The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Forty One Up

[Sidewinder]

I can't imagine the various Free Hell groups (except for ones like Caesar who are using them already) would like that too much, though.

I believe others have noted Hell is too damn big to occupy with human forces alone. As for Free Hell's reaction to issuing firearms to a Baldrick army- hey, Chapter 11 states humans still had automatic weapons and artillery. If worse comes to worse, the human infantrymen can take cover and let machine guns, mortars, howitzers, automatic cannons, grenade launchers, etc., do the work.

[Stuart]

Funny. I thought Phlops would have dropped dead around the time of the message.

He's too arrogant; he'd just assume he was the exception and it was his job to sheepdog everybody else to destruction

[XaLEv]

Phlops is an awfully awkward way to deform his name. I'd think something like Phillips would be better.

[Bayonet]

"Let us leave legal matters to the Supreme Court." Obama spoke decisively. "Let them interpret existing law first before we start making new ones. That's what they get paid for."

Good executive statement. You may make me like the turd before the story is over.

[

The Baldricks forming the skirmish line stretched out on either side of their armored personnel carrier

How many Baldricks can you fit inside an M113? I would think it too small unless you cut the top off, and who knows what that would do to the integrity of the vehicle.

I'd think that something like an M8A1 Armored Tractor with a box on the back, or maybe an M548 with a box. Those would be easier to get than M8s, which are probably all razor blades by now.

[Lonestar]

Isn't...Warner the SECDEF now?

[Brovane]

I like that there was finally a reference to capital punishment. I mean what do you do. Do they get put to death and are sentenced to additional time in hell? How about people that are sentenced to 400 years of jail time. Do they serve all of there time either on Earth or in Hell. Also it brings up a interesting thing of what do you do with people that where already put to death. For example Nazi war criminals that where executed at the end of war, or serial killers like Ted Bundy. Basically they where found guilty and the sentence was carried out. Does this mean that when they are found in Hell they are free to go because they have served there sentence which was death? I would imagine people with life without parole sentences deciding to commit suicide if they new they would be free on the other side. Brings up a lot of interesting issues.

[CaptainChewbacca]

We already had one instance in Armageddon of a former SS officer in hell being arrested by Mossad. Of course, he was actively assisting Belial in the creation of superweapons.

[Stuart]

Isn't...Warner the SECDEF now?

You're right, good catch. Too much dealing with the real world.

[fusion]

Who is this Phlops/Phelps? Don't have too much experience in that kind of stuff, so don't know...
Anyways good as always and it is an enjoyable read...

[Pelranius]

Where are the orcs? I don't recall seeing them since Armageddon.

And does Heaven have its own "indigenous" sentient species? (I use the word "indigenous" since the pov from that Orc in Armageddon indicated that they had been around in Hell before the arrival of Satan Mekatrig and his bunch).

What worries my about leftover fundamentalists is that Michael could contact one of them and claim it whole business is a sort of Jobs' ordeal on steroids and get them to either go Rambo on a military base or start feeding him information. Given a population of billions, there's probably some one somewhere dumb enough to fall for it (or he could masquerade as a deity from outside Abrahamic theology and start nosing around, say the Hindus or Shintoists).

[Karmic Knight]

Who is this Phlops/Phelps? Don't have too much experience in that kind of stuff, so don't know...
Anyways good as always and it is an enjoyable read...

Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church, homophboe who protests various funerals and generally act like a jackass.

[Jamesfirecat]

Glad to see that my suggestion about making use of Nagas has made it into the fic.

That said I do have a very interesting idea about how humanity might be able to strike back at heaven. The way we open a portal from Earth to Heaven is like how we open one from Earth to Hell right? We need someone on the other side or something to act as a targeting flair, but not necessarily someone who has the power to open a portal themselves and we don’t necessarily even need them to be trying to open a portal for us, unlike if we were trying to open a portal from Hell to Heaven.

Therefore, since kitten has proved you can create psychic contact with someone in hell as long as they’re not wearing their tinfoil hat if you’re sufficiently well versed in their background, why don’t we have some of our Neph trying to contact various historical figures who are likely to be in heaven and seeing if any of them are tired of having to eternally chant the big man’s praises?

