The Big One

Mayabird · Post by **Mayabird** » 2004-12-16 01:32am

RedImperator wrote:
Stormbringer wrote:Hmmm, it's really interesting. I'm really interested in who the Contractors are. Seems you really are going heavily for a Highlander sort of Immortal.

Makes you really wonder about them. And makes you wonder who and what they're up to. For some reason there are a couple of historical figures that could be a Contractor-Immortal.
I'm going to stick with aliens until proven otherwise.

What about demons? They're sorta human, but they're not, and demons don't exactly die. It's been hinted at from the names of the Executive Assistants (and one of them even responded, when LBJ called her a demon, "How long have you known?")

Zed Snardbody · Post by **Zed Snardbody** » 2004-12-16 02:55am

The mind, it boggles......

Stuart · Post by **Stuart** » 2004-12-16 10:24am

CaptainChewbacca wrote:Interesting. I wonder how much of this is actual history and how much is intellectual conjecture and how much is your own creation.

Most of it is real history - or at least as real as the available records can tell us. The Pharaoh Akhenaten really existed (his wife was Nefertiti) and Tutenkhamun was his son. He really did create a new monotheistic religion based around the Sun God Aten and attempt to destroy the previous polytheistic religions. There really was immense civil disturbance as a result, the evidence is that the civil war went on for over 50 years. Egypt really was reduced to ruin. The surviving followers of Aten really were enslaved and the old religion restored. Enslaved PoWs in Egyptian were called Hibaru, there really is only a single reference to Israelites in Egyptian records and that dates from 50 - 60 years after Ramesses II.

Whether the surviving slaves became the Israelites is something that, short of a miraculous discovery, we will probably never know. The evidence is pretty thin but personally I find it plausible to the point of being compelling. I find it very hard to believe that the Israelites just suddenly appear in Egypt without any other references to them and the phonetic similarity between Hibari and Hebrew is telling. That makes a very strong case that the "Hebrews" were enslaved PoWs and the timing at the end of the Aten civil wars is too much coincidence to be comfortable as does the fact that the Exodus escapees were monotheistic, something unique in Egypt to the followers of Aten. There were no significant foreign advantures in the time period in question so captives from outside seems unlikely. I believe it is almost certain that some sort of major battle resulting in a catastrophic Egyptian defeat did take place and those events are the "death of the first born" and the subsequent Exodus.

The Osiris legend (or the version presented in Ten Plagues) is genuine in the sense that it is a real Egyptian myth. I bought a copy of "The Book Of The Dead" translated by E.A. Wallis Budge (British Museum 1910) a while ago. In addition to translating the Book, Budge provided an introduction to Egpytian mythology that includes the Osiris story more or less as repeated in "Ten Plagues". I was struck by the similarities to the Moses story and spent most of a flight from Nellis AFB, Nevada to Chicago with my eyes closed writing this story in my head. Oddly, (and in quite a different connection) I'd already come around to the idea that the events described in Exodus was actually a slave revolt and that the "parting of the Red Sea" was some sort of battle in a marsh. When I saw the Ramesses program "Ramses:Wrath of God or man, I felt it fitted in perfectly. It provided the link and, read one way, Exodus is also telling us the Akhenaten story but heavily re-written and edited. Linked with the Osiris legend it seemed to fit together rather well, a combination of scribes and folk-historians retelling old legends and blending them with recent events.

The contentious part us the creation of Sammael. When I was thinking about this, it seemed to me that the most likely story that explained the Sammael mythology was that a king, somewhere along the route, inflicted a series of savage defeats on the escapees. As such, he would be regarded as a deadly enemy, the source of evil (we're good, he beat hell out of us so he must be BAD) and be seriously demonized.

So, I took the legends and worked them backwards. Sammael becomes a king who

first welcomed the refugees and then turned on them (the scribes would argue that they're good, he turned on them so he revolted against Heaven).

