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Emerson33260 wrote: So, I have liked and respected every traitor I have ever met. Those who consider it an important objective to root out treason in their countries, who live by the motto "My Honor is Loyalty", make only a negative impression on me.

So what you're saying is that you've seen the word "traitor" used to describe people who aren't really traitors, by any definition of the word (Especially in the US as quoted above), so now all "traitors" must be "the good guys" and anyone being even vaguely patriotic is a bastard who kills civilians for no reason.

Did I get that about right?

-blinks at Emerson- Wow! You must be really OLD! ^^;

Bayonet wrote: Do you believe a person should be free to sell out their homeland, betraying it to an enemy in time of war?

So long as their enemy is us - yes. That's why we like people like Rommel, who never betrayed the Allies, and don't like people like Vidkun Quisling.

Treason can be a matter of opinion, or timing rather than law. An individual can be considered a traitor by some and a patriot by others. That doesn't mean that the people who think they're traitors love them any more. The Hitler Plotters comes to mind. Ordinary vicious criminals were comparatively painlessly beheaded. Traitors after July 20th were hung without a drop by piano wire.

Bayonet wrote:Do you believe a person should be free to sell out their homeland, betraying it to an enemy in time of war?

If their homeland is doing something terrible, yes. Are you saying that mindless loyalty to a piece of geography and its current government should automatically outweigh all other moral and ethical considerations in a person's mind?

GrayAnderson wrote:I'm also open to the gates being opened and closed once or twice. Close them around 1000-1100 (Pornocracy, etc.), reopen them in the 1200s (sack of Baghdad, Medieval Inquisition), and then close them again in the 1400s (Renaissance).

Why would Yahweh even care about corruption in the Church, by the way? What offends him isn't corruption as such, it's people asking him annoying questions like "but wait, are you really the Alpha and the Omega?" For him, the Church was pretty much just an ornament and a mechanism for producing suitably faithful peasants.

People may well be wondering how the recent British General Election may effect the story in TSW. I'd suggest that it won't have a major effect for at least a couple of reasons:

1: Britain does not hold General Elections in wartime; only by-elections took place in both WW1 and 2 (with the candidate usually unopposed).
2: In TSW the UK has a National coalition government which will, looking back at WW1 and 2 again, remain in existence until the war is clearly won.

The net effect of that is that Brown will remain PM until the current war is over.

Darth Wong wrote:Are you saying that mindless loyalty to a piece of geography and its current government should automatically outweigh all other moral and ethical considerations in a person's mind?

I'd find it hilarious -- but oddly plausible -- if any of the HEA troops admitted to anyone that this was actually why they were on "humanity's side"... that, and going with a winner, nothing to do with higher-minded motives (i.e. anger about betrayal by Yahweh, a desire to save the dead.)

Re: JN1's take -- I don't see anything wrong with the lack of General Election in TSW; Brown's last two years haven't happened in-story and so far he's a competent enough premier for the circumstances.

Simon_Jester wrote:

GrayAnderson wrote:I'm also open to the gates being opened and closed once or twice. Close them around 1000-1100 (Pornocracy, etc.), reopen them in the 1200s (sack of Baghdad, Medieval Inquisition), and then close them again in the 1400s (Renaissance).

Why would Yahweh even care about corruption in the Church, by the way? What offends him isn't corruption as such, it's people asking him annoying questions like "but wait, are you really the Alpha and the Omega?" For him, the Church was pretty much just an ornament and a mechanism for producing suitably faithful peasants.

The simplest explanation has nothing to do with politics, and everything to do with simple numbers: angels do not reproduce quickly, and if unchecked, the ratio of humans to angels in Heaven will eventually rise to the point that:

A) They have no use for more human slaves.
B) They might even fear a human uprising, especially as human newcomers bring increasingly advanced knowledge with them.

What I still want to know is the mechanism for sorting the dead; if the heavens only looked in on earth every so often throughout history (or in long enough gaps that they missed the advancement of mankind), one assumes there must have been an automated process for sorting the dead into 'duped slaves' and 'everyone else', which would require the conduit to be sensitive to certain types of information as it transmitted our 'selves' as whatever data across universes.

I just assumed that earth dead naturally flow towards the hell-planet, and that Yahweh was tapping that link for slaves and biological mutation projects.

Edward Yee wrote:Re: JN1's take -- I don't see anything wrong with the lack of General Election in TSW; Brown's last two years haven't happened in-story and so far he's a competent enough premier for the circumstances.

Basically it follows on from both previous world wars. In the UK there is an unwritten agreement that when war begins party politics is supposed to end. Both WW1 and WW2 essentially froze parliament as it had been at the previous General Election, which in some ways is why 1945 often seems to be a shock.
In some ways being a wartime premier is easier for Brown than @; he won't have to put up with some of the silly criticism has had to deal with from the media in TRW.

