Armageddon???? - Part Eighty One Up

[EdBecerra]

I'm curious: is it possible to have manufacturers of pipes and other plumbing fixtures, make barrels for the simple muskets the Duchess of Zeon mentioned? Or are those machines unable to work with steel strong enough to NOT burst when the gunpowder ignites?

Actually, speaking as a retired armorer and a lover of guns, I recall that the Nazis designed at least two submachineguns entirely from pipes and off-the-shelf-from-the-hardware-store items.

Quality was crap, but they would have fired a few times.

Notice the FP-45 link I put up earlier. All low-quality stamped steel, yet it did work.

You'd be surprised at how little you need to make a gun - the justly famous "Carbine" Williams of M-1 carbine fame once built a pistol in his childhood using a barrel of bamboo wrapped in copper wire, a wooden grip and hammer, and a rubber band for a spring. He made his own gunpowder from charcoal, sulfur from a drug store and nitrates from a garden store.

When tested years later, it put a piece of buckshot through an inch of pine board.

All built by a kid who hadn't even reached his teens.

So much for "gun control" and "keeping guns out of the hands of the public", eh? Kind of puts things into perspective nicely.

Ed.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Ahh, leather and wood guns have indeed been used before, though with marginal effectiveness and dubious safety.

[EdBecerra]

Ahh, leather and wood guns have indeed been used before, though with marginal effectiveness and dubious safety.

Something a certain J. Tiberius Kirk was famous for.

But that's topic drift.

I honestly can't wait to see how the situation in Hell plays out, not to mention the fact that there's a LOT of creative talent in Hell that can now be salvaged, then aimed directly at Heaven and Yahweh. Our best and brightest for the past thousand years are down there, and they're still sane, even if their sanity was kept only for the purpose of making their torment all the sweeter.

That's a lot of brainpower, and one crapload of resentment, and all of it aimed RIGHT at the Celestial Throne.

Wouldn't it be a hoot to see Yahweh, bloodied, broken and in chains, dragged to the Oval Office and thrown to the ground in front of President Bush's desk? Booyah!

Wonder how many of the Heavenly Choir are harboring reservations?

Or, for that matter, how many will consider defection as a viable option?

Ed.

[Rahvin]

Flip side, it might be something the demons could copy, if given enough time. We've already seen them create a crude shotgun.

That's not really a big deal at all. Demons already have ranged weapons capabilities in the form of their lightning bolts. A machine gun might increase their lethality against infantry but really, demons are extremely deadly against infantry already. A shotgun or large-caliber musket can make a human dangerous to a demon, but it won't change anything in the hands of the baldrick that can already kill humans just as effectively.

The only way the demons will become a threat to the human invaders is if they can come up with a ranged weapon capable of penetrating tank armor or shooting down a bomber, and somehow manufacture such weapons rapidly enough to put a dent in the ever-increasing human forces. And train sufficient demons to use them. They don't even have a reliable rifle or (seemingly) anything more explosive than simple black powder. It ain't happening.

Even if you miraculously arm every living demon with one of these shotguns, or even a copied "off-the-shelf-parts" sort of rifle, the results of this war won't meaningfully change. The sort of weaponry they need is just decades (at a minimum) beyond their manufacturing capabilities, even given the advantage of being able to steal ideas and even designs from us. Hell, you could even give the baldricks specific instructions and designs for how to build a tank-killer missile, or how to manufacture an antiaircraft flak cannon - they still wouldn't be able to do shit with it.

[EdBecerra]

Flip side, it might be something the demons could copy, if given enough time. We've already seen them create a crude shotgun.

That's not really a big deal at all. Demons already have ranged weapons capabilities in the form of their lightning bolts. A machine gun might increase their lethality against infantry but really, demons are extremely deadly against infantry already. A shotgun or large-caliber musket can make a human dangerous to a demon, but it won't change anything in the hands of the baldrick that can already kill humans just as effectively.

Blast and tarnation... now you have me thinking of the Hybrid Assistive Limb device that's being leased by the Japanese government to the physically disabled in Japan - and the military possibilities therein.

