The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Eighty One Up

[Jim Starluck]

The lake not having a bottom is very interesting. I remember reading a description of Hell that says digging deep enough will have you going out somewhere else in Hell.
What if this lake does that? After a point, instead of going deeper, you start going up.
Yahweh's corpse might refloat eventually.

Nah, he'll likely just hit midway and get caught in a gravity trap where he's constantly spinning. THAT would be funny to see.

Does that mean he'd effectively be spinning in his grave?

[Edward Yee]

I mean over Michael-lan-Michael, Ilya.

[Ilya Muromets]

You are a cruel man, Mr. Yee. Michael doesn't deserve that.

Well, okay, he kinda does; but letting Grace at 'im would still be cruel.

[darksoul]

Just wondering, but how large is the lake (distance across, etc.)? I'm trying to think of RL cases of deep lakes that would be similar (Lake Tahoe leaps to mind as being over a thousand feet deep; ditto Crater Lake). Also, unless the shore drops off at 90 degrees or near to it (which I know does happen IRL...there's a case of this in the Cayman Islands by one of the smaller islands), something should show up on the scan, even if it's just a really deep slope.

Maybe the lake is artificial, but the angels don`t know it, because it was made before their time.

That would account for the slope, the bottomlessness, and, if there is, the sharp angles. It would also explain why there is firm land around such a massive water body without it leaking naturally and swamping the whole city in the millenia it has been there.

[nobody_really]

The lake not having a bottom is very interesting. I remember reading a description of Hell that says digging deep enough will have you going out somewhere else in Hell.
What if this lake does that? After a point, instead of going deeper, you start going up.
Yahweh's corpse might refloat eventually.

Nah, he'll likely just hit midway and get caught in a gravity trap where he's constantly spinning. THAT would be funny to see.

Does that mean he'd effectively be spinning in his grave?

No, I don't think he's spinning, because then it seems like Yahweh would be a perpetual motion machine, and those have been ruled out.

[Nematocyst]

Wouldn't that be godly, though?

[darksoul]

Wouldn't that be godly, though?

it would be special, most certainly. At least the man will still be the center of attention... although somehow I don't think this is the way he pictured it.

[GrayAnderson]

Just wondering, but how large is the lake (distance across, etc.)? I'm trying to think of RL cases of deep lakes that would be similar (Lake Tahoe leaps to mind as being over a thousand feet deep; ditto Crater Lake). Also, unless the shore drops off at 90 degrees or near to it (which I know does happen IRL...there's a case of this in the Cayman Islands by one of the smaller islands), something should show up on the scan, even if it's just a really deep slope.

Maybe the lake is artificial, but the angels don`t know it, because it was made before their time.

That would account for the slope, the bottomlessness, and, if there is, the sharp angles. It would also explain why there is firm land around such a massive water body without it leaking naturally and swamping the whole city in the millenia it has been there.

Well, let's assume for a moment that it's natural. The sheer size could easily allow for a great deal of depth naturally, especially if there's not much of anything draining into it to fill it up with sediment. A natural caldera with the ridges worn down by nature or design could serve the role, depending on the shape.

A side-question: What are erosive forces like in Heaven, and are there any major oceans/seas other than this lake?

[Ilya Muromets]

On a related tangent, have there ever been any mention of seas and oceans in Heaven? For all we know, Heaven's major bodies of water are all landlocked. Nothing but huge lakes and rivers draining into them.

[Edward Yee]

You are a cruel man, Mr. Yee.

You don't know the half of it...

Michael doesn't deserve that.

Well, okay, he kinda does; but letting Grace at 'im would still be cruel.

I actually meant with her very firmly on his side, as Chapter 80 shows even in the face of her seeming to take Lemuel at face value that Michael got him and Maion hooked on heroin (for which Grace treated them) and probably that that led to Maion's prostitution... I wonder if she'd change her mind if she knew about Michael-lan's link to the concentration camp? So far the signs aren't encouraging on that front, considering that she explicitly just told her actual patient that he's less important (to her?) than Michael-lan-Michael is.