The first election after TSW ends may be interesting, though I think it will probably follow @ quite closely.

Sorry your life has had a shitty record regarding the treatment of traitors, Emerson, but that doesn't make this fictional bit of treason NOT treason or less deserving of punishment.

It also doesn't merit someone comparing me to a pedophile.

Emerson33260 wrote:
So, I have liked and respected every traitor I have ever met. Those who consider it an important objective to root out treason in their countries, who live by the motto "My Honor is Loyalty", make only a negative impression on me.

Or in German: Meine Ehre heißt Treue. That was the motto of the SS. This is the same mindless bullshit as "Right or Wrong it's my country". People have the tendency to "argue" with patriotismn when they don't have real arguments.

BTW. You can define traitors really easy. If your on the side of the looser then you were a traitor. If you are on the side of the winners then you were resistance.

JN1 wrote:Basically it follows on from both previous world wars. In the UK there is an unwritten agreement that when war begins party politics is supposed to end.

*Looks at TRW* Oh, how hilariously ironic... oh wait, whoops, it's when the UK calls a war, not when America does it. Heh...

I think Brown's reelection in TSW would basically come down to voter confidence in whatever his "rebuild the economy" policy is... maybe deals with any ancestors who've set up proto-states in Hell?

... *imagines Queen Victoria getting a video tour (since she can't be on Earth) of what "the Empire" has come to* HA!

CaptainChewbacca wrote:Sorry your life has had a shitty record regarding the treatment of traitors, Emerson, but that doesn't make this fictional bit of treason NOT treason or less deserving of punishment.

I don't think anyone is arguing that the particular traitors in this story should be treated leniently, but rather, they are arguing against the general notion that treason is one of the greatest crimes a person can commit.

Darth Wong wrote:The simplest explanation has nothing to do with politics, and everything to do with simple numbers: angels do not reproduce quickly, and if unchecked, the ratio of humans to angels in Heaven will eventually rise to the point that:

A) They have no use for more human slaves.
B) They might even fear a human uprising, especially as human newcomers bring increasingly advanced knowledge with them.

That's a good reason for Heaven to stop accepting entrants. But is it the reason Stuart set up, or was Yahweh not thinking that clearly when he made the decision to stop letting people in?

Darth Wong wrote:

Simon_Jester wrote:

GrayAnderson wrote:I'm also open to the gates being opened and closed once or twice. Close them around 1000-1100 (Pornocracy, etc.), reopen them in the 1200s (sack of Baghdad, Medieval Inquisition), and then close them again in the 1400s (Renaissance).

Why would Yahweh even care about corruption in the Church, by the way? What offends him isn't corruption as such, it's people asking him annoying questions like "but wait, are you really the Alpha and the Omega?" For him, the Church was pretty much just an ornament and a mechanism for producing suitably faithful peasants.

The simplest explanation has nothing to do with politics, and everything to do with simple numbers: angels do not reproduce quickly, and if unchecked, the ratio of humans to angels in Heaven will eventually rise to the point that:

A) They have no use for more human slaves.
B) They might even fear a human uprising, especially as human newcomers bring increasingly advanced knowledge with them.

Directly, they're not going to care about politics. That's true. But let us assume that, at least early on, the Pope is used as an intermediary. What's going on in Rome is going to have a disproportionate effect on Heaven's view of Earth. Assume that the early Popes and Church leaders are generally coming in and getting sorted into the "heaven" side of things, but suddenly you get a string of them who are "unfit for service". One or two get written off, yes, but after a long string of them go bad (as was the case at that point), I could see some conclusion-jumping that "If the leadership is rotten and acting like this when earlier it was good, then the whole thing must be rotten". A few strong shows of fervor later, and he reverses the decision...only to flip back when another wave of trouble arises.

Wong, I think you're assuming a rational actor here...something that I think is probably missing from the story, or we wouldn't be hearing about humans being unfit to serve and whatnot. I doubt we'd be hearing about him looking for new species to tend to (let alone mention of him having sought out another race to tend to and suggestions of plans for clearing the humans out of Heaven like races that had gone before), etc., if a servant population was the only matter. What the story presents is someone who is very much off their rocker and who has been for quite some time (though just how long is, of course, a good question).

Edit: Yeah, Simon just beat me to it.

