The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Eighty One Up

[iidave]

Can a creature, say a human, get so saturated with radiation from nuclear fallout that they actually become radiologically activates and survive? And if so, can they actually "spread" radiation poisoning amongst fellow survivors until he or she finally succumbs and dies?

No it is not.
Radiation poisoning cannot be spread any normal way.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_poisoning
Only way an exposed person could expose you as well is if he was covered in radioactive dust and got some on you as well.

That crater lake is radioactive, right? For how long? And won't it be dangerous to move our infantry near it without NBC protection (as I've been reading)?

IIRC radioactive fallout likes the number 7.
90% of fallout are gone within the first 7 hours. 90% of the remaining in 7 days. 90% of the remaining 1% will be gone in 7 weeks, etc...
I'd estimate 7 hours until it is safe to walk in the general area, 7 days until you can step into the water (followed by decontamination), 7 weeks until should be OK even without decontamination and AT LEAST 7 years before the water is safe to drink.

BTW this is what would a 1MT nuke do to Austin (second example)
http://www.angelfire.com/biz/setpa/CGM/austnuke.html

[SilverHawk]

Not entirely sure what you're asking, but if you're wondering about the possibility of a normal human becoming IMMUNE to radioactivity as a result of being exposed to fallout, the answer is 'not outside of comic books'.

I don't think he means that so much as he means, "Can someone who's absorbed alot of radiation themselves become radioactive (and thus dangerous to others) without dying first?"

I myself have no clue, so it might be worth someone answering that question...

A person CAN transport radiation in terms of fallout covered clothing, hair and skin and could ingest radioactive material. But even ingested alpha radiation is incredibly lethal. But the human body itself is too frail to become radioactive unless you put a corpse in . (Voiding the, "Can you be alive" requirement.)

[Captain Trek]

Not entirely sure what you're asking, but if you're wondering about the possibility of a normal human becoming IMMUNE to radioactivity as a result of being exposed to fallout, the answer is 'not outside of comic books'.

I don't think he means that so much as he means, "Can someone who's absorbed alot of radiation themselves become radioactive (and thus dangerous to others) without dying first?"

I myself have no clue, so it might be worth someone answering that question...

A person CAN transport radiation in terms of fallout covered clothing, hair and skin and could ingest radioactive material. But even ingested alpha radiation is incredibly lethal. But the human body itself is too frail to become radioactive unless you put a corpse in . (Voiding the, "Can you be alive" requirement.)

Alright, fair enough...

[Simon_Jester]

What I saw with GEN Petraeus' scenes wasn't him being condescending about the demons/angels, just him taking care of business and being sober... it's just that we resorted to nukes so damned quickly WRT Heaven.

Oh, he personally is not being condescending. I didn't mean it that way. But Petraeus is a high-grade professional at the modern art of war, and by the standards of both the doctrine he operates by and what his tools allow him to do... the best tactical efforts of his opponents are nothing compared to what he can set up with modern communications and intelligence at his disposal.

He's fighting opponents whose idea of good generalship is "form a big solid block and charge," and whose idea of brilliant generalship is "feint and pounce." It's like comparing professional artwork to a toddler's fingerpainting. Of course the professional wins... but it's not like the outcome is even slightly in doubt. No one's impressed when you outdo a toddler.

And so on that level, it would be interesting if Petraeus found himself looking at the angelic dispositions and saying "Hrm. A large group of angels split off from the main host, dispersed, and started flying at treetop level toward our advancing column; must be a vanguard. These guys could be a problem, alert all commands within twenty klicks that they might come under sudden attack." Something a bit more challenging than "Oh, look, a huge marching army! [launches H-bomb]"

And, again, this is an example, something I came up with off the top of my head; I'm sure you can pick it apart but there's no good reason to do so.

If I recall, had Stuart really cared about not going with dramatic tension, humanity would have gone nuclear right from the get-go... and had there not been air support available to support ground forces, that's exactly what would have been happened.