A little insulation, a little ceramet armor, a full NBC rig... ARGH! Plot. Bunny. In. My. Head! Get it out! Waaaaaah!

But your point is taken... it would seem (though there are arguments both for and against) that leaving small arms around for the dead humans to find and use wouldn't hurt the human infantry any more than it already hurts from the demons natural weaponry and tridents. Maybe give the demons a trifle more range, but that's about it.

Ed.

[Zor]

One thing i was wondering is this, how good are the Badricks with Glass? Molotov Cocktails, although hardly the most effective anti-tank weapon are doable given the cicumstances and there were no shortage of people who died during the Great Patriotic War to give them the idea.

Zor

[EdBecerra]

One thing i was wondering is this, how good are the Badricks with Glass? Molotov Cocktails, although hardly the most effective anti-tank weapon are doable given the cicumstances and there were no shortage of people who died during the Great Patriotic War to give them the idea.

Zor

Isn't that what they're already doing with the bags of sulfur they used on the human AFV's? We use gasoline because it's (relatively) easier to ignite - but every baldrick comes with his (or her) own lighter built into their very biology. So it's only reasonable to think that they're already familiar with flame weapons. Simple ones, at least.

When you've got lightning at your literal fingertips, setting $hit on fire would tend to be the first thing that pops to mind, I'd think...

Of course, I've been wrong before.

Ed.
(listening to David Bowie... "Ground Control to Major Tom...")

[Michael Garrity]

Duchess:

A musket of that caliber did see limited service during the Civil War. Some 1,500 or so Suhl muskets of .84 or .85 caliber were imported in 1861; they were modified by rifling the barrels and giving them long-range sights. The slug was a Minie ball of 900 grains. I do not know what the powder charge was. Another musket that would be applicable is the Springfield Model 1842 rifled musket, a .69-caliber weapon with a rifled biore and long-range ladder sights. The projectile was a 730-grain Minie ball, propelled by 70 grains of 2F black powder.
An alternative would be the New England Firearms 10-gauge single-shot shotgun. It has a 32" barrel and could easily be rifled and fitted with sights. As an aside, a 10-gauge slug weighs 1.75 oz (765 grains)

Mike Garrity

[Stuart]

Walls of Dis, Hell

This wasn’t like normal sieges. The rules of a siege were well-established; the defenders mounted guard on the walls of the besieged fortress, the attackers started to build their own fortifications around that fortress. Their aim was to cut supplies to the besieged garrison and eventually bring about its surrender. If that didn’t seem likely, they would concentrate on the weakest point of the line and break through there. Or try to, a wise garrison commander kept a force in reserve for exactly that eventuality. The reserve force could be used another way, if food was running out, it could launch an attack on the weakest point of the fortifications and break out. If there was a reserve.

Nobody had ever besieged Dis before, not even during the Great Celestial War. It was too big, its walls too long. It would require more than the total armies of Hell, even before the humans had set about decimating them, to set up a proper siege. Garrisoning Dis was even more impossible. Dagon had 243 legions, of whom 24 were Krakens and 16 cavalry. That left him with 203 legions of foot soldiers, 1,350,000 in total. That meant he had one soldier for every 50 feet of wall. That wasn’t a garrison, it was a fig-leaf. Dagon snorted at the use of the old Earth religious reference. These humans weren’t the blind, foolish followers of superstition that the Demons had known. They were supremely logical, supremely practical, utterly ruthless killers. And nobody had told them that putting Dis under siege was impossible so they had gone ahead and done it.

At first, Dagon didn’t even believe that the city had been put under siege. There were no earthen walls being thrown up, no garrison surrounding the city. The humans had started to arrive and set up their camps, scattered around the city, wherever they felt the ground suited them. Isolated encampments, just their tanks and mickvees parked on the plains, surrounded by a wall of earth. And their artillery of course, Briefly Dagon wondered at how Belial had got to know all the names for the human weapons, was he in league with them? That was a question better not asked because Belial was now Satan’s favorite and to criticize him meant death. Anyway, the names were good, ‘aircraft’ made much more sense than ‘sky chariot’ and few now used the original demon names. That was good for the old names implied magic and there was no magic in the human’s arsenal. They used machines instead. Engineering had met magic and engineering’s victory had been absolute. Dagon knew Dis would fall, his paper-thin screen of soldiers couldn’t stop the human onslaught.

