The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Eighty One Up

[GrayAnderson]

Yeah...let's just file this under a situation that I'd rather not consider. Also, removing this issue you could slap a brain activity floor into the Minos Gate sweeping-up of souls somewhere along the line. Birth is a bit of an arbitrary line to draw (especially as development state at birth is an issue), but you could make a case for the quickening (which was, at one point during the Middle Ages, the "no abortion" line within the Catholic Church) or some similar stage. Of course, putting any sort of line like that in also makes for a potential "You will carry until point X" law to be put forward.

Anyhow...this is a rather rough topic for me to work with and I would rather not deal with it (note that this doesn't happen much, but we're in that territory now)...it does make me a hair uncomfortable.

So, how's the weather?

[GenghisQuan]

Well, cleaning up is often the hard part. Speaking of heavy artillery, what about the Republic of China (Taiwan) Army's 240mm howitzers. They have a few on Kinmen and I believe they are still fully operational. Speaking of the ROCA, which Army group did they get bunched in with?

They're in with the Chinese Army Group. The 240mms are towed guns IIRC so they're around but probably a way back in the marching order.

Speaking as a Chinese National, that situation must be *fun* for all involved. Loved the chapter with the Korean War vets vs the Berserker in Armageddon????, btw.

[Stuart]

The foetus bit has gone; more for practical reasons than anything else. There have been a few other significant changes as well that improve the flow and readability of the story.

The Souls to Heaven question will be resolved in one of the six parts left to come. Animals go elsewhere (and they feature in The Lords Of War)

The potential of both angels and daemons to overtake humans is well-founded. As I've said many times; neither were dumb or stupid. They actually adapted to what was happening very fast; it was just that they didn't have time to bridge the gap that had sprung up (one of the reasons why Michael was frantically buying time). Also, the fact that they lived in a society and under a system that positively discouraged innovation or development was a crippling disadvantage. One of the effects of the Salvation War has been to destroy that society, violently in the case of Hell, by internal coup in the case of Heaven. Note that Drippy was already beginning to realize the potential for daemons adopting human methodology and society and he was just a low-level daemonic soldier. Abigor has also realized that and is hard at work getting humans to accept daemons.

[Mayabird]

That makes things a bit easier, but now we have to wonder at what age Minos gate starts accepting people.

...so if the animals go elsewhere, is there a planet of the apes?

[Guardsman Bass]

I'm still wondering how Yahweh and Michael-Lan would "grab" people on the reincarnation path and pull them into Heaven (instead of them being dumped out the Minos Gate in Hell). Is that going to show up in Lords of War, Stuart?

[thegreatpl]

i would think it would.

The way I always imagined the Minos gate working is that it is but a single part of an entire network of gates, with each bubble world having one. So, Heaven has it's own gate somewhere.

Then the control of what soul goes where is judged according to a number of rules. Perhaps if you believe in that religion you end up going to that afterlife, or that Pantheon gets rights to your soul. This can be changed and given up, perhaps as terms as a loss of war, or perhaps being forced to change things as a result of the war. So as a result of Yahweh winning the war against the Aesir (or however you spell it) they were forced to give up rights to all souls on Earth, or forced to reroute all their souls to Yahweh's system. And the same with all the other gods.

I also wandered this; can the Minos gate and it's equivalents be moved? I know Stuart has hinted at some sort of super intelligent and alien beings on the other side, but perhaps they are the administrators for this soul network, and maybe creators. As for why they did it, who knows?

[tim31]

That makes things a bit easier, but now we have to wonder at what age Minos gate starts accepting people.

...so if the animals go elsewhere, is there a planet of the apes?

A.) once they become self aware?

B.) Better than that, I'm hoping that the Devils turn out to be DINO RIDERS!

[Atlan]

The foetus bit has gone; more for practical reasons than anything else. There have been a few other significant changes as well that improve the flow and readability of the story.

Please tell me that Pres. Bush still utters the line "Ladies, Gentlemen, Karl."

[GrayAnderson]

The foetus bit has gone; more for practical reasons than anything else. There have been a few other significant changes as well that improve the flow and readability of the story.

Please tell me that Pres. Bush still utters the line "Ladies, Gentlemen, Karl."

Oh, I'm sure that's there. That was more in response to Karl commenting on Michigan switching sides due to Detroit being destroyed.

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

I'm hoping the "Wild Bill Clinton" scene stays, that was hilarious.

"I've been married to Hillary for thirty years, believe me, I can spot a fiend from Hell."

