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I just had the idea of DETH, a dissident demon philosopher group in Hell whose name stands for "Demons for the Ethical Treatment of Humans", and started laughing uncontrollably.

Darth Wong wrote:I just had the idea of DETH, a dissident demon philosopher group in Hell whose name stands for "Demons for the Ethical Treatment of Humans", and started laughing uncontrollably.

This must be implemented.

PainRack wrote:ng question though. Why the different political philosophies? Why does Heaven choose to gather its energy from "praise", coercing worship while Hell gets its energy from torture?

This may well have stemmed from necessity. Immediately after the rebellion, Satan would have a whole load of followers who desperately want 'soul energy'. However the flow from Yahweh's worshippers had been cut off. Satan could try setting himself up as a god (and maybe he did), but that takes centuries to ramp up and is directly competing with Yaweh. My guess would be that Satan was desperate for energy to appease his followers during the rebellion, and resorted to torturing humans (probably crudely and to the death, initially) to get it. After the losses began to get serious Yahweh likely offered a conditional armistice; he'd recognise Satan's rulership of hell if Satan agreed never to try and get lower planar beings to worship him en masse. Thus the demons refined their torture methods, using the humans Yahweh didn't need, to get their energy. Anything else would have almost certainly touched off another war with heaven, and Hell's nobility weren't keen on that idea due to the personal risk that it entailed.

It would be interesting to see the difference between Heaven military and Hell, if any exist.

My guess is that the demons were forced to adapt to working with less 'soul energy' in the great celestial war, when Yahweh's forces had a much stronger supply than them. Thus the angels use more TK, which I'm guessing is an ability developed by (and possibly even powered by) a rich supply of 'soul energy' (thus the higher ranked demons having stronger TK), while the demons had to make more use of (primitive) bioengineering, thus their great physical diversity and very large 'special combatants'. This would be why harpies have to use hydrogen and massive wing muscles to fly, while angels can rely on their TK for thrust and their wings are used mainly to reduce energy consumption in long distance flight.

The Vortex Empire wrote:

Darth Wong wrote:I just had the idea of DETH, a dissident demon philosopher group in Hell whose name stands for "Demons for the Ethical Treatment of Humans", and started laughing uncontrollably.

This must be implemented.

DETH probably won't become widespread until AFTER fighter-bombers begin attacking cities in Hell, demonstrating human superiority in the art of war and giving the demons the option to prostrate themselves before Lt Kim and other human leaders instead of Satan. (The demons deem it shameful to prostrate themselves before a mere human? Publicly blow up the heads of a few demons, state the humans will do this to any demon who does not show them proper respect, and watch the surviving demons choose a shameful life over a proudful death.)

But how does that lead to DETH? There must be a certain form of it (preferably not coerced) of the sort that could get Darth Wong laughing uncontrollably.

And if we're going to keep filling this fic with utter pap (I'm looking at that scene with the F-16 pilot, Temujin as Rahab's contact and the suggestion about a gay pilot vs. the angels), this is possibly the funniest I've seen.

Edward Yee wrote:(I'm looking at that scene with the F-16 pilot,

That actually happened. The guilty parties used a lady of the night's lipstick not a tattoo parlor but the rest of it is true. It happened at Red Flag.

Temujin as Rahab's contact

I haven't said that.

and the suggestion about a gay pilot vs. the angels),

Nor that.

Darth Wong wrote:I just had the idea of DETH, a dissident demon philosopher group in Hell whose name stands for "Demons for the Ethical Treatment of Humans", and started laughing uncontrollably.

Good lord, I don't think I've ever laughed out loud at something you said before. It MUST be done!

The Vortex Empire wrote:

Darth Wong wrote:I just had the idea of DETH, a dissident demon philosopher group in Hell whose name stands for . . .

"Demons Eating Tasty Humans"?

Starglider wrote: This may well have stemmed from necessity. Immediately after the rebellion, Satan would have a whole load of followers who desperately want 'soul energy'. However the flow from Yahweh's worshippers had been cut off. Satan could try setting himself up as a god (and maybe he did), but that takes centuries to ramp up and is directly competing with Yaweh. My guess would be that Satan was desperate for energy to appease his followers during the rebellion, and resorted to torturing humans (probably crudely and to the death, initially) to get it. After the losses began to get serious Yahweh likely offered a conditional armistice; he'd recognise Satan's rulership of hell if Satan agreed never to try and get lower planar beings to worship him en masse. Thus the demons refined their torture methods, using the humans Yahweh didn't need, to get their energy. Anything else would have almost certainly touched off another war with heaven, and Hell's nobility weren't keen on that idea due to the personal risk that it entailed.

That's certainly plausible. Lends itself to a deeper storyline too.

