The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Eighty One Up

[Nematocyst]

Or perhaps because only 'complex' souls like a Human's has enough 'energy' to make the jump on death.

[Mayabird]

If human fetuses can make the jump, any number of creatures should be able to as well if it's just a matter of "life-energy" or something. There are plenty of animals that can reach the intelligence of a four or five year old. How come human baby souls go and not an older and more intelligent elephant, whale, New Caledonian crow, or Alex the gray parrot?

If we're going to say it's natural, then we need some magic justification of why humans are just so damned special that their half-formed unborn get an afterlife but chimpanzees, who are very close to humans genetically and all, don't. I personally think the entire setup is artificial and was made by someone...or something [ominous music here]...but I've also been 0 for a lot on all my predictions.

[darksoul]

if complexity is the criteria, it would be design complexity, given that fetus are also thrown into Hell and those are not proper conscious beings yet. therefore soul is not mind, but something else.
Or soul is not the concept we should be focusing on.
If the Minos tech (MIT) is automatic, it is designed for humans regardless of their personalities, but it does record those as well as memories. It follows that something in there deliberately targeted humans, so they know a good deal about us and are not interested in animals.
however every explanation I can come up with is troubled by the fetuses, which are of no use to anyone, and are still forward through the gate. a side effect, maybe? I cant say.

Michael ought to know some more about the nature of this communication. He snatches souls from it somehow. Which is interesting, because he could:
A - take the soul before it goes into MIT. Con: the soul then wouldnt get a second body.
B - Inside the MIT. Con: Isn`t the MIT in UC? can Michael interact with it?
C - As the soul shows up in Hell. Con: if he did, he should have either bribed the guards very heavily, or storm the door each time. If he did the latter, Minos wouldn`t be the demon in charge for so long, and the plains would be better guarded. If he did the former, I dont see how a betrayal of that sort would go unnoticed for Satan for centuries. Still plausible though.

Also, how Yahwe "closed" the gates of Heaven? did he, or they were closed in his face?

[Michael Garrity]

Stuart:

For even larger artillery throw-weights, there's the M65 cannon. The W19 shell it fired weighed some 600 lbs, and I'm sure it is possible to design an conventional HE shell for it. Next up, the Iowas could be reactivated and shells fired through portals to wherever is needed. The 1900-lb HC shell fired from an Iowa's main battery will do lots of bad things to whatever it hits.
And last but not least, I believe the blueprints for the 'Gustav' and 'Dora' guns are still aorund somewhere.....

Mike Garrity

[westrim]

If human fetuses can make the jump, any number of creatures should be able to as well if it's just a matter of "life-energy" or something. There are plenty of animals that can reach the intelligence of a four or five year old. How come human baby souls go and not an older and more intelligent elephant, whale, New Caledonian crow, or Alex the gray parrot?

If we're going to say it's natural, then we need some magic justification of why humans are just so damned special that their half-formed unborn get an afterlife but chimpanzees, who are very close to humans genetically and all, don't. I personally think the entire setup is artificial and was made by someone...or something [ominous music here]...but I've also been 0 for a lot on all my predictions.

if complexity is the criteria, it would be design complexity, given that fetus are also thrown into Hell and those are not proper conscious beings yet. therefore soul is not mind, but something else.
Or soul is not the concept we should be focusing on.
If the Minos tech (MIT) is automatic, it is designed for humans regardless of their personalities, but it does record those as well as memories. It follows that something in there deliberately targeted humans, so they know a good deal about us and are not interested in animals.
however every explanation I can come up with is troubled by the fetuses, which are of no use to anyone, and are still forward through the gate. a side effect, maybe? I cant say.

Michael ought to know some more about the nature of this communication. He snatches souls from it somehow. Which is interesting, because he could:
A - take the soul before it goes into MIT. Con: the soul then wouldn't get a second body.
B - Inside the MIT. Con: Isn't the MIT in UC? can Michael interact with it?
C - As the soul shows up in Hell. Con: if he did, he should have either bribed the guards very heavily, or storm the door each time. If he did the latter, Minos would not be the demon in charge for so long, and the plains would be better guarded. If he did the former, I dont see how a betrayal of that sort would go unnoticed for Satan for centuries. Still plausible though.

