The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Forty One Up

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

I didn't get the impression that Mikey knew what was in the cart. He just knew that it was much heavier than expected and that the Myanmar Junta was acting really weird. That was what made him suspicious, I found myself cursing the Junta for fucking that up.

[Singular Quartet]

Honestly, the "he detects bomb by weight of cart" method is a bit stupid.

This is supposedly the great firesale event; so Michael Lan is going to expect to be lugging multiple tons of the stuff through the portal. So he shouldn't detect a weight discrepancy of a couple hundred pounds from the device itself.

Depends on the cart. If we're talking something as simple as an electric pallet jack, then yeah, he's going to notice. All those pills on a full pallet would only amount to maybe a ~1/4 ton or so. A few hundred pounds on top of that is gonna be noticed pretty damn quick, even in just the handling of the cart. I'm not sure, though, what Stuart means by "electric cart". If its some sort of electric forklift or something, thats a little more up in the air.

I think a better Idea would be to have Michael's skin start itching from the low level radiation emitted by the plutonium in the warhead. We know Angels and Baldricks are intensely sensitive to any kind of radiation; and he's right next to a nuclear device....

Might still be a better idea to have that mentioned either way, although the Americans might have added more shielding to the bomb to prevent just that (thereby adding more weight, and leading back to the whole cart thing)

EDIT: Fixed quoting

[Valiran]

and we've got more than enough to make sure even a gigantic angel gets high.

Wow, I totally missed that point. Angels are probably a bit larger than humans even at the lower scale; and that means more drugs will be needed overall.

That gives me an eeevil idea. Crop dusters made into unmanned drones with their tanks full of LSD. A few runs over one of Heaven's cities and everyone will be too stoned to fight back.

[Sute]

Portals do pass electromagnetic radiation.

They're transparent; you can see through them, and there's no reason to think visible light is the exception here.

Um, what? When was it stated that we could see through portals? Haven't they always been described as black ellipses?

[Kodiak]

Depends on the cart. If we're talking something as simple as an electric pallet jack, then yeah, he's going to notice. All those pills on a full pallet would only amount to maybe a ~1/4 ton or so. A few hundred pounds on top of that is gonna be noticed pretty damn quick, even in just the handling of the cart. I'm not sure, though, what Stuart means by "electric cart". If its some sort of electric forklift or something, thats a little more up in the air.

I got the impression that it was an electric pallet-jack or something of that sort. If the mass of the cart was 50% more than expected, he probably would've noticed the weight and as has been mentioned he just cut-and-ran when too many things started to seem suspicious.

[Land Phish]

I really want to see us bring some sonic moral breaking warfare to heaven when we bust in. Let's see how Yah-Yah's chorus likes having some power rock blasted at them! Of course Micheal's boys will probably be use to it, but they're only a small percentage of all the angels in heaven.

Maybe even a little "Stairway to Heaven"?

[Siege]

Maybe even a little "Stairway to Heaven"?

Uriel is down, isn't he? I say we blast 'em with some Tavares .

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Honestly, the "he detects bomb by weight of cart" method is a bit stupid.

This is supposedly the great firesale event; so Michael Lan is going to expect to be lugging multiple tons of the stuff through the portal. So he shouldn't detect a weight discrepancy of a couple hundred pounds from the device itself.

I think a better Idea would be to have Michael's skin start itching from the low level radiation emitted by the plutonium in the warhead. We know Angels and Baldricks are intensely sensitive to any kind of radiation; and he's right next to a nuclear device....

As others have pointed out, the local junta was behaving oddly. All that self-justification and blame-shifting. I imagine Michael's thought, if it had continued past "just as if" would've ended "they'd sold me out." Then he, apparently, promptly decided that the cart wasn't heavy with ecstasy and blow, but with screaming and 'BLAM'!

[Simon_Jester]

Victory might not be in thier grasp yet. If Belail figures out how to carry out the lava attack, bowls 5 and 6 will follow easily, and depending on how powerful the earthquake hailstone barrage in bowl 7 are, humanity better hurry it up, because the other 4 bowls, as well as the lamb beast and Dragon (who is stronger then all 3 put together), might give Yahweh total victory if they don't hurry it up.

Michael may rationalize the nuclear strike as Bowl 4; he did in fact deliver an awful lot of fire there.