Ed, I'm not saying Stuart doesn't care about dramatic tension, or that he has done nothing to create it. I'm saying that I think the story would profit significantly from a bit more dramatic tension on the strategic level, and that while I can imagine ways to accomplish that goal, I'm sure the author could imagine better ones if he wanted to.

That's the one advantage of fictional antagonists: you don't have to restrict yourself quite so carefully if you'd like them to be more effective for story purposes.

IIRC radioactive fallout likes the number 7.
90% of fallout are gone within the first 7 hours. 90% of the remaining in 7 days. 90% of the remaining 1% will be gone in 7 weeks, etc...
I'd estimate 7 hours until it is safe to walk in the general area, 7 days until you can step into the water (followed by decontamination), 7 weeks until should be OK even without decontamination and AT LEAST 7 years before the water is safe to drink.

I... would not be so optimistic. Those 'sevens' aren't magic numbers; they're just figures for when a certain percentage of the worst of the stuff has decayed. The short-lived isotopes that make up a lot of the worst immediate-term fallout decay quickly, leaving a hard core that takes much longer to decay.

So a lot depends on which isotopes are in the crater lake, and I for one do not plan to go skinny-dipping (or even radiation suit-dipping) in the thing to find out.

[iidave]

On topic of the war being too easy.
I am shocked, SHOCKED, that nobody has yet mentioned Spellcross!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAFn77Bla-A

A 1998 PC game that is very similar in premise (Earth gets attacked by evil fantasy armies - Orks, Dark Elves, Dragons, Demons, the works), but in this case the attackers bothered to study and infiltrate human forces.
So first came a series of natural disasters, then a lot of governments declared wars on their neighbors and THEN the gates appeared (there was also some sort of handwave about nukes in the manual I don't remember).
And their magic is "somewhat" more effective against tanks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=df_5PVCCAec

EDIT: The game is abandonware and you can get the full version (less some videos) here
http://www.oldgames.sk/en/game/spellcross/downloads/
[en] is the English version [cz] is Czech

EDIT#2: Somebody did a Let's Play http://forums.spacebattles.com/showthread.php?t=146726

[Stuart]

A few points on this. It would indeed be possible to have put the human Army in extremely difficult terrain and that's an option that is being retained. But remember something; Michael selected this battlefield to suit his own ends. He decided where he wanted the humans to arrive and he didn't have the interests of the Angelic Army at heart. Quite the reverse in fact.

One of the little problems with working out the back story to all of this is the implausiblility of the basic mythology. The fact is that the daemons and angels are overpowered, not underpowered. Their capabilities are laid out in mythology and they've got them all. They can fly, they can trumpet, they can breathe fire, they can throw lightning bolts, they're functionally immune to swords and arrows, they can possess minds, they heal very fast. They've got all that. It just doesn't do them very much good and I had to play games with physics to give them those "powers". You see, by the standards of their time, the gods, daemons, angels etc are omnipotent and omniscient. it's just that they aren't that way by our standards.

Simple example. Imagine what a single War Beast (aka Rhinolobster) would do to a British Square at Waterloo.

The problem with upgunning them still further is the basic "rule" and that is there has to be a vaguely logical sounding explanation for what they can do. There's a subtle implication to that and its called reciprocity. The way it works is, if they can interact with us, we can interact with them. If we can't interact with them, they can't interact with us and for all intents and purposes they don't exist. If we can interact with them, then the laws of physics apply, more or less. Look at it this way, if we shoot a creature and the bullet simply passes through it leaving it unharmed (ie we can't interact with it) then it can't hurt us. It can't pick up a weapon that might hurt us because it's hand would pass straight through it. Likewise, its weapons will pass straight through us leaving us unharmed. If it has something that can harm us, then we can use that to harm it. So, either there is mutual interaction or no interaction. Nothing inbetween.

As the basic laws of physics change, the degree of interaction drops snd eventually reaches the point where it doesn't exist any more. Already, I've fiddled with the laws of physics by giving daemons the powers they have. For example, one can't throw lightning bolts; try and they will arc to ground. Sound doesn't work the way its depicted. Flying isn't possible that way either. In my opinion, I've upgunned the daemons and angels just about as far as they will go. Any more than that and the required changes in physics make interaction impossible.

