The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Eighty One Up

[Ritterin Sophia]

So, Stuart, to bring up an age-old question: How many divisions does the Pope have?

To go along with that what kind of equipment do they have? I'm assuming their SG550s have been rechambered (or they've procurred some that have been rechambered at least) to .338 Lapua? You mention they're mechanized now, so I was wondering what kind of vehicles do they use?

As for Yahweh, does the Geneva Convention cover him or does he fall under a special jurisdiction? Because I was thinking we could capture him for information about different worlds, 'advanaced interrogation techniques' might be applicable, especially if it's Russian.

On Caesar I'm having a hard time reconciling his status as an ally with his poaching of American Soldiers from nations of the living.

I think the point being made was that the gloves are definately off. Chemical and biological are problematic issues so my guess is that if in doubt, it'll be nukes, air strikes and massive artillery fire.

We used some of the V-Series nerve agents on the Daemons, I don't see why we wouldn't on the Angels, chemical weapons have been in play for a while, it's just this time Petraeus is being given the authority to determine when the different national militaries of the HEA can use them.

[Shroom Man 777]

Hey Stu, I sent furtherer PMs!

[xthetenth]

We used some of the V-Series nerve agents on the Daemons, I don't see why we wouldn't on the Angels, chemical weapons have been in play for a while, it's just this time Petraeus is being given the authority to determine when the different national militaries of the HEA can use them.

I think something that might be very very interesting is using something that uses the immune systems of heaven residents to our advantage. Pick something dead nasty that'll give everybody who gets it a long-lasting respiratory infection or incapacitate them further that we have a vaccine for (the respiratory infection was specifically chosen to mess with their sonic abilities, but physical incapacitation would be just as good). That'll weaken the angels' fighting capacity significantly if done right and has a decent chance of being survivable for the second-life humans. Biological warfare in this case is aided considerably by the fact that nobody up there would have a modern set of antibodies (well nobody the humans would know about). Of course there are faster ways of doing things, but that seemed like something simple to do with only advantages unless something goes horribly wrong. This of course assumes that the launch capacity couldn't be used for something that'd suit more... vindictive tastes.

Now that I've finally been dragged out of lurking, I've got to say this is one of the most entertaining things I've ever read and can't wait for more.

[Simon_Jester]

To be fair, the thinking generally seems to go "Hitler and a group at the top planned this" (not to mention that such logic isn't the only thing not examined outside of the neo-Nazi/denier community)...but then again, there also seems to be a limited distribution of blame among some of the other high-ranking demons (though most of the guilty parties are themselves out of the picture). Those that survived were in a good position to pass plenty of blame all around, as enough of the upper echelons had been, if I recall right, gutted.

...Your quote tags got messy.

But yes, this is very true. However, there's still an essential problem: if an entire nation or species of beings act like monsters, how much of that can you shrug off as "well, you had bad leaders?" On the one hand, human experience shows that decent people with evil leaders will do evil and still be decent people somewhere inside. But can you really forgive a demon who spent the last ten thousand years torturing people and hacking bits off of them for fun? Or a succubus whose favorite food is human flesh?

And if the answer is yes, and you can forgive them, there's something very wrong with you if you then show ferocious hate towards someone whose worst crime was letting those demons do what they wanted.

And while I understand that there are lots of artistic reasons why things could play out that way... on some level it disturbs me. Which is, of course, likely to be the point.

We used some of the V-Series nerve agents on the Daemons, I don't see why we wouldn't on the Angels, chemical weapons have been in play for a while, it's just this time Petraeus is being given the authority to determine when the different national militaries of the HEA can use them.

Chemical yes, biological... doesn't make sense to me.

[GrayAnderson]

Simon,
I got that. Fixed it...twice, since I missed one of the mangled tags on the first run. The joys of trying to snip a pile of quotes.

With regard to your comments, here's my thinking on that point: Satan wasn't just "letting them do as they pleased"; arguably, he was aiding, abetting, and encouraging such behavior as well as all sorts of other behavior. That doesn't mean that they're good or evil on its own...but it does mean that there was a leadership that at the very least given towards encouraging such behavior. The eating of other sentient beings is an issue, but there could at least arguably be a long-standing biological issue there (and I do recall that they're exclusive carnivores to boot), but the torture? That's behavioral, and while there may be genetic predispositions, I am inclined to look at the demons, look at the Aztecs or the Carthaginians, look at the Nazis, and blame leadership issues.

