StarDestroyer.Net BBS

I think most of us who already know just don't want to say so because we like to watch the noobs squirm with discomfort

That last chapter felt like something from TBO universe.

Darth Wong wrote:It's ... THE ELDER GODS FROM MORTAL KOMBAT!!!

Yes! Cheesy kung-fu villains that start turning into dragons in the ever-shittening sequels! Mu-ha-ha-ha!!! FATALITY

(OTOH, it would be awesome to see one of our PLF dudes punch a four-armed inbred baldrick in the nuts and throw him off a cliff...)


So, the TBO doesn't just have Spartafreedomerica with hypersonic bombers pwning everyone else, but it also has paranormal-ish MIBs?

Nice bit of character development there, Stu. A nice read.
I think I'll have to start calling devices Adams from now on.

Are the "Bowls of Wrath" Michael eluded to the same devices referenced in Revelation 16?

1 And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, Go your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth.
2 And the first went, and poured out his vial upon the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshipped his image.
3 And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea.
4 And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters; and they became blood.
5 And I heard the angel of the waters say, Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be, because thou hast judged thus.
6 For they have ashed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy.
7 And I heard another out of the altar say, Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are thy judgments.
8 And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire.
9 And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give him glory.
10 And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast; and his kingdom was full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues for pain,
11 And blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds.
12 And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.
...
17 And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done.
18 And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great.
19 And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath.
20 And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found.
21 And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent: and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great.

If so, I look forward to seeing the Wrath of God in action.

It seems like most of earth's casualties will be done by heaven. Question; How big is the heaven gate?

Disease and pestilence. Perhaps the Angelic Host is going to start raining virus bombs upon mankind! Spirit spores!

Stuart wrote:As a last warning to the humans we have gathered Uriel and the Bowls of Wrath.

Had a WTF? moment when I misread that as Bowels of Wrath

Time for a visit to the optician methinks

Worst Case "We're all fucked" Scenario:

Great, Yahweh has a large deep space Mass Driver hidden in the asteroid belt that going to start launching bigger and bigger projectiles. We're doomed unless the entire population of Earth dies and then moves into hell, and we decide to fight the war from there after occupying all of Satan's cities.

Getting the infrastructure set up would be a bitch but if there was a way to cut off access between Heaven and Hell, then it shouldn't be a problem.

Shroom Man 777 wrote:So, the TBO doesn't just have Spartafreedomerica with hypersonic bombers pwning everyone else, but it also has paranormal-ish MIBs?

In the TBOverse, some of the characters have unnaturally long lifetimes - the reason being that I wanted to study the likely results (good and bad) of a consistent series of policies (massive retaliation) played out over an extended period of time. There were lots of ways to do it - the old idea of generations etc but none really worked. Eventually I came up with the idea of some people having extended lives (due to very powerful immune systems that essentially repaired their bodies faster than ageing could degrade them) and trying to ensure that they had somewhere comfortable to live.

Having got the idea, it then became very useful as a vehicle to explore several other things. These included the problems of having a long life and in keeping the whole thing secret (and what would happen if it didn;t stay a secret). Another purpose was to compare people's attitudes and reactions to situations in different eras. By putting the same person into those different eras, the different habits and thought processes become apparent. That's why the TBO history starts in 1200 BC and ends (at present) in 2460.

Another thing was how people cope with their memories and the consequences of their actions. Hence Conrad, an Inquisitor who had a sudden crisis of conscience when he realized his whole life was built on a lie.

The "supernatural" bits are deliberate red herrings; they all get explained away either by coincidence, deliberate stage management or by people's imagination (for example the chilling effect of people walking into rooms is deliberately set up by manipulating air conditioning; the milk going sour and dogs hating the building is because the same air conditioning system was infected with legionnaires disease). Even the famous "talking bombers" is never quite clear whether the aircraft really do talk or its just a group delusion suffered by groups of people who work very closely together under highly stressful situations - although every pilot I know does talk to his aircraft and quite a few think their aircraft talks back at some level.

In the final analysis, there's nothing really pararnormal in TBO. Which makes it quite a contrast from Armageddon........

CaptainChewbacca wrote:It seems like most of earth's casualties will be done by heaven. Question; How big is the heaven gate?

Here's how to get a general idea. Presume that angels scale up in size similar to demons; then Michael should have an impressive wingspan, which barely reaches across the gate.

Stuart wrote:Which makes it quite a contrast from Armageddon........

In another sense, it's exactly the same thing. Armageddon seems to have paranormal phenomena, but (and I know I'm preaching to the preacher here) a big theme of the story is inquisitiveness and science versus blind acceptance. So what seems paranormal is, in reality, normal; we just have to readjust what "normal" means.

If Michael's wingspan crosses the gate, that means you probably couldn't drive a semi-truck through it. Methinks invading hell through a gate that small is problematic.

CaptainChewbacca wrote:If Michael's wingspan crosses the gate, that means you probably couldn't drive a semi-truck through it. Methinks invading hell through a gate that small is problematic.