There's a nasty trap built into this and it's one that has sent several of the fundies running screaming for the hills. If we take an omniscient, omnipotent god, the changes in physics required to make that god work are so enormous that the god in question couldn't possibly interact with our dimension and so, from our point of view, it might as well not exist. If, on the other hand, we create a god that can interact with our dimension, the demands of reciprocity dictate that the god in question will be very much like the ones described here - ie eminently killable. This gives fundies a nasty choice, they can either stipulate a traditional god that might as well not exist or a god that might exist but would be very vulnerable to us. (That, by the way, is a definition of agnostic that people miss. Somebody who believes that there might or might not be a god but either way, it simply doesn't matter.)

The Angelic Host can fight a lot better than the daemons but here we run into a mythological problem. If they fight better than the daemons and they outnumber them 2 or 3 to one, why did the Great Celestial War take so long? The daemons should have been curbstomped. They weren't, so the Angels must have a problem (one that, back then, didn't include a commander who was trying to lose as quickly as possible). The most logical one (and one that resonates with our culture today) is that angels are casualty-averse and daemons are not. That really sets us up for a long, deadlocked war where the daemons don't want pitched battles since they'll lose and angels don't want them because they'll take casualties they can't afford. However, that's irrelevent; the one thing Michael doesn't want is for the human armies to have a really hard time of it; he knows if they do, they'll come in blasting and that could easily be an extinction event for the angelic host.

[iidave]

There's a nasty trap built into this and it's one that has sent several of the fundies running screaming for the hills. If we take an omniscient, omnipotent god, the changes in physics required to make that god work are so enormous that the god in question couldn't possibly interact with our dimension and so, from our point of view, it might as well not exist. If, on the other hand, we create a god that can interact with our dimension, the demands of reciprocity dictate that the god in question will be very much like the ones described here - ie eminently killable. This gives fundies a nasty choice, they can either stipulate a traditional god that might as well not exist or a god that might exist but would be very vulnerable to us. (That, by the way, is a definition of agnostic that people miss. Somebody who believes that there might or might not be a god but either way, it simply doesn't matter.)

I beg to differ. When I play an RTS on my computer the AI can interact with its units and I can interact with my own units. But if I decide to cheat and access the dev-tools I can simply delete the AI's units (thus interacting with them), or fiddle with the AI itself, while the AI CANNOT interact with me.

EDIT: Fixed a mistake in first sentence (player orders around his units, not the enemy's, DUH!).

[Nematocyst]

But the AI would still be there.

they'll come in blasting and that could easily be an extinction event for the angelic host.

Which is pretty much what we did so far. Five minutes in and the Strike Witches dropped a nuke on the Angels, a situation that was only prepared as a contingency plan on Dis and not even considered against Abigor's and Beelzebub's armies.

The way it works is, if they can interact with us, we can interact with them. If we can't interact with them, they can't interact with us and for all intents and purposes they don't exist.

So we shouldn't be worried about what lies beyond Minos Gate?

[Night_stalker]

Regaridng why we used the nukes, it's quite simple: We know that the Angels can prove to be more dangerous to our forces then say the Baldricks. Using a nuke not only removes a lot of enemies, but shows the rest what happens when you attack humans, namely firely death. Regarding the gate, ignore them. If they haven't acted by now, they probably won't try and act anytime soon.

[Simon_Jester]

A few points on this. It would indeed be possible to have put the human Army in extremely difficult terrain and that's an option that is being retained. But remember something; Michael selected this battlefield to suit his own ends...

True.

One of the little problems with working out the back story to all of this is the implausiblility of the basic mythology. The fact is that the daemons and angels are overpowered, not underpowered. Their capabilities are laid out in mythology and they've got them all... It just doesn't do them very much good and I had to play games with physics to give them those "powers". You see, by the standards of their time, the gods, daemons, angels etc are omnipotent and omniscient. it's just that they aren't that way by our standards...