On the other hand, if Yahweh is the party you're referring to, that's...he's a little bit more convoluted and headache-inducing for me. For one, I think I could direct a decent amount of anger at the clear case of false misrepresentation which he engaged in. For another, there's the whole handing-sentient-beings-over-to-be-tortured-and-or-lunch issue...yeah, there's a lot to be steamed at there, and it's not like he gave a clear indication of how one should go about avoiding that fate.

[Blayne]

Caesar's actions are consistent with anarchic views of international relations, just because the HEA is friendly now and aligns with New SPQR interests now doesn't mean it will continue to do so.

[[R_H]]

The message then seems to be that if you're inevitably going to lose anyway, you're just plain better off losing in a straight up and somewhat honourable fight, rather than drawing things out and unduly pissing off the guy who's going to give you a right clobbering sooner or later.

Turn the board over on that. Say it was the last Humans walled up against the Angels, would they just open the gates and get mowed down like wheat, or would they try to hold out as long as possible?
But this entire point is moot since it's Yah-Yah we're dealing with.... he would be dumb enough to open the gates and charge.

Or at the very least, still arrogant enough to open the gates and charge.

[[R_H]]

Can anyone tell me what the standard battle rifle was during the Armageddon era? Particularly when the HEA finally invaded Hell. Was it an M-16 chambered for .50 BMG or something? I forgot.

Started off as the standard .223 M16 and M4 for the US, the AK74 for the Russians etc. These were found to be virtually ineffective; the US changed over to the .50 Beowulf M16 and M4 plus the .458 Winchester Magnum M114 and M115, teh British adopted the .338 Lapua Magnum in an enlarged and rechambered L1. Everybody else is switching over to very heavy rifle rounds fired from the appropriate rifles.

And the Russians kept using the AK74? Just kidding, what did they switch to? Izhmash sells an updated version of the Dragunov called the Tigr, which can be chambered for the 9.3x64mm Brenneke cartridge (which the Gw98s can also be chambered for) or the Soviet 9x53R, based on 7.62x54R

Chemical and nuclear weapons I can understand, but biological? What kind of biological weapons do have that would affect angels, but aren't going to be a problem for us?

It would be a tragic end if, after invading heaven, humanity gets wiped out by one of our own plagues. xD

How would the plague get back through the portals to Earth?

[Baughn]

With the soldiers. We're not going to keep them there, are we?

[[R_H]]

With the soldiers. We're not going to keep them there, are we?

So...they're going to walking around in an (N)BC environment without protective equipment, and they're not going to be decontaminated?

[Ilya Muromets]

"Those who were led astray by the deadly sin of pride have been arrested. Their leaders have been interrogated and their followers detailed in a camp far removed from the city."

Careful there, Mikey. You're smug enough that that line could come right back and bite you in the ass in a brutal form of irony.

Oh, and it seems I was right about the 6th Bowl. It really was just a bunch of huge damn rocks dropped from a portal in the sky.

And the Russians kept using the AK74? Just kidding, what did they switch to? Izhmash sells an updated version of the Dragunov called the Tigr, which can be chambered for the 9.3x64mm Brenneke cartridge (which the Gw98s can also be chambered for) or the Soviet 9x53R, based on 7.62x54R

Or, y'know, go with good ol' Russian practicality and just open up the stores of old AK-47s and start redistributing them to soldiers. Sure, they may not quite have the same kick as some of the heavier calibers most nations seem to be upgrading to, but the AK-47s still have a bigger bullet than the AK-74s and would make for a good, cheap, easily obtained stopgap while they look for/upgrade to more powerful alternatives.

[Shroom Man 777]

Give Saiga-12s to everyone?

[Baughn]

So...they're going to walking around in an (N)BC environment without protective equipment, and they're not going to be decontaminated?

Oh, I'm sure they'll both wear it and be decontaminated, but accidents happen, especially in war.

Frankly, biological weapons scare me. It only takes a single slip for some bacteria to get out of containment, and the price for that is potentially so enormous, it seems completely insane to even consider using them.

[[R_H]]

And the Russians kept using the AK74? Just kidding, what did they switch to? Izhmash sells an updated version of the Dragunov called the Tigr, which can be chambered for the 9.3x64mm Brenneke cartridge (which the Gw98s can also be chambered for) or the Soviet 9x53R, based on 7.62x54R

Or, y'know, go with good ol' Russian practicality and just open up the stores of old AK-47s and start redistributing them to soldiers. Sure, they may not quite have the same kick as some of the heavier calibers most nations seem to be upgrading to, but the AK-47s still have a bigger bullet than the AK-74s and would make for a good, cheap, easily obtained stopgap while they look for/upgrade to more powerful alternatives.

