Salvation War Criticism Thread

[Simon_Jester]

Well, in that context the whole thing makes considerably more sense, though the effectiveness of "sending a message" to a nation that has no functional independent government by bombing what would be the capital of that government if it existed is... questionable.

But as I recall, you describe it as something that "seemed like a good idea at the time," not something that was a good idea.

[Blayne]

Honestly I think I can sum up my criticism of the Salvation War thusly;

Less of this:
image1

More of this:
image2

Wierd shit should be happening around angels and demons.

I don't really see this as a valid criticism, its like criticizing Watchmen for making superheroes flawed.

[Ilya Muromets]

Honestly I think I can sum up my criticism of the Salvation War thusly;

Less of this:
image1

More of this:
image2

Wierd shit should be happening around angels and demons.

Okay, I've stayed out of this discussion so far since I acknowledge that, as much as I like the story, it's not perfect. But the repetition of this has gotten really annoying. i was under the impression that this thread was supposed to provide objective (or at least well thought-out) criticism (and I applaud those who have), not to rant about some superficial feature you don't like.

Explain why it should, then. Because, honestly, this line of argument is getting thick and stupid. It SHOULD? Who says? Just because pretty much every work featuring angels and demons has had to use the "they're divine beings, so they're nigh untouchable" handwave every story featuring them should too? Idiotic. That's like saying since Star Trek uses transporters and pseudoscientific technobabble, every single sci-fi story should too.

The angels and demons turning out to be killable is part of the goddamned premise of the story. In story, it's explicitly explained that what special abilities they do have would make them invincible to old fashioned armies, it's nothing to modern firepower. It's just that those abilities would appear as supernatural to older folks without modern firepower and that they attribute more to the angels and demons than they actually have because of this. How is that so fucking hard to understand?

An author has the freedom to spin source material any way he wants for his premise. How is TSW's use of "anegls and demons have special abilities but are not invincible" less valid than Left Behind's "god controls everything" shtick or Spawn's "demons and angels are all dark and edgy" interpretation? Your "criticisms" have all boiled down to YOU having your own preferred interpretation of angels and demons, so anything that doesn't agree with YOUR interpretation sucks. That's not an objective criticism, that's just you being thick-headed and spamming the thread with "ANGELS AND DEMONS SHOULD BE RAR" instead making some form of coherent argument. Here's the thing, genius, YOU are not everyone else, so how other people interpret something you'd interpret in one way won't necessarily intersect with yours.

[Shroom Man 777]

Maybe we should give the angels and demons samurai swords and let them banzai charge the armies of humanity and kick ass, and like the Hell Expeditionary Army would have its shit ruined by a bunch of plucky demons that look like yub-nubbing teddy bears or something. Maybe Belial could've deflected some bullets with his katana.

My only complaint, re: that stuff, is that we could've used more in-depth and in-person perspectives on fighting those ungodly beasty bigass demons with weirdo powers, even if they were killable, as well as our routine dose of clinical death descriptions. Like the depiction of the Marines in Hit and how those bigass fuckoff demons were fucking hard to kill, or those bigass Fuzzums and Wuffles and Cuddles Yahweh's throwing at Earth - like, we could've seen a couple of big giant demons stomping on shit and maybe even chasing Hooter's tank. Before getting a cruise missile to the face and exploding.

You know, more depictions of plucky soldiers and heroes getting into sticky situations before escaping just by the skin of their teeth. We could substitute "escaping just by the skin of their teeth" with something like, ah, "reinforced by badass heavy artillery that killfucks the demons/angels/thetans".

Just for the thrill of it.

Speaking of Thetans, what if these Others are actually Xenus and the Scientologists turn out to have been actually partially correct in that their stupid beliefs were based on something that did exist?

[open_sketchbook]

I totally agree there. I wish we had more of the "marines at Hit", "Memnon wondering what the fuck" and "Hillbilly snipers chasing Uriel" sequences. You can very much tell Stuart's career from his writing; he's clinical and distant when readers might want a more human, emotional telling, and while I like the accurate and in-depth discriptions of weapons and their effects, I would like some more of the human perspective stuff as well to help balance the story out, and give that sense of the passage of time I mentioned earlier.