The problem with upgunning them still further is the basic "rule" and that is there has to be a vaguely logical sounding explanation for what they can do...

Yes, you've mentioned this several times, it's quite reasonable, and I like to think I'm bearing it in mind. I guess what I'd like to see isn't so much making them tougher (and therefore more difficult to kill with modern weapons); it's making them smarter. Better command decisions, or use of their existing abilities in ways that make them more effective: "thinking with portals," as an obvious example, or angels using mind entanglement abilities to communicate over long distances. To some extent we saw that in the Bowls of Wrath.

And no, I'm not saying "You should have done this, and I condemn you for not doing this!" I'm saying "I would have enjoyed seeing this, because it would have been interesting."

For example, demons and angels can possess human minds. It would not have been unreasonable for you to make them (or some of them, the specialists who are analogues to the nagas in Hell) telepathic with respect to each other. You chose not to do it, but you could have chosen to do it without making the story bad.

But if there were a few angels able to send telepathic messages, it would give them a huge advantage they do not now possess: the ability to coordinate their forces over long distances, and to take more effective advantage of the mobility they get from being able to fly. That could make them more difficult opponents in conventional warfare by itself, without giving them any abilities that are less physically plausible than what they already have.

The Angelic Host can fight a lot better than the daemons but here we run into a mythological problem. If they fight better than the daemons and they outnumber them 2 or 3 to one, why did the Great Celestial War take so long? The daemons should have been curbstomped.

The way you portray the Celestial War, the demons were physically similar to angels in those days, and had equivalent physical abilities. Thus, you'd have a war between two groups that are broadly equivalent in individual capabilities. The Angelic Host can fly and trumpet and so forth, but so can Satan's rebels. The only advantage Heaven would have is numbers, and you could offset that by, say, having had most of Heaven's armies run off with the rebels, leaving Yahweh with a numerically superior force of inexperienced warriors.

But since then, the demons have changed- on the one hand, the mutagenic effects of living in Hell (which you just recently brought up) have made them less dangerous as physical specimens, except on the high end. Most of them can't fly, for example. But they now exist in numbers comparable to the angels, in spite of a more hazardous physical and social environment, because they breed faster.

However, that's irrelevent; the one thing Michael doesn't want is for the human armies to have a really hard time of it; he knows if they do, they'll come in blasting and that could easily be an extinction event for the angelic host.

Now this is certainly true, and does indeed militate against letting the forces of Heaven put up a hard fight.

I still don't think the story had to be the way it is with truly inevitable logic. But any criticism I have is fairly limited- I'm not one of the ones demanding angels the size of cities and the Wrath of God disintegrating armies.

[westrim]

Word of God (pun fully intended, but probably really stale).

Interesting thoughts. As a theist agnostic (for the masses, there's probably a god/s, but I dunno and can't know right now.)
There are some possibilities outside that dichotomy, though. We have after all found dark matter which does not interact with light but very definitely affects gravity. Perhaps that is gods body, keeping the universe together. Maybe it can manipulate gravity sufficiently to bring together organic molecules. Or perhaps black holes contain his brain in their physics violating centers. Or maybe god is a neutron star. And those are just looking for a god is observable but so far we don't have the capability of interaction. Of course, none of them operate at even remotely our scale either.

But I'm just throwing that stuff out there. As I said, I just don't know, and I have no expectation of knowing. It is interesting to ruminate about, though.

I beg to differ. When I play an RTS on my computer the AI can interact with my units and I can interact with its units. But if I decide to cheat and access the dev-tools I can simply delete the AI's units (thus interacting with them), or fiddle with the AI itself, while the AI CANNOT interact with me.

But the code for those two sets of actions is quite different.

[Edward Yee]

Did you guys forget the very political -- and post-Curb Stomp War -- consideration behind giving Petraeus release authority in the first place? I wouldn't be surprised if it was on his mind when he ordered the initiation, as opposed to simply having the HEA "fight" the angels.

Oh, Gaius Julius Caesar, how you inadvertently fucked the angels...

