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Posted: 2008-05-02 08:35pm
by CaptainChewbacca
You know, the politics and maneuverings of Hell seems very Italian States, with Satan filling the sort of 'supreme' role of the Pope (sacriligious though the analogy may be).

Its all scheming, alliances, and playing back-and-forth. I wonder what Abigor would say if he read a copy of 'the prince'. He HAS to have a pretty good intellect to keep himself alive this long, it might give him a heart attack.

Posted: 2008-05-02 09:18pm
by Fyrwulf
Sea Skimmer wrote:Messy, but JP-8 shouldn’t too dangerous, and it would be way more efficient then using nothing but trucks.
Used to be what I thought as well, until I found out that some of the additives in JP-8 could be chemical weapons in their own right. You don't want to be breathing JP-8 fumes.

Posted: 2008-05-03 01:28am
by JBG
"I'll fill in the OOB as we go along. At the moment, the force in Hell is the Russian Shock Army with an Israeli and a European armored division in support. There's more stuff flowing in all the time. The US Corps is outside at the moment regrouping after the first big battle. You're right about the logistics; that would be a big factor in deciding who gets corped up with who. The Europeans can probably corps up quite well since there's a lot of equipment commonality due to NATO etc "

I like OOBs and TOEs etc so it was partly just wishful thinking as the pace and scope of the story so far don't lend themselves to "fact file" type info as with the TBOverse.

Still, the preponderance of Russian forces and the mix otherwise is certainly somewhat interesting.

Posted: 2008-05-03 02:14am
by Sea Skimmer
Fyrwulf wrote: Used to be what I thought as well, until I found out that some of the additives in JP-8 could be chemical weapons in their own right. You don't want to be breathing JP-8 fumes.
You don’t want to breath the fumes of any fuel, and you also wouldn’t want to breath the air around the hell mouth anyway with thousands of heavy military vehicles pouring through each hour. I can't see health concerns being reason enough not to do everything possible to pipeline the fuel. The European-Russian-Israeli force getting assembled could already have 45,000 vehicles even if a lot of support equipment is being left on earth. That’s a millions of gallons of fuel burned per day when they maneuver, weighing tens of thousands of tons.

Posted: 2008-05-03 07:58pm
by Fyrwulf
Just a thought on the nuclear retaliation. People have brought up good points about missiles maybe not working, but somebody else suggested atomic demolition munitions as an alternative. However, I think instead of actually sneaking somebody into Dis, what should happen is that ten SF teams should infiltrate the area around Dis and place the weapons in an equidistant polygon formation around Dis. Solves the no-ICBM problem but utilizes the classic counter-population strike tactic.

Posted: 2008-05-03 08:48pm
by Edward Yee
Fyrwulf wrote:the classic counter-population strike tactic.
That is?

Posted: 2008-05-04 03:45am
by Darth Wong
The cleaned-up version has been updated. Excellent chapter, Stuart.

Posted: 2008-05-04 06:40am
by Stuart Mackey
Fyrwulf wrote:. Solves the no-ICBM problem but utilizes the classic counter-population strike tactic.
And introduces the genocide problem :roll:

Posted: 2008-05-04 07:03am
by Starglider
Fyrwulf wrote:However, I think instead of actually sneaking somebody into Dis, what should happen is that ten SF teams should infiltrate the area around Dis and place the weapons in an equidistant polygon formation around Dis.
That implies groundbursts (lots of them - Dis is pretty huge and spread out all the way around the hell-pit) which implies significant fallout. We don't know how the humans in hell will react to radiation yet - it might screw up their regeneration ability. Massively irradiating a few billion human prisoners is not a good idea in any case.

The other question is how many military-capable demons you'd actually kill with this tactic - aside from the nobility, Dis may be mostly populated by non-combatants at this point. Remember, we'd prefer for their forces to surrender. If you take out the leadership and demonstrate that you only want to exterminate them, the armies in the field will fight even harder. We could nuke those too, but we literally don't have enough warheads to take out the entire plane (it's the size of Pangea after all) - although we could certainly seriously contaminate most of it. Meanwhile we still know nothing about heaven's capabilities while showing them ours.

