The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Forty One Up

[Adrian Laguna]

Prominent historical figures often rise to greatness via circumstances. In Hell, the field is levelled again - there are no circumstances, and the knowledge of the undead is decades if not centuries obsolete. They are just no-name undeads. No one cares about them. No one knows who they are. And most of them are utterly, completely useless except from being the manpower resource for the ever rising industrialization of Hell to feed the human furnaces of war. I can't believe people cling to "great undead stories in Hell".

Many of greats from human history are probably not even in Hell anymore. I brought up Alexander the Great during the previous story. The guy was a tough bastard, very driven and single minded, had such an gigantic ego he considered himself a living God, and was arguably exceedingly reckless. With qualities like that, he probably got loose soon after arriving in Hell, tried to pull something, and got himself killed. I expect there's no Megas Alexandros in Hell, he's gone. The same is probably the case for other great conquerors like Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, and Tamerlane. They won't even crop up shovelling shit somewhere, they all probably got themselves killed at some point or another.

[Junghalli]

Y'know, now THERE'S something that some of the ancient dead can do to earn credit in modern society - eye witnesses to history's mysteries.

Indeed, historians will be having seizures with excitement at the possibility of having live people from any historical period of your pick to interview. I mentioned a while back that if there are nonhuman hominids like Neanderthals in Hell the paleontologists will be having even bigger seizures - we don't even know for sure things like whether these people had language, even a few minutes with one of them is likely to produce groundbreaking revelations about what they were like.

Speaking of which, I brought up the point earlier about whether Homo Erectus might actually be the most numerous species in Hell, not humans, due to their much longer existence. I've done some calculations.

Homo Erectus evolved around 2 million years ago and died out around 50,000 years ago. For simplicity let's say 2 million years. Assuming an average population level of 1 million Erectuses on Earth you'd get 4 million dead Erectuses in a century, 40 million in a millenia, 400 million in 10 millenia, 4 billion in 100 millenia, and 40 billion in a million years. So the Homo Erectus population of Hell is 80 billion, which is still a minority but a very big one, just slightly less than the 90 billion humans.

This may be an overestimate, but even at 1/10 that number they'd still be 8 billion, which is still a significant demographic in Hell. Unless they lacked souls I'd be very surprised if we hadn't pulled out large numbers of them already.

Edit: one group of undead I can see doing well for themselves: great actors and artists of the past. They'd have huge name recognition going for them.

Edit 2: another thing that occurred to me, with respect to present Hell probably being not unpleasant to most past people since they're not going to have terribly high standards. For a similar reason, I wouldn't be surprised if the people in Heaven are overwhelmingly from preindustrial era lower classes. They'll be much more likely to still consider it paradisical, for precisely this reason. If you'd lived the life of a Midaeval peasant you probably wouldn't care so much about not getting a flashy jewel-encrusted house like the Angels do - the place would be a massive step-up from your old life simply because there's no more starvation, disease, crippling injury, or war to worry about, to say nothing of the fact that you are now unaging. Sure, you might be doing dreary and unpleasant labor, but it's probably not any worse than what you were doing before. It'd be sort of like the Egyptian idea of the afterlife if you think about it, and they didn't consider the prospect of such an existence unpleasant. Upper class people, on the other hand, would probably resent it for similar reasons to why we would: compared to a luxurious lifestyle (by preindustrial standards) it is a step down.

[Simon_Jester]

Many of greats from human history are probably not even in Hell anymore. I brought up Alexander the Great during the previous story. The guy was a tough bastard, very driven and single minded, had such an gigantic ego he considered himself a living God, and was arguably exceedingly reckless. With qualities like that, he probably got loose soon after arriving in Hell, tried to pull something, and got himself killed. I expect there's no Megas Alexandros in Hell, he's gone. The same is probably the case for other great conquerors like Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, and Tamerlane. They won't even crop up shovelling shit somewhere, they all probably got themselves killed at some point or another.

If one of the Spartans at Thermopylae could end up stuck in the lava river for two thousand years, so could a lot of other historical tough bastards.

On the other hand, you have a good point, especially when we're talking about the historical figures who were legendary for being dauntless and egotistical. Churchill would be a modern example.
________

I think that we should be fairly careful about probing into those little bubble universes. Some of them might come equipped with something that could easily beyond our capability to handle, much as Hell found humanity to be too much (of course, that begs the question why haven't they been going around the "multiverses" already).

