The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Eighty One Up

[Edward Yee]

I always liked the thought experiment of an infintely powerful god that can jump over any object and at the same time can create an object that can never be jumped over. Trying to figure out he could jump over it was a fun little logical inconsistency to toy around with.

To elaborate on what I said earlier thanks to your example, Yahweh in this story gives off the impression that he... wants the answer to be "yes, Yahweh is so awesome that he can both jump over any object and create an object that can never be jumped over," and would damn humanity for thinking that there might be anything... off about this idea.

The Orthodox churches' fates would be interesting, but perhaps the Church of England might end up absorbed into the Roman Catholic Church, if only through the senior clergy deciding to join themselves to the main church left in the Western Hemisphere? I'm pretty sure that if it were the (decapitated) Church of England v. the British government, it might be seen by both sides as a secular political land grab for the latter.

[GrayAnderson]

As is mentioned in Armageddon the Church of Scotland is up and running because it rejected The Message, but the C of E is not in its original form (the Archbishop of Canterbury urged acceptance of The Message) and much of its assets were seized by the State. That was probably a mistake as many of its senior clergy were not in agreement with the Archbishop and several senior bishops were openly against it as being a message from 'their God'; the British government will probably face some sort of legal action in the future because of its actions in this regard.

Interesting point implied there: We're led to believe that the Message simply amounted to "lay down and die". It would be a hair odd for someone to have defied said message in not doing so (absent the cases where Michael or a few cronies were able to step in and tell them "Congrats! You got exempted!" before thye died) but to have then encouraged its acceptance, though I have no doubt that some of this did happen.

I guess it raises the question of whether there was some supplement sent to humans in certain positions of "And encourage people to accept the Message", though I do doubt that this was the case. And of course, on this line of thought, I do love the Witch Trial logic of the Message.

And...on the CofE point...considering that the wheels are coming off IRL, if the number of observant CofE members dropped to a near-nonexistent level and the paper numbers dropped far enough behind the Catholics, it's quite possible that disestablishment happened just as a consequence of things. Unlike the Church of Scotland (which has almost a 3:1 edge over Catholics, the second-largest religion in Scotland [I'm not counting 'no affiliation' or 'no religion' here], in terms of "paper membership" there), the CofE has been really cratering in the last decade or so membership-wise, and a lot of the defections have been to the Catholic Church.

Although Benedict's overtures IRL occurred after the PoD, the fact is that something like that was brewing for a while. So if the Archbishop of Canterbury went off the deep end and the Pope went through with something along the lines of what's going on IRL, with mass conversions (no pun intended) being facilitated and senior clergy breaking off in substantial numbers, it is quite possible that disestablishment became a rather quick process once things settled out and it became clear that it was no longer even a major denomination and basically just a real estate holding company. And frankly, as an established Church, it's entirely possible that the government took over a lot of Church property in the disestablishment process. Do consider that a lot of that property is listed property, and that much of it is more of a liability than an asset.

So, with this in mind, here's a reasonable chain of events:
-Message comes, Archbishop encourages acceptance of the message. Probably removed 'by the monarch on the advice of the government' (even if this takes an Act of Parliament to enable, it'll probably go through very quickly, and enabling legislation might be unnecessary in the circumstances).
-The dust settles from the first book. Benedict makes some overtures to CofE members; a lot of clergy and many members seem to have been milling about, considering a revolt (or even quietly 'slipping over the border' after the Archbishop steps in it), so once the Pope takes a stand at the back of Armageddon, the dam probably bursts and most remaining observant Anglicans swim the Tiber.
-At this point, you've probably got a shell organization with less than 50,000 people showing up for services, maybe a few million adherents on paper (though still only a fraction of the Catholic Church at this point, with most of the adherents being "cultural Anglicans" more than anything) and over 10,000 churches to maintain. It's got a lot of endowment money, but nothing much is coming in from donations, and disestablishment is almost necessary. In the meantime, they can't disgorge most of the property for development because it's listed (and much of it is at least culturally and historically significant even if most of the religious aspects are irrelevant).

