The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Forty One Up

[nickolay1]

Knowing the way sonar technology has evolved since the 1960s; basically using computer signals processing to eliminate frequency spread, sidebands and harmonics to concentrate the available power into the narrowest, cleanest pulse possible.

This is incorrect. Compressing a pulse in time increases the frequency spread.

[Sidewinder]

Ground-attack gunships may be useful against primitive insurgents heavily armed with MANPADS and such, but not the primitive Hell insurgents... The USSR used the Su-25 in Afghanistan with great effect, and their survivability surely was handy in a MANPADS environment, but in Hell? Ground attack craft are nigh useless - there are no SAM nets, so survivability doesn't matter, and considreing range, payload everything is better for a normal fighter, there's no reason to use these overtly survivable craft.

I disagree. The A-10 & Su-25's advantage over a fighter-bomber is loiter time, i.e., how long the aircraft can continue providing close air support, before it must leave to refuel. A fighter-bomber's advantage over the A-10 & Su-25 is multirole capability; it can't perform ground attack as well as a dedicated attack plane, but it can perform this in addition to air defense (as stated, the A-10 lacks air-to-air radar, & cannot carry BVR missiles) & reconnaissance (superior altitude= superior vantage points). If you have air superiority- as is the case in Hell, where the demons lack long-range search radar, subsonic flight capability, or BVR weapons- the A-10 & Su-25's vulnerability to enemy fighters becomes moot.

[Stuart]

But is actual sonar data interpretation still the black art it is shown to be in the popular media? Or is that asking too much?

I'm not sure that black art is quite the right word but the ability to read passive sonar traces is an inherent, not a learned, skill so I guess it might classify. As one might expect, people split into three groups, those who can look at a waterfall display and say "Oh, sure, he's doing this speed at that aspect angle on this course (plus a lot more)". Then there are those who have some ability to see what happens and can be trained to a relatively high level of efficiency and finally those who can't read a sonar trace and who can't be taught to. I'm in the latter group which is odd because I can read raw data off a radar or EW display with no problems. Go figure. Anyway, here's a lot of undefinable judgement calls (another good definition of black art) in using sonar systems. Most sonar operators are a bit odd by the way.

I don't see how it could be. Considering that computer pattern recognition is already better than human even in areas where we're *supposed* to be good - eg. face recognition - I can't imagine modern sonar operators still getting much use from the raw take, compared to the computers he's using. (And before you protest, consider that computers are *almost* as good as we at recognizing faces - with a much, much smaller baseline. We've got hours or days of "video"; they've got a couple pictures.)

It's not just a question of pattern recognition, there's a mass of fuzzy logic in there. Now, don't get me wrong, signals processing is a vital component of all sonar systems - along with the associated display technology and we're now heading right into finger-breaking territory. Signals processing is particularly important in passive sonar where its necessary to extract the submarine-specific noises from the generic maritime background. Active sonar requires a bit less in the processing department - or did. Now we're looking more at ASW in constricted littoral waters, the processing content is getting greater by orders of magnitude.

Having said all that, despite the fact that computerized signals processing is a crucial element, the fact remains that its the operator who makes teh final decisions and his task can't be automated or computerized. There are just too many judgement calls and fuzzy logic decisions based on a gut feel.

Or properly, for that matter. There's a reason why one of the force protection protocols for "diver in the water" includes "activate sonar".

Sure thing. That's supposed to be how the Russian navy killed Lionel "Buster" Crabbe back in 1956. He was under the hull of a Sverdlov visiting Portsmouth and the cerw let loose with a ping from the sonar when he was right next to the dome.

This is incorrect. Compressing a pulse in time increases the frequency spread.

In this context, compressing a pulse means to reduce the frequency spread. We try to keep the time down as well, as you say, its a balancing act, but reducing the frequency spread is the primary concern since that has major benefits other than just making better use of transmitted power. The ideal is a single, very brief very clean pulse since that gives the best range and bearing data. Compared with the pulses used in, say the 1960s and 1970s, modern sonars produce active pulses that are much briefer and show far less frequency spread. Again, we're now getting into finger-breaking territory

[Darth Wong]

Excellent! It's nice to see that there is indeed evidence of each nation developing its own covert portal program.