I agree.

If Stas Bush's spinoff story counts, they have gone multiverse-exploring, to some extent. And they started running into things they couldn't cope with long before humanity got dangerous on them. About the only thing seriously more dangerous than Leviathan would be drilling into a bubble universe that had Cthulhu bottled up inside it; the fact that Yahweh actually managed to kill another of its species is rather alarming, given that a nuclear strike appears to have made it stronger.

Again, this all refers to Stas Bush's spinoff story "Don't Wake Me When I'm Quiet." It may not be canonical, but it's at least worth considering. We don't know how much of Earth's mythology is based off of entities that don't come from the "Heaven" or "Hell" bubble universes.
________

But that's about it. I fully agree with Stuart. The idea that rescued deaders do something great on Earth is ridiculous at all; the idea that they rise to greatness in Hell is also pathetic. All they can do is be sidekicks of humans, manpower for the humans, and such (all undead knowledgeables in my story are basically that). And it simply follows from the environment and facts.

But things like organizational talent, the gift of persuasive speaking, and so on still exist. On the one hand, many people who succeeded because of circumstances will be nobodies in Hell. On the other hand, many people who failed because of circumstances will have a somewhat better shot of success in Hell. There's no reason to assume that there weren't thousands of random peasants who could have done just as good a job as Peter the Great if they'd been born in a similar position. With the playing field leveled in a way that neutralizes the advantages of wealth, birth, and surroundings, those peasants might do as well as he does. And for them, being a sad old man running a castle would be a big step up from what they had in life.

But in general, I agree; the people whose skills are obsolete won't matter much for decades at least. In the indefinite long term that might change, because even adults can retrain given time and motivation.

Prominent historical figures often rise to greatness via circumstances. In Hell, the field is levelled again - there are no circumstances, and the knowledge of the undead is decades if not centuries obsolete. They are just no-name undeads. No one cares about them. No one knows who they are. And most of them are utterly, completely useless except from being the manpower resource for the ever rising industrialization of Hell to feed the human furnaces of war. I can't believe people cling to "great undead stories in Hell".

Simple statistics leads me to think that at least some of the liberated dead will achieve things that any normal person would consider impressive- and that's especially true of people who died relatively recently and can more or less comprehend modernity. But I agree that most of the undead population is irrelevant except in statistical terms, and that most of the "greats" in Hell would be useless or nearly so for any major purpose.
________

But they'll also have new, youthful, bodies that are extremely resilient. Even in war, actual second-death would be kinda rare. Especially with the sorts of more primitive weapons they'll be using.

Not really. You just need to do severe damage to the skull (ie- crush the brain), and plenty of primitive weapons are capable of that. The primitive club can be used to conclusively crush someone's skull if you just keep using it on him after he's fallen.

Yes. But you really have to want someone dead to be willing to do that. Not everyone will be doing that, so I'd still expect the overall death rate to be lower. Almost everything except dismemberment or massive head trauma leaves you as a "walking wounded" who can escape and heal up over time.

[Jamesfirecat]

Edit: one group of undead I can see doing well for themselves: great actors and artists of the past. They'd have huge name recognition going for them.

Does that mean we can get another Marx Brother's movie?

[GrayAnderson]

Edit: one group of undead I can see doing well for themselves: great actors and artists of the past. They'd have huge name recognition going for them.

Does that mean we can get another Marx Brother's movie?

Good luck finding the whole group, but I suspect that eventually you will have a substantial number of old actors and actresses out there who will find their way back into business over time. Honestly, I'd be shocked if you didn't end up with Hollywood studios putting together sound stages somewhere in Hell in a couple of years (if nothing else, they'll be useful when an actor or actress dies in the middle of a project).

---------------------------------------

Two amusing thoughts do come to mind in this regard:
1) Scientology's "billion-year contracts". I do suspect that these will ultimately be declared null and void (I would argue that there was ultimately not a meeting of the minds in regards to that part, and as such there was no contract), but I can see those guys actually trying to enforce the contract knowing how they act sometimes.
2) I'm also made to think of the "perpetuity clause" that Wolfram and Hart inserted into their employees' contracts. A variation might actually come into existence for law firms and corporations (an employee agrees to assist in transitioning any matters over to their successor in the event of their untimely/unexpected demise). It wouldn't be permanent, but a temporary version seems almost inevitable.

