protect your brain from mind control sattelites that make you vote Republican (don't look at me like that, I didn't make this stuff up). An energy signal coming through a direction other than from above (say through your face), wouldn't be blocked.

The Cancerman blog also pointed out that they don't protect the spine, and messages from the brain to the rest of the body go through that, so protecting the brain wouldn't necessarily mean immunity from some demon making everything below your neck dance like a puppet. Which would be nicely horrifying in a way, I'm remembering that Star Trek TOS episode with the parasites that controlled people through pain where you had possessed people running at the Enterprise away team with clubs while screaming at them to run away and "we don't want to hurt you!"...

The rationalization offered by some people over there was the demons don't know enough about human anatomy to realize that ... which I suppose is possible, and I can think up a few possible alternate explanations (like they need your eyes to see with otherwise they'd be blind, although that seems contradicted by the "look at the door" bit with the mental patient in Armageddon, and anyway once they had control of your body they could just make you take your own tinfoil hat off to give them access to your brain), but like much else IMO it seems very convenient for humanity.

[darksoul]

@xthetenth
Not explaining myself clearly with the trickery idea. We can begin with the idea that attacking with a portal that can't be closed is a mistake, but that's pretty well justified in that demons need to invade somehow, and they're actually not too worried about the non closing thing. That's pretty correct. But I was thinking more in the lines of a false demon (or Orc...maybe that's taking it too far, orcs don't seem that intelligent) resistance, in order to lure humans to alliance with a faction of demons (similar to the plan the succubi tried to pull, but earlier and not so blatant.). We could think of something here, after all, even though baldricks are more warriors than truly evil at least the succubi and Eurydale's kind are more traditionally inclined, and demons are renewed for deception.
I guess a defeat was unavoidable ever since the portal was opened, so this might be a moot point, now that I think about it.

Anthrax was chosen for a very specific reason, that being its sheer age, which makes it the most likely one and least likely to strain credulity. In addition, they're being cautious for a very good reason. Plus, Michael isn't the only source of info to Yahweh, and he wasn't ready to try the coup yet. I seem to recall Yahweh having been previously informed about one of the 'bowls' before Michael got there. Plus, he had enough of a hard time trying to figure out how to fill in for the nuke one.

Yes, the reason why anthrax is chosen was well explained. the problem is, Michael knows this is not doing as much harm as it should (nor is he looking to harm). He could deliver some other diseases as well, not as a bowl. As for Yahwe knowing what he's doing... he has done a good job supplying the montmatre club, hasn't he? He has his ways. As a matter of fact, Why Michael doesn't proxy-own a couple of casinos in Las Vegas? It could be interesting .Oh well, he probably will buy one or two after the war. But I'm drifting...

For what? You don't tell the grunts your operational plans, and even if it would occur to a bronze age person to ask about an industrial base (protip: it wouldn't unless they'd put in a lot of thought on the subject, see Belial), they wouldn't have been able to establish one in anywhere near enough time.

Interrogating is only one of such actions. I was thinking about, demons making deals with specific humans (as the angels did later, promise and don't deliver). Besides, is a simple scalation. So humans have magic? let's see. Take one human and ask. It has the concept of an army, a rifle, a tank, simple concepts. How are those things done? where? by whom? how can it be disrupted? you know, intelligence. Yes, Belial was exactly what I had in mind. Sad it was so late in the story he got the idea (or the chance) to get his plans on the roll. I don't dispair to see him designing another weapon.

Yep. But he's sane. I'd much rather have a sane antagonist playing at his own game than some mindless butcher just trying to rack up kills on the protagonists without any thought to having a plausible motivation. (And I like even better that I'm a little bit hesitant to use the labels antagonist and protagonist).

hehehehe. I agree completely.

[Stuart]

The Cancerman blog also pointed out that they don't protect the spine, and messages from the brain to the rest of the body go through that, so protecting the brain wouldn't necessarily mean immunity from some demon making everything below your neck dance like a puppet. Which would be nicely horrifying in a way, I'm remembering that Star Trek TOS episode with the parasites that controlled people through pain where you had possessed people running at the Enterprise away team with clubs while screaming at them to run away and "we don't want to hurt you!"... The rationalization offered by some people over there was the demons don't know enough about human anatomy to realize that ... which I suppose is possible, and I can think up a few possible alternate explanations (like they need your eyes to see with otherwise they'd be blind, although that seems contradicted by the "look at the door" bit with the mental patient in Armageddon, and anyway once they had control of your body they could just make you take your own tinfoil hat off to give them access to your brain), but like much else IMO it seems very convenient for humanity.

