Walk softly...

[spartasman]

[/b]

Chicago, Illinois. 7:45 PM, January 3rd 2008

Henry Randolph considered himself to be a rational, reasonable man. In fact, he even felt that given the overall situation he was behaving beyond what could be reasonably expected for a twenty-four year old man. But despite all the reasoning he could conjure, he still felt very, very angry as he passed over the last beer voucher in his possession.

'At any other time in history' Henry thought, 'the rationing of liquor would have been utterly inconceivable. Only during the time of prohibition has such a terror haunted the dreams of man'. And yet, here he sat, on an old stool in an even older bar, barely even buzzed, and with only one bottle of cheap beer in front of him for the rest of the month.

'Truly,' Henry thought grimly 'this is just the start of the decay of our society'. Randolph had been avidly, or at least as avidly as he could, pursuing a degree in social philosophy. Unfortunately, the U.S Army did not think that that was an important field, or at least important enough to sacrifice an able young man. They hadn't drafted him, not yet, but pulling a straight seven-hour shift at a local plant that made parts for Abrams tanks was no walk in the park.

'This damn war has changed too much; I can't even begin to imagine what the next generation is going to be like' he thought, taking a small sip from his last Coors. 'And the beer tastes like horse piss nowadays, I can't even get a fucking Samuel Adams!'

Fate had not shone kindly on Henry these last few months. Having finally made it to college, he had been two-and-a-half years into his schooling when the message had arrived. 'and now, now I'm just another piss-ant plebe in the eyes of the world'

Fate had never truly shown kindly on him. It had only been in his last two years of high-school that he had made straight A's, mostly due to the hired tutors who had done most of the work for him. The grades were good enough to get him a scholarship to go to to the University of Illinois, It hadn't hurt that his parents happened to be benefactors of that particular college, but Henry was never one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

'Except now that motherfucking horse has kicked me in the face'. Henry was almost done with the Coors, despite his best efforts to make it last longer. The man behind the bar was giving him sharp looks every few moments, almost trying to subconsciously tell Henry that once he had finished his last beer, he'd better get lost. Henry simply glared back with what he surmised to be a mean look.

'How the fuck does a place like this even stay open?' Despite the rationing of food and other products, the local bars were still managing to get by quite well. 'I wouldn't be surprised if they were using the Prohibition-era tunnels to sneak in cheap booze, and that may very well explain the flavor of this shitty beer'.

The point was moot, Henry reasoned. He doubted anyone else in Chicago had any decent beer left, and regardless, he was already finished with the bottle. Henry stood up, trying to judge that, despite the poor quality of the alcohol, he was alright to drive. 'it doesn't really matter either way does it' he thought, 'If I wreck the car and die, I'll just wake up in Hell.' 'Of course' he went on, 'it would be a little awkward to explain to the foreman down at the plant about why I wouldn't be able to come into work tomorrow.'

His spine ran cold at the thought of upsetting the man. Even though the man was in wheel chair, with no legs, he was still an intimidating person, and he and Henry often didn't see eye-to-eye. The first week on the job, the foreman had decided that Henry required a little 'attitude adjustment', which amounted to him shouting at him in front of the whole factory. Henry's face still burned with embarrassment and hatred from that incident.

Henry walked out towards his car. It wasn't anything too fancy, a 2001 model Chevy. Before the the war on Hell and Heaven, he had owned a 2002 Camaro, one of the last off the assembly line. But after all vehicle plants started to convert to produce the various weapons needed to fight the war, it had quickly became apparent that keeping such a high-end car would be unwise.

He turned the keys slowly, the car started with a sputter and then quickly died out. "Aw fuck" he shouted, "what the fuck?". Henry looked at the various gauges in front of him and noticed that the gas meter had dropped below E, 'it wasn't there when I went in to the fucking bar, dammit'. Looking in the side view mirror, he noticed something wrong on the side of the car. "My life is not this bad" he cried out. Sure enough, the side of his car had several scratches and dents, all circling around the bent and pried open cover to the gasoline nozzle.

"shit...fuck, goddammit". The last curse was more of a reflexive reaction than a willed one. 'But it sure fills the description neatly' he thought to himself. Ever since the message, Henry had finally found the reason for all his bad luck; people not liking him, never getting any favors, his lack of luck with women. All of this was clear evidence to Henry that god was conspiring against him all along.

