Chris OFarrell wrote:Then recently, we have a deligation of high ranking Angels and support staff who headed into hell, apparently for 'negotiations' who just MYSTERIOUSLY blew up? How? Humans? Yeah right, whatever, THATS likely. A disaffected Demon Duke? None would be crazy enough to break the rules on THAT level or invoke Satan's wraith.
No, they clearly sacrificed THEMSELVES in a very clever attempt to pin the blame on hell, providing cause for the Angels perhaps to openly side with the humans against hell, or perhaps provide more powerful weapons -like a B52 arc light mission- in retaliation...
I mean its just so perfectly clear, this is all a plot by Heaven to bleed Satan on Earth, so Heaven can finished him off in Hell!
Umm... when did the Angels blow up?!
Nitram, slightly high on cough syrup: Do you know you're beautiful?
Me: Nope, that's why I have you around to tell me.
Nitram: You -are- beautiful. Anyone tries to tell you otherwise kill them.
"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP" -- Leonard Nimoy, last Tweet
Darth Wong wrote:
If not, then I look forward to the arrival of Galactic Overlord Xenu's conquering forces. And Thor too.
I dont know about Thor but I suspect that a horde of DC-3's shouldn't be too difficult to dispatch. The one positive of Xenu's appearance would be the immediate incarceration of Tom Cruise.
Via money Europe could become political in five years" "... the current communities should be completed by a Finance Common Market which would lead us to European economic unity. Only then would ... the mutual commitments make it fairly easy to produce the political union which is the goal"
Darth Wong wrote:The angel who talked to Memnon also effortlessly kicked his ass when Memnon got uppity, and I believe it took quite a bit of firepower to kill him later.
I had thought that the angel used a bit of mind control on Memnon to do the dirty work of throwing him around; is it practicable for a being of that build to be able to exert that amount of physical force?
He did it with telekinesis, which we've also seen Satan use to mash lesser demons into pulp on several occassions. I'm provisionally assuming that most of the greater demons have this ability to some extent. One interesting (practical) question about TK is whether it conserves momentum.
Since the Middle East is one of the first places where agriculture was developed independently and really got going, I wouldn't be surprised if the angels and demons simply picked that spot for its high population density and never bothered with the rest of the world. They seem to have a rather low opinion of human prospects in general, so it wouldn't surprise me if they simply didn't give a damn about the rest of the population. Yawheh only needs certain kinds of individuals who he's managed to brainwash and Satan gets the rest by default, so they probably only focused on that one area.
I love learning. Teach me. I will listen. You know, if Christian dogma included a ten-foot tall Jesus walking around in battle armor and smashing retarded cultists with a gaint mace, I might just convert - Noble Ire on Jesus smashing Scientologists
For that matter, we may not even need arsenal ships at all. The USN already has somethuing like 7,000 VLS cells in the fleet and Western navies can add more. We don't need SM-2 to deal with the harpy threat. That system was designed for high sub-sonic and supersonic missiles and aircraft. Harpies are a touch slower. We have near total air supremacy as it is and a few cells of ESSM, along with RAM and Phalanx should deal with the few leakers. We also have plenty of submarine and aircraft TLAM capacity so we can fill nearly all the cells with POLAR at four per cell.
A billion dollars, even for all four, and six thousand men and women can be put to better use.
Starglider wrote:He did it with telekinesis, which we've also seen Satan use to mash lesser demons into pulp on several occassions. I'm provisionally assuming that most of the greater demons have this ability to some extent. One interesting (practical) question about TK is whether it conserves momentum.
If they can anchor themselves to something, then momentum conservation is not much of a problem (the momentum is transferred to the foundation of whatever they're anchoring themselves to).
"It's not evil for God to do it. Or for someone to do it at God's command."- Jonathan Boyd on baby-killing
"you guys are fascinated with the use of those "rules of logic" to the extent that you don't really want to discussus anything."- GC
"I do not believe Russian Roulette is a stupid act" - Embracer of Darkness
"Viagra commercials appear to save lives" - tharkûn on US health care.