[Shroom Man 777]

Yeah, the more thrilling bits at the battle of Hell where when the Russkie BMPs were getting their hull integrity breeched by the Harpies and demons, while nerve gas was being spewed and shit.

[Blayne]

I would imagine those parts will be fleshed out when its time to publish.

[Simon_Jester]

Wierd shit should be happening around angels and demons.

Okay, I've stayed out of this discussion so far since I acknowledge that, as much as I like the story, it's not perfect. But the repetition of this has gotten really annoying. i was under the impression that this thread was supposed to provide objective (or at least well thought-out) criticism (and I applaud those who have), not to rant about some superficial feature you don't like.

Explain why it should, then. Because, honestly, this line of argument is getting thick and stupid. It SHOULD? Who says? Just because pretty much every work featuring angels and demons has had to use the "they're divine beings, so they're nigh untouchable" handwave every story featuring them should too? Idiotic...

The angels and demons turning out to be killable is part of the goddamned premise of the story. In story, it's explicitly explained that what special abilities they do have would make them invincible to old fashioned armies, it's nothing to modern firepower.

Aesthetically, this amounts to a fantasy/science fiction divide. If we view angels and demons as being a particularly inept and low-tech alien invasion, then we get exactly the kind of thing seen in Salvation War. But alien invasions make fun stories largely because the aliens are not inept and low-tech, or at least not both at once. That's the science fiction take: angels and demons are really aliens masquerading as supernatural beings.

The fantasy take is a bit different: you have metaphysical things happening, in addition to the stuff made out of tangible objects and electromagnetic fields and the like. In that context, the angels and demons don't have to be invincible, but they are 'more than human' in a sense of the term more meaningful than 'can absorb more bullets without dying.'

The problem is that viewed as the other kind of story, either kind of story is crap: metaphysical beings that actually are embodiments of good or evil, or that trail a cloud of Liquid Sins (TM) are bad science fiction, while beings that are merely an unusually incompetent gang of alien invaders make poor fantasy. Angels and demons are classically portrayed under fantasy rules: they don't have to be omnipotent, or even especially powerful compared to other stuff in the setting, but they aren't purely the product of an interesting exercise in genetic engineering.

People who are used to that ruleset can have a hard time switching over to the science fiction rules to look at the Salvation War. That's not pure thick-headedness. Some people honestly like stories where things get metaphysical and you have to fight your really powerful enemies on both a physical plane and a mumbo-jumbo rich spiritual plane.

And that's not quite the same as the Christian fundie notion of "angels represent the will of God and are therefore invincible." There are plenty of other modern stories that portray demons or angels as fallible, limited, killable beings, after all, most of which take a fantasy pastiche approach to the concept instead of a science fictional "they're really aliens" approach.

[Blayne]

People can like those kinds of stories, the thick headedness comes into play when they expect TSW to be THAT kind of story and complain when it isn't.

[Ilya Muromets]

Uh, Simon_Jester. You kinda screwed up your quote tags there, man.

And, yeah, what Blayne said. My reaction is on Ryan Thunder's thickheadeness (and people with similarly repetitive arguments) since he keeps on going on about how the angels and demons aren't supernaturally strong and how they SHOULD be like that just because he likes it that way even though those points have already been addressed.

EDIT: It's nice when there's some actual, decent criticisms which are well thought-out-out (like what Shroom's and open_sketchbook's criticism of the way the story's written) rather than moronic bashing of "ANGELS AND DEMONS ARE NOT UBER-SUPERNATURALS, BLASPEHMY!" the story gets again and again and again even though it's already been explicitly stated that that's not the premise the Stuart chose to go with.

[Simon_Jester]

Uh, Simon_Jester. You kinda screwed up your quote tags there, man.

And, yeah, what Blayne said. My reaction is on Ryan Thunder's thickheadeness (and people with similarly repetitive arguments) since he keeps on going on about how the angels and demons aren't supernaturally strong and how they SHOULD be like that just because he likes it that way even though those points have already been addressed.

Fixed the quote tags. Also, what I say below.

This is a context where that criticism probably is kind of dumb, because it's been said over and over. If nothing else, everyone should know what to expect the fans to say, even if they think the fans are wrong. But I don't think it's categorically dumb.