Also, how did Yahweh "close" the gates of Heaven? Did he, or they were closed in his face?

It could be that it's genetically locked to humans and every distinct member thereof regardless of size (but filters out random abnormalities like discarded tumors), and the soul/personality/knowledge/etc. is extra programming. This can all be changed or added to if another species needs to come through the gate Or perhaps there's some extra dimension in our universe where all that we consider distinct and abstract about ourselves is encoded.

[ANTIcarrot]

It could be that it's genetically locked to humans and every distinct member thereof regardless of size

Or then again it could simply be egotistically locked. Most humans (including the author?) like to think of their own species and minds as somehow unique and special instead as part of a continual spectrum of species and intelligence. It's also possible that the minos gate (minos mechanism?) sends some other species elsewhere. I wouldn't be too surprised if it turns out that dealing with humans (or at least, dealing with earth) is only one of the more minor tasks it does.

On the topic of bigger artillery... I know there's a fudge to the rules that specifically prevents perpetual motion machines from working via gravity - but could a one way trip work? Just find an abandoned mile deep mine shaft and simply drop the damn things! Many mines go down further than that. (Or simply hang a long steel tube in the sea.) No need for propellent, barrel wear, or g-proofing the 'shells'. Once they reach the bottom they should be going fast enough for the fuses to work. Then portal them to their target.

[westrim]

It could be that it's genetically locked to humans and every distinct member thereof regardless of size

Or then again it could simply be egotistically locked. Most humans (including the author?) like to think of their own species and minds as somehow unique and special instead as part of a continual spectrum of species and intelligence. It's also possible that the minos gate (minos mechanism?) sends some other species elsewhere. I wouldn't be too surprised if it turns out that dealing with humans (or at least, dealing with earth) is only one of the more minor tasks it does.

True, but right now we just know what it does for humans, and the question is how it notes our data and chooses what data to send through.

[Darmalus]

On the topic of bigger artillery... I know there's a fudge to the rules that specifically prevents perpetual motion machines from working via gravity - but could a one way trip work? Just find an abandoned mile deep mine shaft and simply drop the damn things! Many mines go down further than that. (Or simply hang a long steel tube in the sea.) No need for propellent, barrel wear, or g-proofing the 'shells'. Once they reach the bottom they should be going fast enough for the fuses to work. Then portal them to their target.

There is no free lunch. If the shell is dropped from sea level, and the portal exit is at sea level, the shell will exit with the same amount of PE and KE it started with at the top of the shaft. If the portal is higher than where you drop the shell from, it likely won't go through at all, bouncing off the portal like it hit a trampoline.

[darksoul]

There is no free lunch. If the shell is dropped from sea level, and the portal exit is at sea level, the shell will exit with the same amount of PE and KE it started with at the top of the shaft. If the portal is higher than where you drop the shell from, it likely won't go through at all, bouncing off the portal like it hit a trampoline.

i don`t understand. what`s the basis for that? what anticarrot suggested sounded to me exactly as what Belial did, and it worked for him, didn`t? besides, en many instances along the story portals had been opened without concerning of their physical location on our reality, i suppose because they`re not 3D objects and therefore are not completely in our space.
I don`t see why the conservation of energy should apply here.

[xthetenth]

There is no free lunch. If the shell is dropped from sea level, and the portal exit is at sea level, the shell will exit with the same amount of PE and KE it started with at the top of the shaft. If the portal is higher than where you drop the shell from, it likely won't go through at all, bouncing off the portal like it hit a trampoline.

i don`t understand. what`s the basis for that? what anticarrot suggested sounded to me exactly as what Belial did, and it worked for him, didn`t? besides, en many instances along the story portals had been opened without concerning of their physical location on our reality, i suppose because they`re not 3D objects and therefore are not completely in our space.
I don`t see why the conservation of energy should apply here.

The volcanoes had propulsion, and being the top of volcanoes started out high so they probably gained energy from the change in potential. Now if we were to chuck the shells off a cliff it might work, but doing it at sea level wouldn't.