“Pie Iesu domine, dona eis requiem.” The tramping of the feet, all in step, grew, and the first torchbearers appeared through the mist. Kim suppressed a gasp; they were not Baldricks. These were honest-to-God Cherubs, dressed in pure white that seemed to glow like pearl through the thin fog, and they were chanting something – was it Latin? Whatever it was, Kim had enough of a musical ear to note that the singing was perfect, the pitch exactly correct, the timing exquisite. She couldn’t have emulated it herself, when trying to sing, she hit all the right notes, she just hit them in the wrong order.
In the midst of the Cherubs – all chanting, all bearing torches, and all wearing swords at their sides – were greater humanoids head and shoulders taller than the others, with flawless skin and, damningly, white wings folded across their backs. “Mac, how many you count?” whispered Kim.
Aren't cherubs supposed to be winged beasts? Cause in the Psalms, God is described as sitting on one.
Darth Wong wrote:The angel who talked to Memnon also effortlessly kicked his ass when Memnon got uppity, and I believe it took quite a bit of firepower to kill him later.
I had thought that the angel used a bit of mind control on Memnon to do the dirty work of throwing him around; is it practicable for a being of that build to be able to exert that amount of physical force?
He did it with telekinesis, which we've also seen Satan use to mash lesser demons into pulp on several occassions. I'm provisionally assuming that most of the greater demons have this ability to some extent. One interesting (practical) question about TK is whether it conserves momentum.
TK is the straightforward interpretation, but given the theme that there is no magic, only science we don't understand, I'm hesitant to assume that angels have magic psychic powers when plausible alternate explanations exist. The technobabble for mind control stretches SoD far enough, IMO.
A Government founded upon justice, and recognizing the equal rights of all men; claiming higher authority for existence, or sanction for its laws, that nature, reason, and the regularly ascertained will of the people; steadily refusing to put its sword and purse in the service of any religious creed or family is a standing offense to most of the Governments of the world, and to some narrow and bigoted people among ourselves.
Since I hardly ever venture into this forum, I just spent all night reading from Part 1 to near the latest part (it's almost midnight, so time to hit the sack whether I want to or not if I want to be of any use at work) - I'm kicking myself for missing out this long.
As is usual with my job description, I was going to nitpick some Russia things, but Sea Skimmer beat me to the T-90S/ T-90A thing
So, some general thoughts:-
- There's a lot of focus on old aircraft being brought back into service. In the circumstances, Russia's huge amounts of aircraft retired post 1991 should get a mention, in particular the newest variants of each, which would be in the best condition and the easiest to take from storage to front line service:-
* MiG-21bis
* MiG-23 (MiG-23ML/MLD/BN/BK etC). Stocks of R-23/24 missiles would make this a virtual must, the R-27 stocks can only last so long, and the RuAF does not to date have their own R-77s.
* MiG-25PD/PDS (their ability to only carry four missiles, with no gun, might make this not worth the effort, but there must be large lumbers of R-40 missiles to use)
* MiG-27. This supersonic strike aircraft would be a perfect candidate, what with it's selection of rocket and gun pods along with the usual array of PGMs. Not to mention the huge GSh-6-30 of the MiG-27M.
* Su-17M4. Same story as the MiG-27. It's two wing-root 30mm cannons deserve special mention.
- It's somewhat unlikely that it'd be the Russians to liberally apply sabot rounds against demons, given that the primary loadout of Russian tanks is HEF, but it serves the story-telling purpose. That said, given that HEF is the majority loadout of all T-series tanks, it shouldn't be a problem for the future. The Ainet airburst round fusing system on the T-90 could be fun.
- The thought of mass Russian infantry platoons/ companies equipped with nothing but man-portable KORD heavy machine guns (bipod mounted), AGS-30 grenade launchers and RPG-7V2s with OG-7V 40mm fragmentation rounds ripping demons to shreds is delicious - the OG-7V is delightfully long-ranged and accurate compared to the normal PG-7VL and PG-7VR rounds that are standard armor piercing fare. Some GM-94 five-round, pump action 43mm grenade launchers (various options for that) wouldn't go astray either (or 6G-30 6-shot 40mm MGLs either, for that matter).
* Actually that's one thing that should see more distribution amongst US infantry - don't the USMC have Milkor MGLs?