People can like those kinds of stories, the thick headedness comes into play when they expect TSW to be THAT kind of story and complain when it isn't.

What if they're saying "I like this kind of story better; it would be better with some of that?"

To me, that's borderline. It can be thickheaded, and it's an easy criticism to present in a thickheaded way. But when applied to other kinds of stories, it's not something I'd feel comfortable condemning across the board. For instance: "I like science fiction that pays its dues with respect to established science, this story would be better if it were more like that, with less psychic powers and bringing swords to gunfights?"

To dedicated partisans of the story, of course, that's anathema, and draws comments like "The psychics bringing swords to gunfights are part of the point, you inbred cretin!" But I don't think that's necessarily a reasonable attitude, because many of the same people who love their psychic swordfighters will then turn around and say "This story is terrible, the protagonist is an idiot!" or some such. And yet the fans of those stories could equally well say "Well of course the protagonist is an idiot, they're head over heels in love, that's the charm of the thing!"

[Blayne]

Now I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt to people who unfortunately haven't read the 14 pages of this and the other thread already and haven't figured out that this point has been brought up a hundred times and dealt with, but I think we can go ahead and ridicule the ones who say it repeatedly which is one of the reasons why I didn't has Ilya's reaction.

However we should be careful with our your line of reasoning, yes people who say "this would be cool to have because of this alternate context so maybe throw it in?" could be fine, but when people say "the story isn't up to my standards because its not the exact opposite of what I want" then its nolonger constructive.

That the antagonists have been made vulnerable through the application of science and the understanding that the source of our knowledge of them is from a biased source of propaganda should clearly explain that this setting isn't your normal setting of Humans versus the Elritch and unexplanable, this settings background is that they are specifically explainable thanks to Humanities ability to study and understand things and because of that victory is a real possibility.

Because its such a fundamental part of the story and a well and clearly explained one at that it doesn't lend credence to the criticism that the story should take the opposite path.

[Ryan Thunder]

And, yeah, what Blayne said. My reaction is on Ryan Thunder's thickheadeness (and people with similarly repetitive arguments) since he keeps on going on about how the angels and demons aren't supernaturally strong and how they SHOULD be like that just because he likes it that way even though those points have already been addressed.

I'm not going to criticize Stuart's writing style because that's just how he does it, but this business of the antagonists being giant retarded children with wings just grates me. It has nothing to do with what they are.

On a side note the thought that you can "address" criticism of the story is rather amusing, even though I know what you mean. It's almost as if you think that logic will get him sales or something.

[Blayne]

I posted this elsewhere to respond to someone elses argument but this should answer the idiot ball criticism.

Have you read the story significantly far? All of this is explained, for one thing think of them like the Lizards/The Race fro Harry Turtledove's World War series, the Race think in terms of thousands of wars as being the 'rate of change' for their civilization, so when they probed Humanity in 1300 and recieved intel they expected Humanity by 1942 to not have progressed very far because that is how they view the passage of time, same thing for the Demons, they're immortal who have no real need to visit Earth to collect intel, why would they? The Angels certaintly aren't interfearing with them on Earth Yahway (hehehe Yah-yah) stopped accepting souls into Heaven in 1000 AD! So thei view of time is skewed to represent a civilization that views the passage of time as a slow moving glacier who to paraphrase Lich from 8-bit theater "foolish humans building cities in places glaciers will be screaming through 400,000 years from now!", also there's a HUGE GAPING HISTORICAL PRECEDENT its called Imperial Ming China and Tokugawa Shogunate! And the comaprison example of Medeval Europe. Basically when you have a society that is centralized under a authoritarian/autocratic government with no 'real' outside external threat technological progress will stagnate as innovation is nolonger necassary to maintain control and instead becomes a danger to control.

Tweak this to its natural extreme with power paranoid Satan and it becomes entirely logical that if you combine immortal lifespans with a feudal centralized authoritarian society it becomes perfectly natural to see that not only would hell continue to remain stagnate and feudal it would pretty much act like it did.

