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Not really.

It's apparently the will to live that counts, not loyalty; the loyalty just helps add some will. I can definitely see cats managing fine on their own; they're cats.

What I mean is that the dogs get a strong will to live because they won't abandon their masters. Cats have no problem abandoning their owners, so that specific drive is gone.

Not all cats would die, but dogs would be better off.

Darth Yan wrote:To be honest, I sort of hope Uriel lives. I sort of sympethize with him, even if he is a mass murderer, because he is sympathetic. He believes he's doing the right thing, so he's not necessarily evil, and realizing that human will is what block's his powers might cause him to change. Although if that happens intergrating won't be easy

Hmmm. The thing is though, no one ever thinks of himself as evil; that's a label applied by one's opponents. Hitler, and those loyal to the "National Socialist" cause certainly didn't see themselves as evil.

A couple of good movies to rent is Downfall (Der Untergang) and Sophie Scholl - The Final Days. Both, I think, do a pretty good job of depicting the thinking of loyal Nazi Party members. In Sophie Scholl, the scene I'm thinking of in particular are the comments (okay, spewing vindictive) made by the judge during the trial. Alternatively, look up "White rose" in Wikipedia.

Eulogy wrote:

The Vortex Empire wrote:The last chapter was creepy. Great job capturing the feeling of Uriel's attack. Now let's just hope that Cruiser can kill that SOB once and for all.

If it's radar is more than powerful enough to destroy the electronics in the city, what would it do to Uriel?

The same thing he's trying to do to his targets, presumably.

Speaking of his power, if sometime in the future we managed to replicate it, could we use it to say, sterilze food, destroy red algae, - and when our understanding and control of it becomes great enough - kill pests, exterminate vermin, destroy cancerous tumours and even purge infections? This looks like it could have great potential if we knew how it worked.

If the radar hit Uriel hard enough, he might come tumbling down from the sky, though given how resilient we've seen some of the higher up demons (and presumably angels) to be, that fall might not be enough to get him outright. On the other hand, all that electromagnetic activity might stun him unconscious, making it easy enough to capture him.

bcoogler wrote:

Darth Yan wrote:To be honest, I sort of hope Uriel lives. I sort of sympethize with him, even if he is a mass murderer, because he is sympathetic. He believes he's doing the right thing, so he's not necessarily evil, and realizing that human will is what block's his powers might cause him to change. Although if that happens intergrating won't be easy

Hmmm. The thing is though, no one ever thinks of himself as evil; that's a label applied by one's opponents. Hitler, and those loyal to the "National Socialist" cause certainly didn't see themselves as evil.

A couple of good movies to rent is Downfall (Der Untergang) and Sophie Scholl - The Final Days. Both, I think, do a pretty good job of depicting the thinking of loyal Nazi Party members. In Sophie Scholl, the scene I'm thinking of in particular are the comments (okay, spewing vindictive) made by the judge during the trial. Alternatively, look up "White rose" in Wikipedia.

I'm pretty sure raw stupidity does not really count as bravery. The White Rose group definately crossed that line.

Anyway, Stuart loves this idea- in TBO he has one of the Nazi's realistically a nice and charming individual. Who organized the death camps. Evil that comes and eats babies is not the one to fear- it is the one that is smiling and charming. Of course, the first kind exists. It generally doesn't get to wield power on its own though.

As for opponents who believe they are doing the right thing and might change...

"This is an order! Burning them means us surviving. Be merciless!"
-Valkyria Chronicles

Not to mention that humanity has its hands covered with the blood of millions of demons. When they lay down their arms the forces of Earth might show restraint, but until then he dies.

PhilosopherOfSorts wrote:Anyone else catch the Blackbird? "Habu-zero-one I have you at altitute level nine nine five and ground speed two eight seven zero." Shut that cocky little Hornet driver right up.

2870 knots is over Mach 4 at sea level and right around Mach 5 at 99500 feet. To the best of my knowledge, that's faster than even the Blackbird can manage; I've never heard anyone claim that it's hypersonic-capable. I think we're looking at some kind of experimental aircraft out of a place like Groom Lake here.