- Ukraine and Russia could cooperate so that Ukraine can provide spares etc for Russia's decommed T-64 arsenal. Given the amount of T-72s, T-62s and T-55s, I'd be very surprised if they ever had to resort to T-34/85s, JS-2s (officially left service in 1995), ISU-52s, T-10s etc.
Had it been only two earth weeks ago? Then, his army had marched out, banners flying, horns, and trumpets blaring, drums thudding. A sight to stir the blood and induce martial ardor in all who saw it. A huge Army, 60 legions strong, 400,000 demons had sortied to defeat the humans. It was all supposed to have been so easy, so glorious. Trampling humanity underfoot, ravaging their cities, destroying their works and carrying their souls back in triumph to Hell.
And what was left now? How many of the 400,000 had made it back alive? Or even half-alive? 300? 400 at most and the majority were wounded, some so badly they would be little more than helpless children. Neither the humans nor their weapons had mercy, those who their weapons spared, they left crippled and feeble. The sounds were as appalling as the sight of the shattered fragment that was all that was left of his Army. No martial music, no bombastic speeches either. Just the wailing of the wounded and the bereaved. Abigor didn’t know which was worse, the cries of the wounded or the yowls of the females as they hunted through the survivors for their mates. Mostly those howls turned into screams of misery as they realized their mate was not on the tiny list of survivors, on rare occasions, the scream of relief was moderated, diluted, by the grief when they saw the awful wounds the humans had inflicted. Rare indeed for a mate to find her demon whole and untouched. Not one in tens of thousands.
Abigor heard the sobbing at his feet. A cavalryman was sitting down cross-legged on the ground, the head of his Beast in his lap. The cavalryman was badly wounded, his side laid open by fragments, but his Beast was dying. The fire in its angry red eyes was slowly dimming and the cause was obvious. The wound in its side was massive, blasted open and burned deep. A seeker lance had caused that, Abigor knew from seeing too many.
“Sire, he wouldn’t stop. I tried to make him stop and rest but he wouldn’t. He just kept going, carrying me back here. I did try to make him rest but he wouldn’t and now he’s dying.”
In this case, the Beast had shown better tactical common sense than its rider, Abigor reflected. If they had stopped, they’d have been caught and killed by the Iron Chariots. But it was true, the Beast had saved its riders life. “What is your name rider?”
“Visharakoramal Sire, of the Right Wing.”
“Visharakoramal, take your mate and go home. Go to somewhere quiet and remote where none who might seek would look and make your home there.” On the ground the light in the Beast’s eyes flickered and went out. It was dead. “Do not let his sacrifice be in vain. Take your mate and go home, when hundreds of thousands are dead, one more will not be noted.”
Visharakoramal nodded and gently laid the Beast’s head down, then took his mate and quietly left. Abigor looked around, catching another three figures coming through the hellmouth. Two demons carrying a third whose legs had been blown off, probably by one of the mage-bars the humans had scattered. That was new also, the sight of demons helping their wounded. They must have learned it from the humans, at Hit, Abigor had seen how many humans would risk their lives to rescue one of their own who was in trouble. He’d seen the great Iron Chariots go places and do unimaginable, terrible things to help one of their own. It was strange, exposure to the humans was changing the demons in ways other than the nightmare of the human’s crushing superiority in weaponry.
“Sire?”
Abigor turned. Behind him was a figure, not as great as he but still larger than the pitiful remnants of his Army. A Lesser Herald, but one whose wings were stunted and malformed.
“Sire I am Memnon, Lesser Herald. I have a message for His Infernal Majesty. May I accompany you to audience with him?”
An audience with Satan? Abigor shuddered, to relay the tale of this catastrophe was certain death. “You realize my company might bring you death? Who is your message from?”
“From Yahweh. And death I think, is the least of our problems.”
That was true, Abigor thought. It might be good to have company on this final walk. He found himself urgently wishing he’d died on the run to the hellmouth just a few hours ago.
Six hours earlier, Hellmouth, Western Iraq
Abigor crouched in the hollow. The hellmouth was clearly visible on the horizon, the impossible geometry glimmering black against the dark blue velvet of the predawn sky. For the umpteenth time that night – he hadn't slept; the quiet desert sounds kept startling him from any pretence of restfulness – he began to mull over the defeat, and stopped himself. There was just no way of explaining how the humans had become so powerful.
