Armageddon???? (Part Fifty Up)

[Sidewinder]

Might I recommend an addition to the band of hell-raisers (no pun intended): Adrian Carton de Wiart. I figure if anyone can get loose in Hell, it's him.

He was quite a bloke, wounded at least nine times; once in the Sudan, when he lost an eye, and eight times in the Great War. He almost seems to have been a real life Captain Scarlet.

I wonder if de Wiart got his eye and arm back when he died? Or did he show up in Hell looking the same way he did later in life?

[DarthShady]

I wonder if de Wiart got his eye and arm back when he died? Or did he show up in Hell looking the same way he did later in life?

That is an interesting question.I assume that due to the nature of hell he will regenerate the missing body parts.
Are people who die at the age of 80 years the same age in hell or can they look 20 or 30 years old again?

[john1761]

Sorry , my intention was not to say that the individual demon would be willing but that Abigor would not object to our testing the demon physiology to external stresses . The lesser demons probably would accept any order given by his lord.

[Typhonis 1]

As the duchess has said the person could very well be Otto Skozeny.

[Darth Wong]

As the duchess has said the person could very well be Otto Skozeny.

Or it could just as easily be Agamemnon. Until now, she had no idea humans had advanced so far. How many modern humans could she know?

[RedImperator]

It also appears that something quite drastic happened around 50 million years ago that caused all our junk DNA.”

“That’s correct General. Our working hypothesis is that somehow we and the baldricks split away from each other way back then.

Is 50 a typo? Because if the last common ancestor of humans and baldricks lived 50 million years ago, it's impossible the difference in their DNA would only be 1.5%. Humans and chimps are separated by 2%, and their last common ancestor lived only 6 million years ago. 5 million years, on the other hand, makes sense.

Incidentally, 50 million years ago, we probably shared a common ancestor with lemurs.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Maybe he meant fifty THOUSAND years? That'd be right around the time of multiple hominid ancestors.

[KlavoHunter]

Personally I'd prefer David Stirling to Skorzeny. The later probably deserves to be where he is.

He might deserve it, sure, but the slippery bastard just wouldn't stay there.

I wonder if Harry Houdini escaped.

Did this even need asking?

[RedImperator]

Maybe he meant fifty THOUSAND years? That'd be right around the time of multiple hominid ancestors.

With enough genetic monkeying about, that's possible. As far as multiple hominids go, though, I think we were down to us, the Neanderthals, and potentially a handful of H. erectus offshoots on isolated islands. H. daemonicus would almost certainly be an offshoot of H. sapiens if the split was only 50,000 years ago.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Maybe he meant fifty THOUSAND years? That'd be right around the time of multiple hominid ancestors.

With enough genetic monkeying about, that's possible. As far as multiple hominids go, though, I think we were down to us, the Neanderthals, and potentially a handful of H. erectus offshoots on isolated islands. H. daemonicus would almost certainly be an offshoot of H. sapiens if the split was only 50,000 years ago.

Or Homo Heidelbergensis.

[Edward Yee]

Or it could just as easily be Agamemnon. Until now, she had no idea humans had advanced so far. How many modern humans could she know?

In that case, I vote that it be Agamemnon.

[Stuart]

Maybe he meant fifty THOUSAND years? That'd be right around the time of multiple hominid ancestors. With enough genetic monkeying about, that's possible. As far as multiple hominids go, though, I think we were down to us, the Neanderthals, and potentially a handful of H. erectus offshoots on isolated islands. H. daemonicus would almost certainly be an offshoot of H. sapiens if the split was only 50,000 years ago. Or Homo Heidelbergensis.

The number comes from the Human Genome Project. My working hypothesis is that the demons are a severely mutated and differently-evolved branch iof the basic human stock that split off from us a very long time ago.

[Surlethe]

Maybe he meant fifty THOUSAND years? That'd be right around the time of multiple hominid ancestors.

