The Salvation War - Lords of War not going to be written?

[Guardsman Bass]

Now that issue's past, anyone here have ideas for a continuation fanfic?

Don't you mean: "any ideas for a continuation fanfic???????"

You gotta have that punctuation son. That's how people know you're a real author.

God, the punctuation . . .

The "??????" always bothered me as well. A single "?" would have made the title seem mysterious.

[Omeganian]

A lot of authors have their copyright violated, yet they continue writing. Perhaps Stuart is merely disappointed that so few people are doing it to him?

[Tasoth]

What strikes me as strange is the attempt to get something posted on the internet published as a book. I could see if the story was redone completely or the third book was stand alone. But publishing the first two books that have been free for a while is strange.

[Kingmaker]

And what, exactly, is the problem with that?

its execution resulted in a gigantic steaming pile of shit that was as well received as it was chiefly because it pandered shamelessly to the gun-fucking atheist crowd.

You tell me, Jack.

[The Vortex Empire]

The Salvation War was great in the sense that it was like a mindless action flick. It's like a Michael Bay movie. The plot sucks, the execution sucks, the cinematography sucks, everything about it sucks, but it's still fun to watch because there's lots of explosions.

[Simon_Jester]

Eh.

I think the first one actually had a bit more than that- not totally mindless. The second one had trouble, because the caliber of the plot declined, the action got jerkier with more bit characters introduced for new circumstances, and because there was a growing sense of the sheer psychological weirdness of the human response to the war.

Though even the first one suffered badly from the "demons slaughtered by MASSED ARTILLERY" aspect- the sense of dramatic tension died very early, and Stuart didn't make any real efforts to bring it back to life.

[Serafina]

Yes, Stuart sucks at dramatic tension. Which can actually be fine if he is trying to make a point - like he did in "The Big One", where the point was more or less "Nazi Germany can not win no matter how much everything goes in their favor". TSW made a similar point, but it was made at the end of the first part. So the second part quickly ended up without such a point and without dramatic tension. Maybe there were some other points, but they were not as strong and thus not able to carry the story.

[Kingmaker]

As was pointed out in the criticism thread a while back, Armageddon (fuck those question marks) is short story/novella material. Without making the forces of Hell more competent and powerful, it's akin to watching a 4 hour movie about Superman rampaging through a school for the mentally impaired, physically infirm, and incorrigibly belligerent: it might be amusing the first few times the Man of Steel aerosolizes a crippled, retarded kid, but then you've got another 230 minutes of Superman murdering belligerent school children, stopping only to spout off about how awesome he is.

Armageddon has maybe enough material for a 40-50k word novella given its initial premise: start with the chaos in society after the message (which is another problem I had with TSW as written), set the climax at the first big demonic invasion, and finish it all off with the aftermath and plans for a counter-attack on hell.

edit: to clarify, Armageddon does not need to be anywhere close to as long as it is to make its "point".

[Bakustra]

SHIT. Bastard fundies.

You do know that the only evidence that the guy who did it was a religious fundamentalist was from Stuart, who, as fgalkin has pointed out, has lied blatantly about other aspects of this situation? In fact, the person who did it said that that was a joke- that the story was so offensive to the religious that he doubted it was worth his effort to package it as a torrent, or something like that. That was pretty likely Stuart just manipulating you into damning the poor dumb kid from the start.

[Guardsman Bass]

TSW made a similar point, but it was made at the end of the first part.

I don't think he was so great at explaining that point (which, if I remember his commentary, was about how much warfare has changed in recent years). The point might have been much clearer if he had started with a short Bronze/Iron Age prologue showing the difficulties in killing a demon.

As was pointed out in the criticism thread a while back, Armageddon (fuck those question marks) is short story/novella material. Without making the forces of Hell more competent and powerful, it's akin to watching a 4 hour movie about Superman rampaging through a school for the mentally impaired, physically infirm, and incorrigibly belligerent: it might be amusing the first few times the Man of Steel aerosolizes a crippled, retarded kid, but then you've got another 230 minutes of Superman murdering belligerent school children, stopping only to spout off about how awesome he is.

Part of the problem is that Stuart decided not to show the severe strain on the nations of Earth to support the war effort against Hell (although he talked about how they came close to running out of fuel and ammunition) during Armageddon???? itself. The story would have been more interesting if he had decided to do that, and shown the war effort stalling due to the supply problems. He could have made an excellent point about some of the difficulties in a modern war effort (particularly a situation where we have to suddenly scale up to full-blown war mobilization).

Armageddon has maybe enough material for a 40-50k word novella given its initial premise: start with the chaos in society after the message (which is another problem I had with TSW as written), set the climax at the first big demonic invasion, and finish it all off with the aftermath and plans for a counter-attack on hell.