Sighing, he shook himself and peeked up; the huge portal was less than ten miles away. A straight run would get him there in less than an hour. He would cross through and – and then what? Report to Satan? Abigor frowned. If Satan had heard already, Abigor was as good as dead; no other Duke would want to begin to associate with him. His position in the court was gone, taken now, probably by Belial or some other scheming coward.
Could he stay with his former allies? The thought flitted through his mind, then was easily dismissed as he began trudging through the soft sand toward his destination. The Dukes who were former allies were just that – former. None of them would touch him with a thirty-foot pole now; given the totality of his defeat, he suspected that nothing could save him. But what alternatives did he have? Stay here, where the human magic crushed everything in its path and they sought out their defeated enemies to slaughter them like cattle? He had to get back to hell, he had to warn the others of the nightmare they faced.
The sun peeked above the horizon behind him, and his shadow stretched far ahead of him. The cloudless sky was striated orange and pink, fading to purple in the western sky before him. For a moment, Abigor stopped and looked around him, at the last clear, white stars fading in the west, at the beautiful dawn panorama unfolding in the east over the flat, unimaginably vast desert wastes. The ground here was as like a part of hell as any he'd seen, and yet above it stretched such beauty. The humans didn't know what they had, he thought; how could they appreciate such sublime beauty? And demons didn't know what they were missing either. With a twinge of sorrow, he contemplated again his ruined future back home under the dull, ceaseless striation of hell's skies.
Suddenly, his ears perked – a small buzz in the distance. Could it be a human implement? He froze for an instant, and in that instant, he detected a now-familiar deeper rumble: horseless iron chariots. He broke into a flat-out sprint for the portal.
Multi-National Force Headquarters, Green Zone, Baghdad, Iraq
“Have we got the Global Hawk feed up?” asked General Petraeus.
One of the technicians, Bert, replied, “Yep. It should be on the main screen right ...” there was a ticker of fingers on a keyboard and a mouse click “... now.” The screen blinked, fuzzed, and there was the hellmouth, black against the pink-lit sand.
The whole scene moved slowly as the cameras on the Global Hawk zoomed in on the portal. The entire hellmouth surveillance mission had been on the backburner as the Global Hawks had been used to control the allied forces that had annihilated the demonic army. That was over now, the baldrick army was shattered beyond comprehension or reconstitution, there were only handfuls of baldricks free and alive between the hellmouth and the Euphrates, and that had pushed intelligence-gathering back to top priority. Nobody ever won a war by defending themselves. They won it by taking the fight to the enemy. It was time to begin striking back at Hell, and that meant learning as much as possible about it, especially the terrain near the hellmouth which was, in the plans Petraeus and his colleagues were starting to draw up, the site of the first beachhead.
For a moment, Petraeus wondered if this was how Eisenhower had felt in 1943, then stifled the thought; Eisenhower had known so much more about his enemy, and his enemy had known about him. The two situations were only comparable if you didn't think about it. Then, he noticed a small black figure far below the Hawk, also making for the portal. “What's that?” He indicated the figure.
“Just a moment, sir.” The feed one the screen jumped through the magnifications until the figure was clearly visible: a large baldrick, running as fast as it could.
“Feed this through to the nearest armored unit, with orders to intercept and – wait, zoom in just a little bit more.” Something about the figure had triggered his memory. The feed duly zoomed, and Petraeus recognized the baldrick: his counterpart, the lucky one he'd missed with the artillery during the main battle. “Orders to intercept and capture.” If this worked out, it would be a huge intelligence bonus.
Hellmouth, Western Iraq
The roar of the Abrams engine almost deafening and the imperfections in the land bounced her around in her commander’s seat, adding extra bruises to the impressive collection she had already collected. Captain Keisha Stevenson nodded as the crackling orders came through the radio, and then repeated them on the company channel. “Guys, we've got a target. Orders to capture.”
In the light of the Iraqi dawn, the Abrams tanks and Bradley vehicles under her command sped up and veered left, the Bradleys belching black smoke and kicking up sand that hovered in the air in their wake, slowly dispersing.