Who defeated them repeatedly (again, the scribes would argue he was opposed to us, we are good so he's evil incarnate),

Whose army was built around armored heavy infantry that came as a dreadful shock to lighly-armed and unarmored escaping slaves no matter how tough the ex-slaves were (which the scribes transformed into an army of invincible demons),

who was a good and just ruler who converted enemies to his cause rather than slaughtered them (which was rewritten as him seducing his enemies and luring them into his evil ways),

in whose kingdom women were treated somewhat better than the prevailing social norms and thus enjoyed a healthier and better life (which the scribes rewrote as being surrounded by lustful female demons who were wanton and immodest and enjoyed long life and great beauty as a result of their seducing the scribes' good, honest comrades).

Sammael may have been a Canaanite, or perhaps another king of a tribe whose name was either one of those listed in the Bible or has been lost to history.

The epilogue to High Frontier will explain who the Contractors are and what they are up to. Promise.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2004-12-16 10:32pm

High Frontier 9

Post by **Beowulf** » 2004-12-16 11:04pm

Well the Chipanese seem pretty throughly infiltrated. Even know who the pilot of the flight is...

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2004-12-16 11:07pm

Beowulf wrote:Well the Chipanese seem pretty throughly infiltrated. Even know who the pilot of the flight is...

Yeah, they seem quite thouroughly screwed.

Post by **Beowulf** » 2004-12-21 09:12pm

Saigon Noon

Mopeyennuui · Post by **Mopeyennuui** » 2004-12-22 10:40am

Frell it, this should be called De Imperiux Amercaina. Shit, digital crack to equal 'CONUS 2002 in 1939' (IIRC).

Shit, I Can SMELL the wank.

And bite my ass.. that many nukes and imperalism is what I exoect frin a 'historical forum'. Amercia had trouble building TWO bombs RL/OTL. Dayum.

Amercians service men are always lookers...
Amercians are always feared and respected...
They are always the screw the world turns on.....

(And yes I've onlyu read yo to ATL1955/)

Any massive reversals? This is almost as wankish as Orions Arm.

frigidmagi · Post by **frigidmagi** » 2004-12-22 10:55am

Playing editing games are we? Well so can I. You are a fool, who didn't bother to research the background of the story in question, you just passed a whiney, kneejerk judgement.

The sad fact little girl is that the America of TBO is less involved and "imperialist" than the real one. Back to fucking history class for you.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2004-12-22 12:55pm

Zerg Goddess wrote:Frell it, this should be called De Imperiux Amercaina. Shit, digital crack to equal 'CONUS 2002 in 1939' (IIRC).

You've been on this board for a few months now so there's no excuse anymore. You should know that constructive criticism is welcomed on this board but nonsense like this is not. Also, this piece of fiction is well-liked (and the author generally respected) so expect to be dogpiled. Finally, if you're going to try and use Latin phrases you might as well spell it right. The phrase is "Imperium Americana" -- but that US is no Empire.

And bite my ass.. that many nukes and imperalism is what I exoect frin a 'historical forum'. Amercia had trouble building TWO bombs RL/OTL. Dayum.

You're totally ignoring the fact that the raid of Germany took place in 1947, not 1945. Also, mass production of nuclear devices was scheduled to begin late in 1945, stopped only by the cessation of the war in August 1945. Finally, we had produced four devices by the end of the war (Trinity, Little Boy, Fat Man and a fourth unassembled device).

Amercians service men are always lookers...
Amercians are always feared and respected...
They are always the screw the world turns on.....

Since when? None of the servicemen are said to be physically attractive, IIRC. Sophia made friends with Mike but that's the closest you'd get. There is much more fear than respect, but that's only to be said when they posess a huge nuclear arsenal and the means to deploy it. Finally, the US is rather isolationist (especially from the end of WW2 to the beginning of the Johnson Administration). We are not the screw the world turns on.

(And yes I've onlyu read yo to ATL1955/)

It doesn't seem like you've read much of it.

Any massive reversals? This is almost as wankish as Orions Arm.

No, it isn't.

admiral_danielsben · Post by **admiral_danielsben** » 2004-12-22 03:55pm

High Frontier 10 (if I haven't got this right...

Mopeyennuui · Post by **Mopeyennuui** » 2004-12-23 09:24am

I can't search for it.. where is a snippet of what happened to postwat germany?