Dagon shook his head and returned to the problems of the siege. He had more soldiers, more by far than the humans. The human encampments hadn’t linked up, they were still separate entities. Last night, some demons outside had tried to get caravans of supplies through to the city, knowing that prices within the walls were already soaring. The great camps between the human positions had seemed an open invitation and that was just what they had been. An invitation to destruction. The caravans had set out and died under a hail of mage bolts – Dagon stopped himself and carefully used the right words. A hail of artillery fire. The caravans had been destroyed, when the light had returned, all that was left of them was charred wreckage. The siege was as tight as if the humans had surrounded Dis. How they’d done it, Dagon didn’t understand but they had and that was all that mattered.

“Keep down My Lord.” One of the foot soldiers near him whispered urgently. That was something else Dagon had noted. The soldiers up here crouched behind the stone crenellation and spoke in whispers. They were afraid, mortally afraid and once more Dagon knew that the fall of Dis was inevitable.

“You fear the humans?” Dagon’s voice was silky as he asked the question that was also a threat.

“Humans, no. Their magery yes. “ The new words hadn’t spread down to the rank and file yet. “My Lord, if they see you, you will die. They can see in the dark and strike without warning.”

The ranker measured distances and the route that Dagon had used to approach. “My Lord, they are watching now for you. They saw you come to us and now they wait for you. When you appear again, if you appear again, you will die. Watch this.”

The soldier placed a spare helmet, Dagon didn’t like to think of how the helmet had become a spare, on a trident and lifted it where Dagon’s head would be if he stood up. There was a dull thud and the helmet lurched and spun. When Dagon looked at it, there was a hole the size of his talon punched in the front but the back was a gaping void, its edges hot and singed.

“Three soldiers we’ve lost tonight to that magery, on just this section of the wall. How many more, I don’t know but if the rest of the walls are like this….”

The soldier didn’t need to finish the thought but Dagon did it for him, silently, in his head. If this rate of attrition kept up, he wouldn’t even have a paper-thin defense when the assault came. He had a mental picture of what that would mean, the humans breaking through the walls, their tanks and mickvees plowing through the streets, their artillery devastating the city and they took in by storm. Every demon knew what happened when a fortress fell to attack by storm, a days-long orgy of looting, rape, pillage and torture than would only end when there was nothing left to kill and destroy. If the humans were as efficient at storming fortresses as they were at destroying armies in the field, and there was no reason why they should not be, then Dis was indeed doomed. And with it the whole demon race.

Dis could not be stormed, its surrender had to be negotiated before the humans got to work. Deumos had been right, somebody had to contact the humans and ask for terms. But, nobody could do that while Satan still lived. The answer was obvious although millennia of loyalty screamed in protest at the inevitable conclusion. Satan had to go. That meant Dagon had to see Deumos and throw his lot in with her plan. Now, quickly because the humans would attack soon and then it would be too late for Dis and everybody who lived within it.

B-1B “Strawberry Bitch” 128th Bomb Squadron, Georgia Air National Guard, Over Tartarus

“I guess that must be the first target?” Major Andrea Czernick swung Strawberry Bitch around in a wide circle, looking at the great black ellipse beneath them. “Sheffield or Detroit do you reckon?”

“No way of knowing is there? Hang on a minute, Sheffield’s lava outfall has stopped, Detroit’s hasn’t. The portal is that crater is clear of lava. Looks like its building up though and will lap over again soon but its clear now. So that must be Sheffield. Damn.”

Strawberry Bitch had been allocated the southern portal, a few miles away, Shoo Shoo Baby was lining up on the other. It looked like Shoo Shoo Baby had got lucky and drawn the Detroit portal.