Abigor ignored the pain in his side, pushing his legs as fast as they would go. The hellmouth was growing larger, a black swirling void underneath the horizon. If the humans didn't notice him, he was only a few minutes away from home. He could almost taste the sulfurous air.
But the roar of the iron chariots was louder dominating the sounds of early morning. He didn't let himself look over his shoulder, only gamely pushed faster. All he felt, his whole being, was now his feet pounding into the ground, his heart thumping in his chest, and the tingle of the magic in his back (he had long since abandoned his trident), all undercut by the gathering rumble of iron chariots.
All too soon, they were close behind him the cloud of dust they raised choking him. One pulled ahead of the rest and was almost beside him its odd head turning so that the long tube was pointing at him. Abigor tried to run around it, failed, then he switched doubled back and ran behind it, the hellmouth just a few yards away. His senses were overwhelmed by the cold and unyielding taste of the iron, not at all like the friendly warmth of the bronze or tin he was used to. As he dived behind the Chariot, he could feel a blast of heat, uncomfortable even for his own thick skin. Even as he expected the deadly blast off human mage-magic in his back, he continued to marvel at the humans' ingenuity and ability to accomplish the seemingly impossible. Chariots, without horses, that generated their own heat, propulsion, and magic fire lances while carrying humans within them.
Then, even as the muscles in his back cringed in anticipation of the expected blow, the blackness of the Hellmouth enveloped him
“Alpha-Actual. Sorry Sir, he got past us. No excuses Sir, he was so close to the hellmouth we only had one shot and we blew it. Want us to go in after him?”
There was a pause and Stevenson knew the message was going up the line and the response was coming down. “Alpha-Actual, Command Prime was watching on Eye-Five. Word is don’t blame yourself, that big baldrick would make a great football player. Stay out of hell for now. Drop back one klick and go hull down with a line of fire to the Hellmouth. The Generals are thinking.”
And we all know that makes their heads hurt. Stevenson thought, and settled back as much as was possible in the turret of an Abrams. “Biker, take us back one click to the ridgeline we crossed. Time to have a rest.”
University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama
“... and remember that problems one, three, and four of section 37 in the Munkres text are due next Tuesday. You may assume the Tychonoff Theorem; we will finish proving it next class. Problem five is extra credit. Class dismissed.” As the students in his Topology I class finished packing up their papers, Dr Kuroneko turned to the board and began erasing the proof of a lemma for the Tychonoff Theorem.
A polite knocking at the door caught his attention, and he turned around, adjusting his glasses and absentmindedly smearing chalk dust across his cheek and nose. “Yes?”
To his surprise, it was not a student wanting help with the homework questions; it was three men dressed in military uniforms. “Dr Kuroneko?”
“That's me, yes. How may I help you?”
“I'm General Schatten, of the US Army's D.I.M.O.(N) section. I understand you are the foremost mathematical expert in ...” He wrinkled his nose, fished in his pocket, and pulled out a piece of paper. “... in 'higher dimensional topology.'”
Dr Kuroneko shrugged. “Some people say that I am, yes.”
“Well, we have a team of physicists working on a project for us, and they recommended you as the mathematical expert we need. We've already talked to the math department here; they're more than willing to help with the war effort, so they've granted you indefinite paid sabbatical. We will, of course, be more than willing to provide you with additional compensation for your services. As well, your landlord has agreed to let us pay your rent while you live in Arlington and work for us, again indefinitely.”
The mathematician blinked. “So, I'm working for you? On what sort of project?”
“Dr Kuroneko, we have a problem. We’ve managed to open a portal to hell and we can communicate with those inside on an individual basis. We need to communicate with everybody in there, baldricks, humans everybody. We know it can be done because they did it to us, there was The Message and then that bombastic nonsense from Satan. We need you to work out the mathematics that underlies the situation, we need you to analyze the basis of how this communications phenomena works. The only way to understand something is to understand the maths behind it. At the moment we’re doing it on a purely empirical basis, we need you to make sense of it. Once you’ve done that we can start to use it properly.”