Stuart wrote:It;s not just the U.K. or U.S.A its pretty much universal. We get the reverse effect in World War One where everybody was expecting a quick, easy victory. They didn't get it and that made the trench warfare that came afterwards seem so much worse. Worldwide, people don't compare this with that. They compare the expectations of what they were going to get with the reality of what they got.

Yeah. I don't know about you, but if I heard the Message and fully expected Earth to be invaded by the Legions of Hell while simultaneously getting pasted by the Wrath of God, I'd be expecting something a lot tougher to cope with.

Baughn wrote:How tightly can it be focused?

If they could modify the radars to focus tightly enough, they'd double nicely as angel-cooking units. Identify angel, tighten the beam.. couple seconds later you'll have one dead angel, and can go back to scanning for the next one.

A radar that capable would also be a devastating High Power Microwave weapon; you could dial down the power a long way and use it for crowd control, or blow apart enemy radar from three states away. I'm not seeing it; the military is still researching that kind of capability for ground-based HPM systems, after all. If they already knew how to build it you can bet they'd have deployed it.

Also, remember that disrupting electronics is orders of magnitude easier than physically frying a living being. Uriel is tough enough to be taken seriously by entities that can survive antitank missiles to the chest; I doubt he'd go down to even AEGIS radar at anything less than point blank range.

The Vortex Empire wrote:What I mean is that the dogs get a strong will to live because they won't abandon their masters. Cats have no problem abandoning their owners, so that specific drive is gone.

Not all cats would die, but dogs would be better off.

On the other hand, cats are going to have that "who is this pesky little archangel to tell Me to lie down and die!?" thing going...

Samuel wrote:I'm pretty sure raw stupidity does not really count as bravery. The White Rose group definately crossed that line.

I still feel obligated to respect what was practically the only group in Germany that actually came out and said to as many Germans as they could reach, during the time of the Nazis' greatest atrocities, "come on, you know damn well what is happening, it's wrong, and what the hell kind of nation are we if we don't act on that knowledge?"

Their actions were suicidally unsafe, yes. But it seems fairly clear that they considered getting that message out more important than staying alive, and from a utilitarian standpoint I'm not sure they were wrong.

Darth Fanboy wrote:

Stuart wrote: snip

I guess I just don't see how referring to the previous war with Hell with a slang term helps serve the government or the public. A lot of things changed even though Hell was defeated and that the Message and the subsequent war could be the most important part of human history in the timeline you have created. Why would we refer to the most pivotal moments of human history with a slang term? I would think that the people in charge would want to treat it more seriously. Doesn't exactly inspire a lot of vigilance.

Oh for fuck's sake ...

This has to be the most retarded nitpick ever. Don't you get it? IT DOESN'T MATTER WHETHER THE NICKNAME SERVES A LOGICAL PURPOSE OR NATIONAL INTEREST. The point is that people, being ordinary human beings, tend to make up whimsical nicknames for things regardless. You're acting as if some fucking government bureau got together and held meetings and then decided upon this nickname, when it was almost certainly a grass-roots product of the people in the military or perhaps even the general population.

I still feel obligated to respect what was practically the only group in Germany that actually came out and said to as many Germans as they could reach, during the time of the Nazis' greatest atrocities, "come on, you know damn well what is happening, it's wrong, and what the hell kind of nation are we if we don't act on that knowledge?"

Their actions were suicidally unsafe, yes. But it seems fairly clear that they considered getting that message out more important than staying alive, and from a utilitarian standpoint I'm not sure they were wrong.

They had no effect on the war effort- I'm pretty sure that counts as a null. I just think they were idiots because of how they got caught. Do not fling propaganda leaflets out in public when the Gespato is looking for you! And their hope that nonviolent resistance would change the regime Nazi Germany was not a police state because the Furher liked the uniforms.

Brovane wrote:

von Neufeld wrote:

PhilosopherOfSorts wrote:Anyone else catch the Blackbird? "Habu-zero-one I have you at altitute level nine nine five and ground speed two eight seven zero." Shut that cocky little Hornet driver right up.