“Look on the side Jim, at least if this thing works, we’ll stop the Sheffield attack resuming.”

“If it works, I hear the first test was a flop. Lining up Andy?”

“Lined up. Bomb-nav system on, target designated, approach height 29,000 feet, speed 454 knots. All data entered. Take it from here, Strawberry Bitch.”

The B-1B settled into its bomb run, the attack-navigation system taking data from the flight computer and bombing radar and transforming it into precise flight commands. Humanity had come a long, long way from the crude Norden bomb sight in the B-24 whose name the B-1 carried. At a precisely calculated moment, the aircraft lurched as the EBU-5 dropped clear of the bomb bay and arced downwards. Czernik held her breath as she watched it fall in a perfect ballistic arc that terminated in the center of the portal. There was a brilliant flash, one that seemed unnaturally bright against the black of the portal, a flash that seemed to grow out of all proportion to the size of the bomb she had just dropped. The black ellipse of the portal seemed to flicker, its edges pulsating as they absorbed the blast from the bomb. Then the portal started to swell outwards , doubling or tripling in size, before it collapsed and vanished.

“Yee-hah!” Czernik’s scream of triumph was echoed throughout Strawberry Bitch as her crew looked at the featureless crater that now lacked its black crown. A split second later a similar scream of triumph came over the radio from Shoo Shoo Baby. Obviously the Detroit sky-volcano had just been shut down as well. Czernik pulled the control column back, bringing Strawberry Bitch into a gentle climb away from the target location. First responsibility was to clear the target area for the formation of four B-1s that were targeting Belial’s fortress. Second was to send a message home. She thumbed the button on the radio that selected long-range communications and composed her voice into its best neutral-official tone. “This is Foxhound-Electric-Leader to Rivet Crown. Do you read me?”

“Rivet Crown here. Receiving you.” That was a relief, there were no satellites in Hell and the egg-heads seemed to believe there never could be so relay aircraft were being used. Rivet Crown was an old EC-121 that had been ‘borrowed’ from a museum and pulled back into service while Boeing 747s were converted to take her place. She had last directed air intercepts over the Gulf of Tongkin more than forty years before. Another old lady doing her best.

“Report Operation Electric Strike successful. Repeat Operation Electric Strike successful. Both portals hit by bombs and closed down. Both portals shut completely. No sign of further sky volcano action here.”

“Confirming that Electric Strike Leader. Both portals shut down. Wait one.” There was a long humming crackle of static and Czernik thought she could hear the drone of the relay aircraft’s piston engines. “Electric Strike Leader, we have word from Detroit. Sky volcano has vanished, the lava has ceased to fall and the portal has closed. Mission confirmed as successful. Rivet Crown out.”

Czernik relaxed in her seat, as much as was possible in the poopy-suit she was wearing. That was one thing the air force still had to sort out, a decent means of in-flight relief for female crew members. And it was still a long way to go back home.

B-1B “Dragon Slayer” 128th Bomb Squadron, Georgia Air National Guard, Over Tartarus

“The sky volcanoes are down!” Rivet Crown just confirms shut-off.” Trafford relayed the message to the crews and heard the explosion of cheering in the four aircraft. “Now let’s get that bastard Belial.”

Even if this part of the strike was a failure, the mission would still count as a success. The volcanoes had to come first, partly so the bombing conditions for the two Foxhound-Electric aircraft would be perfect but also, as the old proverb insisted, business had to come before pleasure. So, taking out Belial and his fortress had to wait for second place. But, the main formation’s time had come and the four B-1s dropped into the appropriate formation.

“Bomb-nav system on, target designated, approach height 45,000 feet, speed 522 knots. Intervalometer on. All Foxhound aircraft synchronize now.” The master bombing system on Dragon Slayer sent out an electronic bleep that aligned all four bomb-nav systems on the aircraft to within a thousandth of a second. Ahead of them was the great square that Abigor had described as “The Adamantine Fortress” and carefully drawn for them. The special forces team that was on the ground below had photographed the installation as well and those illustrations had made up the target pack. Now, the bombers had a radar image of the target and the set was complete.