[SilverHawk]

Basically remember the simple principle of, "Fast In, Fast Out".

[xthetenth]

Basically remember the simple principle of, "Fast In, Fast Out".

Energetic in, energetic out. Which makes me wonder how there's a galaxywide standard of potential energy, mainly for earth universe. That just seems too.. artificial for me how it deals with potential energy that makes me wonder about how portalling came about and what makes it tick.

[darksoul]

The volcanoes had propulsion, and being the top of volcanoes started out high so they probably gained energy from the change in potential. Now if we were to chuck the shells off a cliff it might work, but doing it at sea level wouldn't.

high in relation to what? what`s the sea level in Hell? what`s the value of g there and in heaven? how great is that for a change of potential? how the propulsion of lava from a volcano is different from the propulsion of a shell due to gravity? aren`t those both kinetic energy?
Why the energy and matter that goes through a portal to a place outside the reference frame of the universe where physics operate must abide to those physics? maybe the law of conservation of energy holds true at both sides of a portal, but not through a portal.
I mean, consider that you launch the shell at sea level. It trades potential energy for kinetic as it loses height and gains speed, right? now launch that through a portal. Upon entering the portal, the object holds a certain kinetic energy, but as it emerges in another dimension/reality/universe/whatever, the height, understanding as such the distance of the object to the center of gravity that operates on it, is determined by the position of the portal. As there has no been evidence of difficulty in opening portals in disparate places, which couldnt possibly all be in places with the same gravity gradient in every ocassion, I would pressume that potential energy is not conserved by travelling through a portal.
The physical impossibility of this can be the reason why someone can`t open a portal to the same universe he`s in, because THAT would violate a whole bunch of laws as explained by the sea level and shell bouncing examples earlier.

being a computer programmer I must say I havent bothered with a physics problem in quite a few years, since 2nd year of college. So everything said before is just something I guess can be right, but haven`t been thoroughly thought.

[SCRawl]

Regarding the fetuses and their status in Hell: didn't Stuart say that he'd reconsidered using them?

[Darmalus]

They have already lost several planes going through portals because of the difference in PE between Iraq and Hell was enough to kill their KE and make them fall out of the sky, but this only happened with older planes already near their limit, so the difference is small.

[darksoul]

They have already lost several planes going through portals because of the difference in PE between Iraq and Hell was enough to kill their KE and make them fall out of the sky, but this only happened with older planes already near their limit, so the difference is small.

m

where can I read that? I seem to recall that now that you mention, a pilot flying an old plane does make that remark, but I dont remember where precisely in the novels, and I would like to get this as clear as possible.

[xthetenth]

The volcanoes had propulsion, and being the top of volcanoes started out high so they probably gained energy from the change in potential. Now if we were to chuck the shells off a cliff it might work, but doing it at sea level wouldn't.

high in relation to what? what`s the sea level in Hell? what`s the value of g there and in heaven? how great is that for a change of potential? how the propulsion of lava from a volcano is different from the propulsion of a shell due to gravity? aren`t those both kinetic energy?
Why the energy and matter that goes through a portal to a place outside the reference frame of the universe where physics operate must abide to those physics? maybe the law of conservation of energy holds true at both sides of a portal, but not through a portal.
I mean, consider that you launch the shell at sea level. It trades potential energy for kinetic as it loses height and gains speed, right? now launch that through a portal. Upon entering the portal, the object holds a certain kinetic energy, but as it emerges in another dimension/reality/universe/whatever, the height, understanding as such the distance of the object to the center of gravity that operates on it, is determined by the position of the portal. As there has no been evidence of difficulty in opening portals in disparate places, which couldnt possibly all be in places with the same gravity gradient in every ocassion, I would pressume that potential energy is not conserved by travelling through a portal.
The physical impossibility of this can be the reason why someone can`t open a portal to the same universe he`s in, because THAT would violate a whole bunch of laws as explained by the sea level and shell bouncing examples earlier.

being a computer programmer I must say I havent bothered with a physics problem in quite a few years, since 2nd year of college. So everything said before is just something I guess can be right, but haven`t been thoroughly thought.

