The Salvation War: Pantheocide Epilogue Up

[AgentofNerv]

I've been following this since the beginning and I wanted to say that this was a fantastic end to this story. Much kudos to you on this series and I can't wait for Book 3.

Also, you have a knack for making sympathetic characters out of people that either history has vilified or individuals that I don't like in real life. Your portrayal of Obama and Hillary in this story has been great.

[nobody_really]

One thing you might see is investment in diseases that are disabling in childhood (since unless Second Life children grow to adulthood on their own, which Stuart has been very ambiguous about, that's one demographic you can't just shuffle off to the Second Life).

I could be completely off here, but I remember a post in the Armageddon??? thread after the fetus chapter in which Stuart indicated no one grows older in their second lives...

And here it is/was:

...do 'dead' people in hell age? Will the children ever grow up? Could the fetuses progress to full childhood and eventually adulthood? Or is everybody 'stuck' at the biological age that they died?

No, they don't. They exist either at the age they died at or at their condition before serious ageing starts (say mid-40s) whicheber is the younger. Remeber, these are people's spirits, souls if you like; its just they're a lot more tangible than anybody realized. One of the things I'm considering is that "ghosts" may be what is left of these deceased humans if they come back to our dimension and stay too long.

I don't remember Stuart changing his mind about it.

[Guardsman Bass]

Interesting epilogue - "Lords of Wars" is going to be pretty brutal, then. How long of a break are you planning to take before starting on it, Stuart?

I'm curious as to whether or not the other pantheons have been watching (there was a hint of that, although I'm not sure if those were other pantheons or the mysterious reincarnation cycle beings). If they have, it seems like they'd be in a bit of a policy dilemma at this point. They could try and make contact now, which risks invasion but also would allow for the establishment of relations along possibly favorable lines. Or they could hide out, and hope that humanity never finds them (which runs the risk that we might blunder into their bubble-universe(s) at some point).

[nobody_really]

Kids would eventually become adults, Nobody. If it doesn't happen "naturally", then SCIENCE will find a way!

I hope you're right. I could easily imagine it would take several decades, if not centuries or millenia, though. (Let's just say that the singularitarians haven't convinced me they're right with regards to soon knowing enough biology to extend life indefinitely.)

[Stuart]

Interesting epilogue - "Lords of Wars" is going to be pretty brutal, then. How long of a break are you planning to take before starting on it, Stuart?

Well, its not really a break; I have other things to finish and I have the detail plot of the next book to sort out. At a guess, GDLS willing and the crick don't rise, we should start May or June next year.

[CaptainChewbacca]

So, if suicide is illegal, and punishment for crimes done in the first life can be held against you in the second life...

Is there now jail time for offing yourself?

ATTEMPTED suicide is illegal in some places. ACTUAL suicide is rarely (if ever) a crime since the 'perpetrator' cannot be arrested or convicted as they are dead.

[atheistcanuck]

So, if suicide is illegal, and punishment for crimes done in the first life can be held against you in the second life...

Is there now jail time for offing yourself?

ATTEMPTED suicide is illegal in some places. ACTUAL suicide is rarely (if ever) a crime since the 'perpetrator' cannot be arrested or convicted as they are dead.

Yes, but now in TSWverse they CAN get arrested and convicted.

[CaptainChewbacca]

So, if suicide is illegal, and punishment for crimes done in the first life can be held against you in the second life...

Is there now jail time for offing yourself?

ATTEMPTED suicide is illegal in some places. ACTUAL suicide is rarely (if ever) a crime since the 'perpetrator' cannot be arrested or convicted as they are dead.

Yes, but now in TSWverse they CAN get arrested and convicted.

They'd have to actually MAKE it illegal first. AFAIK suicide is only illegal in England, and even there they didn't list an actual penalty.

[GrayAnderson]

Thank you, Stuart, for a great read and ride. Nice way to set up the issues for the third book.

Boy, the U.S. sure looks boned for the next few decades. Since it looks like Heaven can be primarily agrarian, maybe it can be a chance for a lot more first-lifers to be farmers. Let's see, surface area of a sphere = 4*pi*r2, and for Earth, r ~= 4000 mi. Earth surface area ~= 12.5 * 16,000,000 mi2 ~= 200,000,000 mi2. Heaven arable land should be more than 100,000,000 mi2 = 64,000,000,000 acres. If the U.S. decides to claim 5% of that for itself, that would be 3,200,000,000 acres. If as much as 10% of the U.S. population wanted to be farmers in Heaven, each person could get 100 acres, which should be more than enough to feed themselves and provide enough exports for a comfortable income. Also, if something like that could get working well, the food importation problems should be solved within a year.