It'd be astoundingly ironic if such adherence to the "our bastard" principle ends up being the problem for Humanity come Lords of War, especially considering General Petraeus' own IRL guidance on COIN. (This is the only story I'm aware of quoting it, as its Combined Arms Center version requires a log-in and the Small Wars Journal has taken down its post on the subject, saying that the Guidance was "prematurely released.")

[rdfox2]

Didn't Stuart say that the Lake is several hundred miles across? I mean, it'd pretty much have to be to have room for multiple CVSGs, since I know that, back in the 80s, those were supposed to each control a 350 mile radius around the carrier. (Granted, in this situation, I'd have mixed-and-matched the air wings and combined the groups into two- or three-CV units, with one providing air cover while the others are set up for strike muscle, but that's just me, the Navy would probably prefer to maintain the flexibility of operating them independently.)

If so, then there's two other possibilities--it could be like the Great Lakes (maximum depth about 800 feet in the middle of Superior) writ large, or it could be more like a miniature version of the ocean, complete with a continental shelf and abyssal dropoff at the edge of it, though I'm not sure about the geological processes involved.

I'm honestly not sure that Stuart could tell us how deep the Turner Joy's sonar could work as a fathmometer--assuming there's no thermal layers, that would pretty much reveal the maximum detection range on its active mode, and that's about as black as the total radiated power of the current model SPY-1.

Not that it really matters until you're close inshore, anyway, since, as soon as it's deeper than about 75 feet or so, the exact depth of the bottom is only important to oceanographers, cartographers, and submariners. Ironically, unless the harbor facilities themselves in Bermuda are still useful, the exact location of the portal on Earth may have been a bit of a mistake, as, until such time as we can build proper piers and jetties, naval forces in Heaven will be limited to UNREP and VERTREP operations, and there's some stuff that you just can't transfer underway...

(As a side note, I'm on a bit of a naval-themed road trip vacation right now, and on today's agenda is getting the bus tour of Norfolk Naval Station. With at least the Eisenhower and the Bush both in port right now, I fully expect to get the same "By Newport News, those aren't ships, they're BUILDINGS!" reaction Ohalam had when we make the pass down the pierside... very nearly had it with the North Carolina down in Wilmington yesterday!)

[rdfox2]

Didn't Jamie once mention that he knew some guys in the military? Maybe said strings were pulled.

Well, for one myth they DID managed to get a Gatling gun with ammo, and don't forget they also manage to get lots of explosives...

And, belatedly (due to the aforementioned road trip), I can fill a few things in... the Gatling gun they got their hands on several times was at the site where they do most of their full-auto work, Dillon Aero's test range in Arizona. I'm not sure about the M60, Ma Deuce, and Thompson they've used there, but the Gatling is an M134 Minigun retained by Dillon (the manufacturer) as a test and demonstration piece. Their explosives (when not explained in the episode) come from either FBI, ATF, or state or county police bomb squads, who use their blasts as training exercises afterwards. So unless they need military contacts to use the old Alameda Naval Air Station, Mare Island Naval Shipyard, and the old condemned sailor ghetto next to them, all the stuff they've used on the show is stuff that they could get with industry and police contacts instead of military ones. (The mentioned tanks--actually, an M113 variant I'd never seen before with a large-bore gun, and an M551 Sheridan--were from a private collection, so again, no military contacts needed.)

Then again, for the "sonic boom" episode, they *did* work with the Blue Angels, so who knows? I know that the airplane models hanging on the wall of M5 are the effects models from "Top Gun" (a "MiG-28" and what appears to be a Tomcat that had the starboard engine blown up by a missile hit), so one of them might have made contacts from that F/X job.

[Stuart]

Holy fuck, the goddamn Scout Rangers? They were one of the special operations teams who sneaked into the City beforehand? That was unexpected, but not unpleasant. Also makes me wonder what strings were pulled to get them there. I also find it ironic how Captain Villaflor was ribbing the Marines about being late when one of the biggest self-depreciating jokes in the Philippines is about "Filipino time"--we're always late!