He reached into his car, lifting the small handle that popped open the trunk and walked around to the back of the car, pulling out a small 1/2-gallon gas can. It wasn't particularly good gas, he had siphoned it out of his neighbors lawnmower the other week, in case of emergencies. 'It's not like that stupid bastard was using it, his fucking yard is always overgrown' he thought, loathing the fact that he had to share a neighborhood with such people.

He quickly emptied the contents of the can into the gas tank, and proceeded to toss the can back into the trunk. Henry eyed the still-bent cover with a suspicious eye, wondering if it would be dangerous with the gas tank exposed, but decided that there was nothing he could do about it at the moment. He quickly scooted himself back into the driver's seat and restarted the car. As Henry pulled out of the parking spot, he realized that he had lost his buzz.

The Great Pit, outskirts of the eighth circle

The great road that led from the city of Dis to the center of the Hellpit was ancient, far more ancient than any road on earth. Existing for untold millennium, the road had serviced the armies and purposes of Hell's master, Satan.

Of course, now that Satan was dead, the road had begun to fall into disrepair. During Satan's reign, the road had been constantly patrolled and kept by a legion of demons, and several thousand special human slaves. The demons had long-since returned to their homes and mates, and the human slaves had either dispersed across the pit, or trekked to Dis, to be liberated by the ever-advancing forces of the H.E.A.

Holes now riddled the highway, with entire sections becoming reclaimed by the native fauna. Several demon and human bands wandered the great road, attempting to rob the merchants that frequently used the road to reach the city of Dis and its subsidiaries. It was because of this that the job of the 13th Panzergrenadier Division was made all the more difficult.

Originally part of Fifth Army Group, Germany's permanent contribution to the Human Expeditionary Army had recently been transferred and was now the Reserve Corps for Second Army Group. With military operations stalled waiting on the breakthrough into Heaven, the Division was currently serving as one of the many units sent out to liberate the deceased from Hell. This job was less monumental than it sounded, of course. With the river Styx and its surrounding swamps in process of being drained and scoured for humans, and with mostly all of the human slaves owned by the demons set free; it had become an increasingly easy detail.

Advancing along the highway, a large convoy was picking its way through the multitude of potholes that covered the derelict road. At the front of the convoy, two Marder IFV's were quickly covering the damaged road, their suspension systems easily absorbing the shock. Behind them, seven Fennek LGS' were attempting to navigate the road more cautiously, the drivers inflating and deflating the tires as they crossed particularly deep potholes.

Sgt. Wolfgang Jäger was attempting to quickly manage the tire pressure so as to give the vehicle maximum stability, mindful of the work of the man in the passenger seat next to him. The Fennek was designed to go over rough terrain, having been in use by the Bundeswehr in Afghanistan for several years as a reconnaissance vehicle. The vehicles bumping along the great road were not on a reconnaissance mission though. This area was under constant surveillance by unmanned aircraft and had been for several days in advance of the convoy.

The divisional engineer battalion, the 803rd Armoured Engineer Battalion, was assigned to helping the rescue teams clear the Hellpit of human dead. They had already spent weeks clearing out the 7th circle. That job was far from over, as the rescue teams had only been able to clear the area of the circle closest to human occupied territory, leaving most of the entire 7th circle untouched for the time being.

The reason for the 803rds premature advance into the 8th circle was to guarantee the security of the rescue teams working in the 7th circle. The 8th was unoccupied and could be used as a base for renegade daemons. That meant the H.E.A needed to either surround the seventh to provide a secure perimeter, or move into the eighth at once. H.E.A Command had decided on the latter action, justifying that if they were going to expend the resources to secure the 7th circle, they may as well occupy the smaller 8th instead.

The task was not particularly daunting; the H.E.A already had a force in the area, in the form of the puppet demon state, to help them with the process. However, the commanders of the H.E.A were not stupid enough to trust the demons to free the humans that they had for so long tormented, nor did they trust the liberated humans to not immediately attack the demons.

That was why several of the H.E.A's mechanized engineer units were moving into the 8th circle, to attempt to prevent any hostilities while still freeing the dead humans. the 13th Panzergrenadiers was the first unit to go in, however, as it was one of the most well-equipped for this sort of work, due to the divisions service in Afghanistan.

