Salvation War Criticism Thread

[tim31]

You are a moron. You're acting like a four year old child that keeps asking 'and why is the' questions in order to try and stay involved.

[Ryan Thunder]

EDIT: Never mind.

[Darth Yan]

To be fair, we have no clue how powerful plagues 4 and 5 are. Considering their knowledge of human cities is better then the demons, they could drop lava on multiple cities, such as New York, London, DC, Moscow, even on Yammanatu. Plus the lack of resources has been touched on. Leopard beast took 2 hrs even with decent quality weapons, and Fluffy is killing without opposition because the Israeli's are strapped for resources, and what they do have is rather weak (the planes were shot out before they were even in shooting range, and the most damage done was a freaking truck bomb that a guy made in his garage.) Also, what about bowl 7. If done properly, the earthquake might devastate the US, or set off a chain of environmental disasters. And the hailstones can cause a lot of damage. Finally, what of the Red Dragon? That things more powerful then the other 3 beasts put together, and those things took an obscene amount of fire power to kill, plus there's still the Lamb Beast, and that thing can breath fire.

[Shroom Man 777]

I find it awesome that people can argue against 'openly dumping physical laws' while accepting the notion that people somehow are able to survive the death and destruction of their bodies, and enter a randome altarnate realty (RAR!) while looking pretty and perfect and in the peak of their youth, and then go lounge around for all eternity in a pool of lava while constantly 'regenerating' without nutrition as a form of torture.

I guess it is acceptable because some kind of technobabble solution has been made up for it?

[Darth Fanboy]

The Orange Crush interchange is not in Los Angeles! It's a few miles south of the county line in Orange County! I hope there wasn't a baseball or hockey game going on when the battle broke out, Disneyland keeps that area crowded enough without tens of thousands of extra people and cars in the area adding to it.

Killing Crystal Cathedral is fine, but i'll be damned if they took out the Del Taco off Orangewood!

[Samuel]

I find it awesome that people can argue against 'openly dumping physical laws' while accepting the notion that people somehow are able to survive the death and destruction of their bodies, and enter a randome altarnate realty (RAR!) while looking pretty and perfect and in the peak of their youth, and then go lounge around for all eternity in a pool of lava while constantly 'regenerating' without nutrition as a form of torture.

I guess it is acceptable because some kind of technobabble solution has been made up for it?

Because it would be in the story no matter what? Even if the forces of Hell were badass and had magic we'd still have humans who were in that matter for the afterlife to work.

[Junghalli]

Because it would be in the story no matter what? Even if the forces of Hell were badass and had magic we'd still have humans who were in that matter for the afterlife to work.

Humans resurrecting in Hell would be necessary for the story to work but some of the more physics-breaking aspects of TSW Second Life humans, like the fact they're apparent perpetual motion machines, could be eliminated. This does give me a nice segue into something I've been meaning to bring up.

You absolutely must have two pieces of magic for this scenario to work: an afterlife and some kind of interdimensional teleportation. Well, maybe not absolutely; you could make the Angels and Demons space aliens and have all their abilities be advanced technology (e.g. using a high-tech uploading and nanoassembly system to bring dead people back to life etc.), or you could have the Demons come to Earth by possessing people rather than actually physically crossing between dimensions although that's magic too, but these are core bits of magic Stuart's scenario uses so let's go with them. We could make the Demons and Angels a lot more formidable just by tweaking the parameters of these pieces of magic.


(1) Teleportation. Remember how the vast advantage that portal warfare gave the HEA over the Burmese in Pantheocide? Well, give the Demons the ability to exploit portals to the same degree and Armageddon would start out with us being at the wrong end of exactly that sort of disadvantage. We'd be fighting the ultimate mobile enemy; one that could just teleport right into their objective and teleport out again at their convenience. Even if the enemy was otherwise inferior a situation like that would be a strategic and tactical nightmare. It'd let the Demons pick where all the fights would take place and make it impossible for us to ever force a battle on them, which is great for an enemy with a firepower disadvantage. Sure, you could still have it so if a human army and a Demon army of equal size got together on a big empty plane and had a big shoot-out the Demons would loose badly, but until and unless we develop our own portal capability we'd never be able to get anything remotely close to such a fair fight. We'd always be facing battles in which the enemy has overwhelming local superiority because they can concentrate their forces much more effectively (except for maybe the occassional case where Demons blunder and drastically underestimate our strength in that area, and even then they could just bail out as soon as things got hot).


2) Have the afterlife work for Demons and Angels as well as us. If they die on Earth they just ressurrect in Hell. In fact, give them infinite respawns. In other words, we're fighting an enemy that is freaking unkillable. Yes, they can take being nuked, because it simply destroys the fleshy shell and the creature's essence just flies off to Hell or Heaven to respawn. It's no more unbelievable than having an afterlife in the first place, and fighting an enemy that can't actually be killed would be incredibly scary.