I’d for example all the Popes before 1000 AD, or better yet give Jesus a ring. Granted we might not have any accurate pictures of what Jesus looks like because he always seems to be white instead of Egyptian, but it couldn’t hurt to at least try to see if we could find some famous dead person up in heaven who might provide us with a backdoor as oppose to blundering around the multiverse trying to find the front one.

By the way, can we do anything to counter the lack of food caused by the second plague by taking some of Hells? We killed off a fair number of Baldricks so is there any hope the food surplus this could create could help ease the doubtlessly coming shortage on Earth due to lack of maritime products?

Along those lines, do you think we might be able to find people who are willing to sign up to have their bodies donated as food for Baldricks when they die so that whatever the Baldricks might have to eat otherwise would be available for humans. Yeah it’s sort of gristly to think about, but really it’s not that much worse than being an organ donor right? Especially if the new body in Hell is there to say “Yeah you can go ahead and turn that decaying piece of garbage into chum, I don’t need it any more!”

[Guardsman Bass]

We already had one instance in Armageddon of a former SS officer in hell being arrested by Mossad. Of course, he was actively assisting Belial in the creation of superweapons.

I wondered what happened to him. Full interrogation, followed by a 10,000 year labor sentence?

[JN1]

Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church, homophboe who protests various funerals and generally act like a jackass.

I remember seeing him and some other members of his 'church' on the BBC documentary 'The Most Hated Family in America' and he truly was a hateful and repellant man. Thankfully the Home Office have barred him from ever entering the UK.

[MarshalPurnell]

Along those lines, do you think we might be able to find people who are willing to sign up to have their bodies donated as food for Baldricks when they die so that whatever the Baldricks might have to eat otherwise would be available for humans. Yeah it’s sort of gristly to think about, but really it’s not that much worse than being an organ donor right? Especially if the new body in Hell is there to say “Yeah you can go ahead and turn that decaying piece of garbage into chum, I don’t need it any more!”

Yeah, I can't exactly see anyone willing to sanction the idea of demons being allowed to continue eating human flesh. It's something of a bad habit they need to be broken of, not encouraged in. And of course there's a whole host of squick associated with cannibalism and almost no one sanctions it even if voluntary and post-mortem for a variety of reasons. Also I really doubt such measures would make a whole lot of difference anyway, since usually the issues that cause famine are matters of distribution rather than availability. Losing a lot of the coastal fisheries hurts badly, but there's no real risk of any Western country ever suffering a famine except in the face of a complete breakdown of order. And for the Third World it's par for the course to suffer privation and starvation every now and then, though I expect one might use gates to oversee a more efficient delivery of relief supplies.

[Jamesfirecat]

Yeah, I can't exactly see anyone willing to sanction the idea of demons being allowed to continue eating human flesh. It's something of a bad habit they need to be broken of, not encouraged in. And of course there's a whole host of squick associated with cannibalism and almost no one sanctions it even if voluntary and post-mortem for a variety of reasons. Also I really doubt such measures would make a whole lot of difference anyway, since usually the issues that cause famine are matters of distribution rather than availability. Losing a lot of the coastal fisheries hurts badly, but there's no real risk of any Western country ever suffering a famine except in the face of a complete breakdown of order. And for the Third World it's par for the course to suffer privation and starvation every now and then, though I expect one might use gates to oversee a more efficient delivery of relief supplies.

Good points all around, I guess I shouldn't mix this fic with reading Warhammer 40 K books (even the Caphias Cain ones) just try to figure out all the possible pieces we have at our disposal on the board, but you are right, correct use of portals would probably do A LOT to ease our fuel crisis at least (I notice that it's one topic that Barrack hasn't been briefed about so I'll assume its handling itself quite nicely) since we wouldn't have to worry about needing it to ship the stuff across countless miles to get it from where it was made to where it needs to be, in fact given proper use of portals you could probably dump ammunition into a veritable hole in the ground and then have it appear in the necessary military barracks somewhere else.


It also might be a good time to reconsider the upsides of a vegiterian diet since there's less calories lost between photosynthesis and consumption by humans...

[GrayAnderson]

First, thanks for the shout-out (planned or not). Nifty warm fuzzy, getting thrown into the story for a scene or two.

