The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Eighty One Up

[Edward Yee]

Though that's only because the human militaries, upon finding out, decided to do something about the state of Hell.

Funny thought -- do the human "egg heads" (in no way meant as a pejorative) know about angelic fertility and conception rates being so low that the angels couldn't recover from Curbstomp War-level casualties? Or rather, has that issue even come up in discussion in-universe?

[GrayAnderson]

Well, if they had gone to Hell, they would be free.

True. The centuries and centuries of torture are just a minor detail, you know?

More seriously, in the situation laid out in the story one could argue that Satan had a default claim on all souls but let Yahweh and/or the angels pick those he/they wanted out from those coming through. Of course, this depends on whether Mikey's getting his people in through kickbacks to demons at the Hellmouth or through a separate discharge valve. Not arguing on the morality of it, but if the default setting is "thousands of years of torture", then avoiding that default setting may well qualify as a gift in at least some regards. Hell, you could argue that simply not waking up, period, would be an improvement on the torture setting. Of course, I'm all for a show of hands of those who would rather be quite literally burned alive on a permanent or near-permanent basis than sweep floors.

My point here, by the way, is not one of apologetics on behalf of anyone. There was a great deal of deception, misleading, etc. involved on their part, and there is mention of the humans eventually being cleared out of Heaven just as species before them were. But if the default setting is getting thrown into a pit of fire that doesn't kill you while it keeps burning you (or some variation thereof) and you're offered something else that doesn't involve torture? I think going for that makes sense...even if being a "servant of the most high" involves shoveling his shit, it sure beats the alternative.

[Ritterin Sophia]

I don't understand what all this talk of installing a puppet second lifer rather than Micheal.

First of all unlike our counterparts in the TSW-verse, we don't have the convenience of an 'omniscient' narrator telling us what's going on. Micheal fears for the his and his race's existence, he knows what we can do and respects that capability. As such he's set it up to make a favorable transition.

Micheal has made it appear as though the Angels are just as much victims in this game as the humans (which is true to a degree) and through his machinations has set up a smooth transition from Yahweh's rule to his own. He's the only one with an effective power base from which to build a human puppet government from without tremendous amounts of bloodshed.

In other words Micheal has set it up to where we can accomplish in Heaven everything we did in Hell in a comparably bloodless way, thus preventing Curbstomp Wars Episode II: Attack of the Seraphim. In doing so we deny Caeser any chance at poaching personnel from the HEA and completely bypass the morale loss that the guilt of killing countless Angels will cause.

[JBG]

Domestic auto manufacturing in the US effectively stopped on 10 February 1942, according to Overy. Just 139 cars were produced thereafter for the duration.

Although conversion from consumer vehicles to military goods was not easy, the nature of auto making in the US (mass production, adaptabilty through frequent model updates and changes etc) was such that once those industries picked up steam they produced in copious quantities. The Ford Motor Company for instance ended up producing more than the entire Italian military/industrial complex.

Same sort of thing happened to the British car industry. Just look at the cars that were built immediately post-1945 and they were basically the same as those from 1939.
Our car manufacturers, such as Vauxhall, Austin and Rover all got into war manufacturing. The majority of the Shadow Factories were, IIRC run by car firms.

In TSW what car factories we have left have gone over to war production; we saw a bit of that in Armageddon. Land Rover are probably the only firm not to see too much of a change, though Range Rover and Discovery production will have slowed to a trickle, if they haven't stopped completely.

The shadow factories were a stroke of genius, in my opinion, like Chain Home.

Unfortunately there was not the warning for the perceptive to recognise and act on in TSW. It all just came straight out of left field, as they say.

[JN1]

Agreed.

It will take a lot longer in this case for the car factories to switch over, although Browns Lane is already working on refurbishing members of the FV430 and Saxon family.

[Nematocyst]

Funny thought -- do the human "egg heads" (in no way meant as a pejorative) know about angelic fertility and conception rates being so low that the angels couldn't recover from Curbstomp War-level casualties? Or rather, has that issue even come up in discussion in-universe?

They noticed that when they examined Uriel's corpse.

A question: what happened to South and Central America? All I read about us in the TSWverse is that the Message hit us hard and then Uriel destroyed a few villages. I'm sure we are tough enough to stand that and still take part in the battle everywhere and everyone else is fighting.

[KlavoHunter]

Aren't they providing much of the manpower for the Papal units?

