All this talk about opening portals to inject energy or cold air or whatnot made me realize that this could be the start, the first baby steps, of real weather control. The National Weather Service would be all up ons. Weaken storms into gentle showers, make it rain to stop droughts, heck, ski resorts would probably pay well to get cold weather and perfect snow for their slopes. Another thing to be explored in the third book?
[Takes off Thinking Cap and puts on Making Up Crazy Shit Cap]
Alright, Uriel promised to cause all sorts of suffering and death in Africa before. And while we haven't been given descriptions of the bodies of the dead in South America, we do know that the rich and their servants are more likely to survive than the poor and the survivors' descriptions of time seeming to slow down, everything getting quiet, and all the animals dying (just animals, right? No plants, I'm guessing).
Now it could be something that effects the central nervous system and that can be blocked with aluminum in the walls or electricity or whatever, but I'm wearing the Crazy Shit Cap right now so I have a much more exotic idea.
Anyone else heard of
lake overturn? There are some lakes in the Great Rift Valley that are highly saturated with carbon dioxide and they can "overturn" releasing all the CO2 at once. The CO2 then flows downhill and asphyxiates all animal life in its path. People going to the villages after overturn events noted the incredibly eerie silences there because even the chirping and buzzing of insects had ceased.
So my crazy guess is that Uriel is asphyxiating everyone and everything animal in these towns by pushing in a lot of carbon dioxide (or possibly also taking out the oxygen). It's a quick death, though one could try to struggle against it (but with the caveat that most attempts to fight it, like gasping for air, would be counterproductive). So, how would rich people in their mansions survive?
Firstly, rich people in these countries tend to live on the higher ground. If CO2 is suffocating people, it'd affect the people in the lower areas and not the high ground. Secondly, they can afford to have equipment like air conditioners and fans, so their houses will have more air circulation, making it harder for Uriel to get the CO2 concentration or whatever to fatal levels.
Thirdly...crap, now I forget. Eh, I'll post later if I remember it.
Anyway, why bring up lake overturn instead of just saying "he suffocates them all"? Remember that thing about Africa? There's a giant lake there, Lake Kivu. It is filled with CO2. It is also filled with methane. Cores drilled in the bottom of the lake show alternating layers of sand and then dark organic material, each about a thousand years apart.
The lake freaking explodes every thousand years and creates a massive tsunami that kills everything in its valley and washes it all into the lake bed where it creates that organic layer. It takes more than just a cigarette tossed in the lake or something little like that to ignite the methane. Something like lava
from the volcano next door to the freaking lake would apparently suffice, though.
Oh yeah, and two million people live around the lake. Maybe a little less in this 'verse from Message deaths, but maybe even more if refugees have been flooding in from whatever chaos is going on in the aftermath.
[removes Making Up Crazy Shit Cap]
I'm probably completely wrong, but I had fun speculating and that's why I have that cap. Now back to the actual discussions.
"Final Death Problem" I think is not getting it's share of attention, because unprotected undead are so much more vulnerable to death, and they are also so much more afraid of it (now) than Earth humans would ever be...
?