Salvation War Criticism Thread

[Losonti Tokash]

I find it funny that you guys are bitching about the story for not being personal enough, yet no one wants to write fanfics that focus on those aspects.

yes, ray, the only thing people are bitching about it that the characters are boring, not that pretty much the entire execution of the story's concept is shit

[RedImperator]

I think the word you are looking for is documentary. If people wants to tell a story in TSW and focus on a small group of characters, there's no stopping you from writing fanfic about TSW.

Yeah, okay, except this isn't a documentary. It's a story. You can write it in documentary style, but it's still a story, and if your characters are flat and boring, then that's a mark against the story. There's no story ever written that would have been improved by making the characters less interesting, and "This isn't a character-driven story" isn't an excuse for lousy ones.

I find it funny that you guys are bitching about the story for not being personal enough, yet no one wants to write fanfics that focus on those aspects.

...are you being serious?

[Stark]

somehow nobody wants to write stories about personal drama? whut?

oh yeah sorry fanfic being about wanking to xyz thing lol

[Pick]

Uh, I don't write fanfics, but if I did, I'd write them for things I enjoy. Or at least things I can get through the whole way.

[Ford Prefect]

I think the word you are looking for is documentary. If people wants to tell a story in TSW and focus on a small group of characters, there's no stopping you from writing fanfic about TSW.

I find it funny that you guys are bitching about the story for not being personal enough, yet no one wants to write fanfics that focus on those aspects.

Ray, have you tried thinking before speaking in a while? We're not 'bitching', we're just describing things we don't like about a story, and even trying to make it an honest critique. 'Documentary' doesn't mean 'without character' or 'uninteresting prose'; there are documentaries which are interesting to watch and present colourful personalities. Even don't even begin to address other points of critique that have been raised in parts of this thread. If you want to defend a story you like, cool. If you want to half-ass it, I don't have time for you.

[ray245]

I think the word you are looking for is documentary. If people wants to tell a story in TSW and focus on a small group of characters, there's no stopping you from writing fanfic about TSW.

I find it funny that you guys are bitching about the story for not being personal enough, yet no one wants to write fanfics that focus on those aspects.

Ray, have you tried thinking before speaking in a while? We're not 'bitching', we're just describing things we don't like about a story, and even trying to make it an honest critique. 'Documentary' doesn't mean 'without character' or 'uninteresting prose'; there are documentaries which are interesting to watch and present colourful personalities. Even don't even begin to address other points of critique that have been raised in parts of this thread. If you want to defend a story you like, cool. If you want to half-ass it, I don't have time for you.

Doesn't that depends on what the documentary is presenting? I mean if you are going to watch a documentary series presenting the whole of world war 2 as opposed to a documentary about the life story about some famous people, there is bound to be some level of differences. I don't think it is appropriate for a documentary the is talking about the whole of World War 2 to focus on Hitler just to ensure the documentary has colourful personalities.

Yeah, okay, except this isn't a documentary. It's a story. You can write it in documentary style, but it's still a story, and if your characters are flat and boring, then that's a mark against the story. There's no story ever written that would have been improved by making the characters less interesting, and "This isn't a character-driven story" isn't an excuse for lousy ones.

Except a character focused story would have limits in regards to world building. There is only so much you can show about the war if you are focusing on the characters. I would rather have a war story about a fictional war showing us the big picture as opposed to showing us the small picture.

I mean I'm reading TSW to find out about the war, and not just about the lives of people involved in that conflict.

[Stark]

is world building ever anything other than self-indulgent, soapboxing bullshit?

i appreciate that it's concievable to 'world-build' as a thought experiment or game or whatever

but is that ever actually seen or is it pretty much always pompous gas-bagging on talking points

[Formless]

Its entirely possible to make a story in documentary style without it being bland shit, ray. District 9 for example was one of the most gripping films I've seen in years, and you know why? The characters were actually compelling. So saying that Stuart chose to write in a documentary style is no excuse for bland characterization.

And worldbuilding? Really? Ray, do you read any speculative fiction at all besides this one?

[RedImperator]

Yeah, okay, except this isn't a documentary. It's a story. You can write it in documentary style, but it's still a story, and if your characters are flat and boring, then that's a mark against the story. There's no story ever written that would have been improved by making the characters less interesting, and "This isn't a character-driven story" isn't an excuse for lousy ones.