They're just about as powerful (in terms of energy) as '74s and M4s/M16s. They do less soft tissue damage actually. I would imagine they'd just equip their infantry formations with more organic crew-served weapons (which have done most of the killing on the battlefields since WWI).

[Simon_Jester]

With regard to your comments, here's my thinking on that point: Satan wasn't just "letting them do as they pleased"; arguably, he was aiding, abetting, and encouraging such behavior as well as all sorts of other behavior.

Well, yes, he wasn't. I was talking about Yahweh and the angels.

My point is not that leadership can be excused from blame; that would be absurd. It's that we have a very good reason to treat the leadership as being (almost) entirely responsible for the crimes of a people: punishing a people on that scale generally involves doing things that your children won't be proud of.

On the other hand, if Yahweh is the party you're referring to, that's...he's a little bit more convoluted and headache-inducing for me. For one, I think I could direct a decent amount of anger at the clear case of false misrepresentation which he engaged in. For another, there's the whole handing-sentient-beings-over-to-be-tortured-and-or-lunch issue...yeah, there's a lot to be steamed at there, and it's not like he gave a clear indication of how one should go about avoiding that fate.

There's a lot to be steamed at. What disturbs and confuses me is the idea that this is worse than the actions of the beings he handed people over to. He's a grand-scale fraud and an accessory to mass torture and murder; how is this worse than being a torturer and murderer?

How would the plague get back through the portals to Earth?

If it's at all persistent, one of us might pick it up on the way through, assuming anyone ever goes there. Even if it isn't, it's liable to linger in the population with resistant individuals acting as carriers for quite a while. If everything is done flawlessly, it might be possible to do it all without breaking quarantine. But if we have to maintain a large army over there, for instance... sooner or later, someone's going to screw up and everyone catches Yahweh's Revenge. Not good.

Better to use nukes; at the very least radiation poisoning isn't contagious.

[KrauserKrauser]

Well as far as identifying Babylon goes I think Vegas might be in for some roughy times. Never has such a wretched hive of scum and villainy etc.

Take out Vegas and you've done some damage but as each of the previous bowls have done, the strategic impact will be limited.

[thegreatpl]

yes, but doesnt Michael love vegas? i dont see him as the type to blow up his favorite city. he was upset when New Orleans got hit.

I think he will go for Washington DC.

[Edward Yee]

Yep... even the UFC would probably find a new home, though probably not Virginia or California.

Saiga-12s -- nah, there's probably better by this time in-story if you needed a full-auto or semi-auto shotgun.

Note: There's also .458 Winchester as the Americans use, or even the "old" .50 Beowulf, if the Vatican military felt the need to have ammo/magazine and components compatibility with the US; so far as I know only the Brits are using .338 Lapua in the story for their service rifle, though other countries may have followed suit by this point.

[JN1]

I suppose it could be argued that countries that previously used the SLR/FAL, such as Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand may adopt the L1A2 in .338 Lapua Magnum. In fact since there is a CW army it would make sense for them to use this calibre.

[NecronLord]

Human Levies? Unless that means the humans are meant to act entirely in support roles, then either Heaven has some way of sustaining Second Lifers on Earth, or they're going to attack the human forces in hell first. An attack on Hell makes sense. The HEA clearly isn't anticipating it at all, and it might actually do serious damage or defeat the HEA, depending on how well defended they are. There's also lots of demons without mental screening you could use to get a lock on, if that's useful, too.

Opening up with a city-killer barrage of rocks on the major HEA vehicle parks and buildings and then attacking in force might just be workable.

Stuart did say that Pantheocide was supposed to be the antipode to Armageddon. In Armageddon, Humans attacked Hell, and came out looking like the good guys. They were kind to their prisoners and seemed to care about everyone involved (after they were done blowing the crap out of them). Maybe now we'll see the darker side of humanity unleashed on Heaven?

Maybe the old saying that humanity is more compassionate than an angel and more cruel than a demon is going to be played out?

Frankly, if this actually does happen, I welcome the coming of R'lyeh. Such a level of force against the angels is beyond unnecessary, and well into the realm of gloatingly sadistic.

I'd welcome an overpowering enemy whose abilities are to the humans' as theirs are to the angels and demons here, anyway. The great flaw of this setting is that it consistently presents very weak and incapable antagonists. While that fits the point that science defeats religion, there's nothing to suggest that 'Devils' shouldn't have technology of their own thousands of years beyond humans - they're clearly not synonymous with demons, after all.

And if the answer is yes, and you can forgive them, there's something very wrong with you if you then show ferocious hate towards someone whose worst crime was letting those demons do what they wanted.