As for the possibility of opening a portal to Heaven, has anyone considered the possibility of going after one of Heaven's weak spots, ie- Yahweh's enormous ego? We still don't know how to get a portal open to Heaven, but I get the impression that Yahweh can still sense human praise (he seems to live on the stuff). So what if we convinced millions of people worldwide to gather together at a specified time and all chant in unison "Yahweh is a coward. He hides in Heaven." over and over? Would he hear it? Would we be able to goad him into opening a portal?

Possibly. On the other hand, it might very well goad him into repeating Belial's trick. And a portal that leads into the magma chamber of a volcano, or into the high-pressure depths of the ocean floor (the "windows of Heaven" referenced in the story of Noah's flood?) would not be very useful from a military standpoint.

He's already running through his Book of Revelation Doomsday plan play by play; I think it is unreasonable to believe he's deliberately holding back anything at this point. Angering him might make him take foolish actions, but make no mistake: he already intends to exterminate us and destroy our civilization.

As for the idea that he can simply open a portal in the base of an ocean, I don't think so. If he could do that, he probably would have already. Even the Biblical Flood was obviously a very small regional event, since it was chronicled by people in ancient Israel but went completely unnoticed in other places, including places as close as Egypt.

[Darth Wong]

The Angelic weaponry is a prime example. We know from theology and mythology that the angels use sound as a weapon (hence all the references to them trumpeting) just as daemons threw lightning bolts. I'm stuck with trying to think of a way a sonic weapon could be made to work. The only way I can come up with is to take our basis in sonar technology (which is lethal used improperly) and modify it. Knowing the way sonar technology has evolved since the 1960s; basically using computer signals processing to eliminate frequency spread, sidebands and harmonics to concentrate the available power into the narrowest, cleanest pulse possible. That's made remarkable differences to what we can do with sonars in the way of range, power and beam definition. There's still lots of areas where mythology and science won't fit and I have to sort of blur over those gaps as best I can. Hence the difference in physical laws between Earth and Hell/Heaven. That was created specifically to smooth over situations like this.

The danger of using sonar technology as a basis is that sonar is widely understood in principle, even if much of the actual technology is classified. Comparing the angelic scream to sonar invites more criticism, I think, not less.

I would prefer the idea that the angelic scream is actually projected telekinetically. While telekinetics are obviously bogus science as well, they are already established in this universe since Satan uses them, so we're not adding extra terms. Sound is merely pressure waves after all, and a sonic transducer is nothing more than an object which oscillates and pushes/pulls at the air. If angels have telekinetics (and I stress again that we already know they do, from Satan's example), then there is no reason why they need to use conventional sonic propagation through air in order to produce a sound at a certain point.

If I want to project a sound at a point 1 km away, my only option is to start shaking the air at my location, and then allowing the wave to propagate through the air between me and the target, with all of the attendant losses implied in that process. But if I had telekinetic powers, I could simply use my telekinetic powers to make the air vibrate at the target point directly, without propagating a sound wave through the intervening air. This would save me enormous amounts of energy.

In other words, it would be almost like teleporting a sound. This would explain their ability to use a concentrated sonic pulse as a ranged weapon, using extensions of abilities that angels are already established to have. One could also theorize that this was a method that angels also used to communicate with each other, or with people. It would enhance their aura of godhood because it eliminates localization of sound, making the voice appear to originate from within your own head, and help explain some of their mythical and historical interpretations.

PS. Just a note: using Connor Macleod's name in the story is tricky because our Connor Macleod actually took his name from a character in the movie "Highlander", so that's an established name in fantasy/sci-fi literature.

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

Wasn't the Biblical Flood written as being caused by a very long period of heavy rain? Maybe that already is happening; the British Isles seem to be receiving unnaturally high amounts of precipitation, and I'm guessing their rivers are already flooding somewhat at this point. Also, the UK was one of the more prominent members (and one of the more compact ones) of the conflict against Hell, so they could be an obvious target.