1) You're assuming that so many would desire it. 10% of the population taking up a homestead would likely involve over 20%, possibly as much as 25%, of the population once you add in spouses, kids, etc. Once you add in the fact that you're dealing with 20-25% of the total adult population, which is probably closer to a third of those who can be filed as "not suffering from infirmities, old age, or just not in a condition to do such work". I don't see too many 70-year-olds looking to plow fields right off the bat. So...if you're looking at the "eligible" population, you'd need a third of people ready to jump up and go farm. Not a chance in Heaven, Hell, or Mississippi that you're going to get anywhere near that.

What you'd probably get is a number of farmers with mediocre land out in the west who'd take the deal, as well as a decent number of people picking between that and a line job at GM. But that's going to at most get you to around a million people. Maybe throw in some career farmers looking to get a head start on a second life and a bunch of migrants looking for something other than menial labor, but this ain't the 1930s...and a squeeze on equipment availability is going to be a problem for a while, especially in making this desirable.

You'd probably be better off negotiating deals for larger grants and offering loan assistance to those willing to take on a thousand acres with a combine and whatnot. I'd personally like to avoid "industrial scale" farming if it can be helped (an argument can be made about this on policy grounds alone), but increasing the scale of early grants, at least to start off, may be necessary. Of course, if you can get some angels and second life humans to take "a hundred acres and a plow", that might also help sort things more quickly.
2) You also assume that most of that land is not in use and/or that we could stick together a stable portal-and-road infrastructure in those areas overnight. There is a good chance that most of the land in and around any "green zone" we have set up is already titled to people, and while we'll probably be able to effect land seizures once an outright rebellion gets going, doing so to angels simply for being on the wrong side is a great way to feed a rebellion by kick-starting it with a legitimate grievance.

ATTEMPTED suicide is illegal in some places. ACTUAL suicide is rarely (if ever) a crime since the 'perpetrator' cannot be arrested or convicted as they are dead.

Yes, but now in TSWverse they CAN get arrested and convicted.

They'd have to actually MAKE it illegal first. AFAIK suicide is only illegal in England, and even there they didn't list an actual penalty.

For some odd reason I thought they decriminalized it some time ago. Maybe they just stripped out the penalties, or maybe they didn't bother to repeal it because it's generally been something of a non-issue as far as actually bringing a case to trial.

Edit (as usual): We might want to get an FAQ going somewhere to deal with the things a lot of people come in here thinking...if just because many people think would happen rather instinctively and what Stuart's worked out would happen are two different things. Of course, one might exist already that I haven't seen...

[Eevin]

...do 'dead' people in hell age? Will the children ever grow up? Could the fetuses progress to full childhood and eventually adulthood? Or is everybody 'stuck' at the biological age that they died?

No, they don't. They exist either at the age they died at or at their condition before serious ageing starts (say mid-40s) whicheber is the younger. Remeber, these are people's spirits, souls if you like; its just they're a lot more tangible than anybody realized. One of the things I'm considering is that "ghosts" may be what is left of these deceased humans if they come back to our dimension and stay too long.

I wonder if girls obsessed with their image will begin to commit suicide so they can be young and pretty for eternity. I can almost see the headlines:
BEAUTY QUEEN COMMITS SUICIDE: 'I'LL BE BEAUTIFUL FOR EVER'

And of course you'll get some horrible questions, like pedophilia. If the kid has been in the second life for 21 years... is he still a kid? Is it pedophilia? Is it sick but legal?

I really hope that kids manage to age, that way you solve a lot of squicky questions. And people wont ask why there are so few kids in Hell. I'm sure the demons where pretty efficient in eating them, and they don't need the publicity of child-eaters.

[Tiwaz]

The President's air of general depression deepened. "Does the United Nations have much to say about that?"

Clinton smiles sadly at him. "Have you been there recently Sir? I wouldn't be surprised if there are tumbleweeds blowing around the main assembly room. The U.N. just doesn’t count for much any more, not the main body of it anyway. Yamantau has taken its functions over almost completely. That's not surprising though. It's a much better war headquarters after all. Fifteen members can actually get things done. We have less to consider there as well. If a country wants to bring up an issue, it has to get one of the fifteen to present it for them. If they can't convince one country of the virtues of their case, they shouldn't be bothering people with it.