Except a character focused story would have limits in regards to world building. There is only so much you can show about the war if you are focusing on the characters. I would rather have a war story about a fictional war showing us the big picture as opposed to showing us the small picture.

This is a ridiculous false dichotomy. It's entirely within the realm of possibility to tell an epic story with interesting, well-rounded characters.

[Pick]

I know when I read Lord of the Rings, I skipped through the parts about those little men so I could get to the indexes. Reading about obscure family trees and fictional factoids was party a go-go time in the land of Pick.

*(Truth: I skipped through the parts about the little men to get to the ending.)

Really, it's not a "this or that" situation.

[Duckie]

Aw fuck now you guys are making me text dump after I've spent pages reading this lit-crit without trying to step into an arena I'm worthless at. But here it goes:

Personally if I were to world-build, and I do have a collaborative fantasy universe project so I do, I try not to make my world suck. Although I focus too much on conlanging, I at least try to make a plausible and interesting setting with varied cultures but valid socioeconomic reasons for all of them. This might be because I view fantasy in a different way from most people. I do this as a hobby, because I'm weird like this. Names of famous people, histories, proto-languages, cultural substrates, etc. all get thrown into this universe, which is constantly revised as I find out certain things are unrealistic or get better ideas (for instance, I'm currently reading more on the supposed Bronze Age Collapse- the analogue here is perhaps unrealistic). Why? Who cares, really, whether the Tlōno people of the southern plains past the mountain vales had a system of racial castes, or what the key differences are between Mara and Ngara peoples on the great isthmus?

Well, I dunno. Nobody really does. It's just a hobby. But it's all pointless. If you wrote a story in this universe, it wouldn't matter how detailed or impressively well thought out, for instance, the way magic or the differences between various dialects of andak or whatever, or whether you've paid attention to things like fortified spirits not being able to exist without distillation and primitive chemistry. It doesn't matter, save that for a writer in this universe, my work would be like pre-made and hopefully attractive flourishes to add to the story to give it versmillitude (which is the second most important thing in a story, but that's another rant). Bottom line on stories: As a reader, my thoughts are: your story's characters need to not suck.

I cannot actually write worth a damn, so I merely concept-build. The other day I outlined a 3-section story following the growth of a character who is the lynchpin around which the various elements of the story tie together, with a significant part of the story being how the events impact her emotional growth and coming of age rather than the events themselves. None of which I am skilled enough to write, but I can certainly concieve of it in the same way as I know what a skyscraper is without building one.

A story like that, it does not matter what genre it takes place in. It could be anything from modern day with touches of magical realism to, I dunno, sci-fi mecha anime- you can slide it into any universe because it's about a character. I have a (different from anything above) universe in mind, but like I was saying- it should be possible to tell a story without any of its universe elements and still be a good character-driven story. World-building- the cool ideas- are just decoration to place on it.

[PeZook]

Thanks, guys! I'm not reading Armageddon anymore! I'm cured!

Now I'm reading this thread instead...

Damn

[Junghalli]

I'm quite seriously toying with moving this thread to fanfics with its more reasonable or interesting criticisms intact, as a "TSW Criticisms Thread". It seems to me that Stuart's story has something of a home on this board and discussions of it merit a wider audience.

Edit: Parts of this thread. Minus anything that references penises.

It would be bad because the OMG MCNAMARA crowd would descend upon this thread and go OH NO LITERARY CRITICISM BAD I JUSTIFICATE STORY BY POSTING CHART OF XB-70 VALKYRIE AND MISSILE DEFENSE SYSTEM GODDAMN OBAMA FUCK THOSE RUSSIANS ABM! NIKE-HERCULES! MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX! SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP! WHORES WHORES WHORES!

Hell, in this thread I can represent that crowd by posting whoreswhoreswhores!