[And_Atom_JT]

I've read through both Armageddon and Pantheocide, and I have to admit, despite being a Christian myself, I am enjoying it immensely. Then again, if the God I believed in turned out to not be the Almighty, but a genocidal douchebag with scientifically explainable powers, I'd enlist just for the chance to shoot him in the face.

I hope though that we don't end up nuking Heaven and wiping out all the angels therein. If we have to face The Others, having angels as allies and a supporting infrastructure in not just two but three universes (Hell, Earth, and Heaven) would be considerable assets. Not to mention we can use all the intel we can get on The Others-Heaven is another source for that intel, albeit with it's own biases but it's better than what we have.

[Chris OFarrell]

This is going back a little bit now, but I just had a thought about Kathryn Branch.

What about her family? Did Michael take them to Heaven? Or intercept them as they died and 'redirect' them upstairs somehow?

Because you'd think if they had just gone straight to hell, they would have got Kitten or someone a long time ago to locate them wherever they ended up, pull them out and bring them to Kathyn, or take her on a field trip to them. I mean its the most likely thing to break her the fastest.

I mean her whole involvement doesn't really mean that much anymore as Michael is moving rapidly to his endgame, but if they can't get an access point, she might be able to lure Micahel into making contact somehow...

[ANTIcarrot]

As another arguement for not nuking heaven... Somewhere in the capital there might be some well stocked libraries, chock fu/l of useful information and/or map/guidebooks on higher-dimensional travel. Perhaps even a Spotters Guide to the Others? Whwther or not this kind of thing existed in Hell, there is still a chance that it exists in Heaven, and the HEA would almost certainly want to capture such intelligence intact.

This is going back a little bit now, but I just had a thought about Kathryn Branch.

Depends on how kitten locates people. Given how quickly she found Richard (presumably without having meet him) I wonder how easily she could find other dead people? It shouldn't be too hard to draw up a list of historical people who are likely to have made it into heaven. Even if list was 99% wrong, eventually you'd find a way in... (Plus simply going down the list of every single Victoria Cross and Medal of Honor winner and put them all in one ludicrously competent unit!) Which is why I suspect there are some very strong limitations to this ability. Such as "Only the very recently dead" or "Only people she's already heard of."

[Vifee]

At the moment, I can think of only one thing Michael could give the HEA that they would want. That would be the exact arrival coordinates of the Angelic Host. It would also go a long way to making sure that the humans win the battle as Michael wants plus establishing himself as a trusted source with the human leaders.

[Nematocyst]

As another arguement for not nuking heaven... Somewhere in the capital there might be some well stocked libraries, chock fu/l of useful information and/or map/guidebooks on higher-dimensional travel. Perhaps even a Spotters Guide to the Others? Whwther or not this kind of thing existed in Hell, there is still a chance that it exists in Heaven, and the HEA would almost certainly want to capture such intelligence intact.

Not likely, considering everything runs 'because Yahweh says so'

This is going back a little bit now, but I just had a thought about Kathryn Branch.

I thought something similar. Why can't kitten just start calling out names of people that are very likely to be in Heaven?

[And_Atom_JT]

I thought something similar. Why can't kitten just start calling out names of people that are very likely to be in Heaven?

Likely depends upon your interpretation.

[Stuart]

This is going back a little bit now, but I just had a thought about Kathryn Branch. What about her family? Did Michael take them to Heaven? Or intercept them as they died and 'redirect' them upstairs somehow? Because you'd think if they had just gone straight to hell, they would have got Kitten or someone a long time ago to locate them wherever they ended up, pull them out and bring them to Kathyn, or take her on a field trip to them. I mean its the most likely thing to break her the fastest. I mean her whole involvement doesn't really mean that much anymore as Michael is moving rapidly to his endgame, but if they can't get an access point, she might be able to lure Micahel into making contact somehow...

When devising kitten's contact method, I used the old "something personal" basis beloved of psychics and other frauds. The working assumption was that there was something solid behind the belief that to make contact with "the other side" the "medium" had to have a lot of personal information on the contactee including pictures and personal property. Another working assumption by the way was that all "psychics" were proven to be frauds and that the only people with genuine psychic ability had been driven insane (or at least judged that way) by the knowledge of what "the other side" was really like. 0f kitten's connections, most were military personnel where she had their files and kit to work from. Richard Dawkins was a fortunate case in that, since he was a long-term friend of Randi, he had a lot of personal property (gifts and so on) that she could use. That and the fact he was very recently killed allowed her to get through to him.