My guess is that the organization cuts a deal with the government: They get disestablished, take over their own governance, and retain a small number of parishes and some of their money. The government takes over most of the surplus property, relieves the Church of that financial burden, gets a large slab of the endowment in the deal, abolishes the formal status of the Lords Spiritual, and moves on.

Note: Most of this can take place without the Pope getting involved formally, and he might have sent overtures for low-key switches during the first book. However, that's probably a convenient point for the shoe to drop...he makes his stand while the CofE is paralyzed or worse.

Edit: I'd like to note that I can't find the appropriate passage in Armageddon...text searches aren't turning much of anything up for "Canterbury" or "Archbishop", and "England" doesn't generate anything relevant, either.

[StrikaAmaru]

Don't know about the Orthodox.

As a former Orthodox, I can make an educated guess:

The Message would hit the Eastern Church proper very badly; I expect a very large percentage of monks, nuns, and apprentices to lay down and die (I'm talking 90% or greater). Obedience is a very important practice for the "rank and file" of the clergy; it's emphasized in a manner which makes it good neighbors to brainwashing. In the population, however, the casualties may actually be lower than the global mean; the byzantine rules, marked self-importance and impractical requests that the Church keeps tossing around actually helps in pushing people away from them. The upper echelons of the Church would be largely untouched; while I don't doubt there are some actual believers there, they are mostly political animals, and good ones, too.

Financially: they're screwed. Orthodox Churches live off believer donations and lower clergy work (self-sustaining agriculture and making cult objects). Both sources took a severe hit.

Politically: that would depend on who is a believer and who is a political in the leadership. If they try to follow Canterbury's precedent, they'll also suffer the aftermath (although requisitions are unlikely; Communist authorities did that, and I doubt current political bodies will be willing to risk the parallels). I definitely don't see them adopt the Catholic solution, out of spite and to keep some semblance of independence. They will have to say something anti-message if they go down this road, but the fact is the Pope got the good excuse.

[JN1]

GrayAnderson,
A lot of what is in my post are issues that did not make the final cut when I was writing a couple of scenes for chapter 26. As with all writing there was a balance to be struck with how much information was given to the reader. However what I've said above was part of the background information I was working with; Stuart, of course, is free to rule it as non-canonical.

To quote from the chapter:

Given his Scots Presbyterian upbringing, his father had been a Minister in the Church of Scotland, The Message had hit Brown hard. He felt angry and betrayed, but could not help wondering if this was some kind of supreme test by God, or maybe the creature claiming to be Him was in fact not the Supreme Being at all, but some kind of impostor. The latter had certainly been the opinion of the Moderator of the Church of Scotland when Brown had spoken to him.

In the first couple of days after The Message there had been a great deal of uncertainty in the United Kingdom. Those who were most religiously devout, around a tenth of the population, had died; some had just lain down and given up, others had committed suicide in a variety of imaginative ways. Some religious leaders had spoken to the Prime Minister, demanding that Britain surrender to the inevitable; those that were still alive were now residents of HMP Belmarsh, which was rather empty now that most Islamic fundamentalists were gone.

'Religious leaders' includes the Archbishop of Canterbury; as I mentioned in a post here I meant to include a mention of him, but it slipped my mind until after the chapter was posted.

[Stuart]

DIMO(N) Test Facility, Camp Hendrick, Hell

"Tucker! How are you, what are you doing here?"

Tucker McElroy swept kitten up in his arms and kissed her before passing her around to the rest of his unit. He followed it by giving Dani a slap on the back that nearly knocked him off his feet. In all, it was a spectacular reunion.

"We've just finished up our last job for the United States Army and are going back to be discharged. All of us."

kitten looked upset at the news. "Why Tucker? We thought you were happy in the Army. Won’t we be seeing you any more?"