A mix of BLU-116 Advanced Unitary Penetrator bombs and Mark 83 conventional bombs were stowed within the cavernous forward bomb bay of the B-1s. Trafford had wondered why the BLU-116s were being used rather than the Massive Ordnance Penetrators that had made such a spectacular ruin of Satan’s palace but it had been explained that there were mines underneath the Adamantine Fortress and there were human slaves in those mines. It was, therefore, desirable to destroy the fortress without too high a probability of caving in the mines underneath. The BLU-116 fulfilled that role perfectly. The Mark 83s had been substituted for anti-personnel cluster bombs at the last minute, supplies of the cluster bombs were running very low and they were being saved for even more pressing targets. With the assault on Dis just days away, Trafford could see why.

He felt the snap as the bomb bay doors opened and the vibration as the aircraft’s bomb load started to pour out of its forward bay. That would give the aircraft a C-of-G problem until the fuel in the tank occupying the aft bomb bay had been consumed. But, that extra fuel tank gave them a margin of safety in the event of problems with the intricate chain of tankers that were supposed to get the bombers home. Beneath him, Trafford saw the target area disappearing under a rolling cloud of explosions. Mission accomplished.

South of the Adamantine Fortress, Hell

“Will you look at that!” Tucker McElroy whooped and smacked the nearest member of his team soundly on the back as the fortress they were observing disintegrated into a rolling cloud of brilliant orange and black explosions, punctuated by the roar of the blasts and brilliant flashes of light as the structure of the building shattered under the hammering of the bombs. The whole of his team were dancing with delight as the ground shook under their feet and the air around them roiled from the devastating destruction that was being meted out. Through the blasts, McElroy could see the whole structure collapsing into a pile of formless wreckage. Revenge was definitely an under-rated pastime he reflected.

Beside him Memnon watched the bombing with awe, he’d heard claims that Satan’s palace had been destroyed but he had dismissed them as exaggerations and propaganda. Now, with Belial’s palace crumbling before his eyes he forced himself to remember that where destruction was concerned, nothing was beyond the abilities of the humans. Nothing in hell anyway.

“That’s show the bastard to pour lava on our cities.” McElroy was still whooping with delight. “And once we’ve finished with this place, we’ve got a few other scores to settle as well.”

“With Yahweh?” Memnon was curious. “You humans plan to deal with him as well.”

“Of course.” McElroy paused. “We’ve already got one of his minions. Some bastard called Appollyon or something. One of our tank-heads blew him away in Iraq. The shit-head had slaughtered an entire family and sat there drinking tea surrounded by the bodies. Until an Abrams turned up and blasted him. He died, just like the ones down here.”

Memnon remembered the incident and thought about correcting McElroy’s version of events but decided it probably wouldn’t be a good idea. Anyway, if the mistake meant the humans were going after Yahweh as well, who was he to argue? Yahweh had always been a great one for saying nothing happened without a reason, so he couldn’t complain about this could he? Besides, only two beings, Apollyon and Memnon, knew what had really happened that night and Apollyon wasn’t talking. That made Memnon think back on the creature he had been then and compared it with his present status. The thought made him uneasy, these people had taken him in, cared for him, cured his wounds, respected him for his abilities and applauded his efforts. Compared with the savagery of the demons and the arrogant, supercilious cruelty of the angels, weren’t they the examples to be upheld and emulated?

“Beware, for the angels have powers and abilities all of their own.” Memnon spoke slowly. “We beat them in the Great Celestial War only by great efforts and much sacrifice. You will not find them as easy to beat as the enemy here. I know some, Abigor knows more. What we know we will tell you but I warn you there are many more weapons that the angels can deploy against us than we know.” Memnon looked again at the crumbing ruin of Belial’s fortress then frowned. He focused his vision to great distances and saw the columns heading north. “And I fear Belial anticipated your raid. He had evacuated the Adamantine Fortress and headed north. Why I cannot tell you.”