The man sitting next to Wolfgang was not from the 13th, the patches on his uniformed marked him as a Colonel from the United States. The Colonel was quietly going over several aerial photos that had been taken of the area, marked with the locations of villages and castles, as well as concentrations of humans. The demons had been most helpful in mapping out the several circles of hell, having lived in Hell for several Millennium, their intricate knowledge of the terrain was essential for the forces of the H.E.A to advance safely.

Wolfgang knew how necessary the knowledge of terrain was to the success of any military action, which was why he was being very careful not to allow the armored car to shake. He knew better than to interrupt a superior officer whilst he was working, but Wolfgang was overcome by curiosity, curiosity and the need to know what he should expect.

"What might we expect from this area, Colonel?"

The colonel quickly tore his eyes from the photographs, giving Wolfgang a short stare that made him regret asking. But the Colonel quickly began to gaze out of the window, looking past the dirt being kicked up by the vehicles in front of them to observe the surrounding territory.

"Intel suggests that their is still some resistance in the 8th circle. The major daemon lord, Malacoda I believe, has refused to acknowledge President Abigor as sovereign. The demons say that he doesn't have much in the way of troops, most of his legions were in the fight at the Phlegathon"

Wolfgang shuddered a bit at the mention of the battle, the 13th had been held in reserve during the entire battle, but when it was over and the H.E.A had advanced, their unit had been the first to cross the battlefield. Wolfgang could still feel the crunch of demon bones under his tires resonating through his vehicles frame.

"So what are we to do after we establish a base of operations?" he asked.

The Colonel gave Wolfgang another quick stare before returning his gaze to the photos. "Orders are to advance throughout the circle, if we encounter any resistance from this Malacoda fellow, were to blow him half-way across hell"

The Colonel finished with a disturbing grin and a small chuckle at his own joke. Another shudder hit Wolfgang, who returned his attentions to the road, attempting to concentrate on driving.

[Mayabird]

If you already know it's bad, proofread the damn thing before showing it to anyone. If you can't be arsed to do that because you're too lazy, don't even bother with it, because then you're probably too lazy to finish the story. In two seconds I Googled the correct spelling of Petraeus's name and copy and pasted it here. I don't even want to read it well enough to have to critique the characters or anything (though I will ask, since when aren't there loads of useless philosophy majors that it's made "unheard of"). It won't actually take that long to go through and fix capital letters and so on. But I can already say that I don't give a shit at all about the first character.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

It's like reading a train wreck. The presumed protagonist couldn't be less sympathetic if he sodomized puppies on his way to work. And for someone who professes to be a big fan of the Salvation War series, and alt-hist in general, you've succeeded in misspelling "Petraeus" numerous times, on top of a portrayal of him (and of Robert E. Lee) that suggests a failure to do even the most cursory research. And that's before we get into your puzzling grammar, perplexing punctuation, and curiously spotty capitalization.

I'm trying to find something good to say here, I really am. If you were to continue to consider a story such as this; I would suggest better proofreading, and tightening the focus of the story solely onto the plight of the average everyman; which is a premise that has far more merit than the one I suspect you're headed towards (which starts with 'G' or 'M', and rhymes with Harry Woo.)

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah, this needs some work.

At the moment, I don't have time to go over this and make any suggestions. I may write a post with some later; if you have a draft of another chapter I'll look it over if you like.

Exactly where are you trying to take this?

[Mayabird]

That...that was your cleanup job? Now it's like, "Instead of stabbing the English language three times, I'll only do it twice!" Go through it, line by line, until all the capitalization and punctuation issues are gone, or at least are few enough that I no longer experience thoughts that include ponchos, stabbing, and Zor. It is an exercise for the writer.

As for the protagonist: no, just no. You can say, "Ooh, I need more time to develop this guy" all you want, but there's no hook so nobody's going to want to continue reading it, even if it actually stops sucking later. This is partly because it's a bunch of infodumping about someone we don't care about. Maybe if you started somewhere in the middle of the action and then played catch-up later it wouldn't be so bad. "Hey, why is this guy hanging for dear life off this ledge while a six-pack of beer dangles from his shoes? And how did he get to this ledge anyway? And why beer?"

[Edward Yee]

On top of that... spartasman, are you aware that GEN Petraeus is in fact a real-life person who Stuart has met and apparently worked with? (I don't recall what he said, so I may be off on it, but he had a quite high opinion of the general.)

Ironic, you lost me more with that than with the first character who I actually sympathized with, minus the drinking.

[Simon_Jester]

EDIT: Yeah.