With enough genetic monkeying about, that's possible. As far as multiple hominids go, though, I think we were down to us, the Neanderthals, and potentially a handful of H. erectus offshoots on isolated islands. H. daemonicus would almost certainly be an offshoot of H. sapiens if the split was only 50,000 years ago.

Or Homo Heidelbergensis.

If, as the Wikipedia article suggests, H. heidelbergensis is an ancestor of H. sapiens neanderthalensis, then H. daemonicus would not be descended from it; Neanderthals were well-established in Western Europe by 50,000 years ago and actually just 15,000 years away from extinction by assimilation.

[RedImperator]

Maybe he meant fifty THOUSAND years? That'd be right around the time of multiple hominid ancestors. With enough genetic monkeying about, that's possible. As far as multiple hominids go, though, I think we were down to us, the Neanderthals, and potentially a handful of H. erectus offshoots on isolated islands. H. daemonicus would almost certainly be an offshoot of H. sapiens if the split was only 50,000 years ago. Or Homo Heidelbergensis.

The number comes from the Human Genome Project. My working hypothesis is that the demons are a severely mutated and differently-evolved branch iof the basic human stock that split off from us a very long time ago.

That doesn't work, though. There's no reason at all that a split 50 million years ago would lead to an animal that's nearly genetically identical to humans. Even allowing for convergent evolution, their genomes would only be as similar to ours as lemurs'.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Yeah, it'd have to be some odd viral thing which got to us far later in our evolution. Or, it could just be that a lot of our 'junk' DNA is active in Demons.

[Alferd Packer]

That doesn't work, though. There's no reason at all that a split 50 million years ago would lead to an animal that's nearly genetically identical to humans. Even allowing for convergent evolution, their genomes would only be as similar to ours as lemurs'.

I think a better explanation would be that of ring species, controversial though that might be. Ring species are those found in such varied environments that interbreeding is only possible with those members from nearby clines. As an example, let's say there's a hardy rodent species whose range is from Alaska to Argentina. If you were to take a male from Alaska and a female from Argentina, they would not be able to have viable offspring. But that male can mate with a female from, say, Washington state, and the female could mate with a male from Brazil, or whatever. You could then chart a core range, wherein any male and female can produce viable offspring. The fringes of the ring species, then, would be able to breed with this core, but not with other fringes.

Of course, in the case of humans and demons, you'd have to have extremely strange selective pressures to shape them as they appear in the time that human species has been around, but I suppose it's not the strangest thing that's happened in this story. You could explain that specific early humans, born with specific abnormalities, were whisked away to Hell to form the demon ring species. This would result in demons which can breed with some humans, but not all of them.

[MKSheppard]

In that case, I vote that it be Agamemnon.

I vote for either Beowulf or Gilgamesh

[Vehrec]

Stuart: 50 million years ago, the only primates on Earth or anywhere else were Tarsiers. The split from Chimps only happened 7-5 MYA. And somewhere after the chimp/human split, two ape chromosomes fused into human chromosome 2. Or maybe that was the cause of the split-either way, there's no way that a 50 mya divergence would lead to something so very close to us.

What could make the difference is changes to regulatory genes like the HOX family. HOX controls limb development and segmentation in insects for instance. It's a very powerful gene because it turns other genes on and off, causing developmental cascades. So small actual genotype changes can if they occur in the right place, have massive phenotypical changes.

[Stuart]

Stuart: 50 million years ago, the only primates on Earth or anywhere else were Tarsiers. The split from Chimps only happened 7-5 MYA. And somewhere after the chimp/human split, two ape chromosomes fused into human chromosome 2. Or maybe that was the cause of the split-either way, there's no way that a 50 mya divergence would lead to something so very close to us.

What could make the difference is changes to regulatory genes like the HOX family. HOX controls limb development and segmentation in insects for instance. It's a very powerful gene because it turns other genes on and off, causing developmental cascades. So small actual genotype changes can if they occur in the right place, have massive phenotypical changes.