[Nematocyst]

I guess what I'd like to see isn't so much making them tougher (and therefore more difficult to kill with modern weapons); it's making them smarter

Making them smarter is exactly what Yahweh and Satan fought against.

'Hey, why don't we do this, or try that?'
'No, or I'll get angry'
'...OK'

Also, they ARE smart. Abigor learnt a millennia or more of war in two days.

[Simon_Jester]

I guess what I'd like to see isn't so much making them tougher (and therefore more difficult to kill with modern weapons); it's making them smarter

Making them smarter is exactly what Yahweh and Satan fought against.

Two points:
1) I was using "smarter" in the most general possible sense; having telepaths to keep contact between widely separated forces does not require exceptional intelligence on the part of the angels.
2) There is no reason that a few "smart" (as in: recognizable as a bit more modern than the Dark Ages) methods of doing things couldn't be traditional in these societies. They live in an Iron Age society because they have Iron Age limits on their abilities; in areas where their abilities let them do more, why shouldn't they have customs revolving around the use of those abilities? If medieval armies had had their own telepaths, you can be damn sure they'd have used them to keep contact between dispersed forces, or tried to.

The culture of Heaven and Hell discourages experimentation, but that doesn't mean they won't have long-standing and viable methods for using their own superhuman abilities to do things that ancient humans couldn't.

Also, they ARE smart. Abigor learnt a millennia or more of war in two days.

Again, I am using 'smart' in a general sense, because a proper explanation would have been quite a bit longer. The best compact way I can think of to say it is:

I would have enjoyed seeing angels use their abilities in ways that reduced the disadvantages they face against humans' superior tactical doctrine and C3I technology.

[Night_stalker]

The reason why the angels haven't evoked warfare is becuase they aren't physically capable of seeing it. When was the last time they fought a war? The last war was the Celestial war, and they were fighting a foe who used similair tactics. Afterwards, there was no reason to evolve, so they didn't.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Question: How many stars is Petraeus wearing these days? Is it five, or even six? I can't recall.

[Pelranius]

Question: How many stars is Petraeus wearing these days? Is it five, or even six? I can't recall.

I believe it is six.

The way it works is, if they can interact with us, we can interact with them. If we can't interact with them, they can't interact with us and for all intents and purposes they don't exist.

So we shouldn't be worried about what lies beyond Minos Gate?

On the other hand, we should at least be concerned, because apparently that's the place where the demons, angels and second lifers apparently end up in. Granted, we humans might not be able to do much about it, but it might be worthwhile finding out what happens to one's allies and possibly oneself (if say, you die in second life for whatever reason) after death.

[Guardsman Bass]

On the other hand, we should at least be concerned, because apparently that's the place where the demons, angels and second lifers apparently end up in. Granted, we humans might not be able to do much about it, but it might be worthwhile finding out what happens to one's allies and possibly oneself (if say, you die in second life for whatever reason) after death.

If I remember right, while the differences between Universe-One (ours) and Universe-3 (beyond the Minos Gate) are such that they can't interact, that's not the case for Universe-3 and Universe-2 (Hell and Heaven). That could be problematic in its own way.

[westrim]

Question: How many stars is Petraeus wearing these days? Is it five, or even six? I can't recall.

Six, which along with the F-35 being canceled rather bugged me in the initial chapters. The stars, because the entire point of Washington getting them is that he's the only one to get them. Ever. He didn't even get them until 1976. However good Petraeus is, he should have only gotten five, just like the major WW2 commanders, especially when there is more war ahead of him and, critically, while he was still alive (boy, that's been festering for a while.) As for the F-35, I had multiple issues with that, admittedly as an outside observer to its development. The biggest is that it was canceled in favor of the F-22, which to my knowledge takes an immense amount of time to build and maintain, not to mention money, and is an air superiority fighter intended to top any other human aircraft- severe overkill against enemies which the major requirement is supersonic speed. I don't know how far along its development is (from what I know it was pretty much done testing wise in early 2008) or how feasible bringing older aircraft lines back into construction is, but it bugged me at the time (and I guess it still does.)