Problems of style and grammar aside, those are significant issues. Your first character, Henry, is a thoroughgoing son of a bitch. Now, plenty of good fiction features sons of bitches, sometimes even as protagonists... but they always have to walk a tightrope between establishing the guy as an SOB and showing that there is actually some reason to respect them, if not like or admire them.

There is no reason for anyone to respect Henry, and that makes him unsuitable as a viewpoint character. You have to get into the head of a viewpoint character, and if the reader doesn't want to be in the character's head the scene fails.

And, again, General David Petraeus is a real person, currently in charge of US Central Command (responsible for the entire Middle East, pretty much). He rose through the ranks as an airborne infantry officer and became a nationally famous figure during his time in command in Iraq in 2007-8.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Huh, so not only does General Petraeus get a rather substantial demotion, but he also transferred to the Navy. Unlike Robert E. Lee, who conspicuously maintains his rank. This shows that you're either trolling, or you've still almost completely failed to do the research. In the event that it is the latter, I will give you a quick education. A Commander is the Navy equivalent of an Army Lieutenant Colonel. Which is a step below Colonel. Which is several steps below where Petraeus is IRL, which is one or two steps below where he is at the end of Armageddeon and the start of Pantheocide.

We, as readers, still have zero reason to give a shit about your putative protagonist. He has nothing suggesting that he has even a grain of likability in him. No reason for the reader to want to see where he goes. In fact, I don't think I'd mind if he want to Hell . . . as it existed before humans liberated it. You know, the one with regular demonic sodomization. It might've taught him a modicum of humility.

I'm becoming increasingly uncertain whether or not you've taken any of the concrit here to heart. Hence the shift from concrit to just crit, with a little flame mixed in.

[Simon_Jester]

I don't think he's had time to act on the constructive criticism. He rolled this out, what, midnight yesterday?

He hasn't corrected all the grammatical mistakes, but to me it looks like he's unable to do so, not that he's unwilling. That thing may be too long for him to go over it more than once or twice in a day, and if he isn't a good enough proofreader to spot everything in that many reads... it's still going to stab the English language.

As for the more fundamental stuff about needing to make his protagonist more likable, there's no way for him to fix that without tearing down the whole thing and rewriting it. Which he should do, of course... but with no way to tell how long it took him to write this, it seems kind of ridiculous to start insulting him for not having written something better of comparable length in 24 hours.

None of this means that it doesn't need a lot of work, starting with the messed up rank structures and finishing with... pretty much everywhere else. But unless he was supposed to have spent literally all day working on this yesterday, to the exclusion of any real life activities, I see no chance that he could have put in that work by now even with the best will in the world.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

I don't think he's had time to act on the constructive criticism. He rolled this out, what, midnight yesterday?

Yes. He's patched it twice since then. I suppose I'd have felt better if he'd gone for a day or two and taken a long, hard look at what he had Instead, he's chosen to just patch what he has with nary an explanation of what he's doing, or where he's going.

As for the more fundamental stuff about needing to make his protagonist more likable, there's no way for him to fix that without tearing down the whole thing and rewriting it. Which he should do, of course... but with no way to tell how long it took him to write this, it seems kind of ridiculous to start insulting him for not having written something better of comparable length in 24 hours.

I'm wasn't expecting him to fundamentally re-write what he's written in a mere day. In fact, I was hoping he'd take a few days and come back with something improved. And, who knows, maybe he'll do just that and surprise, at least, myself. As it is, it feels a bit like he's not really hearing much beyond "please fix your grammar and spelling."

[Simon_Jester]

Trouble is, he has two separate interlocking groups of problems: one set with the content, and the problems with the style. If he doesn't fix the style no one's going to cut him any slack about the content and vice versa. So I'm not surprised or disappointed that he decided to go after the style and try (with limited success) to patch that up first; that's where he can at least plausibly hope to know what needs doing.

I am disappointed that he hasn't taken time out to write up explanations, as you say... but I think the most Occam-compliant reason for that is that he's been taken aback by the reception it got. Not that he's trolling or ignoring us.

I mean yes, you might have responded to this level of criticism by stopping and taking several days to rethink the whole piece, but I'm not surprised he didn't.

[Scottish Ninja]

I bet that this guy's only knowledge of military ranks comes from playing Call of Duty, in which the highest rank you can reach in multiplayer is "Commander", denoted with 5 stars in-game.