Oh... This is SO going to bite them in the ass in few months.
Of course fifteen who are in are going to be just thrilled about concept of being "gatekeepers of truth, justice and all good things". Thus this post well explains how they see it as improvement to UN.


Pity there are over hundred nations globally.

No equal representation, no participation. Either Yamantau reforms to new UN, with all it's inefficiencies due to being forced to listen to EVERY member in name of equality, or it will become global version of Somali government, which can rule only as far as it's guns carry. And starting to blackmail other countries to submit to rulings of Yamantau council with threat of arms is going to backfire very easily with the amount of stretching their militaries have been forced to.

Ok, I might be repeating myself but really, I find it disturbing how many people pretend they could just build system which would replace UN with little hitch.
Mostly problem is that it starts with benefits of one or few nations and assumes others fall in line just like that (bit like Yamantau council). Which is, to be honest, extremely unrealistic.

I would have loved to see how Stuart visions the opinion of nations who are not in Yamantau to it's attempt to take over as world government.

[atheistcanuck]

...do 'dead' people in hell age? Will the children ever grow up? Could the fetuses progress to full childhood and eventually adulthood? Or is everybody 'stuck' at the biological age that they died?

No, they don't. They exist either at the age they died at or at their condition before serious ageing starts (say mid-40s) whicheber is the younger. Remeber, these are people's spirits, souls if you like; its just they're a lot more tangible than anybody realized. One of the things I'm considering is that "ghosts" may be what is left of these deceased humans if they come back to our dimension and stay too long.

I wonder if girls obsessed with their image will begin to commit suicide so they can be young and pretty for eternity. I can almost see the headlines:
BEAUTY QUEEN COMMITS SUICIDE: 'I'LL BE BEAUTIFUL FOR EVER'

And of course you'll get some horrible questions, like pedophilia. If the kid has been in the second life for 21 years... is he still a kid? Is it pedophilia? Is it sick but legal?

I really hope that kids manage to age, that way you solve a lot of squicky questions. And people wont ask why there are so few kids in Hell. I'm sure the demons where pretty efficient in eating them, and they don't need the publicity of child-eaters.

and what about teenagers who died just shortly before they reached the legal age of consent? Are they going to be forbidden sex forever and ever just because they died a few weeks or days before they would have been allowed to have it?

[bcoogler]

Interesting epilogue - "Lords of Wars" is going to be pretty brutal, then. How long of a break are you planning to take before starting on it, Stuart?

I'm curious as to whether or not the other pantheons have been watching (there was a hint of that, although I'm not sure if those were other pantheons or the mysterious reincarnation cycle beings). If they have, it seems like they'd be in a bit of a policy dilemma at this point. They could try and make contact now, which risks invasion but also would allow for the establishment of relations along possibly favorable lines. Or they could hide out, and hope that humanity never finds them (which runs the risk that we might blunder into their bubble-universe(s) at some point).

Some random thoughts of mine. What if some of the beings in an accessible bubble universe do have control over the regeneration machinery that creates 2nd lifers in the first place? Imagine the Minos gates suddenly shutting down -- no new 2nd lifers are coming through -- simply as a demonstration of their power. What happens to 1st lifers who die while the gates are down? Are they permanently lost, or can the regeneration gear pick up from where it left off? Gaining control over a regeneration facility would definitely be a motive to invade a new bubble universe.

Oh, and just because some group has control over a regeneration facility doesn't necessarily mean they are the inventors and understand how it works....

The random appearance of people from the Heaven gate may be just that -- purely random chance. I'm thinking the select criteria routine was tuned to Yahweh a long time ago. Now that he's dead, it will fire somewhat randomly, including perhaps sending a few 2nd lifers to bubble universes we have yet to discover, until the system can be tuned to a new operator. That may require a house call from a "service technician."

Imagine finding something equivalent to a sticker on the back of Yahweh's throne that says, "Call for Service 1-800-NEW-LIFE"

[nobody_really]

1) You're assuming that so many would desire it. 10% of the population taking up a homestead would likely involve over 20%, possibly as much as 25%, of the population once you add in spouses, kids, etc. Once you add in the fact that you're dealing with 20-25% of the total adult population, which is probably closer to a third of those who can be filed as "not suffering from infirmities, old age, or just not in a condition to do such work". I don't see too many 70-year-olds looking to plow fields right off the bat. So...if you're looking at the "eligible" population, you'd need a third of people ready to jump up and go farm. Not a chance in Heaven, Hell, or Mississippi that you're going to get anywhere near that.