However what your missing is that your not actually giving the Demons enough credit, they were actually fairly smart and adapted fairly quickly once the messages of things caught up with them and the particular demons that were natural thinkers got a chance to think 'outside the box', they're whole method of war is something that maximizes their strengths, Abigor in fact adapted fairly quickly going from a phalanx charge to essentially 17th centuary line tactics. Asmodeaus adopted WWI redoubt-fort tactics quickly to suppress the insurgency, the gorgons under Belial quickly sought out to investigate the Humans and figured out ways to strike back at the Humans. The reason why they loss though is because the Humans have been fighting wars with escalating arms races at such an intensity that they brought war to an artform and already knew essentially every counter to the Demon tactical innovations because Humans had the especiance the demons did not.

The Demons ARE smart and didn't possess any 'villain ball' that gave them any kind of handicap, they're actions were to me reasonable given their sociology.

Next, they DID interrogate Humans, but remember they have a warped sense of time and despite that warped sense of time actually decided to think in terms of Human generations instead of centuries but still made the mistake of thinking that the layout of cities 'wouldn't change much' over the course of a generation thus they destoryed sheffield and detroit thinking they were major industrial centers when in reality they didn't know yet that Human industry is spread out everywhere across the globe and thus resorted to trying to do the volcano attacks as terror attacks Wonderweapon style.

They had no idea of nuclear weapons and likely wouldn't believe them, remember they think all human technology (for a while) is magic and have no concept of science or technology.

Also they did or at least Heaven did try to get smaller human countries to go to war, Burma did and invaded Thailand and got its ass kicked convincing North Korea to join the coalition.

By the time I think ANY of the Demons found out about nuclear weapons it was already too late and Satan was killed by an anti ship missile.

The Humans had doctrine, superior weapon systems and experiance. The demons had their own advantages that could have won out against WWI era armies and given WWII armies a run for their money but fail against 21st centuary era force multiplairs, don't mistake the Demons failures as stupidity (for the most part anyways) alot of the commanders and demon Lords actually did adapt fairly well just not fast enough.

[Ryan Thunder]

Yeah, whatever. That makes for an incredibly boring story. That is all. If you think you can reason your way out of that, well, that's a problem on its own.

[Blayne]

Aaaah, so people reading fiction set in WWII or Iraq is thus 'boring' because we already know who wins? I don't need to reason my way out of a problem, I am explaining to you that your interpretation of the text you probably did not read is incorrect, I am answering your criticisms and providing an explaination for a potentially ambigious text as sometimes we aren't just supposed to rely on Word of God but by studying the text figure it out for ourselves.

You took the lazy way out and just didn't care.

[Ryan Thunder]

Aaaah, so people reading fiction set in WWII or Iraq is thus 'boring' because we already know who wins?

No, dipshit. They're interesting because the antagonists aren't fucking retards or don't have a crippling disadvantage that causes them to act like flaming retards.

I don't need to reason my way out of a problem, I am explaining to you that your interpretation of the text you probably did not read

I've read it, moron, and that's the impression I drew from it. Humans smart, demons/angels dumb, God and Satan are terminally retarded impotent man-children who can impotently shock things when they're angry. Possession can be defeated by tin foil hats, which are distributed to everybody and their dog (literally, if I recall correctly) on short notice.

Sure, we can't feed everybody on Earth, but we can protect them all from mind control.

The antagonists just aren't interesting if all they ever seem to be able to do is inconvenience the protagonists. That's true whether they're angels, demons, or fucking little green men from Mars.

[Blayne]

Ad hominum resortum, good job resorting to insults rather then a constructive argument. *clap clap clap*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87zdeR4m4FI

Except make that -1000 points.

God is admittedly off the rails but that isn't stupidity per se just arrogance and hubris so extreme it might as well be... but there is a distinction that you in your lazyness just don't see.

Satan same thing, laziness and inability to see the situation as it is, historical precedent available? Hitler, Hitler wasn't by any means "stupid" and couldn't have gotten as far as he did without possessing intelligence if not a degree of cleverness but his racism, his prejudices, his overcompetence his arrogance in the face of what he thought was overwhelming victory was what led to his gotterdamerung but unlike Hitler, Satan didn't have 2 years of slowly having his country grinned to dust to have a villainous breakdown and succumb to despair he was killed off before the magnitude of the problem could set in, in essence the Human victories were so swift his mind couldn't catch up from his preconceptions to reality.