I hope it's something a bit more exciting, like an Aurora.

I thought the same thing until I looked closer at the speed. The SR-71 tops out at around 1900 knots and the story indicated a speed of 2870 which either we have a typo and they intended it to be 1870 which is very plausible our this was something else than a SR-71. This part in the story was take just about word for word from a actual SR-71 story.

Well, I've been wrong before, it happens. I actually thought that the Blackbird topped out at somewhere around three thousand MPH, but I never bothered to look it up. So I guess that was an Aurora, or something else that doesn't officially exist yet. I wonder if there's any sense in arming something that fast.

Samuel wrote:They had no effect on the war effort- I'm pretty sure that counts as a null. I just think they were idiots because of how they got caught. Do not fling propaganda leaflets out in public when the Gespato is looking for you! And their hope that nonviolent resistance would change the regime Nazi Germany was not a police state because the Furher liked the uniforms.

Yes, impulsively flinging leaflets from a top story balcony was a stupid act, but I do not think a "null effort" counts that way.

An officer refusing to obey what he believes is an illegal order is also likely to be a null effort, since he could be shot in a time of war and replaced by someone willing to carry out the order. But does that make the action stupid, especially if history eventually vindicates the officer?

PhilosopherOfSorts wrote:Well, I've been wrong before, it happens. I actually thought that the Blackbird topped out at somewhere around three thousand MPH, but I never bothered to look it up.

It does. Airspeed is always given in knots over the radio, not mph.

USS Normandy, eh? Is there a commander Shepard at the helm?

I know that, I just didn't think there was that much of a difference between knots and mph, but thinking about it even a small difference would add up pretty quickly at those speeds

Stuart wrote:It's not constant, its just now and then. It parallels the references to the early stages of WW2 as "The Phony War" and some other choice examples. What happens is that people go into a war with a terrified anticipation of what is to come (in WW2, it was expected that cities would be made uninhabitable by bombing within days or weeks at the most, that there would be mass gas attacks on civilians with enormous casualties. You won't find it in any official histories and the extent of the panic is only just now coming out but in cities like Southampton and Portsmouth, people left the city at night and came back at dawn - with consequent effects on war production. In the UK children were evacuated from the cities, some to places in the countryside, others abroad to Canada and South Africa.Then, people began to realize it wasn't happening. Public mood swung the other way; the war became "The Phony War", it's not true to say it wasn't taken seriously but the comparison between terrified anticipation and reality was very marked. By the way, we had much the same thing in ODS and OIF. ODS became the "Hundred Hour War" for a while while the initial phase of OIF became "The Drive Up"

I never heard of those terms, so thank you.

Stuart wrote:It's not just the U.K. or U.S.A its pretty much universal. We get the reverse effect in World War One where everybody was expecting a quick, easy victory. They didn't get it and that made the trench warfare that came afterwards seem so much worse. Worldwide, people don't compare this with that. They compare the expectations of what they were going to get with the reality of what they got.

I remember that being touched on in history. In effect WWI was meant to be won by Christmas while WWII about two years at most. IMHO his worst move was getting Russia involved. Speculation on that is best left to Alternative History Writers and this subforum.

As for the using radar to cook angels... I remember there being rumours of crowd control vehicles being employed in Iraq which hurt extremely on the skin when used on people. The rumours stated the vehicles had used microwaves projectors to accomplish that. If those exist... there would be already technology in place to make a sufficient microwave beam. It "just" would need a higher power output. And aren't there already microwave lasers?
I'm aware ramping up power isn't as easy as it sounds, it was just a thought.

PhilosopherOfSorts wrote:I know that, I just didn't think there was that much of a difference between knots and mph, but thinking about it even a small difference would add up pretty quickly at those speeds

1 kn = 1.852 km/s = 0.51444 m/s
1 kn = 1.151 mph

Must be something other than Blackbird, or a typo. 2870 knots is about 3300mph, and even at the 750mph/Mach of sea level that works out as about 4.4, a bit fast for an SR-71. at about 95,000ft this has lowered to about 670mph/Mach which gives us about Mach 4.9, much to fast for a Blackbird, but still a little below Aurora's theorized Mach 6.

so I'm going with typo unless Stuart says different.