In other words, keep your hot little hand out of the nukie jar ;)

Posted: 2008-05-04 03:10pm
by tveditor
Heaven seems to have been at least watching..I would thing they would have some idea...YAWEH did not seem surprised that Hell's Armies were crushed and I would think that the large mushroom clouds over Japan would have least been noticed.

Posted: 2008-05-04 04:35pm
by Zim
tveditor wrote:Heaven seems to have been at least watching..I would thing they would have some idea...YAWEH did not seem surprised that Hell's Armies were crushed and I would think that the large mushroom clouds over Japan would have least been noticed.
The thing is, what can heaven possibly do to defeat Earth's forces? Heaven and Hell seem pretty evenly matched as they fought each other to a stalemate those many millenia ago, and it seems that neither side's forces have improved much since both seem hesitant in fighting again.

Consequently, I really can't see the hosts of Heaven winning a stand-up fight against the humans, even if the angelic armies do outnumber their hellish counterparts.

That leaves hit and run attacks by the likes of Uriel. Whether those raids will still be effective remains to be seen.

Posted: 2008-05-04 05:01pm
by Wyrm
Recently, I've noticed my tendency to visit this particular subforum to see if Armageddon??? has been updated with a new chapter.

It's like crack, man! Or donuts! Or delicious, delicious cake!

Posted: 2008-05-04 05:14pm
by Sea Skimmer
Zim wrote: The thing is, what can heaven possibly do to defeat Earth's forces? Heaven and Hell seem pretty evenly matched as they fought each other to a stalemate those many millenia ago, and it seems that neither side's forces have improved much since both seem hesitant in fighting again.
I’d expect Hell probably had much greater numbers, Heaven much more powerful individuals, which could be powerful enough to be able to threaten modern combat vehicles and aircraft in a 1 on 1 battle. Now of course the battle will never be 1 on 1, and we’d win even if each angle could defeat a tank company, but it still has the potential to be a much messier fight then simply steamrolling bladricks. Anyway the fallout issue is more then reason enough not to use nuclear weapons if we don’t have to and the US doesn't have any atomic demolition munitions left anyway. ADMs are VERY dirty bombs too because your artificially making the bomb yield less then any nuke really wants too.

Posted: 2008-05-04 05:25pm
by Zim
Stuart wrote:
Abigor shrugged. “It was a long time ago. Two or three million of your years. We had found this planet and on opening a gate back to our home a mistake was made and we opened a gate to here. A place like Heaven but unoccupied except for unimportant creatures. We took it for our own. Then, Satan wanted it for his kingdom, separate from Yahweh’s Heaven. Yahweh wanted both. Satan rebelled and about a third of us joined him. The war went on for a long time but Satan won, Hell became his kingdom and Yahweh kept Heaven.”
To me the quote implies that a third of the angels rebelled along with Satan.

Posted: 2008-05-04 07:18pm
by Singular Quartet
Wyrm wrote:Recently, I've noticed my tendency to visit this particular subforum to see if Armageddon??? has been updated with a new chapter.

It's like crack, man! Or donuts! Or delicious, delicious cake!
I'd say click the "Watch this Topic" link, but that seems to be a little messed up at the moment. Perhaps because of the size of the thread?

Posted: 2008-05-04 07:27pm
by Fyrwulf
Stuart Mackey wrote:And introduces the genocide problem :roll:
Not really. Genocide implies the systemic annihilation of a race, which isn't what I'm suggesting here. Just taking out a strategic target in retaliation for the Demons hitting Detroit.

EDIT: And anyway, to use a real world example, if some nation were to nuke Detroit I'd happily order every city of the responsible nation glassed were I the NCA. And then I'd send Marines in to kill everything down to the last kitten. But then again, I'm a big fan of disproportionate response and doing something to make a point.

