Armageddon???? (Part Fifty Up)

[Vympel]

Given how horribly dusty the atmosphere in hell is, I wouldn't even put that much faith in laser designators. Though the strike by the Hellfire's against the reviewing stand with that Predator might show the lasers work fine.

"Hello, comrades, we understand you need our Su-24 fleet and generous arsenal of TV-guided weapons?"



(KAB-500Kr, KAB-1500Kr, Kh-25MT, Kh-29T)

Thermal imaging seeker-head equipped weapons (like Kh-25MTP) should work?

[JN1]

Red Flag is full of little incidents like that. If you're all good, I'll tell you of the stunt some Saudi F-15 drivers pulled

I want to hear this one, so I'll be very good.

Have I ever told you the story of the trick some RAFG armourers pulled on a new guy with a WE.177, Stu?

[CaptainChewbacca]

So, is Limbo around the edge of hell as described by Dante? A pretty alright place similar to southern england with castles for the Righteous Unbelievers to live?

[Ma Deuce]

"Hello, comrades, we understand you need our Su-24 fleet and generous arsenal of TV-guided weapons?"

I'm pretty sure the GBU-15 is still in service, as is the related AGM-130.

[Surlethe]

So, is Limbo around the edge of hell as described by Dante? A pretty alright place similar to southern england with castles for the Righteous Unbelievers to live?

But in real hell, the castles wouldn't be inhabited by humans; they'd throw the humans in the caldera and live in the castles themselves.

[CaptainChewbacca]

So, is Limbo around the edge of hell as described by Dante? A pretty alright place similar to southern england with castles for the Righteous Unbelievers to live?

But in real hell, the castles wouldn't be inhabited by humans; they'd throw the humans in the caldera and live in the castles themselves.

Right, but I'm saying once hell is liberated, Limbo would be a nice place for the dead to live.

[Darth Wong]

The source of energy for the endless fires of Hell might make an interesting engineering exercise: can a way be found to harness that phenomenon to power machinery?

[Sea Skimmer]

The source of energy for the endless fires of Hell might make an interesting engineering exercise: can a way be found to harness that phenomenon to power machinery?

They might be nothing more then methane leaking out of the ground. After all a good portion of hell has been shown to be covered in swamp’s and bogs, and swamps which have continuously existed for as long as human have would be excellent sources of the stuff. If you wanted to harness the natural flames directly, then I’d imagine some kind of distributed setup of Sterling engines would work. Steam power seems unlikely, since you’d have to either pipe the steam all over the place, or else have numerous very small and fairly low pressure engines.

[Alferd Packer]

The source of energy for the endless fires of Hell might make an interesting engineering exercise: can a way be found to harness that phenomenon to power machinery?

Perhaps, once a beachhead is established or the appropriate swath of territory conquered, you could bring in some crews from Iceland and set up some sort of geothermal solution. After all, they generate a quarter of their electricity and over 85% of their home heating requirements from geothermal sources, so they know their stuff.

[Sidewinder]

Have I ever told you the story of the trick some RAFG armourers pulled on a new guy with a WE.177, Stu?

A quick search on Wikipedia turned up an article on a nuclear weapon. WHAT THE FUCK?! What kind of trick did the armorers pull with a NUKE, anyways? Install it in place of a drop tank?

[Darth Wong]

The source of energy for the endless fires of Hell might make an interesting engineering exercise: can a way be found to harness that phenomenon to power machinery?

They might be nothing more then methane leaking out of the ground. After all a good portion of hell has been shown to be covered in swamp’s and bogs, and swamps which have continuously existed for as long as human have would be excellent sources of the stuff. If you wanted to harness the natural flames directly, then I’d imagine some kind of distributed setup of Sterling engines would work. Steam power seems unlikely, since you’d have to either pipe the steam all over the place, or else have numerous very small and fairly low pressure engines.

This would imply that Hell has an ecosystem and geologic history very similar to that of Earth, yet it also appears to have magic properties, such as humans mysteriously auto-healing fatal injuries. Which, in turn, begs the question of whether Hell was a pre-existing domain that Satan merely found and colonized. Makes you wonder if anyone lived there before he arrived with his minions.

[Sidewinder]

Which, in turn, begs the question of whether Hell was a pre-existing domain that Satan merely found and colonized. Makes you wonder if anyone lived there before he arrived with his minions.

The orks (one of whom was killed to add flavor to Satan's wine) might be the native Hell residents, if this was true.

[Shroom Man 777]

Stuart mentioned that Hell was the size of Pangaea, or at least a Pangaea-type continent. I am fairly certain a UCAV probe and a bunch of rebels walking around on foot are insufficient to fully map out the extent of the Underworld's geography.

[JN1]

Have I ever told you the story of the trick some RAFG armourers pulled on a new guy with a WE.177, Stu?

A quick search on Wikipedia turned up an article on a nuclear weapon. WHAT THE FUCK?! What kind of trick did the armorers pull with a NUKE, anyways? Install it in place of a drop tank?

It involved a tin full of green paint under the device.

[Edward Yee]

The story is already plotted out to its conclusion. The way I do things is to first write out an outline plot and then a detailed plot that is quite extensive. Outside contributions have to fit with that outline plot and are massaged by me to do so before they get included.

Oh thank gosh, I'm pleased to hear that. Kudos for this.