I just thought of the lights as means for power production. Since we conveniently found oil there is obviously no need for it, who cares for climate change after all. But what about photovoltaics? We've got around the clock visible light coming from all angles.
We've got the land surface of earth.
Why in Hell should we not use it? As far as I know the peak power output is at 90° of insolation, which we don't have, there being no sun or direct light. Nevertheless ambient light provides diffuse insolation which in turn can be converted into electric power. It wouldn't be as effective as peak or other energy resources, but come on. You can't honestly expect to burn oil for as long as you care to get power. I at least prefer a healthy dose of guilt-free energy.

bcoogler wrote:

Samuel wrote:They had no effect on the war effort- I'm pretty sure that counts as a null. I just think they were idiots because of how they got caught. Do not fling propaganda leaflets out in public when the Gespato is looking for you! And their hope that nonviolent resistance would change the regime Nazi Germany was not a police state because the Furher liked the uniforms.

Yes, impulsively flinging leaflets from a top story balcony was a stupid act, but I do not think a "null effort" counts that way.

An officer refusing to obey what he believes is an illegal order is also likely to be a null effort, since he could be shot in a time of war and replaced by someone willing to carry out the order. But does that make the action stupid, especially if history eventually vindicates the officer?

Yes. The intelligence of an act is not judged by righteousness, but by the odds of getting what was aimed for.

Darth Fanboy wrote: I guess I just don't see how referring to the previous war with Hell with a slang term helps serve the government or the public. A lot of things changed even though Hell was defeated and that the Message and the subsequent war could be the most important part of human history in the timeline you have created. Why would we refer to the most pivotal moments of human history with a slang term? I would think that the people in charge would want to treat it more seriously. Doesn't exactly inspire a lot of vigilance.

Darth Wong wrote:This has to be the most retarded nitpick ever. Don't you get it? IT DOESN'T MATTER WHETHER THE NICKNAME SERVES A LOGICAL PURPOSE OR NATIONAL INTEREST. The point is that people, being ordinary human beings, tend to make up whimsical nicknames for things regardless. You're acting as if some fucking government bureau got together and held meetings and then decided upon this nickname, when it was almost certainly a grass-roots product of the people in the military or perhaps even the general population.

Basically, what Mike said. Nicknames are not carefully decided by a committee who weigh up all the aspects of the issue and decide on a suitable name; they grow up in the general population (or a subset thereof) by a means nobody can quite put their finger on , some catch on and are accepted, some do not and fade away. When the government or somebody else deliberately tries to create a "suitable" nickname, it invariably never catches on and gets replaced by something else from somebody else. For example the officially named "Fighting Falcon" never gets referred to by that name, its always the "Viper" or the "Lawn Dart". The Thunderbolt II is always the Warthog. Nobody ever, ever called the B-52 the "Stratofortress", it was always the "BUFF" (Big Ugly Fat Fucker) and is now "The Gray Lady".

Note by the way, how rare are polite and respecful (and/or inspiring) nicknames. It took the B-52 half a century of faithful service to get a polite nickname. The only other polite nickname I can think of is "Gunfighter" for the Crusader and that aircraft was more commonly known as the "Crud". The Phantom was the "Rhino", the Cutlass was "Gutless", the Corsair II was the "SLUF" (Short Little Ugly Fucker), the F-102 was "Widowmaker" (a deserved nickname if ever there was one), the F-89 was the "Flying Coffin" (even more deserved). To drive the point home, the A3D Skywarrior was "The Whistling Shitcan" after a brief period as "All 3 Dead" over Vietnam, the C-5 is Linda (after Linda Lovelace because everywhere it went it knelt down and blew something), the F-105 was the Lead Sled (because it couldn't turn corners) or the Thud (because of the noise it made when it hit the ground after a meeting with AAA, the ridgeline west of Hanoi is still called Thud Ridge after the number of F-105s that ended their careers there). The F-117 is the Roach (it only comes out at night), the F-111 is the Pig while the FB-111 was the Edsel (because it wasn't worth a shit and McNamara invented it). Is a pattern beginning to emerge here?