Honestly, the "he detects bomb by weight of cart" method is a bit stupid.

This is supposedly the great firesale event; so Michael Lan is going to expect to be lugging multiple tons of the stuff through the portal. So he shouldn't detect a weight discrepancy of a couple hundred pounds from the device itself.

Firstly, the load is not only unexpectedly heavy, it's unexpectedly dense. Sort of like picking up a box about a cubic foot in size and realizing that it takes the full strength of a grown man to hold up; it really shouldn't be that heavy unless it's packed full of metal or something instead of being full of pills and powder.

Second, Michael is smart, probably genius or supergenius level. When they haven't been driven mad by power, high level 'supernaturals' are extremely clever; if they weren't confronted with such enormous out of context problems they be insanely dangerous opponents. Michael, who understands human capabilities best, is an insanely dangerous opponent, for that matter. The cart being, say, 10% heavier than he expects combined with the anomalous behavior of the junta leaders may very well be enough to clue him in, especially in a context where he's got to be pleasantly surprised that the junta can supply him with anything at all.

Another point is that if they knew the nuke was in the cart, none of the junta leaders would have asked to come with Michael, even to be transshipped to some other place on Earth to escape the fall of their regime. Since you'd normally expect oligarchs to do exactly that, their behavior must have been exceptionally weird to Michael, who's probably VERY used to people who know who he is begging him to take them with him.

I think a better Idea would be to have Michael's skin start itching from the low level radiation emitted by the plutonium in the warhead. We know Angels and Baldricks are intensely sensitive to any kind of radiation; and he's right next to a nuclear device....

Dunno. Plutonium mostly emits gammas and neutrons, which slip through matter like a ghost. Demons and angels are sensitive to EM, especially in the radio/radar frequencies, but that doesn't mean their skin operates as a scintillation counter.

Portals do pass electromagnetic radiation.

They're transparent; you can see through them, and there's no reason to think visible light is the exception here. However, since there's a potential energy barrier in the portals, any EM radiation that passes through should be redshifted slightly. This effect will probably not be noticable without special equipment.

? Could have sworn portals appeared as "black ellipsoids," and that you couldn't see through them.

[tortieconspiracy]

Portals do pass electromagnetic radiation.

They're transparent; you can see through them, and there's no reason to think visible light is the exception here.

Um, what? When was it stated that we could see through portals? Haven't they always been described as black ellipses?

Indeed they have, OTOH, the MQ-1B Predator got pictures out and orders in while scouting what was then the Martial Field of Dysprosium, so some kind of EM radiation can pass through even if visible light doesn't seem to.

[Jamesfirecat]

Michael may rationalize the nuclear strike as Bowl 4; he did in fact deliver an awful lot of fire there.

The only problem with this idea is that the blast clearly went up and at no point did it fall down, so that's more like fire shooting out of the ground than fire falling from the sky.

That said oh yeah I think a guy like Michael could sell that to a guy like Yah-Yah as Bowl 4.

[Darth Wong]

If the cart was so close to the ellipse that Michael could shove it through but it went off a few seconds earlier, the fireball would have been partly in Heaven and partly in the ellipse.

The physics of a nuclear fireball are as follows: the weapon reacts its fuel in a microsecond, and pumps vast amounts of high-frequency EM radiation into its environment. This instantly ionizes the shell of the device into an incredibly hot, dense plasma, which explodes outwards at enormous velocity. In fact, it pushes outwards at such great velocity that it heats up the air in front of it, creating a shockwave which heats up that air to blinding intensity. The fireball itself is also glowing as it releases radiation due to its sheer heat, like a blackbody radiator. So basically, you have a miniature super-compressed Sun, which explodes outwards until it can "relax" a bit and bleed off its energy at a slower rate.

If an ellipse is close to the point of detonation, one would expect that it would receive very bright light from the fireball, which is basically radiating light much like the Sun. But this would only last a small fraction of a second, until the fireball itself touches the ellipse. The ellipse would essentially be struck by a shock front of extremely dense high-pressure plasma, which should push right through because it's coming with a lot more force than a person or vehicle. On the other end, if the ellipse holds its shape, it would look like miniature nuclear fireball, dimensionally constrained on one side because of the portal.

Of course, that question depends on how ellipses work, how they interact with such high-energy events, etc. If the ellipse is greatly expanded by the blast, then more of the fireball would presumably come through.