As you've probably gathered I'm not a biologist and this is an area I know from nothing so I went to the human genome project. It said there that something really weird happened to the DNA that was to become human around 50 million years ago; from that point onwards there was a dramatic decrease in the rate of accumulation of repeats in the human genome. "Something weird" suited me just fine so I grabbed the number and ran with it. Now, if that's totally off the wall, I guess we can drop a zero and make it five million years ago with teh human/chimp split being seven million years ago. The gene fusing thing could be a syptom of teh split. How does that work?

[Academia Nut]

I think the simple work around here is to say that a natural Hellmouth, or whatever sort of portal, opened up 50 million years ago and the event started leaking weird radiation or viruses or something that started mucking about with the genomes of various species. Then sometime within the past million to half a million years a group of hominids got stuck on the other side and rapidly started accumulating small but powerful mutatations that in addition to a new and bizarre environment radically altered them.

That sound good enough for the biologists here? Cause it seems to reconcile both the 50 million year weirdness and the fact that the split couldn't have been that far back for there to only be a .5% difference in the genome.

[Adrian Laguna]

I think Alexander the Great would have been able to free himself, he's probably running around somewhere. The guy was a single minded, gutsy, tough bastard.

From thence, being eager to behold the ocean, and having built many passage-boats equipped with oars, and many rafts, he was conveyed down the rivers in a leisurely course. And yet his voyage was not made without effort nor even without war, but he would land and assault the cities on his route and subdue everything. However, in attacking the people called Malli, who are said to have been the most warlike of the Indians, he came within a little of being cut down. For after dispersing the inhabitants from the walls with missiles, he was the first to mount upon the wall by a scaling ladder, and since the ladder was broken to pieces and he was exposed to the missiles of the Barbarians who stood along the wall below, almost alone as he was, he crouched and threw himself into the midst of the enemy, and by good fortune alighted on his feet. Then, as he brandished his arms, the Barbarians thought that a shape of gleaming fire played in front of his person. Therefore at first they scattered and fled; but when they saw that he was accompanied by only two of his guards, they ran upon him, and some tried to wound him by thrusting their swords and spears through his armour as he defended himself, while one, standing a little further off, shot an arrow at him with such accuracy and force that it cut its way through his breastplate and fastened itself in his ribs at the breast. Such was the force of the blow that Alexander recoiled and sank to his knees, whereupon his assailant ran at him with drawn scimitar, while Peucestas and Limnaeus defended him. Both of them were wounded, and Limnaeus was killed; but Peucestas held out, and at last Alexander killed the Barbarian. But he himself received many wounds, and at last was smitten on the neck with a cudgel, and leaned against the wall, his eyes still fixed upon his foes. At this instant his Macedonians flocked about him, caught him up, already unconscious of what was going on about him, and carried him to his tent.

Quite apart from their superior weaponry and military tactics built a round those weapons, Kim and her men had the experience of two thousand years of warfare engrained within them.

Three thousand, we have three thousands years of war records. Some of them fairly detailed despite the intervening millennia. The Battle of Kadesh comes to mind, it occurred 3282 years (minus 45 days) ago.

Simon Bolivar Buckner (either of them will do)!

Huh, I didn't know there were two American generals named after el Libertador.

[ray245]

I vote for Ghengis Khan.

Another reasoning can be, heaven may wants to get all the greatest leaders born into their terriority, hence Julius Caesar and other great leaders and etc, who died before 1000AD will be going to heaven.

So there is a chance that alexander, Hannnibal and etc are on heaven, while Ghengis Khan was born after 1000AD.

At the same time, he lived in a era when gundpowder isn't really that widepsread, if so, then the resistance member will be familiar with gunpowder weapons.

Perhaps if a war with heaven really breaks out, heaven might have access to all those great commanders and etc, which makes the plot even more engaging.

So the humans on earth and hell must convince the great generals, kings and etc to join the war on humanity side, which is going to be hard.