I'd prefer an anthology of stories. You could do one right after the Message (when many of the religious folk are simply lying down to die), one from the perspective of the resistance in Hell, one or two from demonic perspectives, a major battle, and so forth.

I'm not sure how you would salvage Pantheocide. I enjoyed much of it, but it was definitely a lot weaker than Armageddon as a story. Maybe contrasting stories showing a coup'de'tat in Heaven by Michael, with the aftermath of the War on Hell on Earth.

[Shroom Man 777]

A Michael Bay movie has heroes making clever one liners and "shit just got real" and being entertaining funny whatevers, and maybe you can have Belial being imprisoned and screaming about "YAHWEH'S BUTTHOLE!" and Lt. Mike Wong saying that an angel is the rocket man while Abrigor goes on about taking pleasure in gutting you, boy.

Smarmageddon had boring people in office meetings talking about boring stuff.

Or, in other words:

“Man, what’s up with these guys?” Private Phant chuckled. Under his ominous respirator, the sounds that came out made the peasants even more fearful for their lives.

“Simple,” the previously silent and unseen fourth man of their Doomvee, Private Last Class Piles Sarevokerritch, uttered as he got out of the Doomvee. “In accordance with the USMC’s Hell Doctrine, the denizens of Hell - Baldrick and second-life human alike - can be made to comply with sufficient shows of force owing to their primitive intellects. If we show them how superior our technology is, which to them will be indiscernible from magic, then we will gain their respect and cooperation. This works better in Baldricks, since their primitive life-experiences are far more uniform than the second-lifers who may come in all ‘age groups’, so relatively more modern humans won’t be as intimidated while Bronze Agers from the Fertile Crescent will probably react much like the Baldricks. But according to the US Census Bureau’s Hell division, the strata of second-lifer society can be determined roughly geographically -”

“Shut it, pointdexter!” Captain Coffee growled as he emerged from the other Doomvee. “If I wanted an info dump, I’ll take a shit in the latrine and use the Washington Post to wipe my ass.”

“Or, alternatively, we could just talk to one of those limp-dicked science majors.” Corporal Zak Anderson chimed in. “Am I right?”

“Wrong,” Captain Coffee shot back. Thanks to that goddamn insubordinate Sargeant Strak, now everyone was following his bad habits. “Cause nobody wants to talk to any of those limp-dicked science majors. Now just go do your damned jobs and win me some hearts and poontangs. More the latter, fuck the former.”

Yes.

[Connor MacLeod]

For some reason I can't see Coffee as a Captain, but rather as a Commissar.

And if you try to run in combat. He'll punch you in the nuts. With a powerfist.

[Shroom Man 777]

Thank you for that idea. If I ever return to writing it, I will have Captain Coffee punch someone's nuts. Preferably someone making another long-ass boring diatribe of unrealistic dialogue.

"Real people don't talk that way! What the hell kind of books have you been reading?!" *nutpunches*

"Balls!" cried so-and-so. "My balls... they hurt..."

SATAN MERKATRIG

[Eternal_Freedom]

SHIT. Bastard fundies.

You do know that the only evidence that the guy who did it was a religious fundamentalist was from Stuart, who, as fgalkin has pointed out, has lied blatantly about other aspects of this situation? In fact, the person who did it said that that was a joke- that the story was so offensive to the religious that he doubted it was worth his effort to package it as a torrent, or something like that. That was pretty likely Stuart just manipulating you into damning the poor dumb kid from the start.

Yeah, we covered this a while back. I get the point.

[Andehtron]

I have been kicking around an idea for a TSW fanfic for a while, it was going to be a sort of boys own biggles type adventure with a group of eccentric British pilots flying these.....



Because no one else would touch them. Should I? Or should I not?

[Connor MacLeod]

Thank you for that idea. If I ever return to writing it, I will have Captain Coffee punch someone's nuts. Preferably someone making another long-ass boring diatribe of unrealistic dialogue.

"Real people don't talk that way! What the hell kind of books have you been reading?!" *nutpunches*

"Balls!" cried so-and-so. "My balls... they hurt..."

SATAN MERKATRIG

No no no. Commissar Coffee! Sorta like Ciaphas Cain, only grumpier and he looks like Raoul Julia as M Bison from the Street Fighter movie.

Tell me you wouldn't want to see Coffee as Raoul Julia punching Dolph Lundgren in the nuts with a powerfist.

[Phantasee]

Coffee will always look like Juan Valdez to me.

Juan Valdez with a power fist and cybernetic donkey...

[Shroom Man 777]

Sergeant Strak can be played by Bill Paxton.

[Darth Fanboy]

I picture Stark as Daniel Tosh

[LadyTevar]

Ok, this has really gotten OffTopic, and rather silly. Locked.