The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Eighty One Up

[Stuart]

So do I, do you know any, Stu?

Good women or bad ones?

I have taken the risk of posting a comment on his site calling him out on his views. I've suggested that if he has 'issues' about TSW why hasn't he joined this site so he can put them to us. I doubt he's brave enough to actually enter a debate.

If previous performance is anything to go by, he'll take the whole site down. That's what happened last time.

[JN1]

There we are, the answer to the point Mr. Idiot raised. Were he here he could have read it.

Good women or bad ones?

Either will do, I'm not that fussy. I only ask that they're not too ugly.

If previous performance is anything to go by, he'll take the whole site down. That's what happened last time.

Ah, he can dish it out, but not take it. That's often the mark of a bully; I'll bet he was one at school.

[Blayne]

I bet mentioning Harry Turtledove to him would make his brain explode (for those who haven't read HT he's the most prolific Alternate History author out there, Stuart's writing is similar though better).

[Stuart]

Good women or bad ones? Either will do, I'm not that fussy. I only ask that they're not too ugly.

Actually, the "bad women" are usually better looking. And a lot more fun to have around.

[Stuart]

Stuart's writing is similar though better).

Why, thank you. That's very kind of you. One thing I do ask is for everbody to remember that what they see here is very much the first draft of the story. It more or less comes straight off my keyboard and up. It really does need a lot of cleaning up (TSW:A is a classic example, its taking literally months to clean up and bash into shape). So, please forgive the spelling and grammatical whoopsies. That's why copy-editors were created.

[open_sketchbook]

However, he has brought up a couple of points here or there that may need to be addressed. The one that comes to mind is... how does the Predator transmit out of the Hellmouth, if light can't go through?

Same reason why a beam from a flashlight can be seen through a translucent screen that appears dark when the light intensity on both sides of it is roughly equal. Under those circumstances, the screen seems completely opaque. Now, shine a flashlight beam on the screen and the differential suddenly becomes very one-sided and the beam shines straight through. The traditional version of this is people who use white pull-down screens for their windows. They completely block any vision of what goes on inside the room. However, at a party, somebody turned up with some blue films (this was in the days when 8mm film was something really special) and a projector. They used the window screen as a projection screen. Every detail of the film could be seen from the street outside as several witnesses at the subsequent trial testified.

In the Predator case, the transmission is on a high-intensity pencil beam that goes by line-of-sight to the outside. As stated, there is an energy barrier at the portal although it's normally too low to cause problems. The humans were a little lucky in that the portal was a very big one and the Predator didn't go far enough in to cause line-of-sight problems

You might want to explain a bit of that when you do the final version, during one of the scenes where they are dicking around with portals. That's been bugging me for some time. It would be a rather simple addition to say that light, due to low intensity, wouldn't go through, though I imagine you might see a muted sunrise or an atomic weapon detonation through it.

Wouldn't this make one side of the portal black and the other side white (or maybe blue-shifted) because of the energy gradient?

[JN1]

Good women or bad ones? Either will do, I'm not that fussy. I only ask that they're not too ugly.

Actually, the "bad women" are usually better looking. And a lot more fun to have around.

Good for fun, but perhaps not for the long term, eh. However send all your bad women my way, with what's been happening in my life recently I could do with cheering up.

I do think that HT is a good writer, but he does seem to often incorporate real history slightly altered. He seemed to rerun the Eastern Front in America for example.

[Blayne]

It made sense in context, the idea is to draw the parallels of how despite significant differences many things would still end up repeating themselves.

[CaptainChewbacca]

The crack is back!

Hey Stuart, not to pressure you, but can you at least make a scene in a military base in Puerto Rico? I imagine that, with this war going on, the U.S. military gets to conscript Puerto Ricans and reactivate several military bases here (Roosevelt Roads most of all). I imagine some people in P.R. will grumble about it, but given the circumstances of this war, it won't be serious.

Since Puerto-Rico is the closest US military location to Hellgate: Bravo I imagine it will be quite active.

[JBG]

Good women or bad ones? Either will do, I'm not that fussy. I only ask that they're not too ugly.

Actually, the "bad women" are usually better looking. And a lot more fun to have around.

It is a good thing that the Atlantic separates you two otherwise you might get into all sorts of strife at the local whilst lubricated!

[Ritterin Sophia]

You know I had just gotten over my addiction, I'd even gotten a puppy to raise as the best friend only a dog can be. Why Stuart, why do you wish to destroy my life with your literature-crack!?

[Stuart]

I do think that HT is a good writer, but he does seem to often incorporate real history slightly altered. He seemed to rerun the Eastern Front in America for example.