Shroom has a point here but I think this thread really does deserve to be preserved for posterity. You don't see criticism like this in the TSW commentary thread, because frankly the place is more than a little bit of a circle jerk about how awesome the story is and nobody wants to be the first to barge in there, post a hard-hitting no punches pulled description of everything that's done really badly in the story, and then find himself dogpiled by a dozen outraged guys furiously screaming stuff like "you missed the point of the story you stupid idiot is an mockumentary so it doesn't need tension!" Honestly, we could use this thread in the fanfic forum because the actual TSW thread is a well-insulated place of almost nothing but positive feedback, where ever minor criticisms are put forward tentatively, and fundamental criticisms like "your whole approach sucks" are scarcely acknowledged, except for second-hand arguments from TVtropes people in the form of "look at these stupid idiots" posts. This may sound like sour grapes or bias but if so I invite you to actually read the Armageddon and Pantheocide threads in Fanfics, I'm pretty confident you'll come away from them realizing that what I just said is pretty much accurate.

My suggestion would be that we let the discussion run its course here and then when it seems to have mostly petered out "retire" it to the fanfic forum so it may preserved.

I have no problem with humanity winning, but if I read a story, the protagonist should sweat for it, not just waltz ont hrough: it completely eliminates tension. I don't think this is any more aptly demonstrated in The Salvation War than with Uriel. When Uriel is supposed to be the biggest badass in the universe. Even setting aside the hyperbole about him being the Sword and Scythe of the One Above All, even Michael considers Uriel by far the most dangerous enemy that humanity has faced.

And you know, how a moment I almost believed it. He can kill tens of thousands of people at a stroke and tanks hits from AIM-152s and just keeps coming back for more. Except ... he's completely useless. Yes, he's probably the most dangerous enemy that humanity has faced, but this makes him slightly more threatening than a speedbump. What has Uriel achieved, exactly? Well, he's managed to turn himself into a complete joke. In his most recent foray, after having come to the decision that he should change tactics, mostly out of fear, he discovers that humans have mostly overcome his ability to erase a person's soul. And not only that, that they don't even remotely take him seriously. You read it, right? How did you not roll your eyes when you got to the line about humans laughing at Uriel? There are, vaguely, some interesting themes at work in Pantheocide, but they're wrapped up in the thickest blanket of 'ooh rah humanity' wankery that it's difficult to even care. Even Stuart's desire to present the results of the huge disparity of force could be compelling and harrowing, but it isn't. If he wanted to deliver a picture of what it's like to be the gun on the machine gun in World War I, he's failing miserably, because it just comes off as twenty bazillion demons getting waxed, then the humans move onto the next pressing issue of getting SAC back into the air.

See, this is a good example of how TSW is full of awesome concepts that are ruined by shitty execution. The moment that Uriel realized he was starting to become afraid of humans would have been awesome if Uriel was actually what we was getting hyped up to be. Instead, of course, Uriel gets turned into an impotent pathetic figure so the fact that humans now scare him is nothing special and just reads like more human-wank. If the Angel of Death, the Sword and Scythe of God is scared of us it means there's hope, because if we're badass enough to scare somebody like him then maybe we're badass enough to actually be able to win against Hell and Heaven. In TSW however Uriel being scared of us means nothing more than some 19th century African tribesmen being scared of the British; it doesn't mean anything if any enemy you totally outclass is scared of you, because if he isn't scared of you it just means he's very brave or too stupid to realize what he's up against, and crowing about how much we scare an enemy we completely outclass anyway just looks childish and wanky.

Actually that's why TSW is executed poorly in a nutshell. Watching a story that's about nothing but a one-sided slaughter might be interesting ... if you sympathize with the people being slaughtered. But while there are individually sympathetic Angels and Demons the story follows all the conventions of classic military SF, where the story's emotional center of gravity is firmly on rooting for the good guys and wanting them to win. So you have a story that's about humanity's struggle against the Demons and Angels ... which is a one-sided slaughter where humanity totally outclasses its enemies, but we're supposed to have a lot of emotion invested in wanting humans to win anyway. It would be like if somebody wrote a story about the US Army in the 1900s vs Native Americans or the British of the same era vs African kingdoms, only it was done in classic military SF style where the whole point of the story was about the American or British struggle and victory against the enemy ... who the good guys totally outclass and who could not possibly win without an act of alien space bats. Why exactly should I care? Yeah, you can say the characters and stuff, but then you need to make the focus on that and not on the conflict itself, which TSW doesn't really do.

What would be the best way to make them more of a threat? Have Hell stockpiling weapons to take on heaven for the last 50,000 years and unleash them upon human forces?