[Surlethe]

On "opening up the windows of Heaven", I don't think Yahweh has to open the portal at the bottom of an ocean; if he can do it even twenty feet below the surface in a reasonably large lake, it's a hefty weapon. If he can do it twenty feet below the surface in a Great Lake-sized body of water or an ocean, it's basically an inexhaustible faucet.

Edit: Not to say that he will or won't, given that he hasn't already yet and is following the Revelation plan to the letter.

[Darth Wong]

On "opening up the windows of Heaven", I don't think Yahweh has to open the portal at the bottom of an ocean; if he can do it even twenty feet below the surface in a reasonably large lake, it's a hefty weapon. If he can do it twenty feet below the surface in a Great Lake-sized body of water or an ocean, it's basically an inexhaustible faucet.

Keep in mind, however, that when Belial did it in Hell, he had to build an array of fixed-location focusing devices around the crown of a volcano in order to make it work. It seems like they can't just open up a portal by pointing at a location and making it happen; it's more elaborate than that. They may not be able to do it over a lake at all, since they can't fix the focusing array in place around the portal location.

Also keep in mind that, as pointed out already, the Biblical Flood was described as 40 days and 40 nights of rain, not a column of water pouring from the sky and crashing into the ground like a titanic hammer. That's not a pair of phenomena that anyone could easily mix up, not even an illiterate Bronze Age primitive.

[Samuel]

Possibly. On the other hand, it might very well goad him into repeating Belial's trick. And a portal that leads into the magma chamber of a volcano, or into the high-pressure depths of the ocean floor (the "windows of Heaven" referenced in the story of Noah's flood?) would not be very useful from a military standpoint.

But than we know where Heaven is and can produce portals to it.

How do the plagues hurt us? Can't the portal makers still work in hell?

[Stuart]

I would prefer the idea that the angelic scream is actually projected telekinetically. While telekinetics are obviously bogus science as well, they are already established in this universe since Satan uses them, so we're not adding extra terms. Sound is merely pressure waves after all, and a sonic transducer is nothing more than an object which oscillates and pushes/pulls at the air. If angels have telekinetics (and I stress again that we already know they do, from Satan's example), then there is no reason why they need to use conventional sonic propagation through air in order to produce a sound at a certain point. If I want to project a sound at a point 1 km away, my only option is to start shaking the air at my location, and then allowing the wave to propagate through the air between me and the target, with all of the attendant losses implied in that process. But if I had telekinetic powers, I could simply use my telekinetic powers to make the air vibrate at the target point directly, without propagating a sound wave through the intervening air. This would save me enormous amounts of energy. In other words, it would be almost like teleporting a sound. This would explain their ability to use a concentrated sonic pulse as a ranged weapon, using extensions of abilities that angels are already established to have. One could also theorize that this was a method that angels also used to communicate with each other, or with people. It would enhance their aura of godhood because it eliminates localization of sound, making the voice appear to originate from within your own head, and help explain some of their mythical and historical interpretations.

We could try this; the angel envisages the air around the target moving in a specific manner (producing the note/pressure wave) and then uses a quantum entaglement ability already established to duplicate that movement in that air.

[Baughn]

Oh gods, no. Not quantum. Quantum mechanics does not work that way.

Just say it's telekinesis.

[TimothyC]

Something I was thinking about. Angels can manipulate cause sound at a distance, sound is a series of pressure waves, and pressure waves can interact. If they knew what they were doing, couldn't this one some level account for the weather events that have been seen (say using constructive interference to generate momentary low pressure spikes)?

[ray245]

On "opening up the windows of Heaven", I don't think Yahweh has to open the portal at the bottom of an ocean; if he can do it even twenty feet below the surface in a reasonably large lake, it's a hefty weapon. If he can do it twenty feet below the surface in a Great Lake-sized body of water or an ocean, it's basically an inexhaustible faucet.

Keep in mind, however, that when Belial did it in Hell, he had to build an array of fixed-location focusing devices around the crown of a volcano in order to make it work. It seems like they can't just open up a portal by pointing at a location and making it happen; it's more elaborate than that. They may not be able to do it over a lake at all, since they can't fix the focusing array in place around the portal location.