[CaptainChewbacca]

I believe the logic behind the 6th star (since that's what he got) for Petraeus was that he is, for all intents and purposes, Supreme Allied Commander of the Armies of Earth. Period. End of sentence, go change your pants. At no other time in history has the entire world (and now forces from another world) been unified under a single military command, and I think that sort of significant distinction would merit such a star. It might even set a precedent later; The militaries of a single world or dimensional body are always under a six-star commander.

edit: The proposed insignia



If we ever find Pershing, I think he gets one, too.

[phongn]

Six, which along with the F-35 being canceled rather bugged me in the initial chapters. The stars, because the entire point of Washington getting them is that he's the only one to get them. Ever. He didn't even get them until 1976. However good Petraeus is, he should have only gotten five, just like the major WW2 commanders, especially when there is more war ahead of him and, critically, while he was still alive (boy, that's been festering for a while.)

Uh, Washington never received six stars. He did receive the rank of General of the Armies - but so did Pershing. Petraeus commands the entire forces of humanity and is indeed should have rank commensurate with such a position.

As for the F-35, I had multiple issues with that, admittedly as an outside observer to its development. The biggest is that it was canceled in favor of the F-22, which to my knowledge takes an immense amount of time to build and maintain, not to mention money, and is an air superiority fighter intended to top any other human aircraft- severe overkill against enemies which the major requirement is supersonic speed. I don't know how far along its development is (from what I know it was pretty much done testing wise in early 2008) or how feasible bringing older aircraft lines back into construction is, but it bugged me at the time (and I guess it still does.)

The F-35 was in development when the story begins (and still is during the war) and pretty much dies for that reason. In a total war mobilization you go to war with what you have - and since the F-22 is in production, we produce it.

[JN1]

Petraeus needs the extra star so that he is of equal, or greater rank than his Chief of Staff, Sir Mike Jackson, who, IIRC is a full General and might be made a Field Marshal.
The F-35 was and is under development, it was far better to concentrate on building proven designs like the F-16 and F-18. One of the first rule of total war mobilisation is that you build what already exists, this was one rule that the Nazis ignored to their cost.
What exactly does the F-35 bring to the party that the Viper and Hornet don't? We don't exactly need stealth against Heaven.

[Pelranius]

As for the F-35, I had multiple issues with that, admittedly as an outside observer to its development. The biggest is that it was canceled in favor of the F-22, which to my knowledge takes an immense amount of time to build and maintain, not to mention money, and is an air superiority fighter intended to top any other human aircraft- severe overkill against enemies which the major requirement is supersonic speed. I don't know how far along its development is (from what I know it was pretty much done testing wise in early 2008) or how feasible bringing older aircraft lines back into construction is, but it bugged me at the time (and I guess it still does.)

The thing with the wartime production F-22 model is that they've deleted a lot more of the expensive, time and maintenance consuming stuff like the stealth parts of the plane, which makes it a whole lot cheaper. You're just using an existing production line, and keep in mind, the F-35 in 2008 still had a lot of R&D hoops to jump through.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Fun fact:

Public Law 94-47 authorizes that:

Whereas Lieutenant General George Washington of Virginia commanded our armies throughout and to the successful termination of our Revolutionary War;

Whereas Lieutenant General George Washington presided over the convention that formulated our Constitution;

Whereas Lieutenant General George Washington twice served as President of the United States of America; and

Whereas it is considered fitting and proper that no officer of the United States Army should outrank Lieutenant General George Washington on the Army list: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That
(a) for purposes of subsection (b) of this section only, the grade of General of the Armies of the United States is established, such grade to have rank and precedence over all other grades of the Army, past or present.
(b) The President is authorized and requested to appoint George Washington posthumously to the grade of General of the Armies of the United States, such appointment to take effect on July 4, 1976.

Approved October 11, 1976.

George Washington will ALWAYS be the most senior officer in the US Military. Always.

[Nematocyst]

Perhaps Petraeus deserves a 7th Star. As you said, he commands over part of the armies of another dimension, plus the entirety of the armies of Earth.