Well, if you just had God's attacks follow the actual descriptions in Revelation instead of massively nerfing them down in the name of pretentions of being hard sci fi (which was honestly pretty silly given all the blatantly physics-raping things that show up in TSW, like the dead being perpetual motion machines) you could end up with a situation where humanity was in pretty dire straights. Sure, by the descriptions the actual footsoldiers of God and Satan shouldn't be too much to worry about (they sound like basically horse cavalry with flamethrowers), but they're not the ones you have to worry about, it's God's strategic weapons that are the problem. I'm pretty sure turning much of the world's water supply undrinkable would by itself massively bugger up human civilization.

[Ford Prefect]

Doesn't that depends on what the documentary is presenting? I mean if you are going to watch a documentary series presenting the whole of world war 2 as opposed to a documentary about the life story about some famous people, there is bound to be some level of differences. I don't think it is appropriate for a documentary the is talking about the whole of World War 2 to focus on Hitler just to ensure the documentary has colourful personalities.

Ray, please, think. Even setting aside Red's pretty crucial point that The Salvation War is not a real documentary, and in fact doesn't even look like a documentary at all, how do you suppose this is at alll reasonable a counterpoint? What I'm saying here is that The Salvation War suffers from having fdry characterisation. Stuart has stated his intent to demonstrate the world on its head, but who gives a shit if this isn't demonstrated through the people living in the world? Simply saying 'people have changed how they think about things' isn't enough, not if you want to be compelling or convincing. Red's comment that 'there's no story ever written that would have been improved by making the characters less interesting' is so glaringly true and obvious that I can't even understand why you're objecting*.

Except a character focused story would have limits in regards to world building. There is only so much you can show about the war if you are focusing on the characters. I would rather have a war story about a fictional war showing us the big picture as opposed to showing us the small picture.

I mean I'm reading TSW to find out about the war, and not just about the lives of people involved in that conflict.

This is absolute nonsense. Iain M. Banks' Culture novels are almost universally extended character studies and they, simply as a by-product, present a detailed, expansive world. Presenting the events of a world through the experiences of a character is almost always totally superior. The reader is able to see what it is actually like to be a person in that: what it smells like, what it looks like, how it feels to be a person living in those times. You seem to be treating prose like you would a visual medium, when this is intellecutally bankrupt. You need to treat a book like a book, with its particular abilities to provide nuance and experience through prose. This is setting aside the fact that I think that choosing to focus on such a wide picture makes The Salvation War suffer as a story, because there's no coherency of narrative: it jumps around from point to point with nothing there to make it actually matter. What is a war without people?

*Actually, I do know: you're a fanboy and completely incapable of objectivity.

[Lagmonster]

I decided that testing's discussion of TSW, for better or worse, deserved the attention of the main fanfics forum. I've done my best to split out the bizarre sidetracks, non-serious criticisms, and anything where someone says someone else sucks or is stupid without providing any actual content. So this thread isn't perfect, but the most important comments are here.

Original Thread Here

[Stuart]

Honestly, the idea of Michael being a drug dealer, of all things, strikes me as being purely to 'discredit' Heaven as a really serious threat. The angels are all junkies? Are you fucking kidding me?

I think you (badly) need to read the story. Michael-Lan is Using drugs to subvert the ruling structure of Heaven and as part of his long-term plan to remove Yahweh and establish what he considers to be a more reasonable regime. If that sounds unlikely - remember the Opium Wars. What he is doing is subversion rather than insurgency and he is remarking on the efficiency of his approach as compared with an insurgency (which is also brewing). Nowhere near "all the angels" are involved, in fact only a tiny proportion of carefully-chosen ones are.

Oh yes. I rather dislike the way he is pretty much ineffective; I would have preferred it if he actually slaughtered with ease and the only defense against him was to shoot him before he got you. It'd make him so much scarier.