[Robo Jesus]

That sound good enough for the biologists here? Cause it seems to reconcile both the 50 million year weirdness and the fact that the split couldn't have been that far back for there to only be a .5% difference in the genome.

Not really. I think Vehrec hit it on the head here.

When you also add in that Yahweh was the one who is credited with creating the angels/demons, and you add in our convo from page 34 regarding whether or not god shortened human lifespans; which I'm going to quote btw, it seems like the humanoid angels/demons are recently new creations (meaning there were other types of servants for Yahweh (or his predecessor) around earlier (like the water demons)), and that Yahweh has had his hands/claws/tentacles in damn near everything at one point or another. There may be some demons types that are fifty millions years or older, but I doubt that those are the humanoid ones.

But that brings up an interesting idea. What if ancient humans were much longer lived than today but the Angels infected them with something so as to increase the death rate to increase harvests.

It's actually written in the Bible that God shortened the human lifespan after Noah's Flood (Genesis 6:3; "yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years"). Dr. Hugh Ross speculates that this might have been accomplished by changing the cellular apoptosis rate.

Almost every living thing on this planet lives for about one trillion heart beats. Humans are one of the few exceptions to that. What's more, it was MAJORLY implied that during the time of Adam, Lilith, and Eve that there were other humans around. However, they were considered of different stock then the 'Original Three of Eden'. Going by that route, we humans were considered livestock, and farmers are known to experiment with their livestock to see if they can get 'better stock' out of them. Meaning he (God) accidentally improved humanity too much from what he was working with, and then later on decided he didn't want that so set on toning down his improvements.

So God takes some people, starts trying to improve the 'livestock', does his improvements, kicks/releases them out of his lab-area (Eden), and makes humanity think "it's their fault" for being kicked out in the first place, giving humanity a collective guilt trip in the process of indoctrinating them.

Dr. Moreau has nothing on Yahweh here it seems.



I'd also like to point out, When the Demons/Angels left heaven and went towards hell, it implies one of two things which I'll get to in just a moment. Now Kitten described hell as if s/he was looking at pictures of the old destroyed European cities nearing the end of WWII. The question then becomes, did the demons build all those structures that were later on destroyed and abandoned, or did the demons end up killing the 'original' inhabitants of hell when they moved in?

[JBG]

I think Alexander the Great would have been able to free himself, he's probably running around somewhere. The guy was a single minded, gutsy, tough bastard.

If Alexander could get free for those reasons, his father Philip will be free even sooner. Let's not forget Parmenio! There'd be large numbers of such tough, single minded versatile individuals, though an insignificant number when taking into account the billions of average Joe's etc tat they are mixed up with. Pergaps what Kim really needs is to find SAS, VC winners ( especially C Upham, a kiwi who was awarded two VCs ) CMoH winners, snake eaters etc. Until she can franchise out the rebellion ( just what are the Brits up to Stuart, Jay, anyone?) she needs more troops not more "high end" leaders.

Quite apart from their superior weaponry and military tactics built a round those weapons, Kim and her men had the experience of two thousand years of warfare engrained within them.

Three thousand, we have three thousands years of war records. Some of them fairly detailed despite the intervening millennia. The Battle of Kadesh comes to mind, it occurred 3282 years (minus 45 days) ago.

I always thought that Megiddo was the first "recorded" battle, but hey, a few hundred years doesn't derogate from the three thousand or so years of history you refer to. A good modern professional military will soak all that history up.

JN1, you don't necessarily have to choose between Stirling and Skorzeny. Together they have a most interesting skill set and might just have fascinating conversations given the chance about razing hell in heaven and hell. Here's an interesting one - in the 1st hell amoured corp you could have Patton and the PanzerGraf being divisional commanders!! The possibilities are endless.

Jonathan

[Sidewinder]

Here's an interesting one - in the 1st hell amoured corp you could have Patton and the PanzerGraf being divisional commanders!!

Patton was a fairly devout Christian, so he might be in heaven.