My guess is that the demons were forced to adapt to working with less 'soul energy' in the great celestial war, when Yahweh's forces had a much stronger supply than them. Thus the angels use more TK, which I'm guessing is an ability developed by (and possibly even powered by) a rich supply of 'soul energy' (thus the higher ranked demons having stronger TK), while the demons had to make more use of (primitive) bioengineering, thus their great physical diversity and very large 'special combatants'. This would be why harpies have to use hydrogen and massive wing muscles to fly, while angels can rely on their TK for thrust and their wings are used mainly to reduce energy consumption in long distance flight.

Heaven environment is crystal-like. I imagine that would have a detrimental effect on chariot and large infantry formations........... It could also explain why Heaven relies more on quality over quantity in theology, the environment could have broken up an infantry phalanx and forced Heaven to develop superior individual soldiers.


An invasion of Hell would also pose more interesting technological problems. We already addressed prop and weapon calibres, what about medical issues? How would medi-evac tactics evolve in such an hellish environment? Lol, we could even find America conscripting NASA astronauts and the like on their medical expertise with regards to hostile environments.

PainRack wrote: An invasion of Hell would also pose more interesting technological problems. We already addressed prop and weapon calibres, what about medical issues? How would medi-evac tactics evolve in such an hellish environment? Lol, we could even find America conscripting NASA astronauts and the like on their medical expertise with regards to hostile environments.

We'll be beginning to address that problem fairly shortly. I'll have to do a map of hell as well soon so we can start to evaluate the problems involved. In basic geography, Hell is a Pangaea-sized landmass that has a ultra-supervolcano-sized caldera in the middle. The Styx is the largest river in the region and runs across and into that Caldera. The caldera is, of course, Hell and the City of Dis is built around the rim of that Caldera.

Just to try and prod for more, what of the circles of hell and their incorporation into such geography?

PainRack wrote:How would medi-evac tactics evolve in such an hellish environment?

The energy requirements of opening portals from hell to earth are much lower than from earth to hell. Given that the demons manage it with bioelectricity only, easily low enough that the equipment to do so could be packed into an APC or helicopter. The process is currently bottlenecked on needing 'psychics' (which are very rare) to target the signals, but eventually some kind of technological beacon-based system will improvised. At that point sending casualties directly back to earth medical facilities via portal will be possible.

But that's for the future. In the short term, I imagine an airlift back to the massive fortified field hospital undoubtadly being built near the hellmouth is the best you're going to get.

why don't we just send the required equipment through our little 'upstream' portal, and then make a longer lasting 'downstream' portal from the other side? with the energy gradient working in our favor it might be possible with just a few portable generators.

Darth Wong wrote:The Bible is rather circumspect on what happened between Satan and God. At times they are portrayed as mortal enemies, yet they seem to have a working relationship. In the Book of Job, they actually seem like drinking buddies, and they make a friendly wager about how Job will react when they fuck up his life and kill his family on a lark.

It comes from having remodeled the story from a polytheistic pantheon to a monotheistic one. In the pantheon Yhwh (he who's name is not spoken, Yahweh is a modern attempt at pronouncing it, the original is lost), was the god of war, hence why he's the Lord of Hosts, a fancy way of saying army for the then nomadic hebrew tribes.

When the change developed to monotheism the old stories started to get retold in this light. This resulted in some rather strange events taking place, that the new 'goodspeak' version decries as impossible in other tales. It also necessitated erasing the other gods of the pantheon. They tended to do this by simply replacing names with Satan, The Adversary. This wasn't hard as the 'bandit tribes' of isreal (as the Babylonian and Egyptian empires put it) were in near constant states of warfare on each other, as well as raiding caravans between the two mighty empires. So their gods were equally violent with each other and almost all stories are adversarial in nature. But they were relatives so the 'drinking buddy' stories were common as well. Several of the Archangels names are from other gods from the pantheon, they just got demoted.

This is also why his omnipotence seems to radically alter so much. Several of the stories are about the other gods of the pantheon. Yhwh was inserted into those stories in place of gods with radically differing profiles and personalities. Hence why the bible makes him so schizophrenic as well.

Stuart wrote:That actually happened. The guilty parties used a lady of the night's lipstick not a tattoo parlor but the rest of it is true. It happened at Red Flag.

Did it also involve a new pilot disrespectful of the planes of the past?

I haven't said that.

and the suggestion about a gay pilot vs. the angels),

Nor that.

Both conceded without qualification. As it is I love what you've done with this thusfar, even if I'm finding the Hell/Heaven parts by far the best, both novel yet great culture clashes. (I concede that if I'd ended up writing it, it would be far more cut and dry than what you've done.) It's just that some ideas if implemented I would find "fanservice-y" (a subjective term I admit), whereas the battles and views of the non-humans seem to avert this entirely.

P.S. That this story basically kicks the concept behind KOEI's Warriors games (although Oda Nobunaga isn't really demonized despite epitomizing the switch to "modern" warfare) squa in the balls is but a side benefit.

Edward Yee wrote:

Stuart wrote:That actually happened. The guilty parties used a lady of the night's lipstick not a tattoo parlor but the rest of it is true. It happened at Red Flag.

