Armageddon???? (Part Fifty Up)

[phongn]

I hope the Demons can pull some badassery out and get their act together; it would be a shame if the War with Hell was a walkover.

I was thinking about the same thing - it would, frankly, be kind of boring if this was a terrible curbstomp against the forces of Heaven and Hell.

[hongi]

I suspect the invasion of Hell would get bogged down in all sorts of trouble proper. It's the demon's home territory of course. I wonder about the logistics of it all. We'll have to ship in water and food through the portal (it's going to be an awesome battle when the demons try to destroy the beachhead) as well as ammo...

I wonder if Hell even has the right atmosphere for humans?

[Darth Fanboy]

I hope the Demons can pull some badassery out and get their act together; it would be a shame if the War with Hell was a walkover.

I was thinking about the same thing - it would, frankly, be kind of boring if this was a terrible curbstomp against the forces of Heaven and Hell.

You could look at it that way, or you could look at it from my point of view and enjoy watching the power of science and humankind butcher magic and mythology.

[Chris OFarrell]

Hells best weapon is its mobility IMO.

In any kind of standup fight, the legions of hell are just doomed.
Yes I know they are the doomed legions of hell, but I mean REALLY doomed.

They don't have the firepower, flexibility or doctrine to handle the modern world.

Now if they think more as TERRORISTS, then things get a whole butload more nasty. A platoon of baldricks appear in a crowded area of downtown NYC with the order to grab as many women the children as possible, take them back to hell, rape and torture the hell out of them then dump the bodies back a few days later, with a note saying that X Y or Z city is going to be next....

What the hell do you do about THAT?

[Darth Fanboy]

What the hell do you do about THAT?

Simple, arm the populace. Texas has been preparing for this eventuality for years.

[Beowulf]

I suspect the invasion of Hell would get bogged down in all sorts of trouble proper. It's the demon's home territory of course. I wonder about the logistics of it all. We'll have to ship in water and food through the portal (it's going to be an awesome battle when the demons try to destroy the beachhead) as well as ammo...

I wonder if Hell even has the right atmosphere for humans?

Well, it at least has oxygen, since the Predator flew just fine in there.

[CaptainChewbacca]

I suspect the invasion of Hell would get bogged down in all sorts of trouble proper. It's the demon's home territory of course. I wonder about the logistics of it all. We'll have to ship in water and food through the portal (it's going to be an awesome battle when the demons try to destroy the beachhead) as well as ammo...

I wonder if Hell even has the right atmosphere for humans?

Well, it at least has oxygen, since the Predator flew just fine in there.

Is there something special about the Predator that requires oxygen as opposed to just 'air' to support its wings?

[White Haven]

Airbreathing engine, I believe. We're not talking about a sealed-system rocket here.

[Setesh]

Airbreathing engine, I believe. We're not talking about a sealed-system rocket here.

Quite true the rear facing propeller runs on a 4 cylinder engine, it burns more oxygen than we do breathing.
USAF factsheet

Our biggest problems in a 'War on Hell' are:
-Getting there, unless someone figures a way to copy the portals invading would be a one way suicide mission.

-Atmosphere, even though the Predator proves there's oxygen the story states there is a lot of sulfur and other volcanic gases that are really unhealthy to breath or even have prolonged contact with. Full environment suits are a must, as is swapping equipment with much higher corrosion resistance than standard milspec.

-Intelligence, We have no idea of the size or topography of hell. We don't know where any major targets are unless they happen to be right there when the portal opens.

-Logistics, A nightmare already for deep territory strikes on earth, but crossing dimesional boundries too?

-Morale, this is a place designed to torture the human psyche, unless the strike force is made of sociopaths the first batch of 'Souls of the Damned' is going to cause a large percentage to go into shock of some form or another. The psychological effects of liberating Nazi Death camps greatly multiplied.

An invasion seems untenable, chucking existing ordinance through however.

[Brain_Caster]

Hells best weapon is its mobility IMO.

In any kind of standup fight, the legions of hell are just doomed.
Yes I know they are the doomed legions of hell, but I mean REALLY doomed.

They don't have the firepower, flexibility or doctrine to handle the modern world.

Now if they think more as TERRORISTS, then things get a whole butload more nasty. A platoon of baldricks appear in a crowded area of downtown NYC with the order to grab as many women the children as possible, take them back to hell, rape and torture the hell out of them then dump the bodies back a few days later, with a note saying that X Y or Z city is going to be next....