[Surlethe]

Of course, that question depends on how ellipses work, how they interact with such high-energy events, etc. If the ellipse is greatly expanded by the blast, then more of the fireball would presumably come through.

IIRC, it depends on which side of the ellipse the energy strikes. If it's the Heaven/Hell side, the portal will get smaller; if it's the Earth side, the portal will become larger - that was the experience with the Sheffield and Detroit portals, at least.

[Darth Wong]

Question: did it bother anyone else that General Petraeus was so nonchalant about the failure of the operation and the loss of Madeuce and his team? Madeuce was just waiting to die anyway (really, he's the perfect guy for a one-way mission), but I was under the impression that the others were not.

[GrayAnderson]

Question: did it bother anyone else that General Petraeus was so nonchalant about the failure of the operation and the loss of Madeuce and his team? Madeuce was just waiting to die anyway (really, he's the perfect guy for a one-way mission), but I was under the impression that the others were not.

It didn't hit me too oddly, but I'm mainly thinking that:
1) He's not "really" lost. He'll probably be working with an allied power in a week.
2) The casualties in this war are probably piling up in a way we're not used to these days.

Still, the point is taken.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Question: did it bother anyone else that General Petraeus was so nonchalant about the failure of the operation and the loss of Madeuce and his team? Madeuce was just waiting to die anyway (really, he's the perfect guy for a one-way mission), but I was under the impression that the others were not.

Yeah, that seemed oddly detached to me.

[Edward Yee]

Ah, Michael-Lan. Not only did you fuck up once, allowing them to monitor the portal readings and possibly find a way into heaven, but you opened a portal to Heaven twice, offering a chance to double-check any readings they got from the first opening.

Didn't read that way to me; what I saw was CPT Madeuce's team being the only ones actually monitoring, and even had he prevented the "initiation" in time they had already been disassembling the equipment, so they'd have to go on that first portal... plus, if possible, Uriel's.

And then there's Uriel's portal - how stable is that sucker? Considering how rushed Mike Wong was, I figured it probably closed not long after he got back.

I think so as well... after all, strategically a "Squid" in Heaven is a (pun intended) godsend, but tactically Uriel needs killing!

I didn't get the impression that Mikey knew what was in the cart. He just knew that it was much heavier than expected and that the Myanmar Junta was acting really weird. That was what made him suspicious, I found myself cursing the Junta for fucking that up.

Or found one last way to "spit in the face" of the victors of the Thai/HEA-Myanmar War of 2009.

Question: did it bother anyone else that General Petraeus was so nonchalant about the failure of the operation and the loss of Madeuce and his team? Madeuce was just waiting to die anyway (really, he's the perfect guy for a one-way mission), but I was under the impression that the others were not.

I can't speak for the real-life Petraeus (no wonder he's probably getting a fictional counterpart in the print version), but this is the same fictional Petraeus who positioned an infantry brigade to see how human infantry would fare against demon infantry (Answer: they got mauled; Tucker McElroy was one of them) and in this case CPT Madeuce's team was lost only after they accomplished a key part of the endgoal of the 'offensive' efforts to this war: Bring the war to Heaven.

[rdfox2]

Why are B-1Cs using the "Spirit of..." names? Aren't those reserved for the B-2s?

What B-2s?

But still, the B-1s don't have the Spirits' naming conventions - not before the B-2's introduction. So why did this change after the B-2s got hurricaned?

With rare exceptions, like the B-2s, individual aircraft names tend to be both unofficial and assigned by the crews. Just as there are plenty of B-52s named after WW2 bombers, and probably at least one named "The Leper Colony," they could just as easily choose to name two new ones in the "Spirit" scheme instead.

Personally, I'm waiting to see how long before someone names his heretofore unnamed A-10 based in Hell "Hellfire and Brimstone"...

[TimothyC]

Based on how big the Harppys were in Chapter 1 of Armageddon, and the description here of Uriel, Uriel probably has a wingspan of somewhere between 80 and 160 feet (he's twice the size of The Greater Harpy Heralds that were said to be: "large flying humanoids about the same size as a Super-Bug. Wingspan at least twice as great as ours, probably much larger.") That is big enough to make me wonder how big Dumah is, and looking back, about a quarter to a third of the wingspan of Satan's Hydra.