Second, I think having someone mispronounce Mr. Phelps' name as "Phlops" is amusing in and of itself. Maybe have them correct themselves, but that's one name I don't think anyone here minds seeing get mangled. When I first saw the error, I actually thought it was a minor flub on the part of the speaker, not an actual story error.

Third, the analysis on the economy is pretty good...I can go on and on about the effects, but I think an old NY Times headline from when Truman dropped price controls suffices:

"Prices Soar, Buyers Sore, Steers Jump Over the Moon"

Basically, when those controls come off, boy are they ever going to come off...particularly with likely short-to-medium term supply squeezes in things like electronics. To some extent we're getting a bit of a "mulligan" on the economic front because of the war, but that'll have its own adverse consequences (which it's hard to get around when you've already had a de facto expansion in the money supply prior to the crash). One thing the cabinet might want to look into is tightening up credit regulations as banks recapitalize to prevent a mad lending spree once the controls come off (something that would both put the banks back in trouble and simultaneously fuel inflation). Keeping a leash on that and on credit cards would do some good in stemming inflation at the end of the day, and preventing/forestalling a repeat of the credit crunch down the road.

Fourth, a point on the wills: A lot of people will probably leave everything to themselves except for, say, funds for college for not-yet-adult children (I don't even want to think of some of the custody battles you're going to see in some cases...for example, the full-time-working Dad is alive and the stay-at-home Mom dies in a car crash. That isn't going to be pretty when they start wrangling over who's more fit to raise the kids...even if Mom can arrange for the kids to have some really good teachers). While this will technically result in capital moving to Hell, a lot of the money is likely to remain "in the system" (it'll be invested through HSBC's Dis office, not their Channel Islands office), further adding to banks' capital.

Fifth, as to the "life sentence" vs. "death" issue, here's the route I would take. In Europe, a "life sentence" is taken to be a certain amount of time. Usually after 40 years or so, except in extreme cases, a person gets out on what amounts to parole. I'd suggest that a similar tack be taken, and that while a sentence can be extended while in Hell, "extreme" sentences (those 500-year humdingers come to mind) go under "cruel and unusual" and therefore get sacked. Basically, 20 years is 20 years, whichever side of the line you're on. Life becomes "a lifetime", or say 60-70 years, to be served in either dimension. And all such sentences get tagged with a "review at termination of sentence for suitability for release" (such as what the UK has, where the Home Office reviews all "life license" releases).

Consider it a forced migration to European sentencing styles, particularly as those in Hell can easily make a plea to being out of the jurisdiction of the sentencing government (much as happened when the Korean War defectors got kicked out of the Army: The Army lost the ability to punish them). It'll be sticky, and I do suspect that a lot of terrorists and serial killers will get "review tags", but this is also a more workable system under the circumstances. Some of them might be willing to take being forced to work in the mines over another 300 years of jail time.

As to the Nazis and so forth, do remember that they've basically served 60-70 years being burned alive or constantly drowned...ultimately, a bit more than the judges bargained for giving them (particularly in the case of someone like Hans Frank, who was at least repentant at the end) along with the death sentence. Not only that, but now they can justifiably plead "demonic possession" (as can many serial killers, etc.) and hope for sentence mitigation (if not civil damages against the demons responsible).

Final thought in this vein: What are the chances that victims of various crimes and their families start suing the responsible demons where they can be tracked down and confirmed? I know they may have to go through Hell (both lit. and fig.) to get standing, but that sounds like a fun lawsuit: "Columbine victims file suit against [ins. demon name here] for being killed".

And my final veins of thought for the moment:
-When thinking of the Nazis, WWII scientists come to mind (given that the Nazis had a lot of the "toys" during the war). Though it feels like the Blues Brothers, it might be worth a mention of some of the scientists "putting the band back together" to start playing with the physics problems floating around. Though Einstein solving science problems is almost assuredly out, this brings back another idea, though: Pick a badly-run old corporation (say, Disney under Eisner) and throw in a footnote about the shareholders revolting and trying to put Walt back in charge of the board.
-Honestly, I'd like to see GM and Chrysler pushed to hire back their old executives (from the 40s and 50s, when they were big). It'd certainly be an improvement on just reshuffling the deck with who they have now. I know the need for bailouts there was mooted by the war, but I can also see a push for a Truman-style efficiency commission suggesting something like this. I'll set aside thoughts of Truman getting put in charge.
-Finally, I'd like to see a vaunted historical figure fall flat on their face. Someone who's overblown. Perhaps have Douglas MacArthur or someone else with a super-strong reputation get brought back on board to run an operation and end up looking like an idiot.