That is in fact exactly the situation. The only defense against Uriel was to kill him or drive him off before people started dying. Humans had learned to resist his attack but they were only buying time until the human defense forces arrived. It was made quite clear that their resistance was steadily weakening and would collapse in time. Uriel had wiped out (or severely mauled) a lot of towns before he arrived in the United States. Once in the U.S. he was deliberately and very ruthlessly steered by Michael-Lan to the targets that were most likely to get him killed. Michael-Lan wasn't powerful enough to take Uriel down on his own, he needed humans to do it for him. So he shepherded Uriel to cities that were ringed by defenses and had airbases in close proximity. In a very real sense, Uriel was killed by humans but he was murdered by Michael. Uriel could have achieved a lot more in terms of death if he'd picked small towns somewhere well-removed from military bases and concentrated on them. That would have accommodated his ends but not those of Michael-Lan.

it's always hard to take a story seriously when half the character names are the names of forum posters

This is a pretty standard internet convention of novels/other works published on internet forums. It started a long, long time ago and has become a standard thing. In published works, the names mostly get changed to more logical or commonplace ones. In TSW, the names used are those who contributed things to the story, either in written sections, as ideas/inspirations, or logistics support.

maybe we should pitch in to pay for Stuart taking a uni creative writing course

I've been writing professionally for around 35 years but nearly all of that is producing dry reports and technical documents. Even so, remember what you see here is very much a first draft document. Not only that, it is a first draft assembled from multiple authors whose work has to be smoothed to the same style and arranged in logic order with the dead ends and plot distractions deleted. Polishing TSW:A is really hard work. It's taking a lot longer than I thought. By the way, you'd be amazed at the difference the editing makes - there's a reason why authors and copy editors are different people. PS if you are doing a collection, a bottle of 18 year old Laphroig would probably be more inspirational.

What about 'the targeteer'??

The funny thing is, I didn't introduce this character although I smoothed him out a lot. FYI he's a mixture of three people I knew in The Business. Herman Kahn, B Bruce-Briggs and Don Brennan (the flat, unemotional voice is straight Don Brennan, I try to emulate it when I'm giving briefings but I can't do it as well as he could). The goofball, eerie sense of humor is pure Herman. The targeteer is the voice of the think-tank world (which I'm part of) but he doesn;t speak for me or anybody else. Something I keep saying over and over. In this novel as with most others, the characters speak for themselves, they don't speak for me.

Ultimately Stuart is resolving most issues by having them shot with missiles,

This is a military situation, one does resolve them by shooting at things. However, remember the background this story came from. The premise was that the netherworld, as laid down more or less in Biblical text, is condemning humanity and humanity fights back. I then looked at the kind of weaponry was described and the sort of societies represented, compared it to what we have now and sort of sat back stunned. Two thousand years ago, the authors of those texts gave their gods the most powerful weapons they could think of and to us, they're pathetic jokes. We could walk all over them. Two things came out of that, what would walking all over the opposition like that do to us as a people? And doing so would bring hope to Hell, what would that do?

I think Stuart's biggest folly is to go at the concept from a position of omniscience, focussing on the entire world and a great number of different positions. Personally, I would have probably attacked the problem from a singular position.

The "omniscience" viewpoint was kind of forced on me. I have no intention of taking this storyline beyond the initial trilogy so it had to be a self-contained package. Normally, my preferred way of doing things is to pick out a couple of intertwined paths and follow them so the fictional universe is shaded in as the stories add up. I would much have preferred to have worked from a singular (or two or three related) positions as well. The limited run of the TSW stories doesn't allow that. I had to try and accommodate the whole world in a single panning shot so to speak. Even so, this grew from one volume to three (a growth that itself caused problems) yet is still a limited canvas.

maybe we should ask stuart if he's secretly a fan of fantasy novels

No. I also dislike cartoons and found Monty Python boring and foolish.

"Dogs are supremely logical creatures" made me nearly do a spit-take.

Why? They are. I've lived with big dogs in my homes most of my life and (within their terms of reference) dogs are indeed supremely logical.

I'm just wondering where Stuart got 'Mekratrig' from.

It's been used a bit. Heinlein used it in Magic Incorporated, James Blish in Black Easter. If you want a curb-stomping of Daemons by the way, try the latter. The world militaries take one night of fighting to obliterate both daemons and angels. The realization of just how outdated the mythology is doesn't just come from me. Jerry Pournelle makes much the same points.

