Armageddon???? (Part Fifty Up)

[That NOS Guy]

There's one word, and only one word, that this update made me immediately think of:


WOLVERINES!!!

I'd tell you to go to hell for that remark, but I fear what fic ideas that would inspire

[JBG]

EDward Yee wrote:

"3) Taking a "neutral" stance may allow Humanity to observe the Heavenly "military" in action (against Hell); this means that Humanity would in the future actually proceed in a future conflict with better intel than they did when the baldricks (i.e. Abigor's army) first started coming in. "

We are already fighting hell so we can't be all that neutral. We would hope that Heaven's first military action is indeed against Hell. Heaven is still probably underestimating humans in much the same way that Hell is, though actual action against Heaven cannot at this time be blamed on Humans.

[JBG]

"I'm pretty sure he meant during the last few centuries with the start of the modern age. Human casualties have been very low in this war, so if it were just that, he wouldn't think anything of it -- remember, World War II dwarfs all subsequent conflicts by an order of magnitude or more."

My first impression was of the great dying off that followed the Message. But that can be seen, by those with long time perspectives, as the period from the American Civil War onwards - industrial then total war. There must be a lot of Russians in Hell!!

BTW, 4 claymores plus semtex is one good way to get attention! Overkill physically but very symbolic!

Jonathan

[KlavoHunter]

God is obviously not omniscient here, or He wouldn't have been surprised by the human resistance to Hell.

It is very well possible that Yahweh has some ability to view Earth from Heaven - It is, however, unlikely that he is looking in all places at once, or necessarily understanding what he is seeing.

[Surlethe]

"I'm pretty sure he meant during the last few centuries with the start of the modern age. Human casualties have been very low in this war, so if it were just that, he wouldn't think anything of it -- remember, World War II dwarfs all subsequent conflicts by an order of magnitude or more."

My first impression was of the great dying off that followed the Message. But that can be seen, by those with long time perspectives, as the period from the American Civil War onwards - industrial then total war. There must be a lot of Russians in Hell!!

Not even from the American Civil War onward; he's referring more broadly to the upsurge in deaths that follows the upsurge in total human population. Remember, human population didn't really start growing all that much until the 1700s, and then it started exploding (which it still is today, causing a host of problems -- but those are the topic for other threads).

[Darth Wong]

Mere words cannot describe the sheer awesomeness of this story, Stuart.

[JediToren]

This fic seriously kicks ass. It is by far the best fic I have ever read on this site or anywhere else on-line for that matter. What I like most are the descriptions of modern warfare and technology from the baldrick's perspective. It reminds me of Clarke's Third Law.

The inclusion of many real world figures, especially James Randi, is a huge plus. If only Richard Dawkins were in it, then it would be perfect. I really can't wait until we see some major deceased historical figures. I can just imagine how cool it would be to see General George S. Patton back in action.

I'm also hoping that a nuclear weapon will be used at least once. If the tanks, aircraft, and other technology used thus far seems like unstoppable magic now, the sight of a nuclear explosion would probably convince many in heaven and hell that humans are a race of gods.
That would actually be pretty cool to read. With the growing fears about the baldrick afterlife combined with the humans apparent ability to wield unlimited destructive power on any scale, I could see a large number of baldrick's and angels believing humans to be gods and seeing some internal strife over whether the humans should be fought or worshiped.

Another kick-ass aspect of this story is that new chapters are frequent and very good. Many of the good fics around here are slow going.

[tim31]

The inclusion of many real world figures, especially James Randi, is a huge plus. If only Richard Dawkins were in it, then it would be perfect. I really can't wait until we see some major deceased historical figures. I can just imagine how cool it would be to see General George S. Patton back in action.

The esteemed author has already addressed the last point; there are an enormous number of individuals in hell; the odds of encountering a specific famous person are slight. It's going to be up to Stuart to decide that in the end, of course.

[Darth Wong]

One thought: demons don't seem to need a supply train, but they must need some sort of sustenance, don't they? Even if they feed off the energy of living beings as they die, that's still a logistical issue, isn't it? If their gateway to Earth is located in the Middle East, might depopulation of the region surrounding the gateway slow down their ability to advance long distances?

Obviously, that's a pretty extreme way to deal with the problem, but it's not unlike the "scorched earth" policy.

[CaptainChewbacca]

One thought: demons don't seem to need a supply train, but they must need some sort of sustenance, don't they? Even if they feed off the energy of living beings as they die, that's still a logistical issue, isn't it? If their gateway to Earth is located in the Middle East, might depopulation of the region surrounding the gateway slow down their ability to advance long distances?

Obviously, that's a pretty extreme way to deal with the problem, but it's not unlike the "scorched earth" policy.

Demons live largely off of raw flesh, mostly human, so scorched earth is definitely an option. However, we also know they can cover inhospitible terrain very quickly, and if we glass one portal, they could open another in Tokyo, London, or Los Angeles.