[thegreatpl]

i'm sure that will be. There is nothing controversial about that. The fetus parts were just complete squick, and the potential to be detrimental to sales.

[Nematocyst]

So the paper version of Armageddon is nearing release?

[Stuart]

So the paper version of Armageddon is nearing release?

Getting nearer, yes. I've got the first set of authors proofs back now and I'm doing the next pass of corrections

[Chamale]

Animals go elsewhere (and they feature in The Lords Of War)

Those bubble-worlds would tend to get very crowded, as many animals create huge numbers of young and have a less than 1% survival rate. If animals of any one family go into the same bubble universe, opening up the Formicidae bubble 'verse would cause the Earth to be buried under a planet-sized ball of every ant to live in the past 100 million years*. Even dead, the ants would be a threat by sheer mass, and the portal would likely emerge into a deep pool of ants. If it couldn't be shut off, there'd be another Sheffield disaster, but on a continental scale.

On the other hand, if those bubble universes contain only one genus each, there'd have to be over 100,000 bubble universes. That's 100,000 Minos gates. Those curators must be very busy.

* A very conservative estimate is that there are 1 quadrillion (1,000,000,000,000,000) ants in the world. If we assume that this estimate is consistently correct, even though conditions were often better for ants than they are now, that would be well over 100 hexillion (100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) ants, assuming these ants live an unrealistic full year. Giving each ant a light average weight of 1 milligram, that's 100 trillion metric tons of ants.

However, there's one thing I'm wondering about. In the Salvation War story, should we keep assuming that the Universe is 14 billion years old? There's good evidence for that age, but as some cretinists believe in our world, Yahweh or Satan could have faked that evidence.

[Darmalus]

Remember, 2nd lifers can die again, and they don't come back (as far as we know). So all those ants have been killing each other for the last 100 million years too. Their universe might be ant city, but I doubt it would be quite that bad. Still, a layer of compressed dead ants several miles deep... would that be a geologist's dream or nightmare?

[SirNitram]

So the paper version of Armageddon is nearing release?

Getting nearer, yes. I've got the first set of authors proofs back now and I'm doing the next pass of corrections

So will I be getting a cut from my kicking off the thought of the invasion of hell?

Glad to hear it!

[Chamale]

Remember, 2nd lifers can die again, and they don't come back (as far as we know). So all those ants have been killing each other for the last 100 million years too. Their universe might be ant city, but I doubt it would be quite that bad. Still, a layer of compressed dead ants several miles deep... would that be a geologist's dream or nightmare?

An ant can survive having its head cut off, and could probably regenerate it before dying of starvation or being killed by other ants. The death rate would be non-trivial, but much lower than for first-life warring ant colonies. Those ants might be eaten by other ants, but what happens then? Second-lifers can eat food and excrete normally, but do they simply stop absorbing energy from the universe and get calories from the food instead?

A few quintillion ants simultaneously regrowing halves of their bodies probably wouldn't overwhelm the regeneration energy, considering how much regeneration happens in the tar and acid pits of Hell. I'm not sure the mysterious healing even has a reachable energy limit; but if anything could push that limit, ant-world would have a solid chance.

[MrCIA]

However, there's one thing I'm wondering about. In the Salvation War story, should we keep assuming that the Universe is 14 billion years old? There's good evidence for that age, but as some cretinists believe in our world, Yahweh or Satan could have faked that evidence.

I have trouble seeing how either of those two could fake the astronomical evidence for the age of the universe. They were no doubt both incredibly powerful and capable of manipulating energy on a human scale. But on even a stellar scale they were nothing more than trivial nonentities. So I don't think I will even try to formulate how inconsequential they were on a universal scale.

[darksoul]

Remember, 2nd lifers can die again, and they don't come back (as far as we know). So all those ants have been killing each other for the last 100 million years too. Their universe might be ant city, but I doubt it would be quite that bad. Still, a layer of compressed dead ants several miles deep... would that be a geologist's dream or nightmare?

An ant can survive having its head cut off, and could probably regenerate it before dying of starvation or being killed by other ants. The death rate would be non-trivial, but much lower than for first-life warring ant colonies. Those ants might be eaten by other ants, but what happens then? Second-lifers can eat food and excrete normally, but do they simply stop absorbing energy from the universe and get calories from the food instead?

A few quintillion ants simultaneously regrowing halves of their bodies probably wouldn't overwhelm the regeneration energy, considering how much regeneration happens in the tar and acid pits of Hell. I'm not sure the mysterious healing even has a reachable energy limit; but if anything could push that limit, ant-world would have a solid chance.