This really touches on one of the great Alt-Hist debates. That is between Divergence and Convergance

Divergence suggests that once the Point of Departure has been passed, the new timeline will split away from the old in such a manner that, within a few years, there will be little or nothing in common between that time line and our own. The theory claims that the butterfly effect and chaos theory in general will mean that cumulative small changes will have such major long-term effects that any overlap between the two timelines will quickly vanish. Thus there will be no parallelism between the two (for example, Reagan never becomes President, 9/11 never happens and so on). If time is viewed as a river, divergence likens the PoD to a dam across that river that irrevocably diverts it to a new course.

Convergance suggests that while the PoD is important enough to cause the timelines to split, it is only part of a much bigger entity that has a mass and momentum all of its own. In the long term, this will mean that the two timelines will show a degree of similarity (parallelism) that mean there are substantial commonalities between the two even though those commonaltities may arise in different contexts. Using the river analogy, convergance looks on a PoD as a large object thrust into the flow of the river. It causes great turbulence in the region of the object but areas further away form that object remain unaffected and further downstream, the river is running smoothly again, in more or less its original bed.

Personally, I believe that the convergance theory is more probable on both logical and story-telling grounds. I believe that the world is such a complex and massive structure that it would require a cataclysmic event to change its course. Short of such an event, life goes on. From a story-telling point of view, convergance means that people have hooks they can hang on to. They can look at a character and think "Ah, that's who this person is". Of course differences in environment might mean a recognizable character may behave differently and that's all part of the fun.

[Stuart]

Why Stuart, why do you wish to destroy my life with your literature-crack!?

Because I Can (cue insane cackle of laughter)

[Darth Wong]

Same reason why a beam from a flashlight can be seen through a translucent screen that appears dark when the light intensity on both sides of it is roughly equal. Under those circumstances, the screen seems completely opaque. Now, shine a flashlight beam on the screen and the differential suddenly becomes very one-sided and the beam shines straight through. The traditional version of this is people who use white pull-down screens for their windows. They completely block any vision of what goes on inside the room. However, at a party, somebody turned up with some blue films (this was in the days when 8mm film was something really special) and a projector. They used the window screen as a projection screen. Every detail of the film could be seen from the street outside as several witnesses at the subsequent trial testified.

In the Predator case, the transmission is on a high-intensity pencil beam that goes by line-of-sight to the outside. As stated, there is an energy barrier at the portal although it's normally too low to cause problems. The humans were a little lucky in that the portal was a very big one and the Predator didn't go far enough in to cause line-of-sight problems

You might want to explain a bit of that when you do the final version, during one of the scenes where they are dicking around with portals. That's been bugging me for some time. It would be a rather simple addition to say that light, due to low intensity, wouldn't go through, though I imagine you might see a muted sunrise or an atomic weapon detonation through it.

Wouldn't this make one side of the portal black and the other side white (or maybe blue-shifted) because of the energy gradient?

Quite frankly, I think it's extremely disturbing that anyone would think this is such a serious problem. Right now I'm sitting next to a fucking brick wall that allows radio transmissions to pass through, but which doesn't allow light to pass through. It's not exactly an unusual phenomenon. Anyone who thinks "AHA! It's impossible for something to block visible light but not radio waves!" is a fucking idiot.

[open_sketchbook]

True, but portals into hell are a little outside the average person's frame of reference. If light can't go through, it makes intuitive sense that other energy might be blocked as well. Of course, what is intuitive and what is correct are often vastly different, and I should have remembered that before I confirmed that I am, in fact, completely retarded.

[Stuart]

It is a good thing that the Atlantic separates you two otherwise you might get into all sorts of strife at the local whilst lubricated!

The last time I got really lubricated, we (myself and a group of professional colleagues) ended up doing Zulu war drills in a Rotterdam hotel car park at 3 am.

Quite frankly, I think it's extremely disturbing that anyone would think this is such a serious problem. Right now I'm sitting next to a fucking brick wall that allows radio transmissions to pass through, but which doesn't allow light to pass through. It's not exactly an unusual phenomenon. Anyone who thinks "AHA! It's impossible for something to block visible light but not radio waves!" is a fucking idiot.

I agree, its the sort of objection that leaves me slightly aghast that the person responsible is allowed outside without a keeper. I mean, he gets to vote? Most of his other objections are on pretty much the same level which is why I can't be bothered with him. He's far from the worst though, there was an Amazon "review" of TBO in which the reviewer compains that the various types of aircraft featured had different names (really). The good news is that there was a major upswing in sales after that review was added.

[Simon_Jester]

Well, I can totally understand how somebody wouldn't like the Salvation War outside of religious sensibilities. Lets face it, this is not a conventional story with conventional writing, and most people want drama, not accuracy/science/logic. SD.net is just wierd that way.

Also, to be fair, there are some sane reasons why a person might have issues with the characterization and things like that. It's not just a drama shortage; see the criticism thread for reference.