What you'd probably get is a number of farmers with mediocre land out in the west who'd take the deal, as well as a decent number of people picking between that and a line job at GM. But that's going to at most get you to around a million people. Maybe throw in some career farmers looking to get a head start on a second life and a bunch of migrants looking for something other than menial labor, but this ain't the 1930s...and a squeeze on equipment availability is going to be a problem for a while, especially in making this desirable.

You'd probably be better off negotiating deals for larger grants and offering loan assistance to those willing to take on a thousand acres with a combine and whatnot. I'd personally like to avoid "industrial scale" farming if it can be helped (an argument can be made about this on policy grounds alone), but increasing the scale of early grants, at least to start off, may be necessary. Of course, if you can get some angels and second life humans to take "a hundred acres and a plow", that might also help sort things more quickly.

Reasonable objection, except that I was thinking at most 10% of the total U.S. population (including kids and spouses) would move onto a farm in Heaven, or about 3-4 times as many as there are now. Just because some guy thinks that "farm livin' is the life for him," doesn't mean his wife or kids are similarly disposed, and we aren't in the fifties where the dad's desires are law. And if not enough first life Americans would do it, maybe some new second-lifers formerly from the United States would like some land in Heaven instead of the Hellpit, and would still feel a sense of patriotism towards their old home. Maybe not. In that case, the U.S. is boned.

2) You also assume that most of that land is not in use and/or that we could stick together a stable portal-and-road infrastructure in those areas overnight.

True, I do assume very little land use, because it doesn't make much sense for the Angels to have their food sources be too far from the Eternal City, because of their lack of an adequate road and portal system. Getting the crops to market on Earth is more of a problem, but employing road gangs from the Hellpit might help alleviate that.

There is a good chance that most of the land in and around any "green zone" we have set up is already titled to people, ...

Not if the green zone is far enough away from the Eternal City. I was imagining having a minimal force from the U.S. helping with order in and around the Eternal City when asked, and use the rest to establish a defense for the United States of America, Heaven Division. It's possible something like that is completely unworkable, in which case I'll concede this whole crazy idea.

... and while we'll probably be able to effect land seizures once an outright rebellion gets going, doing so to angels simply for being on the wrong side is a great way to feed a rebellion by kick-starting it with a legitimate grievance.

I wouldn't want to take over land that belongs to any living angels, but I don't imagine that they would even want to live too far from the Eternal City. We don't know how far out the farms run by angels extend, but we can take guesses based on some assumptions I'm just going to pull out of my ass. Since the Eternal City is 2,560,000 square miles in area, I could easily see having 10 times that, or 25,600,000 square miles used as farmland to support the city. Let's just say 30 million square miles to make the math easier, which would be about 19 thousand million acres, or a little less than a third of the total arable land. Okay. So that brings down that five percent of available Heaven farmland down to about 60-70 acres for each of the 30 million Americans who would want to live on a farm, for no other reason than to have a reasonable supply of food. How many free range cattle or chickens or pigs or goats can you raise on 40 acres of near-perfect land? I would think enough to have another ten acres fallow and ten acres for crops (which could be grown year round) should be enough for one person.

Edit (as usual): We might want to get an FAQ going somewhere to deal with the things a lot of people come in here thinking...if just because many people think would happen rather instinctively and what Stuart's worked out would happen are two different things. Of course, one might exist already that I haven't seen...

I haven't seen one, either. And it sounds like a good idea. Wanna set it up?

[Edward Yee]

No equal representation, no participation.

*Looks at the Security Council* You were saying? Just noting that the UN Security Council even pre-Message would be analogous to the situation in any accepted (by the Yamantau Council) post-UN structure, even if it nominally devolved power downward.

Ok, I might be repeating myself but really, I find it disturbing how many people pretend they could just build system which would replace UN with little hitch.

Depends on what you mean by "replace the UN," considering that the world situation is drastically different now than in the wake of World War II... and I don't mean in the details, but rather in that instead of something akin to "avoid a Third World War, much less nuclear apocalypse," it's essentially Earth after suddenly finding out that aliens exist, then invading and taking over two homeworlds -- after one managed to get some pretty hard licks at our expense.

I would have loved to see how Stuart visions the opinion of nations who are not in Yamantau to it's attempt to take over as world government.

What I find more interesting is the idea of world government by council, especially when all participants inside and outside of the council are interested in retaining national identity... with sovereignty a most likely close second at least.

[wickeddyno]

A poignant and haunting ending, Stuart. I liked it a lot.