Also keep in mind that, as pointed out already, the Biblical Flood was described as 40 days and 40 nights of rain, not a column of water pouring from the sky and crashing into the ground like a titanic hammer. That's not a pair of phenomena that anyone could easily mix up, not even an illiterate Bronze Age primitive.

I have to wonder, just how big the extend of the big flood was in this story? It can't be that big, from geographical evidence alone. Moreover, many other myths (assuming that myths from other culture is somewhat valid or true) failed to mention any big flood covering the entire globe as well.

Another question is, how many events in the bible is somewhat true, and the being who caused those events is actually Yahweh himself?

Couldn't Yahweh steal the credits of those actions from other gods and told everyone that he is responsible for all the mythical events recorded by the different cultures?

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

Another idea is Sound from Ultrasound, wherein two ultrasound tones are superimposed, the frequency difference producing the tone observed. Wikipedia has other ideas for sonic weaponry as well.

[erik_t]

The danger of using sonar technology as a basis is that sonar is widely understood in principle, even if much of the actual technology is classified. Comparing the angelic scream to sonar invites more criticism, I think, not less.

I would prefer the idea that the angelic scream is actually projected telekinetically. While telekinetics are obviously bogus science as well, they are already established in this universe since Satan uses them, so we're not adding extra terms. Sound is merely pressure waves after all, and a sonic transducer is nothing more than an object which oscillates and pushes/pulls at the air. If angels have telekinetics (and I stress again that we already know they do, from Satan's example), then there is no reason why they need to use conventional sonic propagation through air in order to produce a sound at a certain point.

If I want to project a sound at a point 1 km away, my only option is to start shaking the air at my location, and then allowing the wave to propagate through the air between me and the target, with all of the attendant losses implied in that process. But if I had telekinetic powers, I could simply use my telekinetic powers to make the air vibrate at the target point directly, without propagating a sound wave through the intervening air. This would save me enormous amounts of energy.

In other words, it would be almost like teleporting a sound. This would explain their ability to use a concentrated sonic pulse as a ranged weapon, using extensions of abilities that angels are already established to have. One could also theorize that this was a method that angels also used to communicate with each other, or with people. It would enhance their aura of godhood because it eliminates localization of sound, making the voice appear to originate from within your own head, and help explain some of their mythical and historical interpretations.

Two things bug me about this. Most importantly, why not just use TK directly on the target, rather than dump energy into the air which will then go (mostly) into the target? On a minor but stylistically important note, why then would they have trumpets?

[CaptainChewbacca]

Oh gods, no. Not quantum. Quantum mechanics does not work that way.

Just say it's telekinesis.

Poorly-understood 'quantum' has been in Armageddon from the beginning.

Two things bug me about this. Most importantly, why not just use TK directly on the target, rather than dump energy into the air which will then go (mostly) into the target? On a minor but stylistically important note, why then would they have trumpets?

It could be that 'trumpets' in the hands of an angel serve a function similar to that of a demon's trident; focusing the energy for proper use. In this case, it could be a hard kinetic impact rather than electricity, perhaps as a result of 'solidifying' the air around a target. That act is what causes the sound/tone/note/shout that people have heard. Its not clean, but it makes sense and has some sort of precedent in the story.

[Darth Wong]

Two things bug me about this. Most importantly, why not just use TK directly on the target, rather than dump energy into the air which will then go (mostly) into the target? On a minor but stylistically important note, why then would they have trumpets?

Who said it has to actively avoid applying force directly to the target? If he's applying an oscillating TK at a point in the distance, it makes sense that some of it might go directly into the target, if he's accurate enough.

[Stuart]

Oh gods, no. Not quantum. Quantum mechanics does not work that way.Just say it's telekinesis.