A side-question, probably for Stuart but possibly also for you or anyone else: I'm reminded of how the Greeks had three branches to the afterlife. One was Elysium, one was Tartarus, and one was the Asphodel Fields. I'm fairly certain that this concept wasn't solely Greek, and we know there were other pantheons out there that got cleared out with some concessions (such as that which protected Caesar). Obviously, the winners in that deal set up a very dualistic system, but I know for example that Egypt didn't have much in the way of a Hell (souls were simply annihilated, end of story), there was the Greek three-branch system, Mesopotamians didn't have much in the way of a heaven, etc. Therefore, is it fair to speculate that the other deities had differing systems set up with their own machinery?

Simon_Jester wrote:

Darth Wong wrote:The simplest explanation has nothing to do with politics, and everything to do with simple numbers: angels do not reproduce quickly, and if unchecked, the ratio of humans to angels in Heaven will eventually rise to the point that:

A) They have no use for more human slaves.
B) They might even fear a human uprising, especially as human newcomers bring increasingly advanced knowledge with them.

That's a good reason for Heaven to stop accepting entrants. But is it the reason Stuart set up, or was Yahweh not thinking that clearly when he made the decision to stop letting people in?

There was also a mention, via Michael's thought process, of another planet with sentients to replace humanity in due time. Unless he was thinking across several hundred thousand years, that would be against the idea that Heaven wasn't allowing anybody in.

My personal opinion is that they closed the Gates because of practical reasons, and later when we 'erred before His Greatness' Yahweh retconned the decision, and the loyal angels took the retcon everywhere, including their own minds. Cognitive dissonance? What is that?

This does have a wrinkle, tho: why would they kept an eye on Earth if there's nothing but filthy heathens there? And why did it take so long between closing the Gate and passing the land lease to Satan? I mean, angels think on the same time scale as we do, and a thousand years is still an awfully long time.

EDIT: Grayanderson:

GrayAnderson wrote: A side-question, probably for Stuart but possibly also for you or anyone else: I'm reminded of how the Greeks had three branches to the afterlife. One was Elysium, one was Tartarus, and one was the Asphodel Fields. I'm fairly certain that this concept wasn't solely Greek, and we know there were other pantheons out there that got cleared out with some concessions (such as that which protected Caesar). Obviously, the winners in that deal set up a very dualistic system, but I know for example that Egypt didn't have much in the way of a Hell (souls were simply annihilated, end of story), there was the Greek three-branch system, Mesopotamians didn't have much in the way of a heaven, etc. Therefore, is it fair to speculate that the other deities had differing systems set up with their own machinery?"

It was my understanding that pantheons and religions are usually human inventions, and Yahweh and Cybele were exceptions to the rule: actual supra-dimensional creatures who masquerade as gods, before everyone including, apparently, their own minds. I don't thing there's an Odin or a Zeus, or a Jupiter out there. Stuart did mention "the others" who snatched Elvis, but that could be Cybele's faction.

StrikaAmaru wrote:It was my understanding that pantheons and religions are usually human inventions, and Yahweh and Cybele were exceptions to the rule: actual supra-dimensional creatures who masquerade as gods, before everyone including, apparently, their own minds. I don't thing there's an Odin or a Zeus, or a Jupiter out there. Stuart did mention "the others" who snatched Elvis, but that could be Cybele's faction.

Its been heavily hinted, to the point of downright stating, that there are several other bubble worlds in Universe-2 (that of Heaven and Hell), many of which have their own pantheons that have had contact with earth and our universe in the past. Most religions on Earth have been said to be either based off of one of these pantheons, or offshoots thereof. Example, the daemons hate being called "devils" because this is the name they used for a different race of beings they fought a long time ago. Also the example of Caesar being under the direct protection of some "gods", making it so the daemons couldn't bind him in the pit. So there very well could be a Valhalla world or a Mount Olympus world out there, we just haven't found or had direct contact with them yet.

Though you can bet there will be some of that in the third book, "Lords of War".

Edward Yee wrote:*Looks at TRW* Oh, how hilariously ironic... oh wait, whoops, it's when the UK calls a war, not when America does it. Heh...

The War on Terror is not an official declared war between states. We didn't form a National Government during the Korean War, The Falklands War, of Gulf War.

Erra wrote:

StrikaAmaru wrote:It was my understanding that pantheons and religions are usually human inventions, and Yahweh and Cybele were exceptions to the rule: actual supra-dimensional creatures who masquerade as gods, before everyone including, apparently, their own minds. I don't thing there's an Odin or a Zeus, or a Jupiter out there. Stuart did mention "the others" who snatched Elvis, but that could be Cybele's faction.