In the Predator case, the transmission is on a high-intensity pencil beam that goes by line-of-sight to the outside. As stated, there is an energy barrier at the portal although it's normally too low to cause problems. The humans were a little lucky in that the portal was a very big one and the Predator didn't go far enough in to cause line-of-sight problems

Darn. And here I had my own explanation, one that doubled as an explanation of why nuking portals does interesting things to them, and doesn't invoke the energy gradient specifically. Mind if I PM you the details, Stuart?

Personally, I believe that the convergance theory is more probable on both logical and story-telling grounds. I believe that the world is such a complex and massive structure that it would require a cataclysmic event to change its course. Short of such an event, life goes on. From a story-telling point of view, convergance means that people have hooks they can hang on to. They can look at a character and think "Ah, that's who this person is". Of course differences in environment might mean a recognizable character may behave differently and that's all part of the fun.

There's also an advantage from the author's standpoint. Let's take a military campaign as an example.

If someone like Turtledove tries to write a major campaign out of whole cloth, he's going to get things wrong, because he's not a professional (or even an especially gifted amateur) military analyst. Logistics will be wonky, bad strategies are liable to wind up paying off Because The Author Said So, and so on. The result will probably be unrealistic, and he'll get well-deserved snide remarks about how "this could not have happened." Or how he ignored the fact that dropping ten airborne divisions two hundred miles behind enemy lines in one night requires incredible airlift capacity and is a recipe for a slaughter of the airborne troops, or something like that.

But if he takes a real military campaign, one that actually happened, and changes only a few details... it makes it much easier to write a plausible sequence of events. While what really happened may have low prior probability, no one can call it unrealistic.

[Jamesfirecat]

Yay Salvation war is back, Salvation War is back! I don’t even remember how long its been, but it doesn’t matter because its back! These days the only real fun I’d been having is playing Whack a Troll over at the Salvation War Just Bug Me site! But now even more importantly I can look forward to Salvation war, because its back!

(Cough)

That burst on fanboyisim out of the way lets take a look...

“Did this mean that bureaucracy was taking over Hell?” What do you mean there’s another handbasket inside the first one?

“"I preferred Firefly. A commercial television station is one thing Gaius is looking at right now. He wants our Senate televised. All the time." She isn’t the only one who prefers Firefly. Anyway so Julius wants to set up Caesar-Span? (I’ll see myself out)

Yep, I called it on Michael managing to finagle “his” nuclear blast as the fourth bowl. Surprised how calm Yahweh was hearing about Uriel’s death given how pissed he was when he saw the beating that he took in San Diego, well I guess easy come easy go if you’re not helping him you’re not worth much to God.

Looks like a race is about to start as Heaven gets ready to start pouring out its next few bowls and humanity can finally “introduce ourselves” to our neighbours upstairs....

Lovely chapter can’t wait for more.

By the way Stuart as I said before I’ve been playing Whack a Troll over at the Salvation Wars Just Bugs me web page, and as the saying goes, even a stopped clock is right twice a day so would you mind spelling a few things out for me?

How exactly does Satan’s voice come out over the radio in the very first chapter?

What are your suggestions for shutting up someone who insists that there should have been more chaos, looting, and other formes of craziness directly after the message? Since that’s thought experiment territory we’re really just playing ping pong with our beliefs rather than me having a direct answer for why 10% of the population could die and things seem pretty well cleaned up inside a week.

What’s a good way to sum up the amount of damage that Wuffles ended up doing? I don’t think you ever bothered to have a scene where they estimated the damage/cost in human lives. I know it’s dry but I want to give the guy proof that Wuffles got a few good licks in.

[NecronLord]

Bit of a sad git by the looks of him.

If that's a reference to the picture, that's actor, writer, and acting school owner, William B. Davis in role as 'The Cancer Man' (AKA The Ciagarette Smoking Man) that blog's named after, as well as appearing a few other genre things, notably (and appropriately) one of the fanatical Priors of the Ori in Stargate SG1. He's also an 'out' atheist, who hosts a show debunking UFOlogy, which makes the presumably Christian - why else would he care so much, if I thought Stewart's writing sucked, I'd just not read the damn thing - blogger's use of his image rather ironic. So I'd not say he's a sad git by any means.

If you're just reffering to the sad git content of the blog, pray continue.

[Blayne]

I'ld say that every story usually has its own place in the sliding scale of Idealism vs Cynicism, TSW happens to be on the Idealistic stargate but with more death side.

[Ritterin Sophia]

Oh jeez it's been so long, I don't even remember where my stand-in is, I remember he's part of DIMON but I can't remember where.

[Blayne]

Oh jeez it's been so long, I don't even remember where my stand-in is, I remember he's part of DIMON but I can't remember where.

I think i remember him somewhere.