Cabinet Conference Room, The White House, Washington D.C.

The conference room was bitterly cold, primarily because the air conditioning had been turned up to its maximum setting. Demons liked warmth and President George Bush saw no reason why their visitor should be comfortable. Also, the air purification system was running full blast and the air current out through the vents in the floor were enough to rustle papers.

“This is crunch time Lugasharmanaska.”

“Crunch time Sir?”
“Time to make a choice. You’ve been playing both ends against the middle ever since you surrendered to us. We knew it of course and it suited us to let it continue. Now, it doesn’t. You’re going to have to pick sides. You’re either with us or with Deumos. That means with us or against us. Which? Make up your mind.” Bush sat in his seat with a gentle smile on his face. One he usually reserved for people he was allowing to hang themselves.

Lugasharmanaska stared back. She’d long accepted that her miasma no longer worked but the blunt statement shocked her. Succubae weren’t used to be given ultimatums. She tried to buy time, to think this through. “My choices Sir?”

“You can stay here with us, work with us without reservations, or go back with Deumos. Take your pick.”

The succubus weighed options briefly. “I will work with you Sir. My place is here now.” It hadn’t taken much, when Deumos had contacted her, asking to arrange this meeting Lugasharmanaska had quickly probed her mind, as much as she was able, and detected a tinge of anticipation that did not bode well for her. She had a strong suspicion that despite her efforts, Deumos did not look well upon her and had a gruesome revenge in mind. The humans were a safer bet, much safer.

“Good. Welcome to the team. You may leave now.” Lugasharmanaska left with her guards. She may have joined the team but Bush intended to take no chances. “Show Deumos in.”

The Queen of the Succubae or whatever she chose to call herself, was big, Bush reflected. The creature was walking crouched and bent-over and was still finding it hard to fit into the confined spaces of the White House. Even when she sat on the floor by the table, her horns still nearly touched the roof. Bush had no doubt that the gas chromatographs measuring pheromone levels in the room were going off the chart.

“You are Deumos.” That was a nice, stupid way to start the conversation Bush thought, years in politics and winning elections had proved to him that being underestimated was a valuable attribute. “To what do we owe the honor of this visit?”

“There may soon be some changes in the power structure of Hell. I wish to discuss a way of ending this war with you.” Deumos’s voice was a deep, grinding rasp that she probably thought was seductive.

“We can do that. Your unconditional surrender should do the trick.”

Deumos barely managed to conceal her shock. Wars always ended in compromise and with terms. Never a bland demand for a complete surrender. Even the Great Celestial War had ended with terms demanded and given. Internally, she was worried, normally when she spoke her miasma made them accept what she said. “I and my colleagues plan to remove Satan from power. Very soon, at a meeting to discuss the strategy of the war.” Where Satan thinks he will be giving the orders she thought. “Once that is done we will take power and we will declare the war over. For that, we will demand one third of your dead so we may extract energy from them and the support of your armies against any who stay loyal to Satan. Is this agreed?”

Bush grinned to himself, reveling in the degree to which Deumos was talking herself into a hole. It was true what Ronald Reagan had always said. Just keep smiling and people always hanged themselves. “A very interesting offer Deumos. I can safely say that you may have an answer in accordance with our traditions very shortly and I am certain you will find it assertive. Thank you for attending this meeting.”

Bush watched while Deumos shuffled out, barely fitting through the double doors. Then he thumbed a button on his intercom. “She’s gone. Bring Luga in.”

It was a relief to be dealing with a normal-sized figure again. “Lugasharmanaska, you can lock in on Deumos’s mind at any time?”

“Yes Sir.

“Good.” Bush pressed another button on his intercom. “Condi, please call Vladimir in Moscow. There’s some equipment we need to borrow.”

“Very good Sir. Oh, Sir, there’s something on television you should watch. The Pope’s issued a statement.”

“I thought he was laying low. Oh well. Thank you Condi.” He switched the intercom off and went into an anteroom where a large flat-screen television was set up. His aides checked the channel was set to Fox news and turned it on. Fox’s Rome anchorman was speaking.