Quantum entanglement, not quantum mechanics and a variant thereof, not the original

[Darth Wong]

You know, angel TK scream could also explain Uriel, if Stuart doesn't already have a ready-made explanation for him. He can sense human minds and focus his scream on them, so that the scream erupts inside their brains and they die of massive hemorrhaging. It doesn't work on certain individuals because they're tinfoil-hatted or inside protected structures and he can't accurately target their brains.

BRAAAAAAIINNSSSSS!!!!!!

[Baughn]

Quantum entanglement is a rather crucial part of quantum mechanics; you really can't separate them.

Oh, never mind. It doesn't matter. But just so you know, any changes to the laws of physics severe enough to allow the sort of thing we see in this story, would get its own name - it would most definitely not be considered an extension of quantum mechanics, since it breaks several of the rules of that.

[Darth Wong]

Quantum entanglement is a rather crucial part of quantum mechanics; you really can't separate them.

Oh, never mind. It doesn't matter. But just so you know, any changes to the laws of physics severe enough to allow the sort of thing we see in this story, would get its own name - it would most definitely not be considered an extension of quantum mechanics, since it breaks several of the rules of that.

No, but we could argue that there's some underlying mechanism which causes quantum entanglement, and that this same mechanism is at work with angel/demon powers. Like it or not, there is really no way to get around the need for some mechanism which transmits force at a distance in this story.

[Baughn]

Quantum entanglement is the result of some pretty fundamental stuff, though. I expect it'd be the other way around - some odd low-level details, perhaps involving entanglement, perhaps not, leads to telekinesis at a larger scale. If *entanglement* should matter at all, there'd a non-unitary evolution operator somewhere in there, but the other consequences of that would be.. um, interesting.

Um. I guess what I'm trying to say is, quantum mechanics isn't some weird set of corrections on top of newtonian physics.

Quantum mechanics is the fundamental reality, and newtonian physics is a limit case where decoherence is total and entanglement unnoticable. The exact rules of newtonian physics, meanwhile, could be altered quite a lot without changing quantum mechanics at all; that is to say, "telekinesis" is unaffected by the details of quantum mechanics in much the same way that the operating system of a computer could hardly care less about the physical details of its transistors.

But I get annoyed whenever someone says "quantum did it", because quantum mechanics itself is so low-level, changing anything about it would be very unlikely to leave a livable universe, and you can alter a lot of physics without touching quantum mechanics at all. Heck, even relativity and the rules preventing FTL are at a higher level.. well, except the virtual particle loop thing, I guess.

[CaptainChewbacca]

You're not telling this forum anything it doesn't already know. The phrase 'Because... quantum' originated here, and we're quite aware of the misuse.

[Rahvin]

We've already got some extreme paradigm-breaking stuff in this story as it is. What is the "energy" a deceased person "loses" in our dimension? What is the "energy" that "flows" from Hell to Earth when a portal is opened? What forms the bodies of deceased humans? How do they heal from wounds or stay alive without needing to eat to replace their mass? How are demons able to direct the discharge of electricity from their bodies at long distances to a discrete target, when lightning typically does not behave in such a manner?

We already have several cases here where our real-world understanding of physics do not apply. Nobody has really been complaining about those - I don't see a reason to complain about a pseudo-scientific explanation for Angelic sonic weaponry, either. The story isn't intended to be scientifically dead-on.

[Junghalli]

The laws of physics in Hell are subtly different from Earth, not enough to make things impossible but there are tweaks and factors that are just not understood (light in Hell - and Heaven is another example. Nobody can understand where the light comes from and when Humans find out that different bubbles have differently-colored lights, then its going to cause some head-scratching.)

You might find this article interesting. It's an attempt to explain the fact that Burrough's hollow Earth Pellucidar has a sun; a problem not very dissimilar to the one we face with Hell.

But here is a problem. Black holes are obviously black. Light doesn't escape. Pellucidar’s sun is obviously letting light escape. It provides the heat and light for the inner world. How does that work? How can a black hole be a bright sun?

There are a couple of possibilities, neither comforting. One, is that the 'dwarf' black hole may not be stable, and in fact, may be degenerating. That is, its physics are no longer sufficient to keep light escaping, and it is now leaching off its energy. Give it a billion years or so, and it may reach a point where it goes boom. Or, for all we know, it might reach that point next Thursday.