Why do you presume everything gets decided by the Government?

Stuart wrote: Basically, what Mike said. Nicknames are not carefully decided by a committee who weigh up all the aspects of the issue and decide on a suitable name; they grow up in the general population (or a subset thereof) by a means nobody can quite put their finger on , some catch on and are accepted, some do not and fade away. When the government or somebody else deliberately tries to create a "suitable" nickname, it invariably never catches on and gets replaced by something else from somebody else. For example the officially named "Fighting Falcon" never gets referred to by that name, its always the "Viper" or the "Lawn Dart". The Thunderbolt II is always the Warthog. Nobody ever, ever called the B-52 the "Stratofortress", it was always the "BUFF" (Big Ugly Fat Fucker) and is now "The Gray Lady".

Note by the way, how rare are polite and respecful (and/or inspiring) nicknames. It took the B-52 half a century of faithful service to get a polite nickname. The only other polite nickname I can think of is "Gunfighter" for the Crusader and that aircraft was more commonly known as the "Crud". The Phantom was the "Rhino", the Cutlass was "Gutless", the Corsair II was the "SLUF" (Short Little Ugly Fucker), the F-102 was "Widowmaker" (a deserved nickname if ever there was one), the F-89 was the "Flying Coffin" (even more deserved). To drive the point home, the A3D Skywarrior was "The Whistling Shitcan" after a brief period as "All 3 Dead" over Vietnam, the C-5 is Linda (after Linda Lovelace because everywhere it went it knelt down and blew something), the F-105 was the Lead Sled (because it couldn't turn corners) or the Thud (because of the noise it made when it hit the ground after a meeting with AAA, the ridgeline west of Hanoi is still called Thud Ridge after the number of F-105s that ended their careers there). The F-117 is the Roach (it only comes out at night), the F-111 is the Pig while the FB-111 was the Edsel (because it wasn't worth a shit and McNamara invented it). Is a pattern beginning to emerge here?

Why do you presume everything gets decided by the Government?

This is also the reason nicknames tend to be forgotten - official channels (news, books, goverment) do not use them.
Thats why we are reading about World War II in history books, and not about *insert nickname here*.
Which is a shame, because these nicknames tell alot about public morale - and public morale means a lot in war, especially today.

Serafina wrote:This is also the reason nicknames tend to be forgotten - official channels (news, books, goverment) do not use them.
Thats why we are reading about World War II in history books, and not about *insert nickname here*.
Which is a shame, because these nicknames tell alot about public morale - and public morale means a lot in war, especially today.

Does that still hold true in this time and age? Memes are hard to kill and nicknames fill pretty much every prerequisite for one. I would assume veterans and geezers of that times still refer to the war coining their lives with its unofficial name. These only faded since they were not in public use. But nowadays information is easy to come by, and likely to stick.
But you are right. The change in morale affects the name of war, and only after it is over there will be a more final designation be in use.

However there is still the public appearance to be taken in. What is by all means a war may not perceived as such if the propaganda pushes the correct buttons and turns the appropriate wheels.
Take Germany for instance: There will be no official acknowledgement of its soldiers being involved in any war. The Bosnian War? Some UN conflict Germany had no hands in (I remember the pamphlets soldiers were handing out then, and these felt like war). Kosovo? Yeah, there are some, but only fulfilling humanitarian roles. Afghanistan? Germany's got the easiest sector and only after the rough parts died down. But take a look at this map (of involvements of the Bundeswehr abroad). In my book any "conflict" which entails military personnel killing and being killed (or injured) on a regular basis (in what proportions whatsoever) is a war. The German public is (hopefully) finally starting to acknowledge that by the debate on establishing an official KIA Memorial or the recent first Medal of Honour since WWII. Mind you, their reservations are easy to understand given their history, but still...
To the public Bosnia was a war as well as Kosovo, both of which Germany was involved in.