[Simon_Jester]

I can think of a number of other sources that could leave you under the mistaken impression that "commander" is an acceptable term for anyone who is, well, in command, as opposed to being a specific rank that's only about halfway up the tree in a single branch of service.

And yes, a lot of them are video games.

[spartasman]

Chicago, Illinois. 10:25 AM, January 4th, 2010

Chicago was bustling, which hadn't been a word used to describe the windy city for quite some time. Despite the cold, people were crowding the streets in great droves, congesting the sidewalks on nearly every street. The roads were surprisingly fluid, the only traffic being the city buses that shuttled workers around the city, a few police cars, and several patrol vehicles operated by the United States Volunteers.

The threat of having a volcano suddenly appearing over the city, or a rouge Baldrick appearing in the city was virtually non-existent these days. With Hell having been conquered for over a year now, and those responsible for the attacks on Sheffield and Detroit captured or dead, the city no longer looked to the skies nervously, trying to spot if a Gorgon or some other demon was circling above.

Regardless, the U.S.V patrolled the streets regularly. The war with Heaven was still ongoing, and with the ongoing weather attacks, the U.S.V was not about to put their guard down.

The patrols out at this time of day were mostly factory workers coming off their first seven hour shifts. Sergeant Jake 'Rusty' Davidson was amongst them. The Humvee that Davidson was riding in was a civilian model, with a quick paint job covering over the original black and gold paint that the vehicle had sported before the message. The Urban camouflage that the vehicle now sported marked it as a military vehicle, and if that and the fact that it was an operated diesel powered vehicle wasn't enough to show it was military; a large red and white striped badge with big blue letters reading 'U.S.V' placed on the hood marked it as such.

Sergeant Davidson wasn't particularly concerned with the paint on the vehicle though, his job was to patrol this are of the city, and to respond to any distress calls that warranted military intervention.

In the passenger seat of the Humvee, Corporal Capella watched the surrounding streets patiently. Their patrol lasted for three hours; first they would do a quick patrol of their assigned territory, and then they would spend around 25 minutes on each street corner until it was time to return to the Volunteers motor depot.

Sergeant Davidson lifted the Aluminum-lined steel helmet off his head to quickly scratch the thin red hair that had earned him the nickname 'Rusty'. Nobody these days wanted to displace their hats, no one in their right minds, at least. Jake quickly put the helmet back down, trying to get it to sit comfortably on his head again.

Corporal Capella lifted a thermos of coffee to his lips, taking a few sips before offering it to Jake. The thermos was from breakfast, but the volunteers always left some in for when after they got out of the factories, and began their patrols. "Well, there's nothing here, and our times up. Time to hit the next block" said Jake, starting up the gas-guzzling engine. The engine was loud enough to draw a few quick stares from the commuters on the sidewalks, but they quickly turned their heads as they saw the Humvee roll down the streets.

"Crank up the heat, man, I'm freezing my ass off!" cried Capella, making a quick grab for the knob on the dashboard. "give it a minute you idiot, you turn that thing on now we'll only get blasted with cold air" shouted Jake, as he swatted away the corporals hand. They reached the next way point a few minutes later, and settled down.

"Aah, that's good" Capella said with relief, having finally turned the heat on, warming his hands in front of one of the vents on the dashboard. Sergeant Davidson gave Capella a impatient look "make it quick, this thing drinks gas like a mother, and I'm not gonna get chewed out for coming in with less than half a tank again!".

Capella groaned in response and a few moments later, had turned off the heat. Capella let off a short chortle while Jake turned off the vehicle. "what?" he questioned. Capella was looking around the block but gave a quick look back to Jake, "you see the way the Foreman was chewing out that brat this morning?". Sergeant Davidson snickered; both he and Capella worked in a factory near downtown that made parts for Abrams tanks, and when they had left their shift, they had seen one of the head Foremen yelling at one of the troublemakers from second shift.

"serves the little shit right, he comes in late all the time, and Jean tells me that he has the nerve to complain on top of it" Jake stated. Jean Fitzpatrick was the foreman in question, he had lost both his legs in Vietnam, and served as the Foreman for all the first two shifts of the day.

"That old man is one of the most ill-tempered bastards in the city, if you dropped a fucking tank chassis on your leg, he'd probably tell you to walk it off and stop whining" said Capella. Jake gave the 32 year old man a bemused look. "Jean doesn't do shit that isn't called for. He told me that that kid has a couple of rich-ass parents, and that they had to drag him out of college to get him to work. Serves the little bastard right if he doesn't comply"

Capella rubbed his hands together, looking down the street for a moment and then turning back to Davidson. "I think you're just sympathetic to the old Geezer, birds of a feather and all that".