Kuroneko’s eyes lit up. Secretly, although he was too polite to say so, he was amazed that an Army General would understand the importance of basic theory. It never occurred to him that Generals dealt with basic theory and applied mathematics as a routine part of their job. “That sounds fascinating! When do I start?”
General Schatten smiled. “Yesterday if possible. Today at the latest. We're already loading your possessions into the moving van for you.” He stepped forward and shook Dr Kuroneko's hand. “Welcome to D.I.M.O.(N), Doctor.”
Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, North Carolina
“Man, what do we want with a piston-engined bird that’s fifty years old .” The F-16 pilot leaned back on the O-club bar, not noticing the slight air of reproof that went around the room. The two old B-29s sitting on the flight line might be relics of a bygone age but their crews were guests of the mess and the comment was out of place.
“We don’t know that jets can fly in hell yet, in fact we know nothing about the place at all other than its pretty unpleasant. We know that there’s a high content of particulates in the atmosphere, sulfur and pumice. The Predator that went in came back pretty messed up. So, prop birds give us another option. Also, we need every modern bird we can get up in the air, every second or third-line job that gets done by a museum piece is one more modern bird freed up for combat. That’s why we’ve got C-47s back in the inventory as well.” The scientist drank his beer reflectively. The tour around the museums hadn’t picked up that many usable aircraft, there was a big difference between a plane that looked good on display and one that was able to be returned to flying status, but they had a few. By a quirk of history, the B-29s had done better than most and even then only a handful were available for service. The non-flying birds and the aircraft too old to be of even fourth or fifth line use had their own role to play though. They were in the Hell Jars, being experimented on.
“Yeah but prop-engined bombers.” The F-16 pilot spoke with scorn and didn’t notice the frown of displeasure from his commander.
“I know, I know.” Colonel Tibbets put down his beer. He’d kept quiet to date, partly because he didn’t want to rise to the bait and partly because he had his own position in mind. He suspected somebody in Air Force Personnel had a sense of humor and had searched through the Air Force list to find a Colonel Tibbets to command the newly-reformed 40th Bombardment Wing. “We’re really going to need you guys in the fighters to protect us. Like we always have I guess. Why don’t we buy you a drink or three, show our appreciation?”
Next morning Lieutenant Barham woke up in his quarters with a head that felt ready to explode. The party that had started in the O-club had then moved to the strip outside the base and turned into a real bar crawl. He didn’t remember too much after the fourth or fifth bar but his head was dreadful. Those bomber boys certainly knew how to party. He glanced at the flight-line, both the B-29s had gone, probably on their way to whatever experimental station they would be assigned to.
At that point, Barham realized that it wasn’t just his head that was hurting. His rear end was also feeling --- inflamed. With a dawning sense of horror he went to the washroom and looked in the mirror and what he saw their confirmed his worst fears. On one buttock was tattooed the unit crest of the 40th Bombardment Wing and the motto “Old Age and Treachery Beats Youth and Skill”. The other buttock had a plan view of a B-29 and the motto “Four Screws Beats A Blow Job” tattooed on it.
Barham was still dumbly contemplating the sight when the phone rang. “The Squadron Commander wishes to speak with you. Now,” was the message.
Nations do not survive by setting examples for others
Nations survive by making examples of others
Stuart Mackey wrote: The question is 'need' and thats up to Stuart. One thing I have found working with museum pieces is that its possible to bring almost anything back to service, the only questions, assuming the need, are time, money and will power.
At the moment, top priority is aircraft, with armored vehicles, artillery and other army kit second and warships a distant third. So far there hasn't been much of a naval threat, only the two aquatic baldricks killed right at the start and they haven't reappeared (although their existance should be suggesting there is more to the geography of hell than a simple pit surrounded by a city).
So. all the effort, at this time, is going into trying to mobilize as much in the way of air and land assets as possible. Bringing back the battleships is definately out at this time; they require too much work, too much manpower and their use is too limited. After all, what can their main guns do that a MLRS battery cannot? MLRS outranges them (using ATACMS), can deliver more in the way of submunition payload and is land-mobile. Also air-transportable. Battleship main guns score on rate of fire (average for a battleship gun is one round every 90 seconds max as opposed to one salvo of rockets every 9 minutes) but that's all.