[Shroom Man 777]

Another notable thing in TSW is that the only notable characters with any notable and significant character development happen to be Abrigor, Luga and the other demons and even goddamn Micheal-Lan.

When your antagonists, turn coats and so on are being depicted and characterized better than your protagonists, something must be up. I guess that must be Stuart's intent, to show the paradigm shift in old versus new through the eyes of the recepient of that change, the demons and the angels. But, maaaaaaaaaaaang, when your human beings and protagonists are less characterized than the angels and demons who are the "bad guys"... yeah, something must be REALLY up - and it's not my boner for Luga.

Seriously. That's just the biggest weak point. Stuart has written pretty cool and alright conduits for his theme and story and plot in the form of the angel and demon characters. But we have very little - or none - in human form. Throughout Armageddon??? we've followed the exploits of Abrigor, Luga and Satan and Belial. Throughout Pantheocide, the characters we're seeing most development are Micheal and Lemuel.

The humans? Well, they just chuck bombs and go MURRICA FUCK YEAH and blow demons/angels/whatnots up.

[Stuart]

Another notable thing in TSW is that the only notable characters with any notable and significant character development happen to be Abrigor, Luga and the other demons and even goddamn Micheal-Lan. When your antagonists, turn coats and so on are being depicted and characterized better than your protagonists, something must be up. I guess that must be Stuart's intent, to show the paradigm shift in old versus new through the eyes of the recepient of that change, the demons and the angels. But, maaaaaaaaaaaang, when your human beings and protagonists are less characterized than the angels and demons who are the "bad guys"... yeah, something must be REALLY up - and it's not my boner for Luga. Seriously. That's just the biggest weak point. Stuart has written pretty cool and alright conduits for his theme and story and plot in the form of the angel and demon characters. But we have very little - or none - in human form. Throughout Armageddon??? we've followed the exploits of Abrigor, Luga and Satan and Belial. Throughout Pantheocide, the characters we're seeing most development are Micheal and Lemuel. The humans? Well, they just chuck bombs and go MURRICA FUCK YEAH and blow demons/angels/whatnots up.

To some extent that's quite deliberate; after all, we are what we are and we're doing what we do best (killing people and breaking their things). It's the daemons in Armageddon that are facing unimaginable changes and are having to adapt to them; in a very real sense the story is how they adapt to those changes. By the way, the explanation for the "dramatic tension" bit that keeps coming up it me this morning. A lot of people have been indoctrinated into the thought that daemons etc are some sort of supermonsters and the "dramatic question" bit is "Oh my, we humans are fighting these supermonsters, how can we survive?" In TSW, we are the all-powerful supermonsters, the "dramatic tension" bit is "Oh My, the daemons are fighting these killing machines, how can they survive?" That's a paradigm shift that some people, so used to the humans-as-victims meme, can't get their minds around. In Armageddon, we are what we are, we don't need that much development because we all know us (and the ones that do need development and get it are dead). It's the daemons where the true story lies.

[RedImperator]

To some extent that's quite deliberate; after all, we are what we are and we're doing what we do best (killing people and breaking their things). It's the daemons in Armageddon that are facing unimaginable changes and are having to adapt to them; in a very real sense the story is how they adapt to those changes. By the way, the explanation for the "dramatic tension" bit that keeps coming up it me this morning. A lot of people have been indoctrinated into the thought that daemons etc are some sort of supermonsters and the "dramatic question" bit is "Oh my, we humans are fighting these supermonsters, how can we survive?" In TSW, we are the all-powerful supermonsters, the "dramatic tension" bit is "Oh My, the daemons are fighting these killing machines, how can they survive?" That's a paradigm shift that some people, so used to the humans-as-victims meme, can't get their minds around. In Armageddon, we are what we are, we don't need that much development because we all know us (and the ones that do need development and get it are dead). It's the daemons where the true story lies.

Except you present the humans as the protagonists. Humans by far get more screen time, they're presented sympathetically even when they're scything down demons by the tens of thousands, the narration openly cheerleads for them, and, without doing a count, I'd guess they account for at least four times as many viewpoint characters. It's a total copout to say, "Oh, the tension lies with what's going to happen to the angels and demons; you're just so indoctrinated you can't get your head around that," because the angels and demons are the antagonists, and unless you subscribe to some kind of wild postmodern lit theory, dramatic tension is generated directly by what happens to the protagonists. If they're not in danger of having their goals thwarted, then there's no tension.

Now, if the demons actually were the protagonists? That would solve a lot of problems, and it'd be unique. It'd be something of a challenge to make them sympathetic, seeing as they've been torturing people for thousands of years, causing school shootings, and eating babies, but on the other hand, it's hard not to be sympathetic to someone caught in the open during a Russian artillery barrage. And humans as faceless, terrifying murder machines would be better villains than what the story has now.