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2004-12-23 10:32am

Zerg Goddess wrote:I can't search for it.. where is a snippet of what happened to postwat germany?

If what you're looking for isn't covered by the listing at the front of this thread it hasn't been written.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2004-12-23 02:37pm

The state of Germany postwar is detailed in The Great Game.

CaptainChewbacca · Post by **CaptainChewbacca** » 2004-12-23 06:59pm

Also at the end of the story about the fall of New Schwabia. And no, it sure as heck ain't wankish. If it were, the Caliph would be a smoking hole.

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2004-12-23 08:44pm

The Three Eagles

Zed Snardbody · Post by **Zed Snardbody** » 2004-12-24 03:43am

Well, shit, now I have to go and reread stuff. Thank you very much

Mopeyennuui · Post by **Mopeyennuui** » 2004-12-24 04:39am

phongn wrote:The state of Germany postwar is detailed in The Great Game.

Where is the irriated cities? Where are the fallout mutants? Mervelverse mutants?

speaker-to-trolls · Post by **speaker-to-trolls** » 2004-12-24 05:10am

Zerg Goddess wrote:
phongn wrote:The state of Germany postwar is detailed in The Great Game.
Where is the irriated cities? Where are the fallout mutants? Mervelverse mutants?

This may come as a shock, but mutations resulting from fallout do not give the recipient superpowers, or even make them into some sort of shambling monstrosity, they're much more likely to be born with no limbs and die within months from cancer.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2004-12-24 10:44am

Zerg Goddess wrote:Where is the irriated cities?

You mean "Where are the irradiated cities?" That state describes the fate of the majority of German cities. Some of them received groundbursts and will not be inhabitable for a very long time.

Where are the fallout mutants? Mervelverse mutants?

Fallout mutants are the result of FEV. Ghouls are those who were mutated by background radiation into their present form. Marvelverse mutants are unexplainable. However, as speaker-to-trolls noted, such effects as those in the Fallout and Marvel universes do not occur because of high background radiation.

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2004-12-24 12:13pm

Mayabird wrote:
RedImperator wrote:
Stormbringer wrote:Hmmm, it's really interesting. I'm really interested in who the Contractors are. Seems you really are going heavily for a Highlander sort of Immortal.

Makes you really wonder about them. And makes you wonder who and what they're up to. For some reason there are a couple of historical figures that could be a Contractor-Immortal.
I'm going to stick with aliens until proven otherwise.
What about demons? They're sorta human, but they're not, and demons don't exactly die. It's been hinted at from the names of the Executive Assistants (and one of them even responded, when LBJ called her a demon, "How long have you known?")

I've considered that, but consider that the story keeps de-mystifying miracles--like the Exodus explained as the losers of an Egyptian civil war escaping through a marsh, or Lucifer made a Canaanite king who resisted the Hebrews successfully. I think the Executive Assistants have become incorporated into human mythology AS demons, usually by the people on the recieving end of their talents. But I think there's a less supernatural explanation for them, as this story seems to keep moving that way--it head-fakes towards the mystical and then breaks to the natural.

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2004-12-24 07:21pm

The Big One: The Motion Picture

J · Post by J » 2004-12-26 11:57am

High Frontier: Eleven

Jadeite · Post by **Jadeite** » 2004-12-28 03:03am

I just spent the last hour and a half reading through The Big One, and I am definitely impressed by it. I honestly wanted the Germans to at least save one city at the end, or shoot down the bombers that hit Berlin, at least something that would put up more of a fight then being bent over and mercilessly ass raped like they were.

admiral_danielsben · Post by **admiral_danielsben** » 2004-12-28 08:02am

Jadeite wrote:I just spent the last hour and a half reading through The Big One, and I am definitely impressed by it. I honestly wanted the Germans to at least save one city at the end, or shoot down the bombers that hit Berlin, at least something that would put up more of a fight then being bent over and mercilessly ass raped like they were.

I think the Germans were ass-raped because they had almost nothing that could operate at a B-36's maximum cruising altitude, at least that could get a B-36 (although i'm not an expert or even a particularly informed amateur, that's the impression i got).

Read 'Guiding Light', however, and you'll see that the Americans took some hits along the way.