In Burroughs universe, the Asteroid belt may well be the remains of a similar hollow world with a black hole at the centre that eventually went boom.

But for now, we've had hundreds of millions of years of stable decay, providing light, warmth and sunshine to the inhabitants of Pellucidar, and if the end is to come like this in Burroughs universe, it will, at least, be quick.

Alternatively, if we want to be more exotic, remember what I said about actually having to cross the event horizon? Well, gravity is pretty immense just before the event horizon, there's a lot of mass to get through.

So, what if, as it approaches the event horizon, matter chokes? There is so much mass, and its packed
so thick, that literally, it can't get through. Instead of simply devouring all, mass accretes around the black hole, just outside the event horizon, like a thick shell.

Stray molecules and atoms are constantly falling in, the shell is permanently disintegrating.
But at the same time, its constantly being added to, so it appears mostly stable.

All right, so we've got the egg of doom. So what?

Well, here's an interesting thing about black holes. It turns out, they do radiate. I think its called Cherenkov radiation. What happens is, that when black holes cross the event horizon, they're being torn apart, and release a tiny burst of energy just before they cross. Thus, every particle that crosses over leaves a signature.

Which then sterilizes every dinosaur and corsair in Pellucidar? Not quite. All that radiation is then trapped in the outer shell which acts like lead shielding. The vast amount of released energy is trapped, degrading until it finally escapes as heat and light.... Pellucidar’s sun.

Further, matter doesn't simply fall straight in, but spirals in, in a deteriorating orbit. The closer it gets, the faster it goes. Just outside the event horizon, particles may be approaching light speed, and in doing so, releasing large amounts of energy. Energy that is trapped in the shell and escapes as heat and light.

How about using something like that for the sun of Heaven and Hell? IMO it sounds a lot better than just saying "they have light ... by magic!".

Although this does leave the question of how all the heat generated by the thing leaves the Hell and Heaven cosmos, as otherwise they'd be fried, not habitable. The best thing would probably be to suggest that the Hell and Heaven cosmoses are in fact somewhat permeable, and photons can escape. There's also the niggling little factor that Hell is supposed to have a night, but I can only remember a couple of references to that in the story to nights on Hell, so unless the first book has already gone in for publication it should be fairly easy to go back and get rid of them, and just have Hell have a constant dim reddish light.

Possibly. On the other hand, it might very well goad him into repeating Belial's trick. And a portal that leads into the magma chamber of a volcano, or into the high-pressure depths of the ocean floor (the "windows of Heaven" referenced in the story of Noah's flood?) would not be very useful from a military standpoint.

Another thing that occurs to me is that he may "hear praise" telepathically, in which case the people would have to do this with "open minds" (no foil hat). In which case, if I were Yahweh and I was pissed off at them, I probably wouldn't have to open a portal to demonstrate my anger. I'd order them to die, or better yet kill themselves in some really gruesome and painful way.

That might actually be a pretty cool thing to put in the book; a human scheme backfiring spectacularly.

How do the plagues hurt us? Can't the portal makers still work in hell?

That's a good point. There are four possibilities I can think of.

1) The Angels are morons. This is my least favorite, for obvious reasons.
2) Undead Nephilim lose their power for some reason.
3) The plague incorporates a mechanism to destroy the victim's souls like Uriel does.
4) The Angels are diverting their souls to Heaven when they die, and either holding them prisoner or simply killing them for good when they come out the gate. I think this one makes the most sense.

One final note: if we're going to air science problems with the story, there is one thing that bugs me. I'd rearrange the timeline and have Satan's rebellion be tens of thousands of years ago, instead of millions. The whole Nephilim thing makes a lot more sense if Angels and humans are closely related and recently diverged species. As it stands now, if they're related to us at all they're some sort of Australopithecine offshoot and not much more closely related to us than chimps are. Which makes the idea that they could mate with us and produce fertile offspring rather hard to swallow, especially given that the evidence leans toward Neanderthals not being able to do so, and they diverged from us a mere half million years ago.