What naval effort there is (which isn't inconsequential given the critical importance of the sea lanes) is concentrated on bringing back ships decommed fairly recently and recommissioning merchant ships. Veteran sea farers are likely to be put into merchant ships rather than battleships. So, OHPs, the surviving Spru-cans, any surviving Ticos etc are all yesses, battleships are a no.
Of course things can always change......
Nations do not survive by setting examples for others
Nations survive by making examples of others
But come on, Abrigor! This chapter makes it sound like his last hoorah before he gets his head chopped off after he screams "FREEEEEDOM!" or something noble, and he's already such an awesome character! YOU CANNOT KILL HIM!
I want Abrigor to LIVE!
I WANT TO GO TO THE ISLAND!
"DO YOU WORSHIP HOMOSEXUALS?" - Curtis Saxton (source) shroom is a lovely boy and i wont hear a bad word against him - LUSY-CHAN! Shit! Man, I didn't think of that! It took Shroom to properly interpret the screams of dying people - PeZook Shroom, I read out the stuff you write about us. You are an endless supply of morale down here. :p - an OWS street medic Pink Sugar Heart Attack!
Those last two paragraphs are a hoot, nice one, Stu. A Col. Tibbets commanding the B-29s is also just so perfect.
Despite being the commander of a deamon army intent on carrying off all of our souls to eternal damnation in Hell I'm actually beginin to warm to Abigor. He actually seems to have begun to care about his baldricks, something else they've picked up from us cattle perhaps?
There's an odd symmetry in this cosmology, isn't there? The humans' great iron chariots are powered by oil: the decayed remains of dead inferior creatures. And Hell is powered by human souls: the remains of dead humans, who they regard as inferior creatures.
Maybe Heaven has figured out a way to derive energy from dead demons, in which case it behooves them to find a way to "cull the herd", so to speak. And what better way to do that than to subject them to the humans' increasingly advanced firepower, before humans become advanced enough to threaten Heaven itself?
"It's not evil for God to do it. Or for someone to do it at God's command."- Jonathan Boyd on baby-killing
"you guys are fascinated with the use of those "rules of logic" to the extent that you don't really want to discussus anything."- GC
"I do not believe Russian Roulette is a stupid act" - Embracer of Darkness
"Viagra commercials appear to save lives" - tharkûn on US health care.
Surlethe wrote:
I had thought that the angel used a bit of mind control on Memnon to do the dirty work of throwing him around; is it practicable for a being of that build to be able to exert that amount of physical force?
He did it with telekinesis, which we've also seen Satan use to mash lesser demons into pulp on several occassions. I'm provisionally assuming that most of the greater demons have this ability to some extent. One interesting (practical) question about TK is whether it conserves momentum.
TK is the straightforward interpretation, but given the theme that there is no magic, only science we don't understand, I'm hesitant to assume that angels have magic psychic powers when plausible alternate explanations exist. The technobabble for mind control stretches SoD far enough, IMO.
It's not physically impossible for a human-sized creature to be strong enough to push/shove Memnon across a room, provided his feet are well-anchored to the ground. People seem to be acting as if he's on ice skates or something, so his mass must be greatly superior to Memnon's mass in order to pull this off. It's not going to happen with actual human physiology, but we don't really know much about angelic physiology. Are they necessarily capable of flying, or are the wings decorative?
"It's not evil for God to do it. Or for someone to do it at God's command."- Jonathan Boyd on baby-killing
"you guys are fascinated with the use of those "rules of logic" to the extent that you don't really want to discussus anything."- GC
"I do not believe Russian Roulette is a stupid act" - Embracer of Darkness
"Viagra commercials appear to save lives" - tharkûn on US health care.
"The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be persuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can certainly be corrected by good men with rifles."
Doesn't the actual Col. Tibbets fly B-2s or something? And he's the grandson of the one who died last year? That feels a bit like Major Major only being promoted because of the joke that his name makes.
PS. It is my reccomendation that Steve Downes should be 'recruited' from his day job at WDRV Chicago for work on 'Radio Free Hell'. Given how much the troops love Halo, it might just make some of our guys listen to it as well.