“And we have just received the news of the Papal statement. The full version will be issued in about three hours time but we have an advanced abstract now. It reads as follows.

“Current events have challenged the very core of our beliefs and thrown all that we believed into doubt. One thing must remain clear, that we follow the teachings of Jesus Christ that provide a good and just basis for all of human conduct. But we cannot deny that these have been corrupted and misapplied, that grave mistakes have been made and that crimes of great magnitude committed. At times like this we must believe that we have been mislead and deceived by imposters and deceivers who succeeded in leading us down a false path. We can be sure that the God who has led us down this false path is not the God of whom our Lord Jesus Christ Spoke. We can be sure it is those deceivers and imposters and in particular those who lead them, that are responsible for the grievous errors that have been committed in our Church’s name. we must cast out such deceivers and purify ourselves so that we can, once more, follow the teachings of Christ as they were meant to be followed.

"To do this I call upon the Holy Catholic Church to excommunicate God.”

[Shroom Man 777]

Excommunicate God!

Pope Ratzinger has declared Yaweh diabolus!

[CaptainChewbacca]

"To do this I call upon the Holy Catholic Church to excommunicate God.”

*SNAP*

What was that? Oh, it was the last thread of my sanity, thanks.

Edit: OH, incidentally, I've been crunching the numbers on heaven, and it doesn't look good. The City of Zion (New Jerusalem, whatever), described in the bible a giant cube about half the size of the moon.

[tim31]

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Talk about cutting your ties....!

Belial is a slippery bastard; I know some of you guys are cheering for him, but I can't wait to see the conniving prick get what's coming.

[Darth Wong]

"To do this I call upon the Holy Catholic Church to excommunicate God.”

*SNAP*

What was that? Oh, it was the last thread of my sanity, thanks.

Edit: OH, incidentally, I've been crunching the numbers on heaven, and it doesn't look good. The City of Zion (New Jerusalem, whatever), described in the bible a giant cube about half the size of the moon.

Where was this? The only description I recall was a conventional city, not a giant cube.

[Shroom Man 777]

Wait - Heaven is the All Spark?

Give me the Cube, boy!


Though, yeah. I wonder what kind of extra-dimensional weirdness Stuart has in store for us with Heaven. I mean, Hell, sure, hellish landscape. But having Heaven be all cloudy puffy and shit doesn't work.

[CaptainChewbacca]

"To do this I call upon the Holy Catholic Church to excommunicate God.”

*SNAP*

What was that? Oh, it was the last thread of my sanity, thanks.

Edit: OH, incidentally, I've been crunching the numbers on heaven, and it doesn't look good. The City of Zion (New Jerusalem, whatever), described in the bible a giant cube about half the size of the moon.

Where was this? The only description I recall was a conventional city, not a giant cube.

Revelations 21: 16-17.

21: 16 The city lies foursquare, and its length is as great as its breadth. He measured the city with the reed, Twelve thousand twelve stadia. Its length, breadth, and height are equal.

21:17 Its wall is one hundred forty-four cubits, by the measure of a man, that is, of an angel.

At the time it was written, a hebrew and roman stadia were the same thing, 625 feet. Crunching numbers, that gives you a length per side of between 1400 and 1500 MILES.

Now, it could be that the city is a pyramid and not a cube, but I go with cube for a few reasons;

1. If its a cube, it has 12 edges that are 12,012 stadia, which gives the number 144,144.
2. Pyramids were a symbol of opression to the Jews.
3. The cube figured more heavily into Jewish mysticism of the time.

Also fun to note, the walls of the city are over two hundred feet high.

Footnote: At a cubic geometry, the city of heaven would have an internal volume of about 11 BILLION cubic kilometers.

[Darmalus]

Maybe the city is on top of a cube shaped planetoid half the size of the moon?
Edit: Maybe they were describing the inside of the Heaven universe, rather than the city itself?

[JN1]

“Beware, for the angels have powers and abilities all of their own.”