[Tiwaz]

*Looks at the Security Council* You were saying? Just noting that the UN Security Council even pre-Message would be analogous to the situation in any accepted (by the Yamantau Council) post-UN structure, even if it nominally devolved power downward.

UN security council is only one organ of UN. Yamantau council is essentially UN security council which can rule over rest of the UN as it pleases.
Security council as defined has authority over only issues of "international peace and stability". Which, while vaguely worded, renders them impotent on most issues.

Not to mention General Assembly Resolution 377 which gives General Assembly power to overrule UNSC if it fails to address issues of international peace and stability. Any decisions made under the principles of this resolution will be unblockable for UNSC.

Analogy is not very accurate.

Not to mention that UNSC is drawing lots of criticism precisely for it's semi-dictatorial position, which is something which would take priority in any replacement which someone would want to present.

Ergo, it is likely that Yamantau-council, should it wish to create replacement, would have to denounce any position of special power.

Depends on what you mean by "replace the UN," considering that the world situation is drastically different now than in the wake of World War II... and I don't mean in the details, but rather in that instead of something akin to "avoid a Third World War, much less nuclear apocalypse," it's essentially Earth after suddenly finding out that aliens exist, then invading and taking over two homeworlds -- after one managed to get some pretty hard licks at our expense.

Consider that essential needs of nations have changed very little. They still look after number one priority, their own asses. Specially with all immediate dangers being eliminated, this becomes even more priority than before. Every non-council nation will see as their primary interest to make sure council does not get any ideas of "world government".

Put yourself in position of non-council national leader. Would you HONESTLY see it as best interest of yourself and your nation to submit to system where 15 unelected forces hold absolute power over, well, everything?

Would you even agree to system similar to UNSC, now that you know what kind of handicap it is to system? UN was formed to try to answer to failings of LoN, any replacement for UN has to address the problem of having unelected, permanent clique of powers with some form of absolute authority. Because getting acceptance to another one is rather slim.

My personal estimate is that Yamantau-council can choose between one of two alternatives.

Keep their power over anything under Yamantau authority, but be unable to gain authority over more than small handful of nations on Earth.
The divided Earth scenario.
Or...
Replace UN and hand away their powers, becoming no more than primus inter pares without any large powers over the rest.
United Earth scenario.

Option "We say jump and rest of planet asks how high" is just very, very unrealistic.

[Edward Yee]

I'm actually more interested in the divided Earth scenario, if only to see what happens to the HEA. While I understand the HEA to have been officially stood up after Satan's death, and the special operators assisting Tucker McElroy's team with the baby retrieval (I believe Polish?) were from the pre-HEA coalition, the Polish Air Force fighters that assisted Consul Kim's helo in Heaven were officially part of the HEA, but Poland is not on the council... so this will be interesting indeed, as the divided Earth scenario would probably have the issue of whether anyone should be regulating outbound access to Heaven, Hell, and the other bubble worlds, much less who.

[JN1]

They'd have to actually MAKE it illegal first. AFAIK suicide is only illegal in England, and even there they didn't list an actual penalty.

I couldn't swear to it, but I think that law has been repealed. Assisting in a suicide is certainly still illegal in all of the UK's legal jurisdictions.

With all we've seen here the implications of Humanity's victory should be interesting to see. LoW should be fun.

[Barrigana]

A problem even bigger than those 5% of demons that won't accept the current status quo is the second lifers.
I don't see how the whole thing wouldn't inevitably end up with the near extermination of all demons, especially at the first sign that some of them are fighting to bring back the previous arrangement.

There is no way the vast majority of people would just forgive and forget having been tortured for decades/centuries and having loved ones still missing and still being tortured. In fact I think false flag operations from second lifers eager to start the whole cleansing process would become a much bigger problem than the demons themselves.

"Get rid of them while we still have the upper hand, why wait for them to modernize and have a serious chance at getting in power again" would be the prevailing feeling for sure.


The only way out of this would be mass settlement of heaven by seconds lifers rescued from the Hell Pit. You dilute the human population in Heaven in overwhelming numbers of a rabidly loyal and grateful population that don't have a direct grudge against the angels and gradually wait for the human ratio in Hell to shift in favor of people that never experienced the horror of the Hell Pit first hand.
Anything short of this would be a recipe for disaster in both planes. If, as stated, the jews wouldn't forgive SS soldiers that tormented them for a single decade how would the rest of the population be expected to peacefully cohabit with entities responsible (or at the very least complicit) with much worse abuse for much longer periods of time?