Both Yahweh and Satan have this weakness and Humanity will probably win too fast for God to realize the depth of his own grave hes digging.

Now from there lets examine all the other ways you are demonstratively wrong (hehe italics!) where to start? Right the villain ball, lemme geuss you decided too long won't read? Explains a lot about you, well my wall of text above already explains how there actually isn't an actual idiot ball in sight overall, so that explains that.

To reiterate briefly, the Demons have advantages and tailored their war fighting to fight using the most of those advantages, they are immortal so their timescale is skewed to view the passage of time in eons not in years as we do so they're slow to adapt, their society has no need for innovation and thus is stagnant and thus no concept of anything that would remotely help them prepare for the war because they are overwhelmingly confident of their victory see?

But here's the thing they are smart! And its showed in the text, they adapted and changed tactics when the previous one failed them! This is evidence that they were intelligent and acting intelligently. But usually though because Humans have massively more experience then Demons in fighting wars and learned all the lessons already know how to adapt to changing circumstances faster then the Demons and can kill them faster then they can adapt.

See text above for details which you probably in your ignorance won't read.

Next I should point out that the developed world, nations in the Northern half of the North-South Gap had no problem handing out tin foil hats because industrialized societies have no problems handing out massive amount of crap and Humans know to quickly secure important persons first, developing nations like China which are the primary producers of cheap crap can get themselves sorted quickly next because they're the source.

Places like Africa will only slowly equip and this is showed in the text of the story that you obviously did not read to the end because this would have been addressed and answered by then because guess what! When Uriel was on the move he had nearly overwhelming success in South and Central America and in Africa where people were poor and didn't have proper hats!

And I should point out that Heaven, being better led (cough Michael) and better intel on Humans (cough Michael) so far have had a lot more success in seriously hurting humanity, something that is so apparently obvious that the only way for you not to know would be because you didn't read the text!.

As we say in Academia... Pwned.

[Ilya Muromets]

I'm not going to criticize Stuart's writing style because that's just how he does it, but this business of the antagonists being giant retarded children with wings just grates me. It has nothing to do with what they are.

Nothing to do with what they are? The very post I replied to had you posting a picture of an angel standing over a devastated city and saying the following (bolding mine):

Wierd shit should be happening around angels and demons.

It's almost as if the entire point of this story were to render the supernatural in the most utterly mundane manner possible...

You single out angels and demons, and state your expectations about what should happen around them. Earlier, you gripe about the supernatural being relatively mundane. Yet you say it's got nothing to do with what they are. Well, could've fooled me, chief. You're either backpedalling, or your pithy little "summary" of your criticism of the story was a poorly worded excuse to show off pictures.

[Ryan Thunder]

<snip>

Oh, no, I meant all of that, up to and including singling out angels and demons. Call me on that if you like. But my criticism of the antagonists being retards could be applied to anything, really. That's all I was saying.

And frankly the Angel of Death would be much more terrifying if he could actually cause some real devastation even before the air defense shows up and blasts the shit out of him with missiles. At least people would be wondering "will they get there in time?"

As it was I drew absolutely no feelings of tension from that particular arc.

[Blayne]

Got evidence to back that up? Examples? Thought out arguments? So otherwise your really just saying nothing as what your saying is meaningless. Your statement just screams of apathy and laziness.

I still stand that you probably didn't read all the way to the end, at best you skimmed through it, otherwise you wouldn't have missed the blatant errors you made.

[Ryan Thunder]

Got evidence to back that up? Examples? Thought out arguments? So otherwise your really just saying nothing as what your saying is meaningless. Your statement just screams of apathy and laziness.

What?

It's everywhere. Demons are backwards, totally amazed by our highly advanced technology. Sure, it makes sense; they're still chucking spears at each other. But how is that interesting unless you're just hooked on the novelty of demons not being portrayed as invincible supernatural killing machines?

I still stand that you probably didn't read all the way to the end, at best you skimmed through it, otherwise you wouldn't have missed the blatant errors you made.

I didn't read all of the first one, no. I read up to the part where we gassed a massive army of demons, if I remember correctly, which I have to admit was kind of darkly amusing.

I have been keeping up with the newer one, however.