What I'm getting at is, nicknames might not stick, but official designations don't have to, either.

Buritot wrote:

Serafina wrote:This is also the reason nicknames tend to be forgotten - official channels (news, books, goverment) do not use them.
Thats why we are reading about World War II in history books, and not about *insert nickname here*.
Which is a shame, because these nicknames tell alot about public morale - and public morale means a lot in war, especially today.

Does that still hold true in this time and age? Memes are hard to kill and nicknames fill pretty much every prerequisite for one. I would assume veterans and geezers of that times still refer to the war coining their lives with its unofficial name. These only faded since they were not in public use. But nowadays information is easy to come by, and likely to stick.
But you are right. The change in morale affects the name of war, and only after it is over there will be a more final designation be in use.

However there is still the public appearance to be taken in. What is by all means a war may not perceived as such if the propaganda pushes the correct buttons and turns the appropriate wheels.
Take Germany for instance: There will be no official acknowledgement of its soldiers being involved in any war. The Bosnian War? Some UN conflict Germany had no hands in (I remember the pamphlets soldiers were handing out then, and these felt like war). Kosovo? Yeah, there are some, but only fulfilling humanitarian roles. Afghanistan? Germany's got the easiest sector and only after the rough parts died down. But take a look at this map (of involvements of the Bundeswehr abroad). In my book any "conflict" which entails military personnel killing and being killed (or injured) on a regular basis (in what proportions whatsoever) is a war. The German public is (hopefully) finally starting to acknowledge that by the debate on establishing an official KIA Memorial or the recent first Medal of Honour since WWII. Mind you, their reservations are easy to understand given their history, but still...
To the public Bosnia was a war as well as Kosovo, both of which Germany was involved in.

What I'm getting at is, nicknames might not stick, but official designations don't have to, either.

Well, of course propaganda can change public appearance. In fact, german propaganda regarding the Kosovo and Afghanistan is surprisingly effective - you rarely (or never, in case of the Kosovo) hear of any german deads there.
And most information you can access is censored, too.

Of course, all of this is only necessary because the german public does not want to get involved in any "offensive military action". In regard to the Salvation War, this would hardly be a problem.
Propaganda would be more focussed on upholding an heroic image of the war (while displaying it as an war, including casualties) than making it appear as something else ("civilian rebuilding and police work" instead of "war" or "conflict").

I think this would be an intersting challenge for german propaganda - it has a lot of experience with downplaying conflicts, but nearly none of increasing the war effort of the public (does not meant they can not do it).

Of course, this holds true for some other nations, too - inspiring the homefront is quite imporant, after all.

I wonder if some of the propaganda effort has to be directed to explain the rationale for not killing all the demons off the bat? I can imagine that there are a lot of people who what a literally punitive peace.

For example the officially named "Fighting Falcon" never gets referred to by that name, its always the "Viper" or the "Lawn Dart". The Thunderbolt II is always the Warthog. Nobody ever, ever called the B-52 the "Stratofortress", it was always the "BUFF" (Big Ugly Fat Fucker) and is now "The Gray Lady".

In the RAF the Tornado has been alternatively known as both the Tonka and the Electric Flick Knife. I believe that early in its career the C-17A was known as the Buddha because it was big, fat and sat around all day doing nothing, while being worshiped by thousands.
I thought that the Pig was the Aussie nickname for the F-111 and that it was known as the Aardvark, or Vark (as in Spark Vark) for short, in America?

'Curbstomp War' may last a few years, but after a while as demons integrate into society it will fall out of fashion. The 'First Interdimensional War' will start popping up in textbooks, or perhaps the 'Liberation of Hell' will be taught to schoolchildren. In 20 or 30 years, 'Curbstomp War' will be something only heard or seen in doccumentaries, or when old-timers talk about it.

JN1 wrote:I thought that the Pig was the Aussie nickname for the F-111 and that it was known as the Aardvark, or Vark (as in Spark Vark) for short, in America?

This is true. We(enthusiasts) will miss them dearly.