[Battlehymn Republic]

I stumble back into Fanfics and there's a backlash against Staurt?

[Ford Prefect]

I stumble back into Fanfics and there's a backlash against Staurt?

This thread is supposed to be critique of Stuart's work. If you want to see some sort of 'backlash' against Stuart as a person, you are in the wrong place.

[Battlehymn Republic]

Given that we know of Stuart's person largely through his works, that is what I'm referring to. Well, there's also him as a person as evidenced by his posts and posting style, but we're definitely not discussing that here.

I never knew so many high-profile SD.net members had criticisms about the Salvation War series.

[Simon_Jester]

Hell, I like it, and I think some of the people here have a point. The biggest hole in the work is the fact that the protagonists have the antagonists transcendantly outgunned, such that there is no conceivable way that the war could go any way except the way it's going to.

And yes, I remember the standard answer; I go into movies about World War Two knowing who won (and, naturally, defining them as the good guys). But I can imagine the bad guys winning, even if I don't think it's a particularly likely outcome. The bad guys aren't overmatched in the "spears versus tanks" sense. I know they won a lot of the battles, and that at the time the side I identify with was seriously worried about the possibility of losing the war, or at least being unable to win it in any decisive sense.

Here, that is largely missing; I started reading Armageddon shortly after Pantheocide began, and I was no longer even contemplating a demonic victory after Armageddon was less than a quarter over... roughly 10% of the way into the overall story Stuart is trying to tell about the war against Heaven and Hell.

Unfortunately, this problem is so closely tied to the theme of the work (science challenging and overcoming magic) that in the context of the author's background and the intended audience, it was going to be nearly impossible to overcome from the beginning. SD.net is a very "cut the crap, look at the numbers" audience, and Stuart has been working for many years at a very "cut the crap, look at the numbers" sort of job. And when you cut the crap and look at the numbers, writing stories where mysticism has a plausible chance of defeating technology is not trivial. Especially since for the sort of people who like to work with numbers, much of what mystics talk about is going to be defined as a priori crap.

Hence devils with pitchforks (big, nasty ones, but still pitchforks) and mind control powers that you can, objectively, shield against with the appropriate hat... not supernatural tempters. And hence gods who, to be quite honest, aren't really gods by modern standards; they're just individually tough enough to impress the average dirt farmer... not creators of universes, and not beings that raise major philosophical issues just by existing, let alone when you decide to fight them.

And when you take such non-formidable, non-cosmic enemies and give them a premodern grasp of strategy, tactics, and technology... what you get is kind of a let-down. And not, I think just because of brainwashing.
___________

And yet I still like the story; I just don't think it's perfect.

[Darth Yan]

Sort of the same. The story is awesome, but some elements are a bit difficult to believe. I like the battles, the characters don't mind, and overall It kicks ass. Just a few flaws.

[Shroom Man 777]

Just because the battle is a one-sided curbstomp does not preclude it from having entertaining and compelling (human) protagonists. I mean, those special operators who were fucking around in Hell were cool. And in works like Generation Kill, despite the fact that Iraq's military was shit, the story (and series) were still able to portray in a compelling way the life and times of the Recon Marines cruising around in Iraq during Gulf War 2. In a way, Armageddon??? had that with Hooters and McElroy and Broomstick. We need characters, human ones, who we can stick to.

You know, like regular characters who we can grow attached to. You don't even need a fair fight to make a character entertaining and attach-able! Because, damn, most of the characters I've grown attached to in the Pantheocide stories are just angels and demons. The human ones I've liked are, well... Vladimir Putin, because he keeps on going about killing the fuck out of Yahweh. Aside from that, there's my self-insert character who DOESN'T have a dumb name like curly-nekko or surly-wirly

[Stark]

I never knew so many high-profile SD.net members had criticisms about the Salvation War series.

Why wouldn't you think so?

Seriously, look at the number of people who post in the back-slapping thread. It's not 'lots'.

[Shroom Man 777]

What's wrong with criticism, anyway? It actually means that we're reading Stuart's work and putting some thought into it(!), and not just mindlessly fauning over it OR mindlessly going "RARGH HAET!" reflexively over something without even reading it first.

I for one have followed the Salvation War stories for, like, ever and while I like it, that doesn't mean I can't objectively spot some flaws in it. But it's his (Stuart's) story and not mine, and I still find it readable. I can recognize TSW's faults, but I can also recognize some of the "strengths" in Stuart's writing and the military-industrial explosions appeal to me enough to keep me reading Stuart's works.