[Darth Wong]

The fact that some people believe most acts of cruelty and sadism are due to demonic possession does not necessarily mean it is so. It could be some wishful thinking on their part. It could well be that serial violence and sexual assault are simply being suppressed by the pervasive military and police presence because the perpetrators of such crimes are often (unfortunately) quite rational and simply decided that the odds of being caught were too high. And then a lot of wishful-thinking types decide "Hey, maybe all of that stuff was actually demonic possession!" when in fact there's a completely different explanation for it.

Frankly, the idea that the entire Nazi regime was due to demonic possession sounds downright silly to me. The psychological motives behind such cruelty are, unfortunately, all too easy to analyze.

Just try to keep in mind that we heard a guy say that in a security briefing in the President's office; this does not mean it is necessarily true.

[GrayAnderson]

The fact that some people believe most acts of cruelty and sadism are due to demonic possession does not necessarily mean it is so. It could be some wishful thinking on their part. It could well be that serial violence and sexual assault are simply being suppressed by the pervasive military and police presence because the perpetrators of such crimes are often (unfortunately) quite rational and simply decided that the odds of being caught were too high. And then a lot of wishful-thinking types decide "Hey, maybe all of that stuff was actually demonic possession!" when in fact there's a completely different explanation for it.

Frankly, the idea that the entire Nazi regime was due to demonic possession sounds downright silly to me. The psychological motives behind such cruelty are, unfortunately, all too easy to analyze.

Just try to keep in mind that we heard a guy say that in a security briefing in the President's office; this does not mean it is necessarily true.

Just because it is false does not mean that the matter won't get taken into consideration. And while there was a clear mentality within that regime, there are more than a few cases where particularly extreme acts can be taken as being side-effects of that.

The very fact that the idea is circulating is going to make a lot of sentences a bit harder to pin down. Basically, I think two questions need to be asked when reviewing situations like both the Nazis and the Columbine shootings:
1) Were demons involved in some regard?
2) Was human involvement with the demons voluntary?

I think it is fair to say that some demonic involvement could be placed with the Nazis in this situation. As to whether it was "possession" (that is, the demons taking the person over or inducing them to action without their consent) vs. "lending" (the person agreeing to work with the demon)? That is a particularly worthwhile question in many cases. Literal "deals with the devil" almost assuredly deserve a harder smack than those which feature an involuntary takeover, and I would actually be willing to posit that if enough pleas of this nature get put forward this will be used to turn the tables on some of the defendants.

If I may offer an example, let us say that Dr. Mengele (the Nazi death camp doctor) pleads demonic possession for some of his experiments. It is entirely reasonable for the demon to be found, brought in as a witness, and for the demon to spin around and say "Yes, I was involved, but he was more than willing to do what I told him in exchange for the knowledge I said it would give him."

Final note on the Nazis: There was enough occult and funky mysticism floating around in some circles (moons of ice, anyone?) that the idea that demons were at least influencing affairs (that is to say they weren't responsible for the whole thing, but they certainly made it worse) is hardly silly in the context of the cosmology here. I think it could easily be turned around and shown to be a willing involvement on the part of the bad guys, but I think in this sort of a situation some tinkering (be it "idea dropping" or "making things worse") is hardly out of the question.

[Stuart]

The fact that some people believe most acts of cruelty and sadism are due to demonic possession does not necessarily mean it is so. It could be some wishful thinking on their part. It could well be that serial violence and sexual assault are simply being suppressed by the pervasive military and police presence because the perpetrators of such crimes are often (unfortunately) quite rational and simply decided that the odds of being caught were too high. And then a lot of wishful-thinking types decide "Hey, maybe all of that stuff was actually demonic possession!" when in fact there's a completely different explanation for it.

The trouble is that when faced with evil, people tend to turn their faces from it and try to pretend it is something else. They seek other explanations, try to find a reason that is something other than "this person was evil". I think that the number of demonically-inspired spree-killings would only have been a small proportion of the total. However, people who instinctively look for an excuse for the evil/deranged would find "the demons made him do it" a very attractive excuse. It's one defense attorneys would play to the max.