Jake laughed that one off and turned to look out his window, eying the pedestrians that cruised by. "I'm only fifty four dammit, Jeans gotta be at least seventy. Trust me boy, you may be young, but when you get to be my age, that kind of age difference means the world"

Capella didn't seem to think that Jake was right, but he kept that to himself. "So what are you doin' tonight, got plans with the Mrs."?

Jake didn't look pleased as he answered, "you know damn well that I don't, the old lady doesn't do much of anything anymore. Ever since the message, she just isn't the same person" Jake shook his head as he looked off into the distance "sometimes I wonder why she just didn't lay down and die along with the rest of the nut-jobs"?

"Well, you know, maybe you should try to do something. Buy her flowers, or whatever it is they did in the 50's" Capella said with a snicker, Jake was less amused. "Hell" Capella continued, starting to laugh "maybe you should go get yourselves a 'marital aid'".

Sergeant Davidson decided that deserved a punch, he reached between the seats and slogged him in the arm. "Shut the hell up, maybe if you could hold on to a girl for more than a month, you'd actually know what to do. But since you can't, can it!"

At this point, Capella was laughing near to the point of tears. "alright, alright old man" he said as he started to calm down. "But seriously, you should try to spice things up, it can hardly hardly make things worst".

Jake thought about that for a moment, but decided that his thoughts could wait. Jake picked up the thermos of coffee and drank a few sips, it was gonna be a long day.

537 miles outside of Dis, Hell. 12:57AM(earth time), January 4th, 2010

Beyond the control of the H.E.A, a far more primitive and brutal system of law existed. While the human armies had indeed killed Satan, the ruler of hell, and destroyed his armies, Hell was still a savage place. far out of the reach of the H.E.A's ground forces, demon lords still presided over their lands, and humans still suffered. This, James Persons had decided, was unacceptable.

Crouched low, James was patiently watching the road that stretched out before him, attempting to spot any movement. He had lying in wait in the same position for nearly three days, although, he didn't feel fatigued at all. Considering the fact that he was dead, this didn't surprise him at all. James shimmied in position, trying to rearrange the dark brown overcoat that covered his entire body. Lowering the pair of Binoculars, he reached down into the great coat and retrieved a small flask, taking a few tender sips from it.

After the death of Satan, and the subsequent upsetting of Hells traditional order, chaos had become the law. In the vast wastes and dukedoms that made up hell, several small groups had begun to forge a new law. James had heard of several small countries popping into existence in areas that the human armies occupied, and even several smaller ones in the lands that they didn't. However, all of those nations were dwarfed in size by the big players, one of which frequently used the very road that Person's was perched over.

James glanced down at the digital watch on his wrist, and found that it was time to make his scheduled check-in. He quickly set up the small ham radio unit that he had been assigned with, taking great care to cautiously recheck his surroundings before raising the small antennae.

He quickly donned the headset and began to switch the radio unit on. "Eagle-eye four to Big Brother, I repeat, Eagle-eye four to Big Brother, please respond".

He gave another quick glance around, making sure that nothing in his surroundings had changed. The small radio set quickly gave a reply however, tearing him away from his quick observations. "Big Brother to Eagle-Eye four, we copy. Anything to report?"

"Negative Big Brother, no Baldricks, no skinnies, nothing. Its dead out here"

The response was expected. Nothing of notice had moved through James' sector in a few days, but it never had hurt to be sure. "Roger that Eagle-eye, your watch ends in 21 hours. Keep you're eyes peeled until then, your next scheduled check-in is six hours from now". The response was standard, James had received it hundreds of times. But the Hell Rangers required that all field units keep in regular contact, so that is what he had to do.

The Rangers we're a relatively new fore in hell. Most of the small states that had risen out of the ashes of Satan's empire were defined along historical and national lines. The New Roman Republic being the largest and most powerful of the liberated, followed by several republics, a few of them socialist organizations. Aside form those major contenders, several small kingdoms had sprung up outside of the Human free zone. These small kingdoms were often led by small-time warlords who had taken advantage of the chaotic atmosphere following Satan's death.