Commander of the MFS Darwinian Selection Method (sexual)
Vehrec wrote:Doesn't the actual Col. Tibbets fly B-2s or something? And he's the grandson of the one who died last year? That feels a bit like Major Major only being promoted because of the joke that his name makes.
I believe I just said that, yes.
Excerpt from the book I linked:
The pilots I was embedded with were from the 393rd Bomb Squadron, out of Whiteman Air Force Base, near Kansas City, and they were in Guam on a four-month rotation. The 393rd is the squadron whose planes dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In fact, the current commander is the grandson of Colonel Paul W. Tibbets Jr., the pilot who flew the Hiroshima mission in 1945. Lieutenant Colonel Paul W. "Nuke" Tibbets IV grew up in Montgomery, Alabama, and graduated from the Air Force Academy. He was one of several B-2 pilots whose quarters I shared.
"The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be persuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can certainly be corrected by good men with rifles."
On bombers, I suppose I should note that some bombers have been kept in serviceable condition so they can give flights to paying customers. There's one guy in Hamilton Ontario who has a working Lancaster bomber from WW2.
Supposedly, there are two Lancaster bombers out there which are in air-worthy condition, but I'm only sure about the guy in Hamilton (a steel town, if anyone cares; they would be pretty busy in this story's timeline).
There's another Lancaster which is slowly being restored in Downview, north of Toronto. But I've seen it, and it ain't flying for a really long time.
"It's not evil for God to do it. Or for someone to do it at God's command."- Jonathan Boyd on baby-killing
"you guys are fascinated with the use of those "rules of logic" to the extent that you don't really want to discussus anything."- GC
"I do not believe Russian Roulette is a stupid act" - Embracer of Darkness
"Viagra commercials appear to save lives" - tharkûn on US health care.
Darth Wong wrote:On bombers, I suppose I should note that some bombers have been kept in serviceable condition so they can give flights to paying customers. There's one guy in Hamilton Ontario who has a working Lancaster bomber from WW2. Supposedly, there are two Lancaster bombers out there which are in air-worthy condition, but I'm only sure about the guy in Hamilton (a steel town, if anyone cares; they would be pretty busy in this story's timeline). There's another Lancaster which is slowly being restored in Downview, north of Toronto. But I've seen it, and it ain't flying for a really long time.
There's a group here in New England who have a B-17 and a B-24 and will take passengers up for an hour's flight in one (US$400.00. I'm waiting for their next visit here). There really are two B-29s in flying condition - there would have been three but the third was about to be taken up on a test flight when there was a tiny glitch. Apparently the crew had been using the APU for power generation and had a drum of gasoline in the midships gunner's station. They started up the engines, the drum fell over, the aircraft caught fire and that was that.
I'm told the B-29s in museums are in unusually good condition (most of them) because they were Navy targets for a while and the ones that didn't get blown up were in what anounted to dehumidified storage. The birds that are coming back from D-M of course are the ones that were preserved so that they could be recommissioned if needed. That includes the later F-111s and some of the F-18A/C models there. As I noted, the old museum pieces are being used mostly for tests and experimental work rather than service flying.
Nations do not survive by setting examples for others
Nations survive by making examples of others
Darth Wong wrote:
Supposedly, there are two Lancaster bombers out there which are in air-worthy condition, but I'm only sure about the guy in Hamilton (a steel town, if anyone cares; they would be pretty busy in this story's timeline).
The other, and longer flying Lancaster (PA.474) is owned by the RAF Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. 'Mickey the Moocher', which she is representing at the moment, is a common site on the air show circuit. I can't remember how many times I've seen her, though I have been privileged to see her up close at her home, RAF Coningsby.
PA.474 was apparently assigned to the Tiger Force, but never saw action in WW2. She owes her survival to being used in Met flights, IIRC.
There was a proposal last year for the Ontario Lanc to visit the UK for an anniversary of some kind. Seeing two Lancs flying together would have been brilliant, but it was decided that it was too much of a risk.
There's a group here in New England who have a B-17 and a B-24 and will take passengers up for an hour's flight in one (US$400.00. I'm waiting for their next visit here).
In the UK the CAA does not allow something similar, so our B-17, 'Sally B', is always short of money.
Last edited by JN1 on 2008-03-17 03:08pm, edited 1 time in total.
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