Hello, long-time Salvation War lurking reader and first-time poster here. I was finally convinced to make an account here to post by, of all things, the discussion on bicycles. You'd have thought that regular readers of TSW, if anybody, would have learned to start
thinking in portals by now....
I'm sure the bicycle industry proposed by Uncluttered could very well not just work, but thrive massively like it never has before,
given a parallel ramp-up in mass production of portal generators, to the point where every small town/suburb can have at least one civilian-spec generator along with a sensitive to operate it. You may have larger permanent portals for certain key installations such as powerplants, harbours etc. etc., while large cities may have several such perma-portals scattered all around in several sectors for accessibility (one per current subway station would be a start).
With Yahweh gone, the
will have a bunch of temples that they now have no use for; requisition a sufficiently large one (which shouldn't be an issue given the size these temples need to be to house congregations of
), plant portal beacons in a set grid layout, and have generators all over the country aimed at said beacons.
Voila, you have the portal version of Grand Central Station writ large overnight. Americans all over the country just need to bike to the local portal station every morning, transit to Grand Central America (Heaven), bike to the portal which will deposit them at the city subway station nearest to the workplace (enjoying the fresh air of Heaven along the way; this is why you don't put said Grand Central in Hell, incidentally
), work through a 1-2 mile commute at most, and be at work in about an hour, tops.
And that's just America. The Eternal City, if it's as big as I'm thinking, should certainly have enough abandoned temples to spare as converted transit interchanges for every country on Earth. Since Yahweh's temple is probably the biggest, you'll probably have to reserve that one for the PRC folks, given the sheer volume of manpower the Chinese will have to go through every day.
And there you have it. The streets of First World cities will come to resemble cleaner, more orderly versions of the streets of Beijing a decade ago, the average health of the world population will probably see a trend of increase, automobile fuel costs will cease to be an issue for the average First-World household, the already-ailing Detroit automobile industry will probably disappear overnight (or converted to military purposes, who knows), and said automobiles will be relegated to mass cargo movers, ambulances, fire engines, and racing hobbyists in time. The premier motorsports event will shift from the exorbitant F1 Grand Prix to the Tour de Heaven, with Second-Lifer Lance Armstrong winning the championship title for the umpteenth year running. The Stig would probably be rollin' in his grave about this time, if he can't be found in Hell somewhere.
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