Most of the small kingdoms were very poorly supplied. The people who occupied them had most often ran away without any clothes or weapons of any sort, hence the nickname 'skinnies'; although a few of them we're powerful enough to give the larger states a bit of trouble. The Roman Empire in particular had been quite active against them, having already crushed a few of the weaker satellites with relative ease.

The powers on earth didn't want to admit it, but the rapidly growing power of the Romans had alarmed them considerably. Ceaser was by all accounts a fantastic leader, any man to have had raised an empire out of ashes and dust as he had would have to be. Keeping the Empire on the side of the H.E.A was critical in creating stability in hell, and every warlord and demonic dukedom he toppled took pressure off the H.E.A.

But the situation bothered the powers-that-be considerably, and a careful eye needed to keep watch over them, without harming relations. That was the purpose behind the Hell Rangers, to watch the activities of New Rome and other states. The Rangers ranks were filled mostly with deceased Army personnel, but a few non-army units had been recruited as well.

James Person's had been scooped into serving in the rangers after the call had went out for volunteers to help the H.E.A. James had felt indebted to the liberating armies. In his first life, Person's had lived a relatively peaceful life, operating a ranch near Rocksprings, on the Edwards plateau. He had never had any success with the place, only just barely scraping out an existence for himself and his wife. His long-standing poverty had eventually caused her to leave, leaving him a near-broken man. That's how he had ended up in the Texas Rangers, or more specifically, the Frontier Battalion. He'd served them from 1903 to 1915, fighting Mexican Bandits and raids, as well as various incursions during the Mexican Revolution. He hadn't died peacefully, the last thing that he could remember before his torment in Hell had been being violently woken in the middle of the night, and a knife being slid across his throat.

He still remembered the name of the man who was supposed to be on guard duty that night. And he had affirmed to himself that if he ever caught up with Timothy Henderson, he'd kill the bastard where he stood.

James had finished repacking the radio set, and was scanning the ground around him for any changes. The horizons in hell weren't quite what he remembered them as being as. The military instructors had told him that Hell, for some reason, wasn't flat like the Earth was. Because of this, the horizon didn't sink off into the distance, but went on for as far as the human eye could see.

While this made it far easier to spot any far-off movement, it was also dangerous; he had been told that demons had the ability to see several miles into the distance, and that his only defense against this was to camouflage himself. The great brown coat on his back served that purpose, stained with a red tint from the Hellish soil, it blended in well with the surrounding territory, making it difficult for anyone not paying close attention to miss him.

Ranger Person's scanned down the road with his binoculars, enhancing the distance to make sure that nothing was coming. He continued to scan the surrounding countryside carefully, marking down every boulder and bush in his memory, making sure that when he next scanned that area, anything moved would catch his attention.

content with the view before him, he reached back into his coat, removing a small foil bar. he didn't have to eat, and all of the Rangers had been trained to make advantage of this; but he had taken a liking to the Hershey's Chocolate bars that the regular troops received with their rations. He took a few bites out of the bar before returning it to one of the pockets in his coat, once again beginning to scan the landscape for any movement.

[Ritterin Sophia]

So instead of completely deletinggoing over your last chapter and do some major revisions, you decide to post some more slop?

[Simon_Jester]

OK, yeah.

Seriously, spartasman, you've got a lot of work to do as a writer before you're going to be accomplishing much with the writing to justify the time you put in writing this.

You seem to be writing scenes at random, with no underlying theme to link them together; there's no sign of an overall plot yet. If the individual scenes were brilliantly written gems, that would be... not so bad. They aren't gems, though; you've still got problems with capitalization, punctuation, and content (What the hell is "Earth Time!?").

What are you trying to accomplish here? Are you trying to tell the story of any specific individual's experiences? Are you trying to get across some overarching message? Is this the story of some chain of events that will actually matter? Or do you just want to write random things set in someone else's playground?

[Mr. Coffee]

Jesus, this is so horrible it's almost like you're trying to do to Stuart's Armegeddonverse what Tara Gilesbie's "My Immortal" did to Harry Potter. I'm not even going to bother offering constructive cricism, others have tried it and you pretty much zoned out on that, so I'll just give you one piece of critical advice...

Stop fucking writing.

[Simon_Jester]

Jesus, this is so horrible it's almost like you're trying to do to Stuart's Armegeddonverse what Tara Gilesbie's "My Immortal" did to Harry Potter. I'm not even going to bother offering constructive cricism, others have tried it and you pretty much zoned out on that, so I'll just give you one piece of critical advice...