"Sure you will, we'll still be here in Hell and still in an Army, just not the same one. Look kitten, you're still alive so you won’t really understand how we dead ones feel about things but it's not the same for us. Memories of what Earth and our first lives were like fade away pretty fast. We're been in Hell for almost two years now and what matters to us is what happens here and now. Also, don’t want to sound mercenary about this but, well, the prospects for a country boy getting much further than I have aren’t so good. For a dead country boy, promotion prospects are pretty limited." McElroy glanced around and saw that Colonel Warhol had studiously made himself absent. "and the truth is, the Army don't really know what they're going to do with us. We can fight and so on better than First Lifers can in Hell but it's not the same thing. Lot of us are beginning to ask why we're fighting for First-Lifers in our territory. It's weird, kitten, but I'm beginning to understand why the Iraqis felt the way they did about Americans coming in. Sure, they saved them from a pretty nasty regime but why did they stay? Why didn’t they just get rid of Saddam Hussein and go?

"It's the same here, why don’t the First-Lifers just go? This is our place, First-Lifers can't even live here without a whole shitload of technical support. I know there are some things that have to be done, like the rescue effort in The Pit, but for the rest of it? Take the job we've just done. Small group of humans trying to attack the supply convoys taking munitions to the HEA so they could set up their own state. We had to persuade them it wasn't a good idea. Well, we've done that but it just doesn't sit right you know? Anyway, so when our enlistment was up, we took a discharge. We, the whole gang, are off to New Rome. Caesar's hiring all the dead ex-Special Forces people he can find for his new legions." McElroy broke off and grinned apologetically. "I'm sorry kitten, this has all been building up for some time and I needed somebody sympathetic to unload to. Now, how are you doing and what are you up to?"

Out of the corner of his eye, McElroy saw Warhol start to drift back towards the group. Standing with her back to him, kitten was oblivious to the approach. "We're trying to turn portal-opening into a proper transportation system. We know that nephelim act as a sort of transponder, picking up my signals and repeating them back to me. Well, the scientists have built a beacon that can do the same thing. So, once those beacons are all over the place, we won’t need Nephelim at all on the receiving end. It'll just be like dialling a telephone number. People'll will come to a transit point here in Hell and then portal back to their desired point on Earth."

"Just like the Yulupki Delivery Service, only without the need for Nephelim." Dani cut in. "And you're wrong Tucker, humans can't just leave Hell now. It's not just the rescue effort although that's a big part of it. There's so much here that we need. Oil, minerals, you name it. And then there's the strategic part. An Army based in Hell dominates Earth, it can land anywhere it wants, go anywhere it wants. It's the ultimate high ground. Also, a lot of First-Lifers don't feel too good about what happened in the Curbstomp War. Have you seen the battlefield along the Phlegethon? Mile after mile of mangled daemon bodies. They tried to stop our tanks with bronze tridents. Hollywood's already making films about that."

"As well as new-wave horror films." Warhol had decided it was time to get the conversation on to safer ground. "Have you seen the advertisements for Hellboy IV? 'The first horror film made starring *real daemons*.' That could start a trend you know."

"It already has." Dani grinned at the thought. "Did you hear the ACLU are suing the National Football League.? Apparently the Cubs recruited a couple of daemons for their offense and the other teams objected after they saw a daemon walking to the line with three or four humans hanging on to him. So the NFL made a ruling restricting the game to First-Life humans and the ACLU took umbrage. Called it racial discrimination. Big question here, does The Constitution apply to dead people?"

"Second-lifers." McElroy made the point politely but firmly.

"Second-lifers. Sorry. Anyway, the question remains though and it’s a good one. Ted Kennedy's interview a couple of days ago really raised that question. Can the dead, Second-lifers, vote?"

"Of course we can. Been doing it in Chicago for years." McElroy inserted the barb with relish. It was, in his opinion, payback. Dani grinned acknowledgement.

"And if they can vote, why can't they run for office? Puts a whole new slant on incumbrancy doesn't it? If the dead can hold office, we will literally never get them out. Now that is a truly horrible thought."

Training Camp, 1st Mechanized Infantry Battalion (Demonic), Dis, Hell

"We're doing this the wrong way." It was Ori speaking but he and Aeneas had discussed the issue at length and come to a satisfactory conclusion. That wasn't surprising since they had started off in almost perfect agreement.

"What do you mean?" Sergeant Anderson would take any suggestion that offered hope at this point. The plan to produce units of daemonic troops was falling apart.