[Samuel]

Edit: one group of undead I can see doing well for themselves: great actors and artists of the past. They'd have huge name recognition going for them.

Does that mean we can get another Marx Brother's movie?

I already mentioned it.

On a subject close to us, how long until there is a new miniture series based on the whole bubble universe expeditionary force?

[EdBecerra]

Good luck finding the whole group, but I suspect that eventually you will have a substantial number of old actors and actresses out there who will find their way back into business over time. Honestly, I'd be shocked if you didn't end up with Hollywood studios putting together sound stages somewhere in Hell in a couple of years (if nothing else, they'll be useful when an actor or actress dies in the middle of a project).

This would give an entirely new meaning to Ah-nold's famous line... he could be making Terminator movies for the rest of eternity.

And the new possibilities for Conan movies... I mean, damn, son, you gots REAL demons there for Gonad the Barbarian to battle. Just explain the concept of movies to a few of the demons who've come into enough contact with 21st century Earth to "get" it, hire them as extras, whip out the cameras, and WOWZERS!

Ed.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Depending on how orcs actually look, I'm betting on Blizzard making a Thrall movie biopic in the next 5 years.

[Samuel]

Good luck finding the whole group, but I suspect that eventually you will have a substantial number of old actors and actresses out there who will find their way back into business over time. Honestly, I'd be shocked if you didn't end up with Hollywood studios putting together sound stages somewhere in Hell in a couple of years (if nothing else, they'll be useful when an actor or actress dies in the middle of a project).

This would give an entirely new meaning to Ah-nold's famous line... he could be making Terminator movies for the rest of eternity.

And the new possibilities for Conan movies... I mean, damn, son, you gots REAL demons there for Gonad the Barbarian to battle. Just explain the concept of movies to a few of the demons who've come into enough contact with 21st century Earth to "get" it, hire them as extras, whip out the cameras, and WOWZERS!

Ed.

This concept is intimately familiar to anyone who had the fortune to get their hands upon Castle Greyhawk

It gets better with more bubbles we find. At the least we get a cheap change of scenary, the actors and roles for porno expands (demon's harem, appreciation of the troops, Dis brothel, etc), getting millions of extras for battles scenes is really cheap and awesome, you can use the actual individuals to reenact battles, you have people who actually know how to use ancient weapons, etc.

Of course as it is now, all we can get is cheesy army propoganda movies. To be fair they would be awesome- "a few things you need to know about hell" "Volcanic dust- the pervasive enemy" "Top signs that your child is a nelipham" "Iraq to Dis- the road to victory".

Anyone with good drawing skills want to make a warbonds poster?

Depending on how orcs actually look, I'm betting on Blizzard making a Thrall movie biopic in the next 5 years.

I think they are supposed to look reptillian. Although if there is a hell MMO that gets started up to cash in on the situation (play a demon, orc, outsider, premodern human, modern human, etc) they probably will occupy that role.

[Junghalli]

Anyone with good drawing skills want to make a warbonds poster?

Here's a somewhat tongue-in-cheek recruiting poster I cooked up in a few seconds with a poster generator and Google images:



The "go to Hell" part should be more prominent though, I think. Anybody more talented want to take a crack at it?

[TimothyC]

I imagine the we might end up with something like "The Road to Hell was Paved By the Army Corp of Engineers".

[Stuart Mackey]

Heh, Elizabeth 1 and the Earl of Leicester could finally get married.

[Jamesfirecat]

Here's a somewhat tongue-in-cheek recruiting poster I cooked up in a few seconds with a poster generator and Google images:

Image

The "go to Hell" part should be more prominent though, I think. Anybody more talented want to take a crack at it?

All I see is the word "image" did you do something wrong when posting it or am I doing something wrong that somehow is causing me not to be able to view it?

[ray245]

Heh, Elizabeth 1 and the Earl of Leicester could finally get married.

And be stuck together happily ever after.

[Samuel]

Here's a somewhat tongue-in-cheek recruiting poster I cooked up in a few seconds with a poster generator and Google images:

Image

The "go to Hell" part should be more prominent though, I think. Anybody more talented want to take a crack at it?

All I see is the word "image" did you do something wrong when posting it or am I doing something wrong that somehow is causing me not to be able to view it?