High in relation to Detroit (on a river, no less) and yes, to Hell sea level, it almost must be by any sane form of geology, especially somewhere like Hell. Also, g must be somewhere pretty close to 9.81 m/s, otherwise mention would've been made (which kind of seems to me like the place has been designed for us, but I digress), thereby giving us enough potential difference that the magma that touches the portal will go through. And yes, that might make sense if some seriously heavy wizardry is going on behind the scenes of portals. And yes, that would make a great deal of sense if the portals are affected by gravity, but it doesn't directly give us potential energy unless the things have altimiters. And we're pretty sure that it's a difference in potential energy doing the slowing down from the planes example. I'd kill for some word of stuart about how it actually works, just because I really can't see a way for it to do so.

Dammit, here I go again, this is why I can't be safely trusted to watch or read semi-realistic stuff. At least dealing with stuff like 40k the nagging doubts are catatonic from shock.

[Sea Skimmer]

Point. I'd noticed needing to go 20km to get to a destination, but I'd missed the two km street width. The equivalent on a human scale, I think, would be the National Mall? Does that sound about right?

I checked via Google earth. The National Mall is about 2.15km from the Washington Monument to the steps of Congress, and about 1.28km from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to the Washington Monument. The Oval Office to the Washington Monument is about .9km. The entire District of Columbia is a square, roughly, about 16x16km.

[darksoul]

The volcanoes had propulsion, and being the top of volcanoes started out high so they probably gained energy from the change in potential. Now if we were to chuck the shells off a cliff it might work, but doing it at sea level wouldn't.

high in relation to what? what`s the sea level in Hell? what`s the value of g there and in heaven? how great is that for a change of potential? how the propulsion of lava from a volcano is different from the propulsion of a shell due to gravity? aren`t those both kinetic energy?
Why the energy and matter that goes through a portal to a place outside the reference frame of the universe where physics operate must abide to those physics? maybe the law of conservation of energy holds true at both sides of a portal, but not through a portal.
I mean, consider that you launch the shell at sea level. It trades potential energy for kinetic as it loses height and gains speed, right? now launch that through a portal. Upon entering the portal, the object holds a certain kinetic energy, but as it emerges in another dimension/reality/universe/whatever, the height, understanding as such the distance of the object to the center of gravity that operates on it, is determined by the position of the portal. As there has no been evidence of difficulty in opening portals in disparate places, which couldnt possibly all be in places with the same gravity gradient in every ocassion, I would pressume that potential energy is not conserved by travelling through a portal.
The physical impossibility of this can be the reason why someone can`t open a portal to the same universe he`s in, because THAT would violate a whole bunch of laws as explained by the sea level and shell bouncing examples earlier.

being a computer programmer I must say I havent bothered with a physics problem in quite a few years, since 2nd year of college. So everything said before is just something I guess can be right, but haven`t been thoroughly thought.

High in relation to Detroit (on a river, no less) and yes, to Hell sea level, it almost must be by any sane form of geology, especially somewhere like Hell. Also, g must be somewhere pretty close to 9.81 m/s, otherwise mention would've been made (which kind of seems to me like the place has been designed for us, but I digress), thereby giving us enough potential difference that the magma that touches the portal will go through. And yes, that might make sense if some seriously heavy wizardry is going on behind the scenes of portals. And yes, that would make a great deal of sense if the portals are affected by gravity, but it doesn't directly give us potential energy unless the things have altimiters. And we're pretty sure that it's a difference in potential energy doing the slowing down from the planes example. I'd kill for some word of stuart about how it actually works, just because I really can't see a way for it to do so.