Or am I being out of place by thinking that I'm a "high-profile SD.net members"? Or is the concept of "high-profile SD.net members" having differing opinions on TSW unexpected, with most of these "high-profile SD.net members" adhering to a particular thought pattern being the expected thinggy?

[Darth Wong]

To some extent that's quite deliberate; after all, we are what we are and we're doing what we do best (killing people and breaking their things). It's the daemons in Armageddon that are facing unimaginable changes and are having to adapt to them; in a very real sense the story is how they adapt to those changes. By the way, the explanation for the "dramatic tension" bit that keeps coming up it me this morning. A lot of people have been indoctrinated into the thought that daemons etc are some sort of supermonsters and the "dramatic question" bit is "Oh my, we humans are fighting these supermonsters, how can we survive?" In TSW, we are the all-powerful supermonsters, the "dramatic tension" bit is "Oh My, the daemons are fighting these killing machines, how can they survive?" That's a paradigm shift that some people, so used to the humans-as-victims meme, can't get their minds around. In Armageddon, we are what we are, we don't need that much development because we all know us (and the ones that do need development and get it are dead). It's the daemons where the true story lies.

Except you present the humans as the protagonists. Humans by far get more screen time, they're presented sympathetically even when they're scything down demons by the tens of thousands, the narration openly cheerleads for them, and, without doing a count, I'd guess they account for at least four times as many viewpoint characters. It's a total copout to say, "Oh, the tension lies with what's going to happen to the angels and demons; you're just so indoctrinated you can't get your head around that," because the angels and demons are the antagonists, and unless you subscribe to some kind of wild postmodern lit theory, dramatic tension is generated directly by what happens to the protagonists. If they're not in danger of having their goals thwarted, then there's no tension.

Now, if the demons actually were the protagonists? That would solve a lot of problems, and it'd be unique. It'd be something of a challenge to make them sympathetic, seeing as they've been torturing people for thousands of years, causing school shootings, and eating babies, but on the other hand, it's hard not to be sympathetic to someone caught in the open during a Russian artillery barrage. And humans as faceless, terrifying murder machines would be better villains than what the story has now.

If the humans remain the protagonists, it would be preferable to cut back a bit on angelic contemplation of their superiority, and talk a bit more about the hapless humans in Heaven. One of the nice things about the first story was the focus on humans inside Hell, and the question of whether they would survive. Even if you have a situation where you're pretty sure the humans will eventually triumph, you can create tension by focusing on a group of humans who have suffered much, and with whom you identify, and whose survival is not at all assured. To a certain extent, one could say that about all the victims of Uriel, but I was thinking more of a recurring set of characters, like Jade Kim's group in the first story.

[Shroom Man 777]

Damn right. In the final draft, Stuart might as well end up merging several of his American military Colonel characters into one character.

Hell, it would be awesome if Stuart centered the human perspective on Heaven by writing in the POV of some dead musician and making him regular and consistent. Like the POV of that surgeon and the bombed abortion clinic nuerse who stitched Micheal and Uriel up, they were pretty cool.

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah. I can't remember a single scene written from the point of view of a human in Heaven in this story. Am I forgetting one?

[Darth Wong]

Yeah. I can't remember a single scene written from the point of view of a human in Heaven in this story. Am I forgetting one?

The doctor working on Michael comes to mind, but he had only one scene. Basically, I am not so critical of the story as some others, but I do think it would benefit from some kind of recurring human characters who we can sympathize with and fear for.

Unfortunately, that really is a trope, to follow a small group of characters in a major conflict at the expense of the big picture, but it's one that is kind of necessitated by human nature and reader preference.

[Shroom Man 777]

It is important for telling an entertaining story and really, entertainment factor should be factored in stories.

[Jamesfirecat]

Not to mention with a fic as wide open as The Salvation War, it's always possible that if you want to see a particular story told that isn't part of the fic at the moment, you can just write it or slip a bug in somebody else's ear about writing it. Sometimes fan fiction can be a good thing to flesh out aspects that while not curcial to teh story itself, do help make the world more complete. After all isn't that how "Don't Wake me when I'm Sleeping" came about?

[Peptuck]

Unfortunately, that really is a trope, to follow a small group of characters in a major conflict at the expense of the big picture, but it's one that is kind of necessitated by human nature and reader preference.

That's an issue I can understand quite a bit, myself. I've been writing a C&C3 novelization over the last couple of years, and a major problem I've had is keeping the story focused on individual characters while still showing the scale and progression of the war. That and when one tries to write the individual stories of several different characters caught up in their own individual battles in a larger conflict, one tends to end up being sidetracked.

Hell, I ended up killing several characters just so I would wrap up their individual stories so I could manage the rest. Juggling a dozen plot threads while still maintaining a coherent overall story is not easy.

Frankly, I'm impressed Stuart has been able to juggle this many plot threads and keep them intersecting and consistent.