Now, I have no doubt that you're right, that the primary reason why crime rates go down is that the pervasive military and police presence (plus the number of armed citizens) will depress the crime rate. Also, in times of war, crime rates do go down (so do suicide rates) - it's as if the greater worry drives out the lesser. However, I think the idea that "it was all the daemons" is such a seductive concept that it would tend to drive that more logical reason out of consideration

Frankly, the idea that the entire Nazi regime was due to demonic possession sounds downright silly to me. The psychological motives behind such cruelty are, unfortunately, all too easy to analyze.

Indeed so, that's the horrifying thing about the Nazi regime. It doesn't need any supernatural or unique explanations, its happened before, will happen again. It just needs the wrong people in power at the wrong time.

Just try to keep in mind that we heard a guy say that in a security briefing in the President's office; this does not mean it is necessarily true.

Usually such things combine what the speaker would like to be true, what he or she would like the President to believe is true, what will look good when it gets back to their constituents and (always) what will secure a bigger slice of the budget for their department. Note that what is actually true is way down the list of priorities.

[Samuel]

Second, I think having someone mispronounce Mr. Phelps' name as "Phlops" is amusing in and of itself. Maybe have them correct themselves, but that's one name I don't think anyone here minds seeing get mangled. When I first saw the error, I actually thought it was a minor flub on the part of the speaker, not an actual story error.

I think it is intentional. You know lawsuits.

-When thinking of the Nazis, WWII scientists come to mind (given that the Nazis had a lot of the "toys" during the war). Though it feels like the Blues Brothers, it might be worth a mention of some of the scientists "putting the band back together" to start playing with the physics problems floating around. Though Einstein solving science problems is almost assuredly out, this brings back another idea, though: Pick a badly-run old corporation (say, Disney under Eisner) and throw in a footnote about the shareholders revolting and trying to put Walt back in charge of the board.

I mentioned that and Stuart pointed out that he wants to focus on more sane and normal humanity. Plus, they are 50 years out of date, lack the knowledge we need (quantum physics) and the majority of scientists from all of human history are alive now.

-Honestly, I'd like to see GM and Chrysler pushed to hire back their old executives (from the 40s and 50s, when they were big). It'd certainly be an improvement on just reshuffling the deck with who they have now. I know the need for bailouts there was mooted by the war, but I can also see a push for a Truman-style efficiency commission suggesting something like this. I'll set aside thoughts of Truman getting put in charge.

The Man never dies. Lets not have that happen.

-Finally, I'd like to see a vaunted historical figure fall flat on their face. Someone who's overblown. Perhaps have Douglas MacArthur or someone else with a super-strong reputation get brought back on board to run an operation and end up looking like an idiot.

Uh, all of them? Aside from the ones who have to get used to modern standards there is the fact they lack the backround knowledge most people are familiar with. The most useful would be those who died in the last couple decades.

Just because it is false does not mean that the matter won't get taken into consideration. And while there was a clear mentality within that regime, there are more than a few cases where particularly extreme acts can be taken as being side-effects of that.

Are we going to use Harry Potter as a precedent? Because there no one wanted to believe that so many were involved and accepted mind control for a large number.

[GrayAnderson]

Samuel,
1) I've seen unplanned typoes and real typoes in here before, so either is quite plausible in my mind. That said, Mr. Phlops is quite litigious, so it being on purpose is more than believable.
2) Good point on the quantum physics. I still think the rocketry guys have a place (particularly if we decide to pursue the space race option down the road...we can put the old guys in the second tier working with NASA; also, they can easily be kept busy dealing with the "inverted" physics and such), but that is a good point. One idea would be a comment to the effect of "IBM is complaining." "Oh?" "Yeah. Seems that we've got a bunch of old scientists who do the job of their computers for far less than the cost of a replacement." Do remember that many of them had to do some rather complex math in their head and/or by hand (after all, the original term "calculator" referred to a human being, not a four-function machine), so there will be times that a dispossessed mathematician is cheaper than a new supercomputer, at least on a temporary basis.
3) Well, I was thinking an explicit shout-out. We saw Caesar adapt quite well, and one assumes that Lee will adapt well. We also saw demons fail to adapt, and we're seeing the angels adapt better. My point is that there should be someone on our side have severe adaptation problems, either to the point of uselessness or to the point of a major strategic/tactical error happening that we would consider to be "novice".
4) Could you clarify the Harry Potter point? I never got into that series, so I'd greatly appreciate clarification.