"We're trying to make daemons fight using human tactics and methods. We can't do it, nobody can. Their minds are set in a specific configuration by millennia of practice and we simply can’t change that. We have to adapt human strategy and tactics to daemonic abilities, not the other way around."

Anderson tapped his fingers on the table. The idea sounded plausible but it ran against the whole concept of the 1st Demonic. That was to produce an army unit that was essentially similar to human forces but with daemonic personnel. One that could fit in with human units.

"What have you in mind?" His voice was cautious.

"The problem is that the daemons have no idea of unit coordination or mutual support. In a battle it's every daemon for himself and forget about those left behind. No matter how hard we try, every time we begin an assault, it ends the same way. The daemons do a hell-for-leather charge and then the defenders cut them to pieces. They're getting their minds around concepts like outflanking but covering fire and maneuver are beyond them."

"I find that hard to believe." General Schatten spoke from behind the trio, his approach unseen by any of them. "They've been fighting each other for millennia. They must have evolved concepts like outflanking."

"Sir." Sergeant Anderson had jumped to attention.

"Relax people. One of you explain to me what these problems are."

"It is simply that daemonic units do not and will not cooperate. Aeneas's time lecturing in universities had given him an insight into how to pitch arguments. Yes, they will outflank another unit if they can but setting up an outflanking move is beyond them. It means that one unit does the work of pinning down the target while another gets the glory of defeating it. It's so deeply ingrained in them that they cannot behave any other way. We've tried everything. Short of shackling one unit in place that is. They just won’t do it. It's made worse by the way their old units were structured. They were like our phalanx, once they were committed to a specific direction, they had to go straight forward. Now, we've got them to thin out and we've got them to lay down and shoot and that's all very well but once the signal to advance, its 'up boys and at'em' and everything we've taught them goes out the window."

"Think of them as armies from the 17th century." Anderson added, "with tridents instead of pikemen and throwing lightning bolts instead of musket fire. Their traditional tactics were very much the same, they'd try and disrupt the enemy formation with lightning bolts and then close to win battles by the push of the pike."

"Not really that dissimilar to how we fought." Aeneas made the remark casually, unaware of how profound the insight really was.

"They form ranks, the front rank discharging their tridents and kneeling to recharge while the rank behind steps forward and does the same. Then the next rank does that. And so the whole formation advanced to contact. Then everybody used their tridents as thrusting weapons. That tactical concept really is the whole of their playbook. Or was, until we arrived." Anderson sighed. "Breaking the habit of a lifetime is hard enough, but when that lifetime is millennia, there's no chance. We can change the details of how they do things but the grand pattern is too well established to break up. We thought bringing Ori and Aeneas in would help because their tactical background was similar to that of the daemons but it hasn’t. We're losing this battle Sir, we may have to give up on using daemonic units."

"Not necessarily." Ori spoke reflectively. He too had benefitted greatly from the time spent lecturing disbelieving historians on Japanese history.

"You have an idea?"

"Not us, specifically, but something we've heard on the wind. Caesar has cracked this problem with his legions."

"He would." Schatten sounded bitter.

Ori ignored the interjection. "As the stories go, he's mixed humans and daemons in the same units. Daemons are the main body of troops, Second-Life humans run the support forces. Mortars, machine guns, artillery, armor and so on. In defense, the daemons lay down and fire their rifles along with everybody else. That much we've got them to do ourselves. When it comes to attacks, the daemons do the movement bit while the humans provide covering fire and artillery support. A daemonic charge supported by machine gun and artillery fire to pin down the opposition. In daemonic eyes, they're getting all the glory, in human eyes, the daemons are taking the brunt of the casualties. Suits both."

"And you want to try the same thing?" Schatten asked.

"We do. We can't fail any more badly than we're doing at the moment." Anderson and Aeneas sighed in obvious agreement.

Schatten nodded. In any effective army, a wise general listened to his senior NCOs. "I expect you'll be receiving orders to that effect shortly. Thank you for your time gentlemen."