I hope I can get a recurring character as well. Hopefully someone or something Canadian. My full name is Blayne Bradley if it helps

[Edward Yee]

I do think that HT is a good writer, but he does seem to often incorporate real history slightly altered. He seemed to rerun the Eastern Front in America for example.

This admittedly is one of my reasons for disliking Turtledove's writing -- when he's using convergence instead of divergence, it seems really obvious.

In contrast, ironically, as much as I may dislike 1632 for its characterizations (though at the end of that Eric Flint admitted that he intentionally wrote it due to his like of small-town America/West Virginia in particular), it's full-on divergence city, although by necessity.

[Stuart]

How exactly does Satan’s voice come out over the radio in the very first chapter?

It doesn't; what happens is that Satan does a mass broadcast using the standard daemonic mind-invasion thing. However, at the time, that capability wasn't known or understood so, on hearing a message the pilot simply assumed it was coming over the radio. A few weeks later, he wouldn't have made that mistake.

What are your suggestions for shutting up someone who insists that there should have been more chaos, looting, and other formes of craziness directly after the message? Since that’s thought experiment territory we’re really just playing ping pong with our beliefs rather than me having a direct answer for why 10% of the population could die and things seem pretty well cleaned up inside a week.

He's arguing against fact; the truth is that major disasters do not cause mass rioting and looting. For a modern example, look at the 2004 Great Tsunami; rioting and looting was conspicuous by its absence. Also look at the area bombing carried out in WW2. Of all the British, Russian, Chinese, German and Japanese cities subjected to area bombing, there is not one single case of mass rioting, chaos or looting. Petty theft, certainly and people squatting in disused properties but no mass civilian unrest. In fact, a study of disasters shows that when something of this kind happens, people pull together and help each other rather than the reverse. Now, that's not saying that such unrest wouldn't occur in isolated instances but they are the exception, not the rule. Also, in this case, the nature of the disaster is so unexpected and outside the normal realms of experience that people will be stunned by it. That is also demonstrable by reference to the historical record. For example, when Hiroshima got the big firework, the survivors just sat there, stunned into catatonia. So did the survivors of the Tokyo firebombing. They didn't riot or loot, they just sat and stared at the ashes. Unfortunately, Hollywood has a lot to answer for here. They base their perceptions on what would happen after a disaster by what makes a good spectacle not what makes good sense.

What’s a good way to sum up the amount of damage that Wuffles ended up doing? I don’t think you ever bothered to have a scene where they estimated the damage/cost in human lives. I know it’s dry but I want to give the guy proof that Wuffles got a few good licks in.

A hell of a lot of you'll forgive the pun. Fayetteville to the south of the base area was pretty well flattened (having a 200-foot tall monster with bear-claws for feet will do that) with heavy civilian casualties including around 12,000 dead. The primary target of the Leopard Beast was the DIMO(N) facility which is on the North End of the base, just south of Pope AFB. The Leopard Beast originally attacked from Fayetteville, plowed into the southern built-up area of the base and broke through there (destroying the JFK Special Forces Museum in the process. That, however, put him in an area of open ground with troops all around him and he started to take very heavy fire from elements of the 82nd Airborne Division. Being a sensible beast, he backed off that direct attack, retreated through the area of destroyed base facilities and tried to go around to the west of the base so he could attack the DIMO(N) facility from a different angle. He went from the water treatment facility on a direct line for DIMO(N) but by now the base defense was organized and he met very heavy fire from infantry weapons (that just annoyed him) to shots from artillery and tanks (that hurt). By this time, aircraft were coming out of Pope AFB and they were adding to the defense. A C-130 was being loaded up with a Daisycutter when cumulative damage caught up with the beast and he started to die. At that point he was trying to disengage but it was too late. When he died, he had flattened around a quarter of the base facilities and killed around 300 troops. It took two hours of intense fighting plus the resources of an entire US Army base to defeat him.

[Eulogy]

Some questions for you, Stuart. When Heaven falls, how will the angels in general be treated by humans? What reparations will the humans seize from Heaven (other than the obvious)? Yahyah is obviously going to die, so how much morale damage will that do to surviving angels? And how much mercy will the recently slain show them?

When the humans find out the true nature of the Minos Portal, are they going to bother trying to capture certain demons and angels (i.e. are they going to capture monsters like Urinal and Dumah and give them "special treatment" )? In fact, from what you've written so far, it looks like any being native to a dimension can go into and interact with any dimension that is one level higher or lower than its home dimension because the physical laws governing the dimension are just similar enough. That means that demons and angels could go into the Minos Portal and come back out, as well as any creatures native to those dimensions, but humans and regular Earth animals can't.

Does this mean that if the humans built a robot in Hell, using 100% pure Hell materials, that they'd be able to send into the Minos portal and relay information? That it could do what its Earth brethren could not?

And what dimensions are there, if any, that would be lower than Earth?