[Simon_Jester]

And, like I said, they're just as much victims as everyone else...

Bullshit. They [fundamentalist Christians] knew perfectly well what kind of monster they were worshiping. They just thought it was OK for him to act that way because he's God.

I have known fundamentalists who simply do not think this way, but I'm quite sure there are fundamentalists who do think this way.

That said, there are Christians who believe that the Old Testament is literally true but who do not believe that God is a monster. Perhaps they rationalize it by concluding that all the people God was smiting were truly evil people who deserved a smiting. I don't know. That's beside the point, which is that such people do in fact exist. I have met them, and would testify to that fact in court.

It would be difficult to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that any given fundie was not one of those "I really believe God is not a monster" Christians, as opposed to one of the "it's OK for God to be a monster" Christians. Therefore, it would be tricky to establish negligence in a court case unless the judge and/or jury was feeling particularly malicious. The "reasonable person" standard could easily be defined a priori to exclude any form of Christian fundamentalism by people who have to put up with the hindsight of the Message. In which case even fundies who don't think God is a monster could be deemed guilty of willful negligence by a malicious enough court.
______

Umm, all the old powerful preachers are now either
1) Dead, or
2) Completely discredited for everything and anything ever again, because they're not dead, and therefore they didn't actually believe all their bullshit.

Point of order: In the post-Salvation War world, being dead is not necessarily a bar to being sued. I can easily imagine the new management of Hell being strikingly similar to the old one for people who screwed over a lot of people when they were alive- you die, you go to Hell, and you spend the rest of eternity slaving to pay off the proceeds of a class-action lawsuit.

And on fans trying to find people - with the whole war mobilization effort and massive instability in Hell, there's probably little room for anybody to go on rescue missions aside from groups like the Quakers and army engineers. Now after the war, when there'll be a massive depression anyway, nothing really better to do, and still probably billions of people to dig up? Yet another way that things get wildly entertaining.

Anyone with a large enough fanbase will have a few people dedicated enough to go looking for them. However, the odds of success are low. My bet is that most of those groups will just get drafted as laborers for the general operation of harrowing Hell.
______

It would be rather amusing if Jesus is captured rather than killed, and is able to testify that he never told any of these fuckers any of the things they claimed he did. Especially about the fund-raising.

I would like that very much. Salvation War-style Jesus sounds like a relatively harmless guy, assuming Michael hasn't managed to fry his brain with pot too thoroughly.
______

I wondered what happened to him. Full interrogation, followed by a 10,000 year labor sentence?

"Captured SS officer? What captured SS officer? We never captured an SS officer. On a related note, that squad of guy who dumped what you claim looked like a writhing body chained to a gurney into the lava river? Never happened."

For the kind of guy who crossed Mossad badly enough to be pursued into Hell, the new management may not be distinguishable from the old management.
______

3) Well, I was thinking an explicit shout-out. We saw Caesar adapt quite well, and one assumes that Lee will adapt well. We also saw demons fail to adapt, and we're seeing the angels adapt better. My point is that there should be someone on our side have severe adaptation problems, either to the point of uselessness or to the point of a major strategic/tactical error happening that we would consider to be "novice".

I suggest that you write it and bounce it off Stuart to see if he likes it. Stuart doesn't seem to want to write it, but that doesn't mean he doesn't want it to be written. Stas Bush did a spinoff story featuring several prominent dead-in-Hell, right?

[CaptainChewbacca]

Point of order: In the post-Salvation War world, being dead is not necessarily a bar to being sued. I can easily imagine the new management of Hell being strikingly similar to the old one for people who screwed over a lot of people when they were alive- you die, you go to Hell, and you spend the rest of eternity slaving to pay off the proceeds of a class-action lawsuit.

Of course, if we're still dealing with a legal framework similar to the living world people who died before the message have no assets, and can simply declare bankruptcy to avoid paying massive lawsuits they can't afford.

[Jonen C]

An aside, but anyone else seeing parallels (alright - tenuous parallels) with Job: A Comedy of Justice?