They were indeed one of the teams that did a sneaky in (especially sneaky since the Philippine contingent was one of those forces held back to defend Earth in case the angels did an end-run). The gibe about the marines being late was indeed an in-joke about Philippine Time.

how large is the lake (distance across, etc.)? I'm trying to think of RL cases of deep lakes that would be similar (Lake Tahoe leaps to mind as being over a thousand feet deep; ditto Crater Lake). Also, unless the shore drops off at 90 degrees or near to it (which I know does happen IRL...there's a case of this in the Cayman Islands by one of the smaller islands), something should show up on the scan, even if it's just a really deep slope.

It's 100 kilometers long, 50 kilometers wide and unknown depth (certainly more than 8,000 meters). Whether it has a bottom or whether it comes out somewhere else is unknown at this time. However, exploring it is likely to be one of the more interesting research programs once peace is established.

Oh by the way, to clarify, Yahweh, Satan and Uriel were brothers (Yahweh being the oldest while Uriel was the youngest) and were angel-daemons although an unusually large and powerful kind. That means there has to be mummy and daddy out there somewhere. It's highly questionable whether angel-daemons were the original inhabitants of Heaven; they certainly were not of Hell.

Not if Grace has her way...

Remember Grace has no real authority outside her ward or treating her patients. What she says goes, but only when she says it in her ward. So, the Lemuel/Michael confrontation is still on, it just won't take place until Lemuel is out of hospital.

[Erra]

You know, I think there should be a new name for angel-daemons. And it would apply to both of them, since daemons are more of a sub-species of angel. It would be especially helpful once (if what Stuart is hinting at comes to fruitiion in LoW) other species of outworlders start showing up and stirring up shit, you know, instead of angels, big angels, and really big angels, etc. Humans in story are probably pretty sick of the whole angel daemon names anyway, considering the history. If we're forcing science on the pricks, we should start naming things scientifically, or at least differentially from the historical names.

But IANAS so I leave that to you sciency folks.

[impatrick4life]

You know, I think there should be a new name for angel-daemons. And it would apply to both of them, since daemons are more of a sub-species of angel. It would be especially helpful once (if what Stuart is hinting at comes to fruitiion in LoW) other species of outworlders start showing up and stirring up shit, you know, instead of angels, big angels, and really big angels, etc. Humans in story are probably pretty sick of the whole angel daemon names anyway, considering the history. If we're forcing science on the pricks, we should start naming things scientifically, or at least differentially from the historical names.

But IANAS so I leave that to you sciency folks.

Yahweh-class: Homo angelus presertim
Michael-class: Homo angelus maximus

And so on.

*EDIT: added Homo to the front*

[Arachnidus]

You know, I think there should be a new name for angel-daemons. And it would apply to both of them, since daemons are more of a sub-species of angel. It would be especially helpful once (if what Stuart is hinting at comes to fruitiion in LoW) other species of outworlders start showing up and stirring up shit, you know, instead of angels, big angels, and really big angels, etc. Humans in story are probably pretty sick of the whole angel daemon names anyway, considering the history. If we're forcing science on the pricks, we should start naming things scientifically, or at least differentially from the historical names.

But IANAS so I leave that to you sciency folks.

Species wise, considering Humans, Angels and Daemons all come from a root ancestor, the names would be Homo Angelus and Homo Everto. At least, that's how I'd see it.

[impatrick4life]

You know, I think there should be a new name for angel-daemons. And it would apply to both of them, since daemons are more of a sub-species of angel. It would be especially helpful once (if what Stuart is hinting at comes to fruitiion in LoW) other species of outworlders start showing up and stirring up shit, you know, instead of angels, big angels, and really big angels, etc. Humans in story are probably pretty sick of the whole angel daemon names anyway, considering the history. If we're forcing science on the pricks, we should start naming things scientifically, or at least differentially from the historical names.

But IANAS so I leave that to you sciency folks.

Species wise, considering Humans, Angels and Daemons all come from a root ancestor, the names would be Homo Angelus and Homo Everto. At least, that's how I'd see it.

