Simon_Jester wrote:Is Gabriel talking through his hat, or is there a difference between the dead-in-Heaven and the dead-in-Hell that lets the dead-in-Heaven survive on Earth?
No difference; the dead can survive on Earth but only for a limited period (circa six to eight hours before they either die or go back to Hell)
It's at least implied Michael snuck in some singers from relatively recent times to staff his club, isn't it?
The ones explicitly stated are Artie Shaw (with Billie Holiday as his singer - historically Lady Day did sing with Artie Shaw for a short period but they had to break the partnership up due to threats made against her by racists who didn't like the idea of a black woman singing with a white band) and Glen Miller. There are some more to come.
The Montmartre Club is a great place for swing-era big bands. By the way, the place is named after Al Capone's headquarters
Ed Becerra wrote:Something's seriously wrong here... In the first bit, they seem to imply they're giving him the best synthetics they can make. In the second, the phrase "street-corner pharmaceuticals" implies the sort of third-rate, adulterated crap you buy from that pusher down the block. So which is true?
Both. The reference to Street Corner Pharmaceuticals is a reference to destination rather than present quality; it doesn't necessarily imply poor quality from the get-go. Remember the adulterated crap mostly started life as reasonably pure product and got stepped on as it went down the chain. MarshalPurnell got id dead right.
Junghalli wrote:I'm actually hoping that the first bowl of wrath does accomplish something other than simply mildly inconveniencing us, because otherwise it makes the Angels look incompetent. They should know very well that we control Hell, and it's elementary logic from there that just sending people to Hell won't put them out of commission. Why bother with an attack that will be almost totally useless? I have a couple of theories on what might be happening, but my favored one is that they're diverting the souls of those people when they die and simply killing them a second time when they come out of Heaven's equivalent of the Minos Gate.
The effects of the first bowl are a lot worse than just seriously inconveniencing humans. What Michael is doing is methodically cutting off all of the routes by which Earth can reach Heaven so that his powerbase is isolated from attack by Earth-based forces. As a result, he's got the initiative and has humans on the back foot. Now, when the earth-based Nephilim die from anthrax, they go to hell, sure, but they are stuck there.
They can't survive on Earth for more than a few hours, much less if they use their link powers and they can't drive a portal from Hell to Heaven without another Nephilim or their equivalent the other side. They're in hell sure and they can be used to improve the linking between Earth and Hell but as far as links between Earth and Heaven are concerned, they are out of the game. And that is a serious blow.
Daemons and angels don't go to Heaven or Hell when they die. They go somewhere else, presumably the next level up in the great chain of existance. The logic behind Hell was that daemons need the energy boost from suffering humanity to get there although it's appearing more and more likely this was just doctrinal bullshit from Satan to justify his creation of Hell.
The question of sending somebody through the deadgate comes up fairly shortly.