There is still the chance that not all animals are of interest for the Minos operators, if it is artificial, or not all of them are in a sufficiently organized level of energy (complexity of mind, again) to be rerouted. The more complex the animal the less the numbers, so that takes care of the ant world (and every other insect world, for that matter).

[CaptainChewbacca]

So will I be getting a cut from my kicking off the thought of the invasion of hell?

Glad to hear it!

Maybe 15% of the profits can go to board maintenance?

[GrayAnderson]

The Souls to Heaven question will be resolved in one of the six parts left to come. Animals go elsewhere (and they feature in The Lords Of War)

So, if all dogs don't go to heaven, where do they go?:p

On a more serious note, as someone else said, this starts raising interesting issues about "full" bubbles.

The potential of both angels and daemons to overtake humans is well-founded. As I've said many times; neither were dumb or stupid. They actually adapted to what was happening very fast; it was just that they didn't have time to bridge the gap that had sprung up (one of the reasons why Michael was frantically buying time). Also, the fact that they lived in a society and under a system that positively discouraged innovation or development was a crippling disadvantage. One of the effects of the Salvation War has been to destroy that society, violently in the case of Hell, by internal coup in the case of Heaven. Note that Drippy was already beginning to realize the potential for daemons adopting human methodology and society and he was just a low-level daemonic soldier. Abigor has also realized that and is hard at work getting humans to accept daemons.

So in other words, had Michael had a decade or two to play with, we'd probably have been up the infamous creek in at least some form. It does raise the question: What would Michael have done, given a totally free hand at the start of the first book?

[darksoul]

So in other words, had Michael had a decade or two to play with, we'd probably have been up the infamous creek in at least some form. It does raise the question: What would Michael have done, given a totally free hand at the start of the first book?

Nothing, probably. being a fan of human gadgetry and society, he would probably not interfere with us at all, while at the same time leech us ideas and technology. He would shape Heaven into capitalism and some form of controlled democracy. Humanity can go to Hell, literally, except a selected few like he does now.

Michael had said that he admires humanity`s creativity, that the Message was a bad idea, and is frantically driven to reshape angelic society. No need to destroy the humans that provide him with technology and art while they dont learn of Heaven`s existance.

In a lot of ways, the Message was a Good Thing. Michael would had denied us that, so it was good that he wasn`t in charge.

[GrayAnderson]

darksoul,
I'm inclined to expect that he would have opened the gates a bit wider, if only because the small number he was letting in was (I presume) somewhat restricted by the governing situation.

Actually, I'm reminded of the situation with Greek Elysium in what I suspect he would have done: The most useful 1% or so (maybe even less, but I'm assuming the numbers would be at least measured in the hundreds of thousands rather than hundreds...do consider that with ten billion humans in already, 100,000 a year would probably amount to replacements for second life humans lost to accidents, etc. plus a very small increase alongside the angelic population). So Mikey handpicks those he likes for their creativity, scientific skill, etc. You need to have attracted his or someone in the command structure's notice to get in, and a small number of others might be brought in to help set up things like assembly lines or aid those who get picked.

[darksoul]

darksoul,
I'm inclined to expect that he would have opened the gates a bit wider, if only because the small number he was letting in was (I presume) somewhat restricted by the governing situation.

Actually, I'm reminded of the situation with Greek Elysium in what I suspect he would have done: The most useful 1% or so (maybe even less, but I'm assuming the numbers would be at least measured in the hundreds of thousands rather than hundreds...do consider that with ten billion humans in already, 100,000 a year would probably amount to replacements for second life humans lost to accidents, etc. plus a very small increase alongside the angelic population). So Mikey handpicks those he likes for their creativity, scientific skill, etc. You need to have attracted his or someone in the command structure's notice to get in, and a small number of others might be brought in to help set up things like assembly lines or aid those who get picked.

well, yes, of course. that sounds like something he would do. A fearsome elite society, that would be.
Also, if Heaven gets too crowded, he could institute some kind of social index of utility. Rank too low, and you`ll go as low as you can get in Hell Pits... Population control.

but I dont see Heaven getting too crowded, taking into account its natural size and the fact that if Michael would do that he would have the technology for good communication to shrink it.

Still, a good thing he wasn`t the man in charge when it counted.

[Lonestar]

So will I be getting a cut from my kicking off the thought of the invasion of hell?

Glad to hear it!

O think that anyone who has participated in the TSW threads(not necessarily you, mind) that tries to insist upon a "cut" is a cad of the first order. I think a acknowledgement of the board will probably be in there, if the TBO series are anything to go by.