Yeah, actually, you're right. I forgot the common ancestry bit. So slap Homo in front of what I said >_>

[Arachnidus]

You know, I think there should be a new name for angel-daemons. And it would apply to both of them, since daemons are more of a sub-species of angel. It would be especially helpful once (if what Stuart is hinting at comes to fruitiion in LoW) other species of outworlders start showing up and stirring up shit, you know, instead of angels, big angels, and really big angels, etc. Humans in story are probably pretty sick of the whole angel daemon names anyway, considering the history. If we're forcing science on the pricks, we should start naming things scientifically, or at least differentially from the historical names.

But IANAS so I leave that to you sciency folks.

Species wise, considering Humans, Angels and Daemons all come from a root ancestor, the names would be Homo Angelus and Homo Everto. At least, that's how I'd see it.

Yeah, actually, you're right. I forgot the common ancestry bit. So slap Homo in front of what I said >_>

Tee hee, you said homo .

But now that we're on the topic of the root ancestor, I guess it'd be whatever gave birth to Yah Yah, Uriel and Satan, no?

[Stuart]

You know, I think there should be a new name for angel-daemons. And it would apply to both of them, since daemons are more of a sub-species of angel. It would be especially helpful once (if what Stuart is hinting at comes to fruitiion in LoW) other species of outworlders start showing up and stirring up shit, you know, instead of angels, big angels, and really big angels, etc. Humans in story are probably pretty sick of the whole angel daemon names anyway, considering the history. If we're forcing science on the pricks, we should start naming things scientifically, or at least differentially from the historical names.

There would be two seperate names needed; a scientific name system (Probably Homo Angelus and Homo Daemonis to distinguish them from Homo Sapiens and also including a nice gibe at them).

There would also be a popular name. Daemons started off as demons, became the contemptuous Baldrick as they were the enemy and then the Baldrick name fell into disuse once they were defeated and the extent of the carnage we'd inflicted became apparent. Angels are still angels but it's apparent a new popular name would come up to cover both angels and daemons. It's an odd thing about nicknames and popular names, one can't really invent them. They sort of grow on their own. Open to suggestions here.

[Arachnidus]

You know, I think there should be a new name for angel-daemons. And it would apply to both of them, since daemons are more of a sub-species of angel. It would be especially helpful once (if what Stuart is hinting at comes to fruitiion in LoW) other species of outworlders start showing up and stirring up shit, you know, instead of angels, big angels, and really big angels, etc. Humans in story are probably pretty sick of the whole angel daemon names anyway, considering the history. If we're forcing science on the pricks, we should start naming things scientifically, or at least differentially from the historical names.

There would be two seperate names needed; a scientific name system (Probably Homo Angelus and Homo Daemonis to distinguish them from Homo Sapiens and also including a nice gibe at them).

There would also be a popular name. Daemons started off as demons, became the contemptuous Baldrick as they were the enemy and then the Baldrick name fell into disuse once they were defeated and the extent of the carnage we'd inflicted became apparent. Angels are still angels but it's apparent a new popular name would come up to cover both angels and daemons. It's an odd thing about nicknames and popular names, one can't really invent them. They sort of grow on their own. Open to suggestions here.

That's the thing, one can't really invent a popular name without it feeling somewhat misused. For the sake of retaining the social outgrowth idea, how about we look for nicknames for the angels that people have used in the thread? After all, I think I speak for us all when I say most readers will sympathize with the humans.

[darksoul]

You know, I think there should be a new name for angel-daemons. And it would apply to both of them, since daemons are more of a sub-species of angel. It would be especially helpful once (if what Stuart is hinting at comes to fruitiion in LoW) other species of outworlders start showing up and stirring up shit, you know, instead of angels, big angels, and really big angels, etc. Humans in story are probably pretty sick of the whole angel daemon names anyway, considering the history. If we're forcing science on the pricks, we should start naming things scientifically, or at least differentially from the historical names.

But IANAS so I leave that to you sciency folks.

Species wise, considering Humans, Angels and Daemons all come from a root ancestor, the names would be Homo Angelus and Homo Everto. At least, that's how I'd see it.