Dammit, here I go again, this is why I can't be safely trusted to watch or read semi-realistic stuff. At least dealing with stuff like 40k the nagging doubts are catatonic from shock.

ok, let`s define a model here. your portaling assumes that a portal must abide by normal rules of energy conservation as known now. Therefore launching something through a portal cant magically inject energy into the object, or radiations, for that matter, as portals doesnt emit light nor heat, and it means that, for example, attacking a target in a mountain means that either you drop the shells from a higher mountain, or impulse it fast enough so the kinetic energy of the projectile can make up for the height it must traverse in the other side.
Now, on the sea level thing... Potential energy is all a matter of reference frames. An object has potential energy, if I recall correctly, described by mgh. now, g actually changes with h. We are assuming h = 0 and g= 9.8 for the sea level measurement, but the reference frame can move to everything we like, say, for example, the point of encounter with the portal, moment in which the object ceases to exist in our plane. therefore measuring from a point farther down the portal or above it is not trivial, while considering the portal the sea level of this system simplifies calculation. So, assuming this, we launch an object, mass m, from height h relative to the portal. the object hits the portal, and vanishes. IT VANISHES from reality, without dissipating the energy it has in lighting, heat, movement or anything else. It takes that energy with it.
So, on the other side, the object appears. If we assume that energy conserves, it comes with the kinetic energy it gained by using its potential energy relative to the portal. now, on this side, the portal is in a higher altitude, meaning by that that the object would hold more energy than when it came into the portal, because it would hold the energy of its movement plus the new potential energy it just gained by the portal height. That is the paradox, right? Where did that energy came from?
It can be resolved in three ways that I see:
- physics laws doesnt apply to object going through portals. the energy conserves in both sides, but not in passing. I agree it`s a tough one to swallow, that.
- portals in such situations can`t be opened. it would require to check all portals opened in the novels for consistency, but might work.
- portals opened with such energy gradients must provide the surplus energy object gains from the effort of the generators or beings that open and maintain them. i even believe some of this was mentioned in regard of the portals being easier to open from Hell, and even an energy gradient of sorts was mentioned, a LOONG time ago. Problem with this is, where does the huge, self sustaining portals draws energy from to keep open?

Also, is there resistance to go through a portal? it doesn`t seem to be any atmospheric exchange between hell and earth, or hell and heaven, which would be very noticeable, but objects going through are not paused. Is this some kind of smart detection by the portal, or the portals act like some kind of membrane, strong enough to impede brownian movement to impulse molecules through, but not to impede the passing of something more massive (meaning, more energetic).
Well, I see why scientists in TSW are cracking their heads open on this. It`s hard to encompass.
It`s ironic we need word of God to clarify a concept on a novel that is all about contradicting the word of God itself.

[westrim]

Basically remember the simple principle of, "Fast In, Fast Out".

Energetic in, energetic out.

I prefer the Portal version of "speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out," myself.

[GrayAnderson]

Regarding the fetuses and their status in Hell: didn't Stuart say that he'd reconsidered using them?

This wouldn't surprise me. That's a moment that could run into serious issues with sales. I know the series is a walking controversy, but that's the sort of things that do raise hackles. I know that there was a literary purpose, but I could also see someone getting ill from reading it and him losing readers.

[xthetenth]

Basically remember the simple principle of, "Fast In, Fast Out".

Energetic in, energetic out.

I prefer the Portal version of "speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out," myself.

Potential energy is energy too! Waiiiit, how in the hell does electrical potential energy get accounted for? Now with that there is no way to have the portals be perpendicular to the force causing them and do the same for gravity. I think it's time to declare deep wizardry is happening and move on. Managing to keep all energy constant through a portal makes this sound like there's a real god and he loves his fiddly mechanics to me, and if not we get perpetual motion machines. Now I guess I have a new hobby of trying to make portals work. Maybe gravity is accompanied by some unseen force that's proportional to the inverse of the radius rather than the square of the radius that acts on portals and likewise for the other forces, so the gravity component of the energy 'location' of a portal is determined by constant * m / r integrated across all matter in the universe. Hell, that makes sense to me, and it's just about the only way for it to work. I wonder if there's any other phenomena that could be used to measure this hypothetical force. Now to see if I can make a crazy rationale for it scaling with the radius (remembering exactly why gravity scales with the inverse of the square would be a good start), probably our best bet is how it isn't actual energy but the 'location' in energy space (using the rubber sheet warped space model of potential energy, basically the height).