I don't think this is any more aptly demonstrated in The Salvation War than with Uriel. When Uriel is supposed to be the biggest badass in the universe. Even setting aside the hyperbole about him being the Sword and Scythe of the One Above All, even Michael considers Uriel by far the most dangerous enemy that humanity has faced. And you know, how a moment I almost believed it. He can kill tens of thousands of people at a stroke and tanks hits from AIM-152s and just keeps coming back for more. Except ... he's completely useless. Yes, he's probably the most dangerous enemy that humanity has faced, but this makes him slightly more threatening than a speedbump. What has Uriel achieved, exactly? Well, he's managed to turn himself into a complete joke. In his most recent foray, after having come to the decision that he should change tactics, mostly out of fear, he discovers that humans have mostly overcome his ability to erase a person's soul. And not only that, that they don't even remotely take him seriously. You read it, right? How did you not roll your eyes when you got to the line about humans laughing at Uriel?

The fact that Uriel gets killed (neglecting for a moment that he was effectively murdered by Michael) is the turning point of the story - and it's deliberately symbolic that he was killed by a laser. Uriel is the old school, the old way of doing things, the mainstay of Yahweh's rule and society. He was seen as the sword of the light so he is killed by a sword of pure light. His death is the exact half-way point through the story. His death at the hands of a laser marks the handing of the torch on from the Universe-Two beings to us. We're now the deadly ones, we're the ones that can inflict mass death and destruction and make creation bow down to our will. The war will have to be fought on our terms now - Michael-Lan knew that all along and that is what he has been trying to maneuver, a way that Heaven can fight us on our terms and still survive. Hell never saw that, hence the curb-stomping. And yes, the humans are powerful. I'm a humanist, I rather like humans which is why i think it's a pity we're not going to survive much longer.

A couple of misapprehensions. Humans haven't overcome his soul-erasing power, they've learned how to resist it for a period. If the attack carries on long enough, they will die. And, as stated before, its a very human reaction to laugh at an enemy, especially a very powerful one. Look at the jokes about Hitler in the UK during 1940 (when it looked very much as if Britain was going to be invaded). Same mechanism.

People love what he's dishing out, so he keep dishing it out. Classical conditioning.

Actually, the definition of commercial success.

Except of course that this has proven to not even be slightly inconvenient. Yeah, it's mentioned, but it never actually translates to anything concrete. When push comes to shove, no one is exactly short changed when it comes to missiles or bullets or jet fuel. The allusions to logistics trouble are nothing more than that, not even counting as an issue.

They're much more than that actually. They're stopping a lot of things happening and become critically important very shortly. They haven't been too significant up to this point because the war is deadlocked and there are no major operations going on.

It's an easy way to draw people in, I'll admit.

I gave Mike pride of place because this is his site, he does all the work in maintaining it and bears the cost of same. This is his playground which he makes available for us to use. So, bearing in mind the fact that yanking in the names of forum members is an old, well-established internet tradition, I thought that pushing him in first was a deserved nod to the efforts he makes on all our behalves. No more, no less than that.


(NOTE - This is being repeatedly edited to add points as I read the thread and answer the more interesting ones. I thought it would be easier if I put all the answers in one place).

[Ryan Thunder]

Oh yes. I rather dislike the way he is pretty much ineffective; I would have preferred it if he actually slaughtered with ease and the only defense against him was to shoot him before he got you. It'd make him so much scarier.

That is in fact exactly the situation.

It is not. People were laughing at him. Dumb animals were resisting his attack.

Maybe that's what you wanted to portray, but it isn't what you wrote.

Uriel had wiped out (or severely mauled) a lot of towns before he arrived in the United States.

Little towns, of ultimately little consequence to the war effort.

Why doesn't he erase a factory or something?

[Stuart]

It is not. People were laughing at him.

Let me tell you a little story. In 1996 the IRA bombed Canary wharf in London. When the rescue teams were pulling people out of the wreckage, one of the victims was an old man. The rescuers first question was "Are you all right Sir?"

To which he replied. "All right? of course I'm all right! I lived through the Blitz, I've been blown up by a better class of bastard than this."

Laughing at and ridiculing people who are trying to kill us is one of humanity's most endearing characteristics. It's a knee-jerk reaction to threat 9although the Brits do it better than most).

Dumb animals were resisting his attack. Maybe that's what you wanted to portray, but it isn't what you wrote.

Yes it is, reread those sections, they describe people dying. Animals that had empathy with humans managed to survive but the rest died and it's made very clear that everybody else, humans included was weakening under the assault and would eventually have died. In fact, thousands of people in los Angeles did die.

Little towns, of ultimately little consequence to the war effort. Why doesn't he erase a factory or something?