What the hell do you do about THAT?

The question is, can they actually do that? Do they have the intelligence about Earth to find the targets? Do they have the ability to accurately open large portals at the right locations? Etc, etc...

Just like human technology has a number of limitations hell's forces will not know about, I would expect their own techniques to also have limitations and weaknesses that the humans know nothing about.
Of course you still got to plan for the worst case scenario, even if you can hope for the best, so I would indeed expect the world's nations to start arming their populace. Gun control in most of Europe probably went straight out of the window the moment the Baldricks appeared.
Also, considering the enormity of the threat, I would expect nearly all of humanity to try and moblize to World War levels of militarization ASAP.

[Stuart]

I hope the Demons can pull some badassery out and get their act together; it would be a shame if the War with Hell was a walkover.

I was thinking about the same thing - it would, frankly, be kind of boring if this was a terrible curbstomp against the forces of Heaven and Hell.

One advantage that the Hellish forces have has already been enumerated - sheer numbers. Abigor has close to half a million troops in his Army and its only a small proportion of the total numbers Hell can throw out. Another advantage is that the individual demons are quite hard to destroy; not as difficult as the heralds that started the battle going but tough. We'll see how the demons fight soon.

Humans have only limited quantities of munitions and missiles. We're beginning to address that in the part coming up.

What we're looking at here though is the different thought processes involved. The hellish forces are thinking "this is what it should be, this is how it should happen, this is what's supposed to be." The humans are thinking "what's going on? What's happening? What can we deduce from what we can see?" Stravo put his finger on the key part of Part Five - the way the humans sit down and try to make sense out of what they can see and work out what they can learn from the events unfolding before them.

It's the contrast between faith and science, this whole story is only peripherally about the war, its really comparing those two mind-sets and seeing where they lead when the chips are down. The hellish forces are thinking exactly the same way as the Young Earth Creationists; "this is the way we think it is and we don't care what rational analysis says about it"

[Sidewinder]

I hope the Demons can pull some badassery out and get their act together; it would be a shame if the War with Hell was a walkover.

One-sided massacres can be fun-- see "The Enterprise Vs. the Death Star" scenarios.

Anyways, I'd rather not read about a drawn out war. Vietnam and Iraq have already proven that they're not fun.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Is there something special about the Predator that requires oxygen as opposed to just 'air' to support its wings?

What exactly do you think jet engines burn their fuel in? Do you think F-18s can fly in the Jovian atmosphere?

[bilateralrope]

Our biggest problems in a 'War on Hell' are:
-Getting there, unless someone figures a way to copy the portals invading would be a one way suicide mission.

Only opening a portal could ensure easy access between the dimensions. Yet that same energy gradient meant that once a portal between the levels was opened, it would be very hard to close. Size also was a factor and this was the largest portal that had ever been created. Just how hard would it be to close again? Abigor had an uneasy feeling that nobody had thought to ask that question.

I have a feeling that this portal won't be closing.

[Beowulf]

Airbreathing engine, I believe. We're not talking about a sealed-system rocket here.

Quite true the rear facing propeller runs on a 4 cylinder engine, it burns more oxygen than we do breathing.
USAF factsheet

Our biggest problems in a 'War on Hell' are:
-Getting there, unless someone figures a way to copy the portals invading would be a one way suicide mission.

Covered, the portal they made themselves isn't likely to end up disappearing.

-Atmosphere, even though the Predator proves there's oxygen the story states there is a lot of sulfur and other volcanic gases that are really unhealthy to breath or even have prolonged contact with. Full environment suits are a must, as is swapping equipment with much higher corrosion resistance than standard milspec.

MOPP 4. Yay! The bigger problem is likely how to keep soldiers from keeling over from heat exhaustion. Pretty much every suit that will protect against the noxious air will also cause very severe levels of heat build up inside of the suit. Going to need something to cool them down with.

-Intelligence, We have no idea of the size or topography of hell. We don't know where any major targets are unless they happen to be right there when the portal opens.

Recon with Predators and other high altitude/fast aircraft.

-Logistics, A nightmare already for deep territory strikes on earth, but crossing dimesional boundries too?

Railhead at portal, followed with trucks. It's going to be less deep strike, and more take and hold.