Also - I got the impression that Micheal closed the portal in Burma rapidly after he sent the cart back, so no effect on Heaven there.

[fnord]

Dunno. Plutonium mostly emits gammas and neutrons, which slip through matter like a ghost. Demons and angels are sensitive to EM, especially in the radio/radar frequencies, but that doesn't mean their skin operates as a scintillation counter.

Minor nitpick - the only significant Pu isotope to decay by other than alpha emission is Pu-241, beta decaying to Am-241. Chemically, you're worse off mainlining heroin than mainlining Pu - although inhalation of finely-divided Pu, thanks to the alpha emission, is a significant health risk to your lungs and GI tract.

EDIT: Forgot about the spontaneous fission background, which is tiny for Pu-239 - 30 n/sec-kg, and much bigger for Pu-240 - 1M n/sec-kg - still bugger-all gamma emissions

[Guardsman Bass]

Didn't read that way to me; what I saw was CPT Madeuce's team being the only ones actually monitoring, and even had he prevented the "initiation" in time they had already been disassembling the equipment, so they'd have to go on that first portal... plus, if possible, Uriel's.

It actually mentions in the chapter that all the readings they're getting from the device are being uplinked straight to DIMON. Which means that not only did they get the portal readings when Michael-Lan opened the portal on the Earth side, but they got additional readings when he opened a Heaven-Earth portal a second time over that short period. Meaning that they can double-check everything, and just got a wonderful dataset on the transit to use.

I wonder what their plan is in terms of launching the invasion. From the description I read of Heaven, it sounds like they basically made Heaven ideal for bombing but possibly not so hot if you can't simply send a conventional force straight into the Eternal City, since you'd have to go through extensive slums of Second Life humans.

Which raises a second question - if they open a portal, where are they opening it to in Heaven? I can't remember where Michael-Lan ends up when he comes back through from Myanmar with his goodies.

[Simon_Jester]

Dunno. Plutonium mostly emits gammas and neutrons, which slip through matter like a ghost. Demons and angels are sensitive to EM, especially in the radio/radar frequencies, but that doesn't mean their skin operates as a scintillation counter.

Minor nitpick - the only significant Pu isotope to decay by other than alpha emission is Pu-241...
EDIT: Forgot about the spontaneous fission background, which is tiny for Pu-239 - 30 n/sec-kg, and much bigger for Pu-240 - 1M n/sec-kg - still bugger-all gamma emissions

Alphas won't even get past the bomb casing; I didn't count them.

It actually mentions in the chapter that all the readings they're getting from the device are being uplinked straight to DIMON. Which means that not only did they get the portal readings when Michael-Lan opened the portal on the Earth side, but they got additional readings when he opened a Heaven-Earth portal a second time over that short period. Meaning that they can double-check everything, and just got a wonderful dataset on the transit to use.

Except that they were already dismantling their equipment when he opened the second portal.

I wonder what their plan is in terms of launching the invasion. From the description I read of Heaven, it sounds like they basically made Heaven ideal for bombing but possibly not so hot if you can't simply send a conventional force straight into the Eternal City, since you'd have to go through extensive slums of Second Life humans.

If you pop troops out of a portal right into the middle of the Eternal City, you're stuck in house to house infantry fighting with the local angel population, who are about as tough as the demons that gave 10th Mountain a beating at Hit. And bombers will come flying blind out of the portal in easy range of the largest AAY* concentration of angels in the bubble universe. I'd think you want to open the portal somewhere outside the city, so your forces can get their bearings (and start bombing) before getting mixed in at close range with supersoldiers.

*Anti-Aircraft Yelling

[Guardsman Bass]

Except that they were already dismantling their equipment when he opened the second portal.

My bad - I missed that part.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Yeah, getting aircraft up over heaven is going to be a problem. Hell didn't have many harpies, but I think most (if not all) angels in heaven can fly and shout.

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah, getting aircraft up over heaven is going to be a problem. Hell didn't have many harpies, but I think most (if not all) angels in heaven can fly and shout.

Hell had tons of harpies, but harpies were short ranged and too slow to engage fixed wing aircraft effectively. Angels aren't any faster, but they're much longer ranged, which offsets the speed disadvantage somewhat. It also makes close air support of ground formations extremely difficult...