[tim31]

There was a previous reference to a baldrick commander eating a messenger and feeling satisfied having done so; there have also been references to soldiers being torn apart and eaten as well as Luga craving fresh human meat.

I don't recall any specific references to their metabolism; you'd think a larger creature like that would need more food than we would, but on the other hand these guys haven't proven to be 'conventional'.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Questions for Stuart/The Duchess of Zeon/JCady

How much ammunition will be carried by riflemen using the .458WM Garand? How big will the magazines be?

Thanks

14+1. The magazines will be only 11% larger than those of the M-14 to handle 14 rounds of .458WM, and by introducing a slight curve in the banana style we can pretty much eliminate any height difference between the M-14's straight mag and this one. I did a few calculations on the ergonomics and it works out beautifully. Frankly we could probably do 15 rounds in the magazine, but I wanted to be conservative to give the gun basically the same handling, aiming, positioning characteristics, etc, from a shape standpoint, as the M-14. Don't want anyone used to firing one to have to adjust to a new posture or anything like that.

[Edward Yee]

Nitpick: The Angel in that example didn't kill that family, Memnon the Harpy did. The Angel just got blamed for it.

So who wants to go tell that unit that they hit the wrong guy? Because that's what I'm seeing here.

We are already fighting hell so we can't be all that neutral. We would hope that Heaven's first military action is indeed against Hell.

Damn straight I would hope so too (Heaven acting against Hell), but "neutral" against Heaven... I wasn't the only one to question a declared two-front war.

Heaven is still probably underestimating humans in much the same way that Hell is, though actual action against Heaven cannot at this time be blamed on Humans.

Up until the PFLH decided that the existing declaration of war with Heaven meant "blow up what (at least tactically) is essentially a third party without even an attempt at intel-gathering." Well, other than the explosion making me think "recon by fire."

Until Heaven's POV (and what exactly is known or unknown on that end about the two hostile contacts) are posted, though, I would think that it would be desireable from Humanity's POV to make it a two-front war for Hell (against both Heaven and Humanity), and to control military actions in such a way as to ensure that outcome.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

The inclusion of many real world figures, especially James Randi, is a huge plus. If only Richard Dawkins were in it, then it would be perfect. I really can't wait until we see some major deceased historical figures. I can just imagine how cool it would be to see General George S. Patton back in action.

The esteemed author has already addressed the last point; there are an enormous number of individuals in hell; the odds of encountering a specific famous person are slight. It's going to be up to Stuart to decide that in the end, of course.

To put it into perspective: The author states there's something like 90 billion souls in Hell. The odds of running into a historical figure buried under all that mud is thus, 90 billion to one. The odds of winning a big lottery jackpot are around 150 million to one. One is approximately 600 times more likely to win a $250 million jackpot than they are of stumbling on George S. Patton or Julius Caesar or Alexander the Great. (Rahab probably counts as a notable historical figure, because her involvement in the Israelite conquest of Jericho has been immortalized in the Bible. But, she was looking for Lt. Kim and her merry band of marauders, rather than the other way around.) To put it more clearly, they'd be over 128,000 times more likely to be struck by lightning (1 in 700,000 odds.) A more rigorous statistical analysis isn't possible without knowing the acreage of Hell that's devoted to torture pits.

<ADDENDUM:> I should've said that the odds that any given person they dig out of the mud being a specific famous person are 90 billion to 1.

[Darth Wong]

How far can demons range without food or whatever means they use to feed themselves from the energy of humans? If they keep pouring forces through the Hellmouth in the Middle East, you would think they would eventually start having real logistical problems. We know that they get hungry, so they can't just go forever without food, but they also did not bother with any kind of supply train in Abigor's attack.

I'm guessing that they assumed they could eat humans once they overran their defenses and entered their cities, so their army could "live off the land". They can also feed off the corpses of their own dead, but this still limits their rate of advance as long as the Earth governments are smart enough to be evacuating civilians in a wide area around the enemy incursion.

Also, what is their resistance to chemical weapons?

PS. Regarding the idea of digging up dead experts in Hell and trying to use their knowledge, in addition to the probability issue mentioned before, it is worth noting that technical expertise tends to fade with time. This shit ain't easy, and if you're not actively using it, then it will be difficult to pick it up again at a working level (as opposed to a managerial one). Anyone who's been in Hell for any appreciable length of time will probably have only rudimentary technical skills remaining. Given enough time, even a renowned physicist would probably have forgotten so much that he would have trouble performing basic high-school level calculus. And of course, there's also the problem of creating an entire infrastructure from nothing, and we don't know what kind of mineral resources Hell has, apart from an abundance of slime and sulphur.

[gtg947h]

Also, what is their resistance to chemical weapons, such as mustard gas?

I'd imagine those are being held in reserve, like nukes. They might try them on isolated small groups, but large-scale employment is highly unlikely while conventional weapons are still doing the job.

[Darth Wong]

I just had the amusing mental image of a baldrick eating a dead baldrick corpse and his teeth chomping down on a dud bomblet which didn't go off ... until now

[Sea Skimmer]

Also, what is their resistance to chemical weapons?