Conference Room, Yamantau Mountain, Russia

"The latest word on the dust storms?" Prime Minister and Council Chairman Putin put the question tersely.

"Still occurring around the world although they've slowed down after the initial spate." Doctor Surlethe consulted the file. "It's the same pattern as all the others, we get an initial surge of attacks and then they peter off to a nominal level. We've actually had the quietest storm season in the Atlantic for a long, long time. The dust storms are a real problem though, they've hit some of the most productive farmland we have. For the first time on a worldwide basis, we face a real possibility of running low on food."

"Can we use sea-based resources to make up the difference? How about seaweed; we can help with providing advice there." The Japanese Prime Minister looked around at the other fourteen members of the council who weren't too enthused by the idea of a seaweed diet.

"Can we import food from Hell to make up the difference? I understand that farming is already becoming established there." Gordon Brown seemed much more at home with the idea of munching wheat grown in Hell than seaweed from Earth.

"That would seem a worthwhile subject for investigation. Doctor Surlethe, perhaps you could form a team to investigate alternative food sources. I must point out though that the ultimate answer to all of these food problems is to invade and conquer Heaven. Thus putting an end to this war." Putin paused for a second. "Has the dissection of Uriel's body given us any more data we can use?"

Surlethe paused for a second to change flash drives on his computer. As he did so, he glanced quickly upwards, thinking of the incredible weight of rock that was between him and fresh air. He shuddered slightly and opened up the appropriate files.

"We have dissected Uriel and provided tissue samples to all interested laboratories. He was one big mother so there was enough to go around." He paused to allow a chuckle at his phrasing to pass around the room. One of the primary reasons why Council of Fifteen meetings worked so much more smoothly than the old United Nations had done was that they were secret and the participants could allow themselves to be more human. "Anyway, we're all agreed, examination of the DNA does confirm that humans, daemons and angels all had a common ancestor a long, long time back. As far as we can determine, the angelic/daemon line split away from ours in the far distant pass while the daemons and angels split more recently. The extreme variation in physical form exhibited by daemons is comparatively recent and is not exhibited by angels. In fact, if the dating shown by our studies and the stories told to us by daemon informants are correct, the physical variation of daemons post-dates the move of the daemon population from Heaven to Hell.

"Although they differ in size, with Uriel being by far the largest angel we have killed to date, angels are all fundamentally the same. A white, feathered, six-limbed humanoid. One important thing, we examined Uriel's genitalia and those of other angels we have killed. If our analysis is correct, by our standards, angels are sterile. Daemons, of course, are not. Now, I must be clear about this, 'by our standards, sterile' does not mean impotent. It does appear angelic males at least have very low fertility. We haven't killed any females yet so we don’t know about them."

"What about the Whore of Babylon?" The Singaporean Prime Minister was mentally assessing the implications of what Surlethe had just said.

"She survived, as far as we know, at least her body wasn't found. Nor was that of the Scarlet Beast."

"That brings us to an important point." Putin interrupted the presentation. "Have we killed the treacherous swine in the Tekuma yet?"

"We have every ship in the Mediterranean hunting for them. It's only a question of time. She'll have to snort soon and when she does, we'll have her. Present orders are 'all weapons are free'. We can't take a chance of her having any more missiles on board." President Obama was glad to be able to get a word in at last.

"Does he?" Putin's question was short, sharp and vicious.

"We don't know." The Israeli delegate's answer was shame-faced. "We have lost our naval headquarters, and with that our records of what was where. If we can believe them that is. The official load-out for a Dolphin is five missiles, but she could, theoretically have up to twenty."

"Why stop at twenty?" Putin's question had a derisive edge to it.

"Because that's all we had. Fifteen left now of course. We think the other two boats have five each but that would still mean Tekuma might have five more. Dolphin and Leviathan are due back in port soon. We can check their missiles then."

"A question." Gordon Brown spoke up again. "Do we want the crew alive? We need to question them, find out what happened."