Did it also involve a new pilot disrespectful of the planes of the past?

Yes, twas mentioned earlier in the thread; IIRC it was an F-16 driver falling victim to an RAF Avro Shackleton crew.

Starglider wrote: The energy requirements of opening portals from hell to earth are much lower than from earth to hell. Given that the demons manage it with bioelectricity only, easily low enough that the equipment to do so could be packed into an APC or helicopter. The process is currently bottlenecked on needing 'psychics' (which are very rare) to target the signals, but eventually some kind of technological beacon-based system will improvised. At that point sending casualties directly back to earth medical facilities via portal will be possible.

But that's for the future. In the short term, I imagine an airlift back to the massive fortified field hospital undoubtadly being built near the hellmouth is the best you're going to get.

I recall reading the National Geographic article about how medi-vac is done in Iraq right now. Since we won't have reliable comns and transportation(no GPS and problematic helicopter transport), won't the first part of the chain break-down?

Similarly, hell is a hostile environment to life and healing. Poisonous fumes from sulphur dioxide, particulates interfering with wound healing and introducing a source of infection...........

Oh BTW:

Academia Nut wrote:you could sow an absurd amount of chaos in the ranks of the angels (I still say their derisive name should be percys).

remember that only a tiny fraction of the world actually understands the reference. Everyone is calling them baldricks because the UK PM happened to call them that in a morale-raising speech that became famous. UK military personnel might start calling them that, unofficially, once they have significant contact with angels (obviously that hasn't happened yet). The meme would have to spread from there.

PainRack wrote:

Starglider wrote: The energy requirements of opening portals from hell to earth are much lower than from earth to hell. Given that the demons manage it with bioelectricity only, easily low enough that the equipment to do so could be packed into an APC or helicopter. The process is currently bottlenecked on needing 'psychics' (which are very rare) to target the signals, but eventually some kind of technological beacon-based system will improvised. At that point sending casualties directly back to earth medical facilities via portal will be possible.

But that's for the future. In the short term, I imagine an airlift back to the massive fortified field hospital undoubtadly being built near the hellmouth is the best you're going to get.

I recall reading the National Geographic article about how medi-vac is done in Iraq right now. Since we won't have reliable comns and transportation(no GPS and problematic helicopter transport), won't the first part of the chain break-down?

Similarly, hell is a hostile environment to life and healing. Poisonous fumes from sulphur dioxide, particulates interfering with wound healing and introducing a source of infection...........

Well the people down there can survive them easily enough...

Is the healing effect of people's first death, the ability to be immortal extended to people down there?

Well the people down there can survive them easily enough...

Is the healing effect of people's first death, the ability to be immortal extended to people down there?

No. Considering that the live soldiers who went to hell started felling the bad effects after only a few days.
The healing only works for people who are already dead.

CASEVAC will probably need to be done the way it was before the '50s, i.e. by vehicles, unless helicopters can reliably operate in Hell. GPS is a nice addition but it's not vital, after all CASEVAC worked well enough before it was available.

JN1 wrote:GPS is a nice addition but it's not vital, after all CASEVAC worked well enough before it was available.

RDF (e.g. TACAN) will work just fine as soon as the humans have captured a beachhead and set up some ground stations.

Starglider wrote: RDF (e.g. TACAN) will work just fine as soon as the humans have captured a beachhead and set up some ground stations.

GPS in Hell is dead, there's nowhere for the satellites to orbit or anything for them to orbit (imagine the Hell-Place as a Moebius Strip). Older navigational aids such as Shoran, TACAN etc will work; its just the setting up that takes time. This has quite a few implications by the way; GPS guided weaponry won't work either - a GPS-guided smart bomb is a dumb bomb. that means we have to rely on laser designators etc

As will become apparent, Hell itself (the giant caldera) is a very unpleasant place to be and not-dead humans can't stay there for too long without elaborate precautions. The rest of Hell isn't nearly so bad although it has a few quirks of its own.

Given how horribly dusty the atmosphere in hell is, I wouldn't even put that much faith in laser designators. Though the strike by the Hellfire's against the reviewing stand with that Predator might show the lasers work fine.

Edward Yee wrote: Did it also involve a new pilot disrespectful of the planes of the past?

Oh yes - as pointed out, an RAF Shackleton. Red Flag is full of little incidents like that. If you're all good, I'll tell you of the stunt some Saudi F-15 drivers pulled

It's just that some ideas if implemented I would find "fanservice-y" (a subjective term I admit), whereas the battles and views of the non-humans seem to avert this entirely.

The story is already plotted out to its conclusion. The way I do things is to first write out an outline plot and then a detailed plot that is quite extensive. Outside contributions have to fit with that outline plot and are massaged by me to do so before they get included.

In plot terms, we're about a third of the way through the story, entering now into the second part. The first part was how humans dealt with hell, the second is about hell and demons deal with the reality of the humans as they are discovering them. The third part really relates to how humans deal with heaven and its consequences.