The whole point went right over your head didn't it? Uriel stayed away from the United States because he knew it was dangerous. Uriel killed people because for uncounted millenia that's what he did. He was the eraser of souls and populations. Factories to him were just more agglomerations of people. He hit big cities in the USA because that is what he was told to do by Heaven's leading general and he didn't realize those instructions were intended to get him killed.

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

If you're actually taking the powers and abilities of the Ancient Gods into account, why aren't all the freshwater lates and rivers of the world rendered poisonous by the star Wormwood? Why aren't the whole world's seas turned to blood? Why is there a secret insurrection among the Elohim when they are and always were, Biblically and traditionally, the totally loyal Servants and Soldiers of God? Why can't God just nuke cities with fire and brimstone when he considers them unworthy, and turn people he doesn't like into pillars of salt on a whim? (I know you changed Sodom & Gomorrah to have been hell-caused, but that just makes even less sense and is just another example of removing one of Heaven's still-significant powers just because) Why can't he just snap his fingers and make Light itself cease to be, since Biblically and Traditionally he is the Creator and Sovereign over all of the Universe?

Oh wait you massively nerfed the opposition in order to make the story less interesting nvm.

[Stuart]

If you're actually taking the powers and abilities of the Ancient Gods into account, why aren't all the freshwater lates and rivers of the world rendered poisonous by the star Wormwood?

Done. See pantheocide

Why aren't the whole world's seas turned to blood?

Done. See Pantheocide

Why is there a secret insurrection among the Elohim when they are and always were, Biblically and traditionally, the totally loyal Servants and Soldiers of God?

Spoiler

It's coming. Pantheocide already has the first stages of it in the text

Oh wait you massively nerfed the opposition in order to make the story less interesting.

Not at all. What I did was take the described "powers" and try and find some sort of rational explanation for them. The First Law of the Salvationverse is that the physical laws have to be similar enough for interaction to occur. If the divergence is too great, then interaction becomes impossible. As a corollary, if they can interact with us, we can with them. Thus, if they can hurt us with a thunderbolt, we can hurt them with a shot from a tank. I tried to give the netherworlders every power listed (throwing thunderbolts, possessing minds, invisibility, suppressing life etc etc etc). Don;t blame me if they're so feeble, blame the ancient scribes who didn't have enough imagination to think of all the ways humans can find to kill each other.

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

Er, sorry, I just edited my earlier post before I saw yours was posted. Blame board software.

[Stuart]

IWhy can't he just snap his fingers and make Light itself cease to be, since Biblically and Traditionally he is the Creator and Sovereign over all of the Universe?

Can you give me a physical mechanism consistent with the laws of physics (more or less, I'll accept limited modifications) by which it could be done? Remember, traditions were written by people without understanding of what they were seeing. We now understand some of what we were seeing. Old-style. "The Universe exists - HE must have created it". New style. "The Universe exists. Now, for a long explanation of the Big Bang, see . . . . . .).
And remember, for interaction to be possible, there must be extensive similarity of physical laws. If there is not, they cannot exist here, we cannot exist there, therefore we can't interact, therefore to all intents and purposes they don't exist (The aether argument). This leads to an interesting conundrum which resulted in a fundie running off with his tail between his legs.

[Ryan Thunder]

It is not. People were laughing at him.

Let me tell you a little story. In 1996 the IRA bombed Canary wharf in London. When the rescue teams were pulling people out of the wreckage, one of the victims was an old man. The rescuers first question was "Are you all right Sir?"

To which he replied. "All right? of course I'm all right! I lived through the Blitz, I've been blown up by a better class of bastard than this."

Laughing at and ridiculing people who are trying to kill us is one of humanity's most endearing characteristics. It's a knee-jerk reaction to threat (although the Brits do it better than most).

Yeah, and nobody's even slightly terrified. Well, that, or everybody described is very good at hiding it. Even in their private thoughts.

Dumb animals were resisting his attack. Maybe that's what you wanted to portray, but it isn't what you wrote.

Yes it is, reread those sections, they describe people dying. Animals that had empathy with humans managed to survive but the rest died and it's made very clear that everybody else, humans included was weakening under the assault and would eventually have died. In fact, thousands of people in los Angeles did die.[/quote]

Little towns, of ultimately little consequence to the war effort. Why doesn't he erase a factory or something?