[Internet Warrior]

I really don't think Micheal is going to get charged with anything. You're forgetting that the only people who actually know the details of the plot were members of Micheal's trusted inner circle. And he can just say that the drugged food was a part of his scheme to try and recruit Lemuel for the coup, which is perfectly reasonable. There is no way in Hell that anyone is going to be able to figure that shit out. And a lot of people here are also forgetting that Abigor, who nobody in the Earth hierarchy has any problems with, oversaw the torture of countless humans over a span of thousands of years and became the puppet ruler Hell after leading a massive Demon army against human forces in Iran, getting his ass handed to him by artillery and heavy tanks, and then surrendering. Micheal, on the other hand, created one concentration camp, which lasted for a few weeks, and engineered it's liberation as part of a plan to end the war with as little damage to heaven as possible. Even if Micheal is ratted out he isn't just going to get lined up against the wall and shot.

Also, I have to agree with PaperJack on the Norse Pantheon. They never claimed to be Gods, never demanded that anyone worship them, and generally acted the least dickish of all the known pantheons.
And then there's the story where Thor stayed with a peasant family while traveling, they offered him the soup they had and he refused and killed his own goats for a meat dinner. In the morning he resurrected the goats and left them with about two years worth of salted meat, and then he took their with him after he gave a goat a limp by snapping one of it's leg bones to suck out the marrow, he travels with Thor for a while while Thor teaches him the art of solving all of life's problems with various amounts of hammering and the sends him back home at the end of the story. And the reason he's traveling in the first place is because Asgard was out of beer. He ends the journey with a duel with a giant over a hollowed out horn filled with an endless supply of beer and using his hammer to make a Vally.

Because that's how the Aesir roll.

[yaque]

I just read an article in the last Scientific American where they talk about conservation laws.
They are NOT really fundamental.
It seems that they apply only where there are symmetries.
For example momentum is conserved because direction is symmetrical.
(the laws of physics don't give different results depending on the direction of movement)

Conservation of energy depends on time symmetry,
(or rather space-time)

(the laws of physics don't care about the "direction" of time - time's "arrow":
negative values works just as well in the equations)

And since the universe is expanding (changing the curvature of space-time over time)
energy is NOT conserved since the Big Bang, therefore red shift (photons loose energy).

This is relevant to our bubble-universes:
Conservation of energy is not required when you screw around with space-time, which the portals necessarily do.
Since the bubble-verses are contracting,
(and their space-(time?) is also heavily distorted)
energy might even be not be conserved within them.
(Ah, that would also neatly explain energy being "created" by their contraction)

Also, I would think that artillery trajectory computers would have to be heavily re-programmed. (I think this was mentioned)
Energy, momentum and angular momentum might not be completely conserved, in addition to the spatial distortions. (and time ... ?)

[weemadando]

Regarding the fetuses and their status in Hell: didn't Stuart say that he'd reconsidered using them?

This wouldn't surprise me. That's a moment that could run into serious issues with sales. I know the series is a walking controversy, but that's the sort of things that do raise hackles. I know that there was a literary purpose, but I could also see someone getting ill from reading it and him losing readers.

On just how complex and nasty that issue is - from a ways back in the thread (p87 or so) - a question that I raised that I don't think anyone wants to answer:

Actually, it's been stated that people who die young do age (more slowly than normal) up until they reach somewhere around middle age. So children will get the chance to grow up now that demons aren't eating them anymore. Though now that I'm thinking about it, I have to wonder if that applies to the results of miscarriages and abortions...

Thanks for the info. I don't remember reading that. Was it in the discussion for Armageddon??? or the first 40 chapters of Pantheocide? I remember reading that people who died old would be put back in younger bodies (women pre-menopause and men in 50's) but not that they aged after that. If that's the case, I don't see why that wouldn't apply for abortions (spontaneous or induced.) But how the underdeveloped fetuses and embryos survive is something that sounds pretty damned squicky to me.

How much of that situation is even public knowledge now? I know that I deliberately skirted the issue in the draft I sent to Stuart because I wasn't sure what the plan was. We know that people can survive in hell without food, water etc so it would be possible for them to survive without the massive interventions required for premature babies in reality. So is there somewhere a massive, deeply covert facility where all the fetuses etc go to mature before being released as "newborns"/"third trimester miscarriage" cases?