In fairness, the only one we know of doing that is Yahweh (by sending humans to hell; we don't know how his intercept-the-dead stickh works, but it may be something only he can do) - both sides had reasonably equal power. There's no reason to think that if a heavenly invasion of hell were a realistic goal, Yahweh wouldn't have ordered it. The average angel on the street treats humans like shit, but he's nothing like as evil as the average demon on the street; he thinks he's part of the nobility of hell, and treats humans as peasants. That hardly justifies chemical weapons.

As for Yahweh, does the Geneva Convention cover him or does he fall under a special jurisdiction? Because I was thinking we could capture him for information about different worlds, 'advanaced interrogation techniques' might be applicable, especially if it's Russian.

I don't imagine him even experiencing physical pain - especially if he's from a species that created angels and demons, adding an ability to avoid suffering pain would surely be easier than making those species. But then, I imagine him a gigantic orchid mantis, so...

[JN1]

Yahweh has never signed the Geneva Convention, so arguably he is not covered by it.

[Darth Wong]

But yes, this is very true. However, there's still an essential problem: if an entire nation or species of beings act like monsters, how much of that can you shrug off as "well, you had bad leaders?"

Quite a lot, if you know perfectly well that your own group is equally capable of such atrocities when given the right ideological leadership.

At the beginning of WW2, FDR made a point of saying that innocent civilians should not be bombed, and it was widely understood in our society that only the "Huns" would do that. We civilized people would not; it was simply unconscionable and immoral. But by the end of the war, we were using incendiaries and nuclear weapons on civilians, and patting ourselves on the back for doing it. There is a very thin line that separates us from savages at any given time.

[GrayAnderson]

On the other hand, if Yahweh is the party you're referring to, that's...he's a little bit more convoluted and headache-inducing for me. For one, I think I could direct a decent amount of anger at the clear case of false misrepresentation which he engaged in. For another, there's the whole handing-sentient-beings-over-to-be-tortured-and-or-lunch issue...yeah, there's a lot to be steamed at there, and it's not like he gave a clear indication of how one should go about avoiding that fate.

There's a lot to be steamed at. What disturbs and confuses me is the idea that this is worse than the actions of the beings he handed people over to. He's a grand-scale fraud and an accessory to mass torture and murder; how is this worse than being a torturer and murderer?

Satan came out and told us what the score was. For all his evil, he stabbed us in the front. By contrast, in the context of the story Yahweh was the accessory masquerading as a good guy who stabbed us in the back. In a sense, I think there's a feeling that if Yahweh had been up-front about the whole thing, we'd be irritated, but because he wasn't, we're furious. In essence, we'd be less angry if he'd taken the Greek pantheon's route.

Of course, some of this stems from bad misreadings and misunderstandings on our part, but it's still the source of our indignity, if I had to guess...and a good part of that also stems from the light in which Christianity was presented from the get-go (and yes, I've read the Didache...)

[Darth Wong]

What disturbs and confuses me is the idea that this is worse than the actions of the beings he handed people over to. He's a grand-scale fraud and an accessory to mass torture and murder; how is this worse than being a torturer and murderer?

Over the past two thousand years, incalculable amounts of suffering have been inflicted upon humans by each other in the name of Yahweh and his fraudulent teachings. How does that factor into your calculation?

Remember that Adolf Hitler did not personally torture anyone: he just inspired others to do so. Yet for that, we consider him one of history's greatest monsters. Why does Yahweh not qualify for similar criteria?

[tricksterson]

I believe the idea is that the demons faced us fair and square; we shot them, shot them again, then shot some more, and after killing a whole bunch of them it turned out we'd won so all was well (in fact we apparently felt sort of bad about how easy it was). The angels on the other hand however are sitting behind their castle walls pulling all kinds of annoying tricks, making a nuisance of themselves, and generally irritating the hell out of the humans -- and as a result, when the castle gate is finally left open, the humans aren't going to bother with conventional weapons but will head straight for to the heavy duty ass-busters to make up for lost time. The message then seems to be that if you're inevitably going to lose anyway, you're just plain better off losing in a straight up and somewhat honourable fight, rather than drawing things out and unduly pissing off the guy who's going to give you a right clobbering sooner or later.

That's part of it but I think it's also that we could afford to be good winners with the demons because it was a curbstomp. Heaven is making us suffer so we're going to make them suffer.

As for what city, I'm betting Los Angeles. it has a rep for sin, Mike doesn't seem to have a particular attachment to it the way he does New Orleans and Las Vegas, plus Heaven owes it big time for Uriel's death.