"We can do that anyway." Prime Minisyer Abhisit Vejjajjiva sounded amused. The implications of the human occupation of Hell still hadn't quite sunk in to most people. "They don’t have to be alive to answer questions and we can ask them in Hell just as well as we can here. Better in fact, one of my cousins has a detachment of military police waiting for them at the Phelan Plain reception center. By the way, I have some cheerful news. The body of Philip Phelan, the security guard at the New Market Mall has been found in the Fourth Circle of Hell and he is currently in the reception center names after him, recovering from his ordeal."

A burst of applause ran around the room. Putin smiled happily, a slightly unnerving sight. "We must find suitable honors for him. Now, next subject on the agenda. How are we going to invade Heaven."

[Darth Yan]

Great chapter, but one nitpick. You say hellboy 4. there have only been two movies. otherwise, great chapter, and I like that Phil Phelen was finally found.

[Guardsman Bass]

Interesting stuff. The low, low angelic fertility kind of makes sense when you consider that they're close to immortal and don't appear to really age.

[GrayAnderson]

1) Thanks for the clear-up. Trying to read through a novel to find one or two lines is pretty hard...and I wasn't even going to try the threads (Close to 100 pages including plenty of side-chatter in multiple threads? No thanks!). I'll of course defer to Stuart's thoughts on the matter, but a point of clarity would be nice there (even if not totally necessary); after all, I think it's established that not everyone drank the kool-aid. I also feel compelled to quote Yes Prime Minister on this occasion, just for the hell of it:
"The Queen is inseparable from the Church of England. God is an optional extra." (The Bishop's Gambit)

2) Darth Yan, I am very much suspecting that the series is much more popular...and doing a lot less with CGI to boot. So having a III and an IV come out makes sense enough. In an unrelated matter, I suspect that the SAG is going to have fun with getting demons into its ranks. Coming to an awards ceremony near you: Just try using the music to force these guys off!

3) Stuart, nice handling of the dead politicians bit. Not going to be a clean fix no matter what, I'm afraid...it is in both parties' interest to keep incumbency as strong as possible and to avoid "surprise" vacancies. If I may offer a guess (which I may have some pages ago), I'd guess that the courts rule "political question" on the matter and kick it to Congress on deceased incumbents. On deceased voters, the easy way out is domicile restrictions...but if someone is still on the rolls, what's to prevent the Chicago Democrats from simply putting some cash in their hand and trying to open a portal to run them through the voting booths quickly? It's the same with office-seeking...but again, a lot of this comes down to state laws, and those restrictions get pretty thin at times.

This leads to interesting issues with states that have lengthy overseas domicile allowances (i.e. letting people vote while living out of the country on business)...the UK has similar rules, and working through that is going to be a problem without either re-flooding the rolls or disenfranchising people away on business.

4) I think there's one way out on the court rulings that came up on the NFL: Racial discrimination is disallowed. Species discrimination is permissible with a reasonably compelling rational basis (i.e. sports competitions), though arguably one could easily determine (a la the Clean Air Act ruling) that the demons get Title IX protection in some form...which to be fair would make for a very fun match as long as nobody tried to eat the opposition.

[Hofner1962]

"And if they can vote, why can't they run for office? Puts a whole new slant on incumbrancy doesn't it? If the dead can hold office, we will literally never get them out. Now that is a truly horrible thought."

We have term limits on most positions these days. I would think that would still apply.

[Simon_Jester]

The US Congress doesn't; that's one of the world's more muscular legislative bodies.

What's your definition of "we?"

[Hofner1962]

You are right - I was thinking about all the hullabaloo in the 90s where many states passed term limit legislation. I forgot that the supreme court overturned it.

Sigh

[Chad]

"Did you hear the ACLU are suing the National Football League.? Apparently the Cubs recruited a couple of daemons for their offense and the other teams objected after they saw a daemon walking to the line with three or four humans hanging on to him.


Slight correction for the dead tree version. The Cubs is the Chicago baseball team. The Bears is the Chicago football team.

[NecronLord]

Just for chicken counting and assuming they'll get the guys in Hell, I'd rather like the other conspiracy in heaven to activate the priority intercept and just chop the sub crew's heads off as they come out whatever passes for a gate there. (Saint Peter!)