Its been heavily hinted, to the point of downright stating, that there are several other bubble worlds in Universe-2 (that of Heaven and Hell), many of which have their own pantheons that have had contact with earth and our universe in the past. Most religions on Earth have been said to be either based off of one of these pantheons, or offshoots thereof. Example, the daemons hate being called "devils" because this is the name they used for a different race of beings they fought a long time ago. Also the example of Caesar being under the direct protection of some "gods", making it so the daemons couldn't bind him in the pit. So there very well could be a Valhalla world or a Mount Olympus world out there, we just haven't found or had direct contact with them yet.

Though you can bet there will be some of that in the third book, "Lords of War".

There are plenty of other bubble universes hinted al both in-story and out-of-it (millions to infinity). Thing is, there's no implication they are inhabited or inhabitable.

Also, I see no reason why every single religion practiced by humanity has to have a God somewhere in there. I don't think running into Olympians is a guaranteed possibility, and nobody knows how many 'gods' have found Earth. It's a big Universe; why should they all congregate here?

And back to the many kinds of afterlife, which Simon_Jester mentioned and which started this whole thing: the Greek three-branched afterlife, the Mesopotamian system, etc: my point was that they either never existed, or they do not exist now, as their owners were ground into dust by Yahweh and his angels. So in the soul pathway, there's the Minos gate, its heavenly counterpart, and whoever the others are, and I think Cybele's people = others, because Yahweh would start a war otherwise.

Huh, fun question: didn't these defeated gods have their own bubble universes? What happened to that real-estate? Nobody said anything about other bubbles, and we know Satan's rebellion started when he found Hell. You'd think they are somewhat important.

StrikaAmaru wrote:Huh, fun question: didn't these defeated gods have their own bubble universes? What happened to that real-estate? Nobody said anything about other bubbles, and we know Satan's rebellion started when he found Hell. You'd think they are somewhat important.

My guess is closed off to angels/demons (Abigor had the response to his thought about making Earth his domain at his fingertips, rather implies it'd been asked) and occasionally purged to prevent other threats from accumulating (likely stopped after the schism, maybe that's how Hell got their advantage of surprise, attacking while some of Heaven's armies were off purging another dimension).

Nitpick: I didn't mention the various non-Christian afterlives. GrayAnderson did.

JN1 wrote:

Edward Yee wrote:*Looks at TRW* Oh, how hilariously ironic... oh wait, whoops, it's when the UK calls a war, not when America does it. Heh...

The War on Terror is not an official declared war between states. We didn't form a National Government during the Korean War, The Falklands War, of Gulf War.

And in my opinion, that is no excuse. We are, for all intents and purposes, fighting a war.

[deadpan]The enemy in question just doesn't have the decency to be part of a nation's armed forces.[/deadpan]

Valiran wrote:And in my opinion, that is no excuse. We are, for all intents and purposes, fighting a war.

In that case we should have declared war on North Korea and China in the '50s, Indonesia in the '60s and Argentina in the '80s, not to mention Iraq in '90 and '03. We don't do formal declarations any more and it would be a bit difficult to for any PM to declare that 'a State of War now exists between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and Al Qaeda' because of the nature of the later. It would have been easier to declare war on the IRA.

Of course deciding that we were in a formal state of war would bring in all sorts of emergency legislation which I'd be happier that we left alone. Would you like to see Parliament prorogued, dissidents sent to internment camps, or controls put on what public roads you can travel on? Under the wartime laws we have most of the LibDems and a lot of Labour and even Tory MPs would be in prison for opposing the WOT.
If you think that some of the Anti-terror laws are draconian you should see some of the ones drawn up for potential world war.

I've always thought that the 'War on Terror' was a silly name (it should be terrorism for a start unless we're also fighting scary films). What we are fighting at the moment are a series of regional conflicts abroad, which at the moment are COIN operations (like Malaya, or the Indonesian Confrontation), with a terrorist threat at home, which does have a link to the conflicts abroad. It isn't a 'war' in the classic sense in which the UK would form a National Government.

Darth Wong wrote:

Bayonet wrote:Do you believe a person should be free to sell out their homeland, betraying it to an enemy in time of war?

If their homeland is doing something terrible, yes. Are you saying that mindless loyalty to a piece of geography and its current government should automatically outweigh all other moral and ethical considerations in a person's mind?

We're getting a bit far into philosophy, here. Treason is a matter of law.

Our US Founding fathers were traitors, some even violating their oaths to The Crown. Oh, but they're OUR FF, and they won so ... But if the British had caught them, they would have stretched their necks, and have been completely justified in doing so. Similarly we would have bee justified in hanging Robert E Lee, who was certainly a traitor. But we didn't.

In extremis, a person has a duty larger than their country. That doesn't come up often, but when it does, an honourable man should be willing to stand on his own two feet. And he should be perfectly willing to accept that those two feet may rest on the trap door of a gallows.