Like everything else that rather sad pathetic jerk has to say, that simply doesn't hold water. The described mechanism is that the impressment capability works by imposing a pattern on the cognitive part of the brain, ie that under the skull. The spinal column is not cognitive, it simply carries the messages from the cognitive part. The part about making you remove your tinfoil hat is utterly stupid. To do that they would have to get access to the shielded brain. They can't do that until the hat is removed. So they can'ty make your emove your hat until they've made you remove your hat.

The directionality thing is equally stupid. If that were true then every piece of electronic shielding in the world is completely useless. But perhaps you think that electromagnetic radiation can turn 90 degrees in mid air.

Sorry if I sound a bit irritable but we've had all these comments coming up on TVtropes and they've all been refuted at least once already/ And quoting the cancerman jerk does nothing to improve your credibility.

[Stuart]

But I was thinking more in the lines of a false demon (or Orc...maybe that's taking it too far, orcs don't seem that intelligent) resistance, in order to lure humans to alliance with a faction of demons (similar to the plan the succubi tried to pull, but earlier and not so blatant.). We could think of something here, after all, even though baldricks are more warriors than truly evil at least the succubi and Eurydale's kind are more traditionally inclined, and demons are renewed for deception. I guess a defeat was unavoidable ever since the portal was opened, so this might be a moot point, now that I think about it.

But the humans weren't even remotely interested in making alliances. They were too busy crushing the daemons. You don't make alliances with people you are already in process of completely defeating.

Yes, the reason why anthrax is chosen was well explained. the problem is, Michael knows this is not doing as much harm as it should (nor is he looking to harm). He could deliver some other diseases as well, not as a bowl. As for Yahwe knowing what he's doing... he has done a good job supplying the montmatre club, hasn't he? He has his ways. As a matter of fact, Why Michael doesn't proxy-own a couple of casinos in Las Vegas? It could be interesting .Oh well, he probably will buy one or two after the war. But I'm drifting.

Why? It did exactly what Michael wanted it to which was to attack the Nephelim who provided Earth's access to Heaven. in addition the playbook states.

Then I heard a loud voice from the temple, saying to the seven angels, "Go and pour out on the earth the seven bowls of the wrath of God." So the first angel went and poured out his bowl on the earth; and it became a loathsome and malignant sore on the people who had the mark of the beast and who worshiped his image.

That's anthrax. End of debate. It should also be noted that inhaled anthrax is damn nearly 100 percent lethal. THere's no need to use anything else.

Interrogating is only one of such actions. I was thinking about, demons making deals with specific humans (as the angels did later, promise and don't deliver). Besides, is a simple scalation. So humans have magic? let's see. Take one human and ask. It has the concept of an army, a rifle, a tank, simple concepts. How are those things done? where? by whom? how can it be disrupted? you know, intelligence. Yes, Belial was exactly what I had in mind. Sad it was so late in the story he got the idea (or the chance) to get his plans on the roll. I don't dispair to see him designing another weapon.

The Curbstomp war happened too fast for anything like that to be of any significance. By the time the daemons found out who to ask and understood the answers they were getting it was all over.

[Stuart]

The first angel sounded his trumpet, and there came hail and fire mixed with blood, and it was hurled down upon the earth. A third of the earth was burned up, a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up.

Revelations 16 1-2 actually reads
Then I heard a loud voice from the temple, saying to the seven angels, "Go and pour out on the earth the seven bowls of the wrath of God." So the first angel went and poured out his bowl on the earth; and it became a loathsome and malignant sore on the people who had the mark of the beast and who worshiped his image.

Anthrax. No doubt about it, the disease and descriptions match exactly.

The second angel sounded his trumpet, and something like a huge mountain, all ablaze, was thrown into the sea. A third of the sea turned into blood, 9a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.

Revelations 16 3 actually reads
The second angel poured out his bowl into the sea, and it became blood like that of a dead man; and every living thing in the sea died.

No mention of mountains and we had the red tide. A known natural phenomena which explains the prophency

The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water— 11the name of the star is Wormwood.[a] A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter.

Revelations 16:4 actually reads
Then the third angel poured out his bowl into the rivers and the springs of waters; and they became blood.

Which is exactly what we had.

The fourth angel sounded his trumpet, and a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of them turned dark. A third of the day was without light, and also a third of the night.