Stop fucking writing.

Me, I disagree, what he needs to do is go back to writing for school. When he can write nonfiction at the college level, and after he's taken some more English courses, then it will be time to come back to this sort of thing.

[Mayabird]

Depending on this person's age, telling him to stop writing completely might not be warranted. I wrote a novel when I was thirteen. It was awful. It was painful. And this is me thinking back on it. (No, none of you will ever see it. It's destroyed. Also there were some ideas in there that were salvageable and might be able to be recycled at some unknown point in the future and I want to hold on to them, just in case. But mostly because if you really wanted to hurt inside, you could just swallow some glass or read Harry Potter slash fics.) But it did help me learn a lot in the failure of it, because I could tell that some things just didn't work well or seemed off and I didn't know why, but when I read more later and read about writing later, I suddenly realized what was wrong with it and understood better what to do and what not to do, because I had done it. Yeah, I just dropped that entire plot thread with the rebels. This underground city came out of absolutely nowhere for no reason at all. Foreshadowing is good, but don't overdo it, like adding red pepper to pasta sauce - a little adds some nice heat but too much and it's inedible. (I managed to screw that up BOTH ways.) Some things, people really need experience, and the only way to do that is to do it a lot and make the mistakes...but they must recognize the mistakes and learn from them.

Also, I did know how to use proper punctuation, capitalization, grammar, and so forth for the most part. Probably it was rough and if I was able to read back over it I probably would wince at something (likely uuraaaagh I switched from second person to third person and back again) or note that this one rule is a bit obscure and maybe I hadn't learned it yet, but it would not be completely full of errors and unreadable in any sort of technical sense. Apparently I was one of the last people of my generation to learn this skill; it makes me feel old and crotchety and the desire to beat kids with my walker when I see how bad it normally is, and I don't have a walker because I'm 25.

[Simon_Jester]

I think there's a selection bias there. Some people just Can Not get it through their heads that learning to spell and capitalize properly matters, because "you can still understand what I'm saying, right?" I'm not sure that trait is independent of age, but I strongly suspect that it is. There are people who are much older than either of us who can't spell for beans; it's just that they're not here.

So it's not you being old; it's merely you being older than them.

Hmm. Then again, thinking about it, it might be a youth-related problem simply because some teenagers try to rebel against grammar as "stuff that only matters in school." By your mid to late 20s, if you're still writing at all, you've learned to write something other people can bear to read.

[Ritterin Sophia]

Jesus, this is so horrible it's almost like you're trying to do to Stuart's Armegeddonverse what Tara Gilesbie's "My Immortal" did to Harry Potter.

Just in case you don't know what "My Immortal" is, Spartasman, it's so bad that I can't even listen to someone else read it aloud, let alone read it myself.

[Simon_Jester]

"My Immortal" is legendary for its badness, to the point where even I have heard of it, though I never read it. Some suspect that it was intentionally written badly, as a sort of parody.

I don't think this story is that bad. It's is "merely" bad- it looks like there may have been a valid concept underneath it all, and at a minimum, the writer understood the basic nature of Stuart's setting. Spartasman invokes a lot of the same issues Stuart raised: the social upheavals of mobilization, things like that.

The trouble is, that's not enough; a piece has to be competently written to be any good. Here, the execution is messed up on so many levels that whatever story Spartasman was trying to set up doesn't work, and any themes that he was trying to explore are lost in a maze of unsympathetic characters and spelling errors.

But I don't think it achieves badness worthy of legend- if someone actually tried to write a horrible Salvation War fanfic, it would be much worse than this.

[spartasman]

I have had the misfortune of reading "My Immortal", and to have what I have written compared to... 'that', is a little disheartening. I'm rewriting the whole first chapter right now, though I suspect that given the responses to my writing ability, or rather the lack thereof, it wont meet with much success. To be honest this is the first story I've had enough interest in to write, hopefully i can get the main theme across before I ruin the story.

[Edward Yee]

You might want to cut out the Petraeus bit altogether. While Stuart does have a relatively specific intent for what to do with Lee (and the reason why ties into one of the themes of The Salvation War), he's got a very high opinion of the real general based on his body of work (much of which I'm guessing is not publicly available), has attended some of his lectures and has presumably met him.

[Simon_Jester]

Accidental double post, please delete.