Armageddon???? Epilogue Up

[Jawawithagun]

As an aside, are we ever going to know what the exact contents of The Message are? I'm curious as to what Yahweh said to the humans.

I'd prefer it to stay ambiguous. Spelling it out can only be a let-down.

[CaptainChewbacca]

As an aside, are we ever going to know what the exact contents of The Message are? I'm curious as to what Yahweh said to the humans.

I'd prefer it to stay ambiguous. Spelling it out can only be a let-down.

I imagine it wasn't a voice, so much as a simultaneous revelation into everyone's minds. For it to have the kind of impact it did (1 out of 5 people laying down and dying) it would almost have to be mind-to-mind in order to convince even the skeptical. As such, it could be that everyone's 'message' is slightly different, but they all meant the same thing.

Sort of a horrible, condmening, soul-crushing reverse-pentacost.

[Kodiak]

Sort of a horrible, condmening, soul-crushing reverse-pentacost.

Exactly what I was thinking. Something undeniable and soul shattering. I couldn't think of a better description of the message.

[Edward Yee]

George Bush shook his head. “Condi, I thought we’d won this war.”

*snerk*

And you just keep thinking that, lad.

*pats Bush on the head*

Politicians... so cute when they're innocent like that.

I didn't think so after seeing POTUS Bush's interaction with Deumos. Then again, the aftermath of war is one thing, but affairs like that are right up his alley, according to this story (and I believe Stuart who described the real-life POTUS Bush as "a political animal, but with a human side that he lets very few people see").

The key re: the Message is that it had to convince everyone that it was real, no matter their beliefs, knowledge, or education; Richard Dawkins' debut in the book opens with him admitting to himself that, as much of a self-righteous ass as he seems to be.

[Darth Wong]

Thinking about an Armageddon movie, while I'm not entirely sure how to structure it, I think that the opening could probably go something like this:

Scene of an small Chinese village. Everything looks normal at first, until you realize that the people are all going about their daily business wearing aluminum foil hats. Focus in on a bunch of really old men wearing threadbare uniforms sitting around a small, old fashioned TV watching a news channel, where some politician is going on about how "we will not surrender to this aggresion and blatant betrayal of our faith, we will fight..." etc. Either make it in Chinese to make it a bilingual bonus, or make it in English with little Chinese subtiltes so that the audience can understand what is being said and the point is made that this is an international concern.

Cue screaming. In the middle of the village a black elipse opens up and a demon steps out, bearing a trident and it starts blasting people and clawing the closer ones, laughing all the way through. For a time people are running and screaming in all directions, mothers are trying to shield their children, its all just general chaos.

Then from off screen you hear a cry of "Assume firing line!" in Chinese, possibly with subtitles. The demon glances around and there are the old men we saw before, now all armed with rifles nearly as old as they are. Their leader cries out, "Fire!" and the demon is hit with a volley. They all work the bolts and fire again. The demon blasts several of them, but it is clearly wounded, dropping to one knee.

The guns go empty. Several of the old men lay dead on the ground, but then their leader shouts out, "Level bayonets!" and they all march fearlessly towards the demon. It stabs one with its trident, but then they surround it and start going to town. The camera pans up as these octogenarians are brutally mauling the demon.

Cue the Hell March (or something thematically similar)

You then go through a montage of military forces preparing for battle and news broadcasts filling the viewer in on the basic premise: Heaven's gates are closed, we've all been damned to Hell, and Satan is sending his armies to get us. As it ends, fade to black. Then pull out from the black and show that it is an ellipse similar to the portal the demon used to invade the Chinese village. Have a message read "Hellmouth" followed a short moment later by "Location: Western Iraq".

Then start the main movie from there.

Actually, I think that if someone were to ever make a movie version of this story, he would have to elaborate on the prologue much more than the story does. The story starts after The Message was received and more than a billion people died. You can get away with that in a written story by simply describing what already happened, but in a movie you would want to show The Message and its devastating effects on humanity. That's not something you tease a movie director with, and then tell him not to show at all, apart from some clunky dialogue exposition from a main character.

Now that I think of it, someone who's good with characters could probably write a compelling prequel to this story, which entirely revolves around The Message and the way people react to it around the world.

[Master of Cards]

If you want to aviod it you can have a scene of people walking around town on a normal day and have them all stop and start talking about it weeping and the like. Show the street preachers dieing and pastors on their puplits killing themselves.

[Kodiak]

Actually, I think that if someone were to ever make a movie version of this story, he would have to elaborate on the prologue much more than the story does. The story starts after The Message was received and more than a billion people died. You can get away with that in a written story by simply describing what already happened, but in a movie you would want to show The Message and its devastating effects on humanity. That's not something you tease a movie director with, and then tell him not to show at all, apart from some clunky dialogue exposition from a main character.