[Tiwaz]

I'm actually more interested in the divided Earth scenario, if only to see what happens to the HEA. While I understand the HEA to have been officially stood up after Satan's death, and the special operators assisting Tucker McElroy's team with the baby retrieval (I believe Polish?) were from the pre-HEA coalition, the Polish Air Force fighters that assisted Consul Kim's helo in Heaven were officially part of the HEA, but Poland is not on the council... so this will be interesting indeed, as the divided Earth scenario would probably have the issue of whether anyone should be regulating outbound access to Heaven, Hell, and the other bubble worlds, much less who.

I'm trying to be impartial on what way world would go, or if it would take completely different route from what I see as most logical ones.

But that said...
Divided Earth has benefit of having internal conflicts which have been more or less absent from earlier parts. With all that backstabbing and self centered thinking we humans truly shine in.

Gaius most likely prominently appearing there to get involved with whomever would be most profitable partner, which would in most cases set him even more clearly on opposite side to HEA/Yamantau.

It would be like Multidimensional Cold War...

[Edward Yee]

Actually, isn't the army of the New Roman Republic (i.e. the former Third Legion) officially part of the HEA too? Oh, the intrigues that will result from Yamantau and Caesar "sharing an army"...

As for the idea of moving "problem" Second-Lifers to Heaven, there's the issue of possibly displacing the existing Second-Life population (the territory isn't zero-sum, but location may be), whose relations with modern humanity through the HEA are bad enough as is. If many Second-Lifers did start agitating for daemon genocide -- we've already had Guillaume's rampage, but that was nowhere near an attempt at genocide -- I expect Caesar to be at the forefront of the opposition to them.

[Deebles]

This is a fine conclusion, nicely bringing in a lot of the concerns discussed on this thread for the peace. There's one particular question I'd like to discuss - the subject of "who gets to go where":

"No." Doctor Surlethe rather wished the subject hadn't come up. "We have only a very thin trickle of new bodies turning up in Heaven, one or two a day at most. We can identify no pattern behind their selection. It seems to be completely random. At the moment, the Army unit we have stationed at the Heavenly Gates is looking after them. Actually, they're shipping them to the reception center at Hell and processing them like all the others when they wake up. We're watching the ones that came back through Heaven of course; but at the moment we're showing nothing of any significance. Which leaves us with the problem of who lives in Heaven and who stays in Hell."

Shipping people who win this lottery, if lottery it is, and end up in Heaven to Hell seems a tad unfair... I wonder what other solution(s) they may work out.

The only way out of this would be mass settlement of heaven by seconds lifers rescued from the Hell Pit. You dilute the human population in Heaven in overwhelming numbers of a rabidly loyal and grateful population that don't have a direct grudge against the angels and gradually wait for the human ratio in Hell to shift in favor of people that never experienced the horror of the Hell Pit first hand.
Anything short of this would be a recipe for disaster in both planes. If, as stated, the jews wouldn't forgive SS soldiers that tormented them for a single decade how would the rest of the population be expected to peacefully cohabit with entities responsible (or at the very least complicit) with much worse abuse for much longer periods of time?

This would be interesting, indeed. I suspect heaven is a more pleasant place to be for second-lifers too, so plenty of reason for gratitude among those offered the move, and it also sounds like it has room enough. The idea of enabling and incentivising the movement of populations so that you end up with a dominant loyal population in potential trouble-spots has plenty of historical and some modern precedents (modern-day Xinjiang and Tibet, for instance), and not all of the impact seems to be good, but it definitely has its temptations as a policy.

As for farmers from Earth moving straight to heaven, I'm sure many would love to if they could get a good deal on land, be confident of the security situation, and have good transport links to home. In addition to "pull" factors of the perfect climate (assuming the effects of the nuke weren't permanent), lack of pollution and copious land, you might expect quite a lot of "push" where a country is densely populated, has a large share of the population employed in agriculture, and/or is water-stressed. (People from India would have a high motivation on all three grounds, for instance).

[CaptainChewbacca]

With the mass die-offs as a result of the Message, I don't doubt there's plenty of fertile (and needed) farmland on EARTH. Given the nearly infinite labor supply of second life humans, I can't see us sending living, breathing first-lifers to heaven to farm when resources could be put to more effective use on earth.

Remember, at the start of this all something like a FIFTH of all humans on earth died. NOBODY has an overpopulation problem right now. Not anymore.

[Tritio]

Thank you for the great story, Stuart. The whole journey from Armageddon to Pantheocide has been a wonderful ride and I would like to register my thanks.