Revelation 16:8 actually says
The fourth angel poured out his bowl upon the sun, and it was given to it to scorch men with fire.

We had a nuclear attack that fulfilled this exactly. And a nuclear initiation does look like the sun

The fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth. The star was given the key to the shaft of the Abyss. 2When he opened the Abyss, smoke rose from it like the smoke from a gigantic furnace. The sun and sky were darkened by the smoke from the Abyss. 3And out of the smoke locusts came down upon the earth and were given power like that of scorpions of the earth. 4They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but only those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads. 5They were not given power to kill them, but only to torture them for five months. And the agony they suffered was like that of the sting of a scorpion when it strikes a man. 6During those days men will seek death, but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will elude them.

Revelation 16:10 actually says
Then the fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and his kingdom became darkened; and they gnawed their tongues because of pain,

We had dust storms, a devastating weapon used against agricultural land and one that fills this description perfectly.

[quoteThe sixth angel sounded his trumpet, and I heard a voice coming from the horns of the golden altar that is before God. 14It said to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, "Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates." 15And the four angels who had been kept ready for this very hour and day and month and year were released to kill a third of mankind. 16The number of the mounted troops was two hundred million. I heard their number.

Revelation 16:12-16 actually says
The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river, the Euphrates; and its water was dried up, so that the way would be prepared for the kings from the east. And I saw coming out of the mouth of the dragon and out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits like frogs; for they are spirits of demons, performing signs, which go out to the kings of the whole world, to gather them together for the war of the great day of God, the Almighty.

We had this perfectly plus the effect of the earthquake and total wave caused. Fulfilled as per.

Revelation 16:17-19
Then the seventh angel poured out his bowl upon the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple from the throne, saying, "It is done." And there were flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder; and there was a great earthquake, such as there had not been since man came to be upon the earth, so great an earthquake was it, and so mighty. The great city was split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell. Babylon the great was remembered before God, to give her the cup of the wine of His fierce wrath.

And we clobbered New York with the rockfall which fulfills this neatly. In addition, we had teh avrying weather attacks and a few other odds and sods thrown in.

Now I'm not saying this is the only way to interpret these passages or that you have to do it this way or should have done it this way, but I am pointing out that if you look at the source material you can have the opposition be much more powerful than you've made them and still have it stay reasonably within the boundaries of known scientific reality.

Wrong. The solutions to these little puzzles had to be compatible with the era, timespan and capabilities described. The mechanisms I came up with fit that requirement perfectly.

[Stuart]

Junghalli pretty much nailed it.

No, he didn't even come close.

Also even Satan could have won if he wasn't carrying a pile of idiot balls in each hand. A hundred Baldrick fighters aren't much when sent against a tank company, but when released in the White house / Pentagon / downtown Manhattan / anywhere heavy equipment isn't waiting for them, they are quite deadly.

Try and get this into your head. We are dealing with a bronze age army (because that is what the mythology specified) and it will fight and behave exactly as a bronze age army did. The whole mythology is based around a massive invasion by the forces of darkness and that is what we are stuck with. In any case, you obviously havem't read the book because berserker raids are specifically written into the story.

So if Satan had realised that Humans won't just lie down before demons (and if he as much as considered finding out how his heralds could have been killed), he could have had newcomers into Hell tortured for information. Eventually he would get enough information to bring him up to speed.

He'd have to understand the answers and it won't help. His people saw tanks and artillery and didn't understand what they were or how tehy worked. Try and understand this, the mythology is bronze age. Now, try going back to that era and telling somebody how a jet fighter works. And have them understand you and get the implications of what you are telling them. It can't be done.

And to end my post a little pet peeve of mine: those aluminum hats. They were designed to protect your brain from mind control sattelites that make you vote Republican (don't look at me like that, I didn't make this stuff up).

Utter bullshit Are you being deliberately stupid or trolling?

An energy signal coming through a direction other than from above (say through your face), wouldn't be blocked.

Somebody else who thinks electromagnetic radiation can turn through 90 degrees in mid air. Then how the hell do you explain how electromagnetic shielding for equipment on warships works? Take a close look at teh shielding installations, they look exactly like caps. That's where the idea came from.

[Werrf]

Um - hate to disagree, but I think he's talking about the trumpets, described in Revelation 8:7 - 11:15. A set of weapons distinct from the bowls, which are described later.