Now that I think of it, someone who's good with characters could probably write a compelling prequel to this story, which entirely revolves around The Message and the way people react to it around the world.

I think you could start with a montage of people across the world stopping what they're doing, and turning skyward. They're listening, pondering, obviously comprehending something. Then we see the aftermath: Newspaper headlines of some rioting in places, hysteria, and a newspaper headline that says "Suicide Toll Passes 10 Million". There could be funerals on TV, people burning churches and the like. I agree that you can't tease a global life-changing event in a story. Perhaps something vague in the beginning filled in with flasbacks as the story progresses?

[Academia Nut]

True. I suppose an alternate beginning could be people going on about their lives when suddenly all across the world everyone looks up in confusion and awe. Some people start praying, ecstatic that God has finally deigned to speak to them... only for people to then start crying as the Message sinks in. We see many people start to just lie down or actively commit suicide... but for others their tears of sorrow turn to tears of rage and they refuse to give up. Religious icons of all faith start to hit the ground and the guns start to come out.

The big problem is that from the sounds of it everyone heard the Message differently in their minds, so there's not much there. Plus that sort of scene would probably enrage the fundies way, waaaaay more than the whole rest of the movie put together. Humanity blowing up demons? Downplay the whole 'Heaven sold us out' bit until people are hooked and into the spirit of things and save that for Pantheocide.

Actually, musing on it. If we were going for a movie, start off Armageddon like I suggested and then show the Message in Pantheocide. That way the audience will have seen the ass kicking that occurred in Armageddon and understand the themes, and then they can be in the right mindset to be outraged by the dickery of Heaven with regards to the Message. I dunno, it definitely needs a lot of thought on how to not just capture the feel, but to avoid pissing off all of the religious people out there in a bad way instead of an attention generating "Da Vinci Code" way.

[rhoenix]

With all the characterization from the (proposed) Prologue, I think the important part to feel is that all of humanity has just had the rug pulled out from under it.

Something many people, in one form or another, have put stock and faith in their entire lives, and many people have modeled their lives differently as a result of that influence.

They have all been betrayed, and at the most base level possible.

Many of the suicides would be from people who simply couldn't get past the thought that to their minds, they've been abandoned.

That now they are nothing more than prey for hell, and the demons and other horrors from that fell place.

Evoking the feelings in the reader/viewer of shock, then numbed horror, and finally cold anger, right before the first of the Heralds dies.

Shit, at that point, people would watch the War on Hell live on PPV, and cheer their heads off. The news industry could likely profit from it by devoting entire news shows to what will happen in Hell.

[bilateralrope]

1. What were the precise dates for The Message and when Satan started spouting off the
“I, Satan Mekratrig, Lord of Hell, Commander of the Legions of the Damned do hereby declare my dominion over the earth and all that it contains. Crawl to me, humans, knowing the eternity of torment that awaits you" spiel?

On this note, would it be worth adding dates to each chapter so that readers get an idea about how long the war took ?

Even if the 'date' is just the number of days since the message took place.

[Morilore]

A film studio might demand that the war be made somehow closer or less one-sided, for the sake of drama and viewer expectations, unless you could convince them that the drama can come from the massive social and psychological convulsions inflicted by the Message and its aftermath, which is another argument for more detailed exposition of that aspect. Also, and this goes without saying: all the real-life characters in the story would have to be replaced with ciphers.

[Carter38]

I have been following this story since almost the beginning and I honestly find it better than most of the stuff on the shelfs in bookstores now. If/when it is published I am definitely buying it. Thank you for making this and I can't wait for you to write the rest of the series.

[ray245]

I don't think it is even possible to make armageddon in a single movie.

Think about it, since when has a single movie been made, and covered an entire war?

Even those world war 2 films is only focusing on parts of the wars and battles, and in some case, is only focusing on parts of that battle.

The first book needs to be make as a whole series of movie alone...

And a miniseries will not have the budget to produce things in such a grand scale...the scale of this is even larger than series like Rome...hell, the series Rome covered a major war in a single battle....

[Stuart Mackey]

Perhaps a lot would depend on family reunions, and going from there? (Henry VIII is going to have a lot of explaining to do.) I think that people will go with what they are familiar with, to be honest, and you will get, roughly, nations built around that eventually.

Does make me wonder what will happen to married couples ('till death us do part'). Does a marriage automatically become anulled when one person dies? What happens when someone has remarried but then discovers that they can contact their deceased spouse? Might some people wish to live with their deceased spouse in Hell?
Might the dead decide to pursue relationships with other dead people in Hell much as a surviving spouse might do back on Earth?

