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Gil Hamilton wrote:

MKSheppard wrote:Shoulda planned it a bit better. Get one of those old artillery shell rounds, so that Michael can't figure out the weight of that nuke. I mean, 1-2 kilotons will kill him just as well as 50 kt; I mean, it's not like he's going to be any appreciable distance from the cart.

Shame on you, Shep. What kind of nukeosexual are you if you don't recognize that if you can blow up an archangel with a 2kT warhead and a 50kT warhead, the 50kT is OBVIOUSLY the more awesome choice?

Jamesfirecat wrote:Though how come he wasn't able to make a portal as close to himself as he was in El Paso? I'll just assume it has something to do with the wounds he picked up in Sandiego unless there's a better explanation out there.

SCRawl wrote:That thought occurred to me as well. But I wonder if it really would take any more time to open a portal to, say, Washington? In any case, it implies to me that Petraeus was still opening himself up to tremendous risk by putting a nuke within Michael's reach. I probably would have done the same thing, but it was still carried the possibility of having it blow up in my face (pun intended).

CaptainChewbacca wrote:Do american jets contain video equipment for recording what happens OUTSIDE the craft? We've just had our first live recon of heaven, however brief it may have been. Even ten seconds of footage or a single good picture of the city itself would be invaluable.

MKSheppard wrote:

CaptainChewbacca wrote:Do american jets contain video equipment for recording what happens OUTSIDE the craft? We've just had our first live recon of heaven, however brief it may have been. Even ten seconds of footage or a single good picture of the city itself would be invaluable.

Um, it's called the gun camera. Remember, Wong had his fire control radar on and armed for the AIR-120 shots; so the camera was rolling when he shot Uriel, then went through the portal, then gunned down that angel, and came back.

MKSheppard wrote:

Jamesfirecat wrote:and we've got more than enough to make sure even a gigantic angel gets high.

Wow, I totally missed that point. Angels are probably a bit larger than humans even at the lower scale; and that means more drugs will be needed overall.

Gil Hamilton wrote:

MKSheppard wrote:Shoulda planned it a bit better. Get one of those old artillery shell rounds, so that Michael can't figure out the weight of that nuke. I mean, 1-2 kilotons will kill him just as well as 50 kt; I mean, it's not like he's going to be any appreciable distance from the cart.

Shame on you, Shep. What kind of nukeosexual are you if you don't recognize that if you can blow up an archangel with a 2kT warhead and a 50kT warhead, the 50kT is OBVIOUSLY the more awesome choice?

Jamesfirecat wrote:

Wow, I totally missed that point. Angels are probably a bit larger than humans even at the lower scale; and that means more drugs will be needed overall.

The real question is, how long until we get our selves a living angel or at least some fairly intact angel carcasses to play with?

Shroom Man 777 wrote:Why are B-1Cs using the "Spirit of..." names? Aren't those reserved for the B-2s?

Jamesfirecat wrote:Also in response to the question of if we just handed Micheal a 50KT warhead and the ability to have sent it anywhere, remember even he seems to need a Nephilliam in order to pick the location he portals down to earth. (Do angels need Nephs the way that Baldricks do? It certaintly makes more sense then them not needing them) Thus with him not knowing how much time was left on the bomb is he more likely to play "where in the world is Carmen Sandiego" and try to find an unprotected Neph nearby some big important human target, or is he going to go with the one whose location he knows by heart and send the cart right back where it came from ASAP?

Darth Wong wrote:I think perhaps people are forgetting the urgency of the situation (maybe the story hasn't mentioned it enough times for it to sink in). People are dying in large numbers as a result of all these different kinds of attacks, and Earth has been taking it on the chin pretty badly for some time now. The story tends to focus on Earth's attempts to strike back rather than doing as a Hollywood movie would do, and dwelling on the losses and emotions associated with those losses, so it's easy to lose track of that. Basically, anywhere in the world that there's severe weather (and there's usually severe weather somewhere), the enemy is making it worse and causing large-scale destruction and death. In countries whose infrastructure is not as well-built as ours, the effects of such attacks would be even worse. There is some real urgency, and so a certain amount of risk-taking is not out of line.

Shroom Man 777 wrote:Why are B-1Cs using the "Spirit of..." names? Aren't those reserved for the B-2s?

Simon_Jester wrote:

Shroom Man 777 wrote:Why are B-1Cs using the "Spirit of..." names? Aren't those reserved for the B-2s?

What B-2s?

Darth Wong wrote:I also imagine that this operation was thrown together really quickly. If you really wanted to make a weapon designed to go through a portal and be certain that it detonates only in Heaven rather than any high-value Earth target, you'd probably set it up so that it scans for the kind of radio transmissions that you'd find near any large modern city. If it doesn't pick up any such transmissions, then it must not be anywhere near any modern urban centre, so it must have passed through the portal without being sent back here somehow, and it can go off.

Stuart wrote:Michael reached out with his mind and detected the familiar ground he used for his transits to and from Earth.

Ted C wrote:

Darth Wong wrote:I also imagine that this operation was thrown together really quickly. If you really wanted to make a weapon designed to go through a portal and be certain that it detonates only in Heaven rather than any high-value Earth target, you'd probably set it up so that it scans for the kind of radio transmissions that you'd find near any large modern city. If it doesn't pick up any such transmissions, then it must not be anywhere near any modern urban centre, so it must have passed through the portal without being sent back here somehow, and it can go off.

I was thinking some kind of "dead man's switch" would be the best way to guarantee detonation. At first I was thinking that a radio transmission from the forward observers would have worked, but I don't think radio signals cross portals the way matter does, which leads to a similar problem with the "any common radio transmissions" as a switch. The bomb could presumably detonate while the portal is still open, and I'm not sure what effect that would have.