[Scottish Ninja]

"Did you hear the ACLU are suing the National Football League.? Apparently the Cubs recruited a couple of daemons for their offense and the other teams objected after they saw a daemon walking to the line with three or four humans hanging on to him.


Slight correction for the dead tree version. The Cubs is the Chicago baseball team. The Bears is the Chicago football team.

I foresee a surge in popularity of touch football.

[Jamesfirecat]

One thing I don't get

Tucker said "Memories fade pretty fast" I think there has to be a better way to say that, given that it's clear that both our Spartan and Samari friend have pretty good memories of their first lives....

[Blayne]

There is a Hell Boy III, its an animated direct to dvd film.

Its not so much the memories are gone, its that there's a sorta filter that makes them probably like watching someone elses life so you become detached to them.

[GrayAnderson]

Let me offer an example that might explain the memory thing: Some years back, I lived in a very big house. I don't keep too many memories of that time near the surface...I was growing up, and my father decided that he wanted to have his dream house. It became a total mess that I'd rather not go into detail on, but suffice it to say that I haven't been in that house in years and it is now owned by another family.

Now, it's not like that time didn't happen, but sometimes it feels a bit surreal that it did, even though I lived it, I was there, etc.

As the years go by, I think a lot of people end up with various points in their lives that their feelings can be summed up as "Did that really happen?" Yes, they did, but you don't think about it and it feels like it happened to someone else.

--------------------------------------

Moving along, I think I've hatched a workable legal doctrine to deal with the issue of second lifers, etc. that might prove workable. First, what needs to be achieved:
1) You want to allow companies to keep people on staff, at least for a transition period.
2) You want to allow the government to keep soldiers around for more than a simple debriefing. It's frankly easier, equipment-wise, if the US government can keep dead soldiers on staff while occupying hell/invading heaven. I know Caesar wants a lot of them, but the US is also going to have an interest here...as are a lot of other countries. If nothing else, there will be cases where you want to be able to sequester operational knowledge for a while.
3) You want to avoid creating a situation where people who can't reside on Earth are basically running the place.
4) You want to avoid lots of legal irregularities or morasses such as taxation without representation, etc.

What I'm guessing works best is this:
-Subject to some sort of reasonableness test, upon dying one may still be required to/permitted to fill out service requirements of one's time on Earth. Examples here would be having a deceased soldier/military officer continue to serve out their term of service, a corporate executive serving in a given capacity for a transition period, etc. This also deals with prison sentences, since if one is released from all earthly obligations upon death, making prison sentences stick can become a mess if someone has a pre-standing arrangement with a state based in Hell. However, arrangements such as "billion year contracts" go right out the window as unreasonable. After such arrangements lapse, continuation will generally be up to both parties to agree upon...transferring ex-management to run the company's Hell offices is going to be eminently practical in a lot of cases. Note that with the military, a lot of this may shake out as legal fiction: They remain notionally on the rolls for a little while, but "on loan" to Caesar or someone else. This would have the advantage of not having soldiers be able to go over to a third party with operational knowledge in hand, allied or not.
--Longer-term confidentiality agreements will be tolerated as well. I'm pretty sure that Apple doesn't want a disgruntled engineer spilling all of the details of an in-progress project just because they're dead. Ditto nuclear scientists, CIA officers, etc. Nobody wants to see these people lack an obligation not to take the money and run once they die.
-Voting rights are handled as if someone is out of the state/country for an extended period: They might retain their ability to vote for 5-10 years (maybe even longer in some cases, depending on local law) according to the relevant local laws, but sooner or later, their domicile back home is going to "clock out". This is, of course, mooted if someone acquires local citizenship in Hell. Otherwise, local territories in Hell basically have Puerto Rican status: Citizenship is retained, and they may even be able to send a delegate or two to the national government, but they're pretty autonomous and aren't going to be represented at full population levels.
-Office holding is a "political question" that probably gets resolved as "One can run out their term but generally not seek another" for legislative positions (though often a deceased member will probably step aside at a convenient moment), and "Due to geographic issues involved, death counts as incapacity" for executive positions in the US. As to a cabinet post, it's really at the discretion of the executive in many cases, but my guess is "you stick around for a transition period and then usually move on". In the UK, I'd say they could theoretically stand (due to the laws about not needing to live in your constituency), but aside from Winston Churchill or someone like that, reselection in such cases will be rare due to an inability to campaign.