Since they have something like human DNA a sufficient quantity of nerve agents should kill them. Blister agents though, well mustard and the like aren’t even that good at killing humans, plus hours can pass before symptoms show up so its not a good thing to rely on to fight them with. Bladricks might have incredibly high resistance to it even without a piss rag for a mask, and at this point we don’t even know if they actually need oxygen to live. If they don’t then mustard will never be lethal, nor will blood agents or choking agents.

Amusingly though it just occurred to me that incapacitating agents like LSD and BZ might work even if other gases don’t. Can you imagine 100,000 demons tripping balls in the desert? They’d tear themselves apart. Considering the scale of the world chemical industry, and yet our aversion to using toxic chemical weapons this might be an avenue of approach to explore, particularly if and when the main fighting moves into hell proper.

The issue of logistics comes hand in hand with the issue of just how much of a civilization does hell really have? They must have something other then just demons walking about tourting people, the classic image of hell, as we have evidence of stonework, bronze work and livestock, but what else exists? I’m guessing this will be something we’ll learn more of soon.

[The Vortex Empire]

I wonder when nukes will first be used.

[fusion]

Awesome: is the word that understates this fic.
Cool: is not cool enough for this fic.
Nice: is not slang enough for this fic...,
I need moarrr....

[Darth Wong]

I wonder if their tridents have to be replaced periodically. Powerful electric discharges will tend to wear off the electrodes, although it's still not entirely clear how these discharges can be directed in the manner we see in the fic rather than going to ground immediately; I assume this just has to be chalked up to writer's fiat and magic.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

The demons themselves consider it magic, of course, that's no guarantee it is, rather the opposite, actually. But it is rather.. Problematic.

Anyway, yeah, nerve agents will kill them easily. Another kind of agent that will kill them, and that we can manufacture along with nerve gas--I STRONGLY suspect that Russia and China, at least, have started manufacturing nerve gas again, and the USA will follow suit very quickly, as well pretty much every country in the world, as anyone who can make pesticides can make poison gas--are blood agents. Namely, Cyanogen Chloride and Hydrogen Cyanide (Zyklon B). The different makeup of Baldrick blood is irrelevant; these agents actually work by interrupting the electron transport chain in mitochondria, and guess what Baldricks have if they have human-like DNA? So blood agents and nerve agents will work, but blister agents and suffocation agents will not. Cyanogen bromide may also be effective along with Cyanogen Chloride (which the French developed as an agent around 1918 - 1919, just to late to deploy in WW1) and of course Hydrogen Cyanide, which as noted is the infamous Zyklon B.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

...and at this point we don’t even know if they actually need oxygen to live.

Actually, we do, and the answer is yes. If they eat the meat of terrestrial animals (humans and cattle,) this means they have our biochemistry (or a biochemistry close enough to ours that eating us nourishes, instead of poisons, them.) And since they function vigorously at STP and the atmosphere of Hell is close enough to Earth's not to kill the first two living humans to cross a portal into Hell (i.e. oxygen-rich,) it means their biology similarly utilizes the same aerobic metabolism that ours does (aerobic respiration evolved in response to an oxygen-rich atmosphere, as oxygen is fantastically deadly poison to anything that hasn't evolved some mechanism to deal with it.)

[The Duchess of Zeon]

...and at this point we don’t even know if they actually need oxygen to live.

Actually, we do, and the answer is yes. If they eat the meat of terrestrial animals (humans and cattle,) this means they have our biochemistry (or a biochemistry close enough to ours that eating us nourishes, instead of poisons, them.) And since they function vigorously at STP and the atmosphere of Hell is close enough to Earth's not to kill the first two living humans to cross a portal into Hell (i.e. oxygen-rich,) it means their biology similarly utilizes the same aerobic metabolism that ours does (aerobic respiration evolved in response to an oxygen-rich atmosphere, as oxygen is fantastically deadly poison to anything that hasn't evolved some mechanism to deal with it.)

DOH, you're right. Oxidative Phosphorylation requires oxygen and if they have mitochondria it's the only way to produce large amounts of cell energy, so of course they breath oxygen. So, actually, if we get sufficient quantities of suffocation agents into them, they'll die, too. Chlorine is most likely entirely insufficient for that task but Phosgene might work. Especially Diphosgene, which is more easily weaponised. It works by damaging proteins in the alveoli, interrupting the transfer of oxygen into the blood, which will work (like the misnamed "blood agents") regardless of the metal content of Baldrick blood--which may, incidentally, still be iron. Copper would make the blood blue, unlike in Star Trek; it's the presence of sulphur that makes blood turn green.

[Pelranius]

Great work?

I wonder how many Hail Marys I'll have to do for reading and enjoying this though.

Incidentally, three of my friends on the women's ice hockey team are named Maria, Shana and Kelly. Had quite a private laugh about that.

Ghetto Edit: Great work! Didn't notice I had put in the question mark first time around.