[Stuart]

Um - hate to disagree, but I think he's talking about the trumpets, described in Revelation 8:7 - 11:15. A set of weapons distinct from the bowls, which are described later.

Oh them. Sorry, I dropped the trumpets because they contained too much that couldn't be done using the technology level available. They were replaced by the hurricates, super-tornadoes etc which were probably a lot more destructive. (Remember when people say a third of all the people they mean that in the context of the time - a third of a couple of million at most. Not a third of our population.) It's worth noting the books have limited length; there's a maximum of 840 pages per book and that is absolute. If there's 842 the last two pages get deleted. We can always write side-stories that fit into the universe later. I can publish them as an anthology or something. But in Pantheocide, the whole story has to be slotted into the required 840 pages and that means editorial judgement.

[Junghalli]

Um - hate to disagree, but I think he's talking about the trumpets, described in Revelation 8:7 - 11:15. A set of weapons distinct from the bowls, which are described later.

Yes, that's correct.

<snip the descriptions of how the stuff in Pantheocide fits revelations>
Wrong. The solutions to these little puzzles had to be compatible with the era, timespan and capabilities described. The mechanisms I came up with fit that requirement perfectly.

Ah, so let me see if I understand this right, it's not simply a matter of looking at the original legends and trying to square them with known physical reality, the mechanisms must also be ... thematically appropriate to the era the material was written in? Like, the mountain thrown into the sea can't be an asteroid because the people who wrote Revelations wouldn't have known or imagined anything like weaponized asteroid deflection?

Thank you for the clarification. Well, at this point all that can be said is that if that's the way you want to do it, that's the way you want to do it. I think we both know I'm not a big fan of that approach, at least not when it's combined with the kind of storytelling techniques you use (epic as opposed to intimate scope, heavy apparent emphasis on the general course of the war and the battles as a source of dramatic tension, humanity as the apparent protagonist, following lots of bit characters instead of sticking with a handful of them) ... but we've already been over its percieved flaws quite extensively and I doubt retreading the same ground is going to accomplish anything, nor do I have the inclination for it.

As to the spinal cord thing ... I had a point by point response written up, but on second thought, I don't think I'll bother. Just one point of curiousity. Couldn't a demon project into the brain through the face from below? Or would the mass of bone and flesh in the way interfere with the signal?

[Ryan Thunder]

Ryan Thunder, I think you kind of miss the point.

I'm not missing anything. I've followed the thread. Just look at the comments.

The main premise (and draw) of The Salvation War is what would happen if the Armageddon, as writen in the Revelation, was to happen. One would note that Stuart tried to 'realism-ize' the demons and angels as much as possible while making the circumstances such that they would get as many advantages as possible without breaking the realism.

One can admit that the balance is definitely tipping on the 'humans' side ; even with the advantages Stuart give them, the demons and angels' chances of victory are null (especially this late in the story) but the fact is, if he wanted to merely write 'Humans destroy Hell & Heaven AND KICK ASS!', the story would have been a whole lot shorter and would have included a whole lot more nukes.

Well it may not have been the author's intent, but that's how it reads, more often than not. Stuart's writing is fine, technically, and he has managed to make it readable, which frankly I find incredible given the subject matter. Kudos to him.

Yes, it is noted that the angels & demons don't really stand a chance. This is more due to the power of the modern military machine and less to the demons & angels being shown as target pratice for humanity.

Yes, yes, reciprocity and whatever. That's just a poor excuse for making your protagonist's opponents pushovers, in my opinion.

Stuart has stated many times that if we took the demons & angels as shown in his story and pitted them against the WW1 or even WW2 era humanity, the fight would have been infinitely bloodier and the issue would have been uncertain for a very long time.

Hey, conflict! That would've been awesome.

Instead he picked a modern military. Why? Because he knew they'd stomp his interpretation of the supernatural flat so that he could slap a silly name on it that nobody would actually use, and have his pet characters lecturing angels and demons as though they were children. Brilliant.

I'm really not sure why I still find it interesting, truthfully. XD

[Nematocyst]

Because all the stories where the supernatural/alien force comes and all your base are belong to us are somehow better?
We have lived under Satan and Yahweh's thumbs since almost the dawn of our race. They get tired of us, they attack and they curbstomp us. That's not a good story, it's a tragedy.

He picked a modern military because of realism purposes (because we would've noticed the demons in WW2 if TSW happened then [/Captain Obvious]) and because of the original thread that sparked the story related to present (2008) times