I was imagining him to be huge. Like one of the Heralds.


Anyway. "Science and mockery of stupid people." Huzzah. Rally 'round!

And then there's that doom weapon called democracy.

Kodiak wrote:Are the "Bowls of Wrath" Michael eluded to the same devices referenced in Revelation 16?

1 And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, Go your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth.
2 And the first went, and poured out his vial upon the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshipped his image.
3 And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea.
4 And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters; and they became blood.
5 And I heard the angel of the waters say, Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be, because thou hast judged thus.
6 For they have ashed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy.
7 And I heard another out of the altar say, Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are thy judgments.
8 And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire.
9 And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give him glory.
10 And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast; and his kingdom was full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues for pain,
11 And blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds.
12 And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.
...
17 And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done.
18 And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great.
19 And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath.
20 And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found.
21 And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent: and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great.

If so, I look forward to seeing the Wrath of God in action.

The Bible has plenty of references to God using hailstones as weapons. It seems to be his preferred weapon, now that we know the pillar of fire is actually from Hell. In the Book of Job, it even refers to hailstones being kept in giant storehouses in the sky. But unless the destructive effect is vastly greater than that which is described in the Bible, it's not going to be the kind of doom weapon which can significantly change the balance of power here (and keep in mind that Satan's rebellion was successful, which is not possible if Yahweh commands such vastly superior power relative to Satan). The bigger problem is getting to the enemy in this case, not the level of firepower available.

CaptainChewbacca wrote:If Michael's wingspan crosses the gate, that means you probably couldn't drive a semi-truck through it. Methinks invading hell through a gate that small is problematic.

It's worth pointing out that it was never stated that you couldn't make more portals: only that it was forbidden to do so ever since the great Celestial War.

Darth Wong wrote:The bigger problem is getting to the enemy in this case, not the level of firepower available.

It's worth considering what 'the gates of heaven are closed' actually means in physical terms.

Starglider wrote: It's worth considering what 'the gates of heaven are closed' actually means in physical terms.

Or what happens when one drives a tank-dozer into them..............

Heaven and Hell seem to be very similar in terms of the method of getting there. But since Heaven hasn't had any new entrants in a thousand years, we would have serious trouble contacting people to conduct an incursion of the sort that we conducted into Hell. And they haven't conveniently made a huge gateway for us to use either.

However, it would be a fairly simple matter to use explosives to demolish all of the fortifications built up around Heaven's Gate, and from the sounds of it, you could at least drive smaller armoured vehicles through it. The goal here would be to expand the gate once you get forces on the other side. Ideally, enough of Hell's naga would survive that you could establish a beach head on the other side (though the initial incursion could be bloody) and expand the gate with their help (or create a new one on Earth).

Wait, wouldn't a nuke on an open portal radically enlarge it? Wasn't that why we can't nuke open portals?

Also, as far as God's hailstones go, if you'll recall they don't just have hail, they have FLAMING hail.

CaptainChewbacca wrote:Wait, wouldn't a nuke on an open portal radically enlarge it? Wasn't that why we can't nuke open portals?

Also, as far as God's hailstones go, if you'll recall they don't just have hail, they have FLAMING hail. :twisted:

So what does Yahweh plan to do, shoot methane hydrates at us?

How big is Michael compared to Abigor? Abigor was brought to the Iraq camp on the back of a truck. The Russians described the behemoth Herald they encountered as 100ft high and the Royal Guards encountered by Stevenson were 40ft high.

If Michael's wingspan is equal to his height, it should be possible to drive tanks through Heavengate.

Question: Can't portals be physically blocked? Ala the iris in the Stargate shows?

Shroom Man 777 wrote:Question: Can't portals be physically blocked? Ala the iris in the Stargate shows?

You can build a wall around them, but you can't prevent matter from re-materializing. Any moving object that passes through will hit whatever is blocking the portal as if there was no portal at all. So, they can build a wall, and we can shoot a missile through it.

CaptainChewbacca wrote:

Shroom Man 777 wrote:Question: Can't portals be physically blocked? Ala the iris in the Stargate shows?

You can build a wall around them, but you can't prevent matter from re-materializing. Any moving object that passes through will hit whatever is blocking the portal as if there was no portal at all. So, they can build a wall, and we can shoot a missile through it.

This would make nuking a portal doubly entertaining. We get a bigger invasion point and everyone on the other side gets fried!

Darmalus wrote:

CaptainChewbacca wrote:

Shroom Man 777 wrote:Question: Can't portals be physically blocked? Ala the iris in the Stargate shows?

You can build a wall around them, but you can't prevent matter from re-materializing. Any moving object that passes through will hit whatever is blocking the portal as if there was no portal at all. So, they can build a wall, and we can shoot a missile through it.

This would make nuking a portal doubly entertaining. We get a bigger invasion point and everyone on the other side gets fried!

I got the feeling nuking a portal was bad for everyone on BOTH sides.