-Morale, this is a place designed to torture the human psyche, unless the strike force is made of sociopaths the first batch of 'Souls of the Damned' is going to cause a large percentage to go into shock of some form or another. The psychological effects of liberating Nazi Death camps greatly multiplied.

*shrug* got nothing.

[CaptainChewbacca]

You know, along with a railhead, they could run a danged PIPELINE through that portal. Pump in air, water, and other good things to keep people running. Heck, if we figure out how to open portals, stick one end about 200 feet down in the arctic ocean. That'll cool hell pretty quickly.

[brianeyci]

I'm looking forward to Hell getting together all of Earth's greatest scumbag generals; could happen after Hell loses too many and gets desperate.

There could be Stalin, Hitler (although he might have gone to heaven in this story) Pol Pot... I want to see them all fighting over stupid shit.

Besides Nazi scientists I can't think of much that can help hell, and Hitler wasn't the architect of blitz but the German General Staff was, which was mostly not Nazi. Plus all the generals there are wouldn't help them build working bolt-action rifles or airplanes.

There could even be Osama .

[KlavoHunter]

Pssst, it's not just the scumbags who went to hell - just about *EVERYONE* who dies goes to hell, because the Angels are picky about their brainwashed Christians who sing praises for eternity.

[phongn]

It's the contrast between faith and science, this whole story is only peripherally about the war, its really comparing those two mind-sets and seeing where they lead when the chips are down. The hellish forces are thinking exactly the same way as the Young Earth Creationists; "this is the way we think it is and we don't care what rational analysis says about it"

I thought the war was only going to be a backdrop, personally, so I wasn't too worried on that part.

You could look at it that way, or you could look at it from my point of view and enjoy watching the power of science and humankind butcher magic and mythology.

Meh, it's just kind of boring to see that, from a story perspective. Fortunately, it doesn't seem to be going that way.

There could be Stalin, Hitler (although he might have gone to heaven in this story) Pol Pot... I want to see them all fighting over stupid shit.

Hitler may have believed, but I don't think he was faithful enough to quite head up to Heaven. And, well, with Stuart writing it, I'm pretty sure he's burning.

Besides Nazi scientists I can't think of much that can help hell, and Hitler wasn't the architect of blitz but the German General Staff was, which was mostly not Nazi. Plus all the generals there are wouldn't help them build working bolt-action rifles or airplanes.

Well, no, but I bet there are a lot of skilled workers in Hell. And as for the GGS, you might note their plan to invade France was not the blitz, but straight into the teeth of French defenses

[Wyrm]

Besides Nazi scientists I can't think of much that can help hell, and Hitler wasn't the architect of blitz but the German General Staff was, which was mostly not Nazi. Plus all the generals there are wouldn't help them build working bolt-action rifles or airplanes.

Well, no, but I bet there are a lot of skilled workers in Hell.

Except Hell is starting basically from the Bronze Age (maybe Iron Age). To get to the Modern Age, they'll need to build the tools that build the tools to build the tools... all in an environment built to be amenable to actually building those tools. There was a post a couple of pages back about that.

Then they have to train up to use the blasted things.

Not that they couldn't, but to get to that level in an interesting amount of time, they'd have to do some looting of the modern world. And they'd have to go after soft targets, as the hard targets are just too damn hard for them to crack.

[Firethorn]

There could be Stalin, Hitler (although he might have gone to heaven in this story) Pol Pot... I want to see them all fighting over stupid shit.

They aren't generals. Evil, yes. General? No.

Matter of fact, I'd LOVE to see them recruit Hitler. He was a crazy dumbass when it came to running the war. Lots of resources spent ineffectively, opening unnecessary fronts, etc...

edit: Oh yeah, and while Hell's legions might seem massive, I'll point out that the USA alone can call up around 2 million military in a fairly trivial amount of time.

China has much more than that as a standing army, if not as well equipped.

That's without counting Russia, Europe, or any of the other countries.

Give us a year and we could more than match hell's legions.

[fusion]

Nice chapter; however, wasn't there only 666 legions in the last chapter? Or did I forget?

[Beowulf]

Nice chapter; however, wasn't there only 666 legions in the last chapter? Or did I forget?

999 Legions.

[KlavoHunter]

Wasn't it 6,666 Legions?

[CaptainChewbacca]

Wasn't it 6,666 Legions?

2 chapters ago there's mention of the 999 legions of hell. Last chapter was 6,666. It could be the 999 is an elite force.