Yeah, actually, you're right. I forgot the common ancestry bit. So slap Homo in front of what I said >_>

Ok, so angels, demons and humans all descend from the same ancestor. what happen then to the long line of alleged human ancestors? the other Homo before the sapiens?

if the ancestor where before those, and the hominids known now are just the line of humanity, then ok, I suppose those are good names for them.

If the ancestor is more modern, and the other hominids are just failed experiments (which, given the similarities between homo sapiens and the UBers ,it's more likely than the other option) then the name should include sapiens somewhere around, to emphasize the sentient nature of all the subspecies.
So humans are homo sapiens sapiens, and angels are homo sapiens X, and demons are a branch of angels, so homo sapiens X Y.

Btw, the evolution of angels is a shaky argument. Angels shouldnt be able to get to their physiques by the process of evolution as we know it. That would require A LOT of generations (which is OK in the baldrick speciation case, since it is said that baldricks have a noticeably higher rate of birth and death than angels ) but Uriel, for one, sports the same physique than younger, more evolved ones. So, if evolution took place before Uriel`s birth, then angels evolved before human race existed, and as such they aren`t in the same evolutionary path. Or the common ancestor is Older Than Dirt, and the conceptualization of evolution as we know it was just a lucky shot with false evidence to a phenomena we can`t actually prove on our own species (well, on our own phylum, now), because all the missing links are, well, missing.
That, or the stargate, star trek theory of a super race seeding humanoids in the Multiverse for some reason eons ago.
take your pick...

About yahwe`s parents.... yeah, until told otherwise, I`m going to add parricide to the long list of crimes of our charming little boy there. Perhaps that`s the secret that bound Uriel to Yahwe in the first place...

[Erra]

You know, I think there should be a new name for angel-daemons. And it would apply to both of them, since daemons are more of a sub-species of angel. It would be especially helpful once (if what Stuart is hinting at comes to fruitiion in LoW) other species of outworlders start showing up and stirring up shit, you know, instead of angels, big angels, and really big angels, etc. Humans in story are probably pretty sick of the whole angel daemon names anyway, considering the history. If we're forcing science on the pricks, we should start naming things scientifically, or at least differentially from the historical names.

There would be two seperate names needed; a scientific name system (Probably Homo Angelus and Homo Daemonis to distinguish them from Homo Sapiens and also including a nice gibe at them).

There would also be a popular name. Daemons started off as demons, became the contemptuous Baldrick as they were the enemy and then the Baldrick name fell into disuse once they were defeated and the extent of the carnage we'd inflicted became apparent. Angels are still angels but it's apparent a new popular name would come up to cover both angels and daemons. It's an odd thing about nicknames and popular names, one can't really invent them. They sort of grow on their own. Open to suggestions here.

That's pretty much what I was getting at, though you said it a lot better. Scientifically, they're different (also common ancestor, etc) but popularly we should have a name that covers both that is separate from the traditional biblical names.

I have a couple of thoughts as to possibilities, but they're not fully flushed out yet, and as its been said, its hard to spontaneously create what is supposed to be a "popularly evolving" term/idea, or meme, if you will.

Edit: Personally, I think it should be similar to humans, to relfect the common ancestry and, more recently, the cohabitation, but it should be different enough to relfect their otherly universal origins. To that end, I think it should be something sharing the same suffix as human, so "something"-an.

[Commander Xillian]

How about whirlies?

Just, cause, ya know, there's really nothing better to bring up.

[Ilya Muromets]

Well, we've got Baldricks, so why not George (plural, Georgies maybe)? Or if you wanna go for the older seasons, Percy.

[Erra]

Lets see, if we go the etymology route, the word human derives from pre-Germanic and Latin words for "earth," so if we go the opposite way (Yin Yang thing again) and use "sky" or "heaven" and trace it back, we get words like caelestis or caelum. So they could be "Caelans" or some derivative of that.

Somewhat ironically, the words "heaven" "sky" and "hide" or "conceal" have similar etymological histories, pre-germanic gives us khudiz and the prefix (s)keu- which means to cover or conceal. So Skeuans or Khudians are other options. Or we could combine caelum and khudiz and have something like Khulans. Again, this is just a rough etymological route for potential names. I'm sure there are much better ideas out there.