In the case of Kathryn Branch, her family are somewhere in Hell and haven't been located. The problems with locating possible candidates to Heaven are twofold; one is that kitten has no personal property or other touchstones to use in the effort to find them and secondly she doesn't know where to look. That's the whole problem in a nutshell; remember Heaven is basically the Universe-Two analogue of a planet; imagine trying to find a specific planet in our universe.

[Nematocyst]

What about we give her as much personal info (or perhaps even a corpse) of people that may be in Heaven, then show her Wong's gun camera of his run through?

[Baughn]

Going meta for a moment, I'm pretty sure Stuart doesn't want kitten to find heaven.

So no matter what you suggest the best you'll get is a passing mention of something that didn't work. Am I right?

[Hofner1962]

What about we give her as much personal info (or perhaps even a corpse) of people that may be in Heaven, then show her Wong's gun camera of his run through?

Remember the Heaven has been closed for a very long time so it is unlikely we have much information or personal effects of peasants who went to Heaven long ago. If the people who were Sainted by the Catholic Church went to Heaven, then maybe - but there is no guarantee that Yahweh used the criteria that was specified.

The other people who are fairly recent arrivals are the musicians in the Montmarte club - but I don't see how anyone would think to look for them since their lives here on Earth didn't match what most would have considered required to get into Heaven.

[tortieconspiracy]

Remember the Heaven has been closed for a very long time so it is unlikely we have much information or personal effects of peasants who went to Heaven long ago. If the people who were Sainted by the Catholic Church went to Heaven, then maybe - but there is no guarantee that Yahweh used the criteria that was specified.

The other people who are fairly recent arrivals are the musicians in the Montmarte club - but I don't see how anyone would think to look for them since their lives here on Earth didn't match what most would have considered required to get into Heaven.

And the medical team. Don't forget the medical team. However what's more relevant than whether or not the recent arrivals in Heaven fit Yahweh's criteria is the fact that as far as any First Lifers and the Second Lifers found so far know, nobody's going to Heaven in nearly a thousand years. No one on Earth or in Hell knows that Michael's smuggled a few people in.

[Hofner1962]

as far as any First Lifers and the Second Lifers found so far know, nobody's going to Heaven in nearly a thousand years. No one on Earth or in Hell knows that Michael's smuggled a few people in.

this was the point I was trying to make. Thanks for doing a much better job than I did.

[Simon_Jester]

In the case of Kathryn Branch, her family are somewhere in Hell and haven't been located. The problems with locating possible candidates to Heaven are twofold; one is that kitten has no personal property or other touchstones to use in the effort to find them and secondly she doesn't know where to look. That's the whole problem in a nutshell; remember Heaven is basically the Universe-Two analogue of a planet; imagine trying to find a specific planet in our universe.

That would stop Chris's first plan (find Heaven via the Branches). It wouldn't stop the second plan: to break Ms. Branch by taking her to visit her parents in Hell. Surely some of their personal belongings still exist, after all.

What about we give her as much personal info (or perhaps even a corpse) of people that may be in Heaven, then show her Wong's gun camera of his run through?

A photograph wouldn't do any good; she'd need coordinates. She already knew where Hell was in that sense, because she'd been getting visions from there already.

[Darth Yan]

wong's been through. what about his fighter

[Ruadhan2300]

has anyone made a "to heaven and back" joke yet?
"how was your date?"
"he took me to heaven and back!"
"literally or figuratively?"

...I suspect this will become a terribly popular joke

[GrayAnderson]

has anyone made a "to heaven and back" joke yet?
"how was your date?"
"he took me to heaven and back!"
"literally or figuratively?"

...I suspect this will become a terribly popular joke

I'm suspecting the inverse becoming popular with "to hell in a handbasket".

[MKSheppard]

I know exactly who to appoint in charge of Heaven once we crash it.

*cue image of GA Douglas MacArthur kicking Yaweh's corpse out of the Heavenly Throne, and then sitting down like he owns it*

[Tiwaz]

wong's been through. what about his fighter

What about it?

Wong WAS through. And now is no longer there. Same for his fighter.
Neither has transuniversal GPS logger which could give coordinates to Kitten.


And as far as humanity knows, last guys to get into the Heaven have been dead for several centuries. There is hardly anything personal enough left nor accurate enough information of deceased to have Kitten try to call in.