I think that people will deal with such things the same way they do now..by moving on.

With all of the dead Brits down there it looks like we'll need to set up a British Overseas Territory double quick while there's good land still up for grabs, appoint a Governor and build Government House. We'll need to recruit a local regiment, or defence force too, like the Gibralter Regiment, or the Falkland Islands Defence Force, too.

I think you would have an English speaking Commonwealth bloc divided up into its constituent parts, NZ,Canadian, Australian etc, and others who wish to join for cultural reasons and so on. Now who governs those parts will be fun: BOT's and their equivalents evolving into Dominion's then nations in their own right. Certainly the existing Commonwealth nations will need to move very quickly to do it.

[EdBecerra]

The guns go empty. Several of the old men lay dead on the ground, but then their leader shouts out, "Level bayonets!" and they all march fearlessly towards the demon.

Minor nitpick; at least in English, the command's actually "Charge bayonets!".

Actually, its 'Fix Bayonets' first, then 'Charge bayonets'.

I remember, back in basic training some decades ago, when our DI gave the order to fix bayonets, some smart-ass in the back of the company snarked "Why, are they broken?"

I don't remember much else from that day, except a LOT of drill instructor-inflicted pain. Ow.

As for the smart-ass, he got blanket parties for a week solid.

Ed.

[gtg947h]

I remember, back in basic training some decades ago, when our DI gave the order to fix bayonets, some smart-ass in the back of the company snarked "Why, are they broken?"

I snorted my coffee when I read that... and now my nose hurts. You bastard.












I think a solution to the "avoid explicitly mentioning the Message" would be to show people listening to it (as above), and some of the reactions, with a voiceover. I'm thinking the voice of the teacher lady at the beginning of Serenity, but without the perkiness and using bigger words.

Of course, that's if we follow about the same pace as the book. As Morilore suggested, the Message and stuff might need to be expounded upon to satisfy the Hollywood types and give the masses some kind of drama.

[Cyborg Stan]

Shouldn't the Epilogue be posted in the Completed/Cleaned Up Thread?

[Darth Wong]

Shouldn't the Epilogue be posted in the Completed/Cleaned Up Thread?

Oops, I forgot!

The Cleaned-up version has been updated accordingly.

PS. It was nice seeing my "We'll go through Hell to deliver your package on time" ad slogan make it in there

[tim31]

It was nice seeing my "We'll go through Hell to deliver your package on time" ad slogan make it in there

*groan* you just be thankful that we don't have to see that on real tv.

[PainRack]

And so it finally ends.................
Is it me.... or does the ending just seem to lack a little something?
It feels like it peters off at the ending, with the social upheaval, politics and changes not having much of an impact on the reader.

[Stuart]

And so it finally ends.................
Is it me.... or does the ending just seem to lack a little something?
It feels like it peters off at the ending, with the social upheaval, politics and changes not having much of an impact on the reader.

It's the break between the War on Hell and the War on Heaven. Hell has fallen and people are bracing themselves for the next round. The unspoken message behind the epilogue is something we've been seeing since the start of the story; the Demons aren't dumb, they just don't have the knowledge that humans take for granted. Now, given the chance, they're adapting to the presence of humans very quickly.

[gtg947h]

And so it finally ends.................
Is it me.... or does the ending just seem to lack a little something?
It feels like it peters off at the ending, with the social upheaval, politics and changes not having much of an impact on the reader.

It's like the eye of a hurricane... we get this calm period before the shit starts flying again.

[Typhonis 1]

Well murder trials become more interesting. Nothing like a tape or teleconferenced talk with the victim in Hell and they identifying their murderer to realy make the klegal system fun.

History channel interviewing people like Benedict Arnold or George Armstrong Custerto hea thier side of the story.

Beatles reuniuon CD possibly.

Romans adopting NASCAR as a replacement for chariot races.

Pharmaceutical companies making expeditions to see if any wonder drugs are to be found in the flora and fauna of Hell.

Last but not least. The Croc Hunter has returned.

[kingdragon]

Don't forget the scientists like Oppenheimer, Einstein, Von Braun, etc. Their intellect will be a valuable resource as well, especially if they contribute to the war effort. Even if we don't get any super advanced technology, we still might get stuff from Twenty minutes into the future.

On the subject of Hell's resources, do you think there might be certain elements that exist there that wouldn't be found on Earth?

BTW, what does happen when a dead person dies? Are you going to touch on this in Pantheocide?

[Singular Quartet]

Well murder trials become more interesting. Nothing like a tape or teleconferenced talk with the victim in Hell and they identifying their murderer to realy make the klegal system fun.

Who says they have to tell the truth?