In plot terms, we're about a third of the way through the story, entering now into the second part. The first part was how humans dealt with hell, the second is about hell and demons deal with the reality of the humans as they are discovering them. The third part really relates to how humans deal with heaven and its consequences.

Will the third part have any equivalent to the second, or will the demon/angel perspectives both be in that second part? It's kind of obvious which part I favor.

[Starglider]

Stuart mentioned that Hell was the size of Pangaea, or at least a Pangaea-type continent. I am fairly certain a UCAV probe and a bunch of rebels walking around on foot are insufficient to fully map out the extent of the Underworld's geography.

The Global Hawk has a range of something like 14,000 nm and is essentially expendable. Flying on INS at >50,000 feet, in big loops starting and ending at the hellmouth, I'd expect radar terrain mapping of hell to proceed at a good clip. Near-continual cloud cover (including mist/fog and ash clouds) may make optical surveillence challenging, but once the humans have a decent radar terrain map they can start filling it in with intel from the defectors. Still, I imagine that for the forseeable future there will be huge blank regions marked 'here be monsters, most likely', that will keep General Petraeus worrying.

They might be nothing more then methane leaking out of the ground.

If so, the solution to the energy crisis is obvious; invade hell and take their oil.

[Sea Skimmer]

If so, the solution to the energy crisis is obvious; invade hell and take their oil.

Thing is, oil takes about a minimal of 10 million years to form naturally, though its more often around 100 million years, so unless hell has existed and had lots of biomass for much longer then humans have existed, it wont have oil. Also we now know it’s a ‘plane of existence’ rather then a world, so it probably doesn’t have the all the plate tectonics and major shifts in topography which are necessary to deeply bury biomass so it can turn into oil, even if it is old enough. Methane meanwhile starts forming pretty much as soon as something dies.

Course, as Wong pointed out, this is assuming hell works anything like earth. It might not be like that at all and magic might well be sustaining those flames. Just thinking about the oil issue has made me realize that even more fundamental question exist, like how does it have rock at all or how’s the atmospheres held in, given that sufficient gravity to do so would force the place to become a sphere. This might be linked to the lack of iron, another odd issue.

However as for the energy crisis, if earth liberate hell then we have what, 100+ billion plus extra people who don’t need food or sleep and the vast majority of whom had no useful skills in an industrial economy. They have to be kept busy somehow, and so we could have them all run on treadmills or turning hand cranks linked to generators… Heck who knows, maybe pure evil can be extracted from demon souls and turned into a energy source more potent then anti matter?

[Darth Wong]

The Global Hawk has a range of something like 14,000 nm and is essentially expendable.

With a range of 14000 nanometers, it won't get very far.

[fusion]

The Global Hawk has a range of something like 14,000 nm and is essentially expendable.

With a range of 14000 nanometers, it won't get very far.

It is Nautical mile as stated by Wikipedia:Link

[Darth Wong]

The Global Hawk has a range of something like 14,000 nm and is essentially expendable.

With a range of 14000 nanometers, it won't get very far.

It is Nautical mile as stated by Wikipedia:Link

No, the accepted international meaning of "nm" is nanometer. The fact that some people insist on using nm for "nautical mile" even though it is a standardized SI symbol for nanometers is merely proof that they don't give a damn about unit systems.

[Wyrm]

The Global Hawk has a range of something like 14,000 nm and is essentially expendable.

With a range of 14000 nanometers, it won't get very far.

It is Nautical mile as stated by Wikipedia:Link

Ahem:

Unit symbol

There is no widely accepted international standard symbol for the unit nautical mile. The preferred abbreviation of the IEEE is nmi,[2] while M is used by the BIPM[1] and the maritime authorities of the USA[3] and Canada.[4] For aviation use, the preferred abbreviation of the ICAO is NM.[5] The abbreviation nm, though conflicting with the SI symbol for the nanometre, is also in widespread use.

In other words, the non-ambiguous abbreviation of "nautical mile" is nmi, not nm.

Learn to read, fusion. Learn to read.

[White Haven]

I've never been entirely certain of why distance should be measured differently simply because it is wet.

[MKSheppard]

I've never been entirely certain of why distance should be measured differently simply because it is wet.

1 Nautical mile is:

0.998383 equatorial arc minutes
0.9998834 mean meridian arc minutes

Which makes navigation SO much easier.

[gtg947h]

Or, rounding off to numbers we can use, 1 arc-minute and 1 arc-minute.

I'll admit, I'm going to be a die-hard US-unit person till the day I die. i've tried to train myself to think in metric, but all that happens is I end up converting back to US measures in my head*. I guess you have to really start someone young to get them thinking in those terms intrinsically--it's too late for me.


*one exception for in-space stuff... I "flew" Orbiter a lot back in high school; that sim is all metric so I wound up thinking in those terms when dealing with orbits and all. One somewhat interesting thing I found is 1kt = 0.5144 m/s, or for rough estimation, 1kt ~ 0.5 m/s.

[Beowulf]

There's such a thing as context. "nm" in the context of an airplane's range almost certainly not referring to nanometers. And since the ICAO accepted abbreviation is "NM" it's not a stretch that sometimes capitalization gets neglected. I mean, "Nm" in the context of torque isn't likely to be talking about nanometers of torque.