It's you. The image is Uncle Sam saying "I want you... to go to Hell!"

[Bayonet]

Heh, Elizabeth 1 and the Earl of Leicester could finally get married.

And be stuck together happily ever after.

The ever after issue will become a serious issue. Actual eternal life without the need to earn a living, sounds like a pretty fair hell of its own. In literature, eternal life is often a curse. I think that could be pretty close to the mark.

[tim31]

Heh, Elizabeth 1 and the Earl of Leicester could finally get married.

Speaking of which, has the concept of 'til death do us apart' been touched on already? The legal stuff surrounding personal estates is mindbreaking enough...

[Michael Garrity]

Greetings, all:

Now that baldrick are using that .94-caliber rifle as their issue weapon, how about the Pfiefer-Zeliska .600 Nitro Express revolver as a sidearm for baldrick officers? This gun is a single-action design that weighs 13.23 lbs and holds 5 rounds of .600 NE.

Mike Garrity

[Baughn]

Heh, Elizabeth 1 and the Earl of Leicester could finally get married.

And be stuck together happily ever after.

The ever after issue will become a serious issue. Actual eternal life without the need to earn a living, sounds like a pretty fair hell of its own. In literature, eternal life is often a curse. I think that could be pretty close to the mark.

You could always kill yourself, though with the downside that you might just get punted to the next level of hell, aka. r'lyeh.

However, I don't think this is going to be a major issue in reality. Humans are good at figuring out something to do, and if they don't have to work for food, there's still luxuries such as, oh, chairs, walls.. internet connections...

[GrayAnderson]

Anyone with good drawing skills want to make a warbonds poster?

You know, my first thought when I saw this was rather unfortunate. Seeing as Yahweh initially seems to have shown up as the deity of the Jews (at least in the format we're familiar with him), I just saw a raft of very nasty stereotypes being slapped on Yahweh and the angels. Considering that using the ugliest stereotypes available on one's enemies is not exactly a new thing, and also considering that incident where one of the angels was killed (and was mistakenly believed to have been eating the humans living in the house), I get a feeling that some of the art here might end up being NSFW in this universe.

---------------------------------

You know, I'm reminded of the situation with the Q in Star Trek (where all the discussions that could be had had been had, etc.). That said, I'm inclined to think such a situation is at the very least a long ways off.

[EdBecerra]

You know, my first thought when I saw this was rather unfortunate. Seeing as Yahweh initially seems to have shown up as the deity of the Jews (at least in the format we're familiar with him), I just saw a raft of very nasty stereotypes being slapped on Yahweh and the angels.

And along those lines, I suspect the Israelis are probably seriously pissed. I mean, from one point of view, they, as a people, have just been had by a "divine" con man for over 5,000 years, now! That's got to be extremely embarrassing, and I expect that given time to think about it, they're going to want a LOT of payback...

Ed.

[CaptainChewbacca]

With respect to Israel, I'll be interested to see if and how much the middle-east calms down. People seem to have largely given up on religion, but will there still be the hatred there if everyone knows that God is on NOBODY'S side?

[Samuel]

With respect to Israel, I'll be interested to see if and how much the middle-east calms down. People seem to have largely given up on religion, but will there still be the hatred there if everyone knows that God is on NOBODY'S side?

Obviously the Palestineans will be granted land in Heaven.

[Pelranius]

With respect to Israel, I'll be interested to see if and how much the middle-east calms down. People seem to have largely given up on religion, but will there still be the hatred there if everyone knows that God is on NOBODY'S side?

People will probably still be carrying hard feelings around (the Pan Arabists and Secular Zionists might make a comeback of sorts) but the big three powers aren't going to tolerate any extended level of mischief by any of the parties involved. Besides, most of their military has been shunted into Hell and expect that those societies are also undergoing total mobilization as well.

[Mayabird]

In the short term, the demand for land in the Middle East (esp. around Israel) will be lessened because a large portion of the population died from the Message. The Israeli settlements, for instance, tend to be made of and supported by more religious elements of the Jewish population who may all be dead now. The secular people who remain were usually opposed to the settlements in the first place (IIRC - Israelis, please correct me if I'm wrong) so now without the Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox lobbies pushing for them, they could have the places dismantled and remove one of the biggest sources of strife.