The whole point went right over your head didn't it? Uriel stayed away from the United States because he knew it was dangerous. Uriel killed people because for uncounted millenia that's what he did. He was the eraser of souls and populations. Factories to him were just more agglomerations of people. He hit big cities in the USA because that is what he was told to do by Heaven's leading general and he didn't realize those instructions were intended to get him killed.

So the Angel of Death was only successful because he attacked small, inconsequential settlements prior to this? Isn't that the sort of thinking that got this whole discussion started in the first place?

Why aren't the whole world's seas turned to blood?

Done. See Pantheocide.

Only near the coasts, as I recall. I may be remembering incorrectly, though.

Oh wait you massively nerfed the opposition in order to make the story less interesting.

Not at all. What I did was take the described "powers" and try and find some sort of rational explanation for them.

And then nerfed them and/or said they were lying about them so they would be less impressive than one would expect.

Where are the pillars of fire? Great floods? Plagues of boils, locusts, etc?

[Stuart]

False. He isn't slaughtering with ease, he's having to put forward a HUGE effort to bypass even the most trivial of defenses, which gives you plenty of time to shoot him. With Uriel attacks, showing up is easy enough for him, but once there, he's still ineffective. I didn't get the impression that the human defenses were going to fail, but instead got the feeling that Uriel would get too tired and have to quit!

I'll re-read the sections in question and polish if necessary but the situation is that humans have an ability to resist now, primarily because the screening (which is not a trivial thing by the way, screening is a vital part of weapons system and platform design these days, perhaps familiarity with just how critical it is led me to make that not clear enough. Screening is a Big Thing) allows them time to realize what is happening and resist. In pre-screening days, they just died befroe they realized what was happening. It's a race between whether the human resistance fails before the cavalry shows up (the mdoel was the settlers in their circled wagons with the enemy outside and the cavalry racing to the rescue.)

You have lines like this: "His brain tiring from the effort just added pathos to Uriel’s sudden realization that Heaven was going to lose this war." implying that he is going to fail, missiles or not. Human resistance would last longer than his ability to maintain the pressure.

It conveys something different, or should. Uriel's exercised his power for millenia without interference or challenge. Now, he's not just experiencing resistance and being challenged, he's slowly massing up injuries that are degrading his power. All exagerrated by the fact that (although he doesn't know it) he's been deliberately sent into areas where he is most likely to be killed. He's been told (and believes) these are weak points, not centers of military power. So he believes everywhere else is worse. So, he's beginning to despair. This is called "other side of the Hill phenomenom". In a battle, each side sees the full extent of the damage they are suffering but only a small portion of that they are inflicting. So both sides think they are losing badly. Uriel is a victim of that, he knows what is happening to him but he doesn't know how close he is coming to suceeding. Reread the sections on Eucalyptus Hills - it's obvious from teh descriptions that the people under attack were very close to succumbing.

[Stuart]

Yeah, and nobody's even slightly terrified. Well, that, or everybody described is very good at hiding it. Even in their private thoughts.

Simply untrue, the scale of the "Uriel raid" precautions and the description of people taking cover (leaving cars in the street, being herded under cover etc) are indicative of near panic. The fact that to make jokes under those circumstances is a normal human reaction.

So the Angel of Death was only successful because he attacked small, inconsequential settlements prior to this? Isn't that the sort of thinking that got this whole discussion started in the first place?

Until very recently, small settlements were all there were. I don't think you quite realize how recent large communities are. Go back (for example) two hundred years and what we now see as large cities were small isolated settlements. I have a map of London dating from the late 1700s that still shows London and Westminster as seperate townships with places like Kensington, Chelsea and Fulham as relatively remote country villages. London only became the city we know today in the late 19th century when all those areas were infilled. Remember, Uriel has been doing this for Millenia, he does what he does which is erase settlements of people. We may look on a death toll of (say) 800 as being small and for a modern city it is. But for a medieval village population 600, it's quite a significant event.

Only near the coasts, as I recall. I may be remembering incorrectly, though.

When the mythology was written, coastal waters were the seas. Nobody went out to deep water if they could help it.

Where are the pillars of fire? Great floods? Plagues of boils, locusts, etc?

Pillars of fire - already had one. Great floods - done. Plagues of boils and locusts - coming.