Posted: 2008-05-04 07:31pm
by Fyrwulf
Edward Yee wrote:That is?
I thought I explained it? Basically the idea is to ring a city with several smaller nuclear weapons as equidistantly as possible to more efficiently take out a city. For example, 8 400kt from a US ICBM landing in a pattern around Moscow is going to completely demolish the city and its suburbs, whereas a 25Mt MIRV from a Satan ICBM won't be anywhere near as efficient simply because the blast from one such warhead is significantly limited in the area it can cover compared to several smaller MIRVs.

Posted: 2008-05-04 07:32pm
by DarthShady
I'd say click the "Watch this Topic" link, but that seems to be a little messed up at the moment. Perhaps because of the size of the thread?
It works for me.
Not really. Genocide implies the systemic annihilation of a race, which isn't what I'm suggesting here. Just taking out a strategic target in retaliation for the Demons hitting Detroit.
If you are killing civilians it is genocide. :roll: It doesn't matter if the civilians are demons.

Posted: 2008-05-04 07:38pm
by Singular Quartet
DarthShady wrote:
I'd say click the "Watch this Topic" link, but that seems to be a little messed up at the moment. Perhaps because of the size of the thread?
It works for me.
Not really. Genocide implies the systemic annihilation of a race, which isn't what I'm suggesting here. Just taking out a strategic target in retaliation for the Demons hitting Detroit.
If you are killing civilians it is genocide. :roll: It doesn't matter if the civilians are demons.
Not really. Dropping a nuke on someone isn't genocide. For genocide, you have to aim for killing everybody. This is "just" a retaliatory strike.

Posted: 2008-05-04 07:39pm
by Fyrwulf
DarthShady wrote:If you are killing civilians it is genocide. :roll: It doesn't matter if the civilians are demons.
Rather afraid you're wrong. Killing civilians during a proportionate retaliation is simply regrettable collateral damage.
Dictionary.com wrote:Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) - Cite This Source - Share This
gen·o·cide Audio Help /ˈdʒɛnəˌsaɪd/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[jen-uh-sahyd] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun
the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group.
So, you see, simply hitting Dis (or Tartarus, if you'd like another example) wouldn't be genocide. Carpet nuking the entirety of Hell would be.

Posted: 2008-05-04 07:40pm
by fusion
Singular Quartet wrote:
Wyrm wrote:Recently, I've noticed my tendency to visit this particular subforum to see if Armageddon??? has been updated with a new chapter.

It's like crack, man! Or donuts! Or delicious, delicious cake!
I'd say click the "Watch this Topic" link, but that seems to be a little messed up at the moment. Perhaps because of the size of the thread?
It sends an e-mail every time someone posts... So that would mean thousands of emails... "So, no," is the answer.

Again, very good work Stuart. You need to write faster.

Can I get my Janeway Porn...

Posted: 2008-05-04 07:55pm
by Singular Quartet
fusion wrote:
Singular Quartet wrote:
Wyrm wrote:Recently, I've noticed my tendency to visit this particular subforum to see if Armageddon??? has been updated with a new chapter.

It's like crack, man! Or donuts! Or delicious, delicious cake!
I'd say click the "Watch this Topic" link, but that seems to be a little messed up at the moment. Perhaps because of the size of the thread?
It sends an e-mail every time someone posts... So that would mean thousands of emails... "So, no," is the answer.

Again, very good work Stuart. You need to write faster.

Can I get my Janeway Porn...
Ah, no. It only sends you an email the first time someone adds to the thread, until you look at the thread. It won't send you another email until you go to the thread.

In other terms: Whenever the thread changes from "you've read everything" to "There's new stuff here", it sends you an email. It does not send you an email everytime someone posts something.

Posted: 2008-05-04 08:00pm
by Darth Nostril
Sir I salute you for you are made of awesomanium

Posted: 2008-05-04 08:20pm
by DarthShady
So, you see, simply hitting Dis (or Tartarus, if you'd like another example) wouldn't be genocide. Carpet nuking the entirety of Hell would be.
Conceded.

But i still believe there is no need to use nukes on hell, because we are already kicking their asses. It's better to leave the good stuff for heaven.

Posted: 2008-05-04 08:29pm
by Darth Nostril
Given hells Moebius strip nature dropping a nuke anywhere is going to be bad news for the human inhabitants ...... the very people you need to recruit