[Blayne]

What and you didn't find the mission "No Russian" in Call of Duty awesome? What about the Persian Gulf War(s)? Or for a fictional example, the Gulf War in the Tom Clancy novels with Jesus Reagan, just because its a curb stomp battle doesn't mean it isn't interesting.

Alot of us read it because of the Clancy-esque technical thriller aspects of seeing our favorite weapon systems being used on easy targets, and some of us who may or may not overlap like seeing a progressing war story that while we know who will win we find HOW the war is being fought is what is interesting.

This is clearly a subjective case of Your Mileage May Vary not a valid constructive criticism of the work itself.

I could to paraphrase Battler from Umineko no koro ni "turn the chess board around" on you, how is a story about invincible Eldritch Beings interesting? Well you'ld have an easy answer then now wouldn't you? HP Lovecraft is all about invincible god killing abominations that lurk in the depths of the seas and the depths of space drifting between the stars who if they awoke and noticed us would snuff us out seaking our reality like an ocean seeking the warmth of a candle.

Lovecraft is all about the enevitable horrors of amoral timeless beings who came from outside of our reality enevitably descending upon us who upon us even noticing would rape our minds and render us insane. If you want invincible starfish aliens who would effortless destroy us all the while not even caring who we are then read Lovecraft, if you want a story where Humans can defeat what used to be supernatural forces then read Salvation War, they are opposite schools of thought and your choice to read either. But please, don't kid yourself, criticizing TSW because we can curbstomp Demons with advance technology is like criticizing Watchmen for having flawed superheroes.

Its subjective! You can like it or not like it but valid criticism it ain't make.

Stuart is writing a story where Humans have advanced to the point where we can crush our tormentors and self declared saviors under the full might of our best weapon systems and crush them under our awesome might we wouldn't have that story if demons were 'invincible' to even our best weapons and defeat inevitable and certain.

Do you understand this? Wakarismasu-ka?

[Ryan Thunder]

I could to paraphrase Battler from Umineko no koro ni "turn the chess board around" on you, how is a story about invincible Eldritch Beings interesting? Well you'ld have an easy answer then now wouldn't you? HP Lovecraft is all about invincible god killing abominations that lurk in the depths of the seas and the depths of space drifting between the stars who if they awoke and noticed us would snuff us out seaking our reality like an ocean seeking the warmth of a candle.

I would call that a complete strawman.

I would think it's pretty obviously not interesting if the antagonists are undefeatable, either. But hey, you're free to think otherwise, I suppose.

But please, don't kid yourself, criticizing TSW because we can curbstomp Demons with advance technology is like criticizing Watchmen for having flawed superheroes.

Not really. Flawed superheroes are interesting, but if they're so flawed that they're effortlessly defeated by their enemies, well, what fun is that? Stories about flawed characters and how they overcome their difficulties to defeat a seemingly superior opponent are more interesting than ones where the main character's flaws are easily overcome and his enemies easily destroyed.

[Blayne]

Except that was your complete argument!

"But how is that interesting unless you're just hooked on the novelty of demons not being portrayed as invincible supernatural killing machines?"

Your implying that a story of invincible demons is somehow more valid then the salvation war, its right their in your text and that is what I responded to.

So now you accept that a story where Demons CAN be killed is now acceptable yes? If so then TSW is the most logical version so far around no magic, no a wizard did it, its all based on scientific principles they are biological beings with certain evolutionary advantages, advantages that encouraged a certain way of thought that became engrained over their immortal lifespans and as such easily destroyed by a more adaptable innovative enemy force.

We are still back to the main point, liking the story so far from your view is based on the fact that the premise, the very most basic premise of the story that angels and demons have a reason based in reality and science as unattractive and uninteresting to YOU, thus making it subjective, thus making your picture spam an invalid criticism!

Do you agree with this now? If the antagonists are based in reality then our reality based weapons can defeat and destroy anything that is "real" angels and demons in the biblical fantasy fiction sense of being eldritch beings are NOT based in reality and thus cannot be destroyed by reality its really one of the other if they are real then we can destroy them if they are not then we cannot without whatever magic they can use either, as it is now in TSW we can use SCIENCE!(tm) to defeat them, technology to crush them and with technology (tim curry voice) we will crush them flat!