I do hope my worries are unfounded.

“Current events have challenged the very core of our beliefs and thrown all that we believed into doubt. One thing must remain clear, that we follow the teachings of Jesus Christ that provide a good and just basis for all of human conduct. But we cannot deny that these have been corrupted and misapplied, that grave mistakes have been made and that crimes of great magnitude committed...
...To do this I call upon the Holy Catholic Church to excommunicate God.”

I was actually expecting something like this to happen. While the more extreme fundamentalists would die off the more rational majority would re-evaluate their beliefs and go back and examine their teachings.
I think it is pretty clear that Yaweh has not exactly followed the teachings of the world's major monotheistic religions.

[Darth Wong]

Most likely, they would be forced to adopt a form of polytheistic religion. If they continue to revere Jesus while rejecting Yahweh, they must acknowledge that there are many gods, not different faces of one god.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Most likely, they would be forced to adopt a form of polytheistic religion. If they continue to revere Jesus while rejecting Yahweh, they must acknowledge that there are many gods, not different faces of one god.

I'm hoping it'll turn into a Christian/Buddhist-ish 'church of man' where we worship/venerate our own capacity for creativity and goodness towards each other, and live moral lives. It wouldn't necessitate the belief in a God.

[Darth Wong]

CaptainChewbacca: that city is not Heaven. That city is the New Jerusalem which is supposed to appear atop a high mountain on Earth after the (obviously false) End Times prophecy. To say its dimensions don't make sense for a city sitting on top of a mountain would be something of an understatement, never mind the fact that it is said to be made of pure gold, even though gold is a shitty structural material.

[Academia Nut]

I have a feeling Gnosticism is going to suddenly have a massive upswing seeing as it preaches that humans live in an imperfect world run by an imperfect god who took over from the real creator, and all of the world's suffering is Yawheh's fault... which is pretty much what has happened here. An actual creator, maybe not, but it certainly would fill the religious void for a lot of the surviving moderates.

Also, when you mentioned that they want something from Putin, I couldn't resist.

[CaptainChewbacca]

CaptainChewbacca: that city is not Heaven. That city is the New Jerusalem which is supposed to appear atop a high mountain on Earth after the (obviously false) End Times prophecy. To say its dimensions don't make sense for a city sitting on top of a mountain would be something of an understatement, never mind the fact that it is said to be made of pure gold, even though gold is a shitty structural material.

New Jerusalem is oftentimes believed to be what we will call 'the kingdom of heaven' when it comes to earth, as it will be descending from above. Its not a stretch for Armageddon (or for many biblical schollars) to believe that the city already exists, and is just waiting to be brought to earth.

And I agree, the geometry, dimensions, and materials make no sense. If a city that big was sitting on the earth, it would create a depression so deep it would fracture the earth's crust.

BTW, if you think GOLD is a crap material, check out the walls; They're made out of JASPER

[Darth Wong]

The problem is that the entire End Times prophecy has been shown to be a sham, so there's no reason to believe any of its details, including its description of the city.

[The Vortex Empire]

I'm surprised that the Pope didn't kill himself when the message came. Excommunicating God, now that is an interesting idea.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Duchess:

A musket of that caliber did see limited service during the Civil War. Some 1,500 or so Suhl muskets of .84 or .85 caliber were imported in 1861; they were modified by rifling the barrels and giving them long-range sights. The slug was a Minie ball of 900 grains. I do not know what the powder charge was. Another musket that would be applicable is the Springfield Model 1842 rifled musket, a .69-caliber weapon with a rifled biore and long-range ladder sights. The projectile was a 730-grain Minie ball, propelled by 70 grains of 2F black powder.
An alternative would be the New England Firearms 10-gauge single-shot shotgun. It has a 32" barrel and could easily be rifled and fitted with sights. As an aside, a 10-gauge slug weighs 1.75 oz (765 grains)

Mike Garrity

I was remembering that. I think a rifled Suhl musket built to modern tolerances (but simply) would be ideal for mass-production as a weapon to provide to liberated humans in Hell.