Ultimately, this is probably an "unhappy medium": The dead can still vote, but are probably capped off at 5-15% of the electorate in most places...putting a lot of lag into the system, but nothing too serious. The long-term question is going to be whether, if a country's territories in Hell become highly productive and/or wind up with a lot of resources, they decided to extend representation further. If a country basically has a big slum in Hell, the answer is going to be "no", but if it's the price of giving up rich oilfields or gold deposits?

I could see someone resurrecting Rhodesia's old split electoral rolls model (or one of the tricks the Brits tried to work out with Ireland during the Home Rule fight) if they want to keep a territory and just under-representing the dead (with, say, 5-10% of the seats despite having greater numbers on grounds of substantial autonomy). Again, it's a messy fix, but I don't think anything is going to be perfectly clean here.

[Shroom Man 777]

Oh, Mister Putin. God, you are the awesomest in these clubhouse meetings. Man, he always goes on about invading Heaven. Stu, watch out, having Putin close the scene with "how do we kill god/heaven" might end up being repetitive, as badass as it is, since I think this is the second time we've seen it.

I do, however, love the fact that Putin is the complete badass who's chairing and directing these club house meetings.

[Edward Yee]

Incidental thought re: Ori's description of Caesar's combined-arms method... it leaves the demons with the Queen, the humans with the King, and we all know what the King does to the Queen. I wonder at what level these sort of operations are being carried out though? Considering that this is at the battalion level... do they have any harpies attached, or camp follower daemons, or are the aerial and logistics elements exclusively Human-operated? I'd be interested in seeing if anyone in the HEA proposes some sort of command/leader school, beyond that needed for dismounted infantry at the company level and below.

Mild typo: It's "Does she?" re: the Tekuma's nukes. Also, formatting errors with the Israeli delegate's answer. Other than that... if the Israeli delegate isn't lying about Israel only having had twenty submarine-launched nuclear missiles, five of which were launched already, plus five each which he thinks are on the Dolphin and Leviathan... and it turns out that Tekuma really did expend the whole of its payload... WHERE THE FUCK ARE THE OTHER FIVE?!

That's spooky to see that Stuart has made the Israeli Navy so bad that I'm actually hoping the Tekuma still has those five nukes left...

[TimothyC]

Mild typo: It's "Does she?" re: the Tekuma's nukes.

Putin was speaking, and for Russians, ships are male, not female.

[Shroom Man 777]

Wow, that's a very nice touch. Fitting to note, for someone as well-versed and intimately familiar with fighting ships as Stuart!

[Pelranius]

I wonder why it would take so long to find the Tekuma? I though American and NATO in general was very got at ASW, even against diesel submarines.

[Simon_Jester]

Mild typo: It's "Does she?" re: the Tekuma's nukes. Also, formatting errors with the Israeli delegate's answer. Other than that... if the Israeli delegate isn't lying about Israel only having had twenty submarine-launched nuclear missiles, five of which were launched already, plus five each which he thinks are on the Dolphin and Leviathan... and it turns out that Tekuma really did expend the whole of its payload... WHERE THE FUCK ARE THE OTHER FIVE?!

In all probability, they're in a shoreside arsenal somewhere. After all, they have to have at least some possibility of reloading one of the subs if it launches its missiles.

[Tiwaz]

In all probability, they're in a shoreside arsenal somewhere. After all, they have to have at least some possibility of reloading one of the subs if it launches its missiles.

Then again, Israel is not exactly large nation. Leaving nukes laying around can for them mean they never get the chance to use them if things get bad.

Considering Israel's attitude towards it's surroundings, I would not find it surprising to hear they keep all their sub launched missiles in the subs at all times.

[Simon_Jester]

Though in that case you'd expect that the officer briefing the council at Yamantau would know that, and would not say, "we have twenty missiles, five of which are normally in each submarine."