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Hmm, so that's what a trumpet blast does to an Abrams. Stuart or anyone with drawing skill: I'm really interested on how the M1314A1 looks like, were those Gavins with the 57mm? I'm kinda forgetting.

As for Belial, his worse mistake could be to portal to Earth, but then, say if he Portals to Euryale? or to some part of the world without a proper grid? I'd imagine a lot of nations still doesn't or have no grids up. I dunno, just woke up from a nap and read this, so brain still digesting the chapter.

Simon_Jester wrote:Hmm. Maybe using the same kind of image manipulation techniques they use on fashion models in advertisement to make them look artificially attractive? I'm not clear on exactly what they do, but I know they do it.

Soft-focus filter. Photoshop calls it gaussian blur. More info:tvtropes

Jusu wrote:Hmm, so that's what a trumpet blast does to an Abrams. Stuart or anyone with drawing skill: I'm really interested on how the M1314A1 looks like, were those Gavins with the 57mm? I'm kinda forgetting.

Argh! Don't call the M113 a Gavin! That's the way to be posted to Alaska to dig latrines.
IIRC the M1314A1 is based on a hull developed for the FCV programme with a naval 57mm gun. It's described in some detail back in Armageddon.

westrim wrote:

Simon_Jester wrote:Hmm. Maybe using the same kind of image manipulation techniques they use on fashion models in advertisement to make them look artificially attractive? I'm not clear on exactly what they do, but I know they do it.

Soft-focus filter. Photoshop calls it gaussian blur. More info:tvtropes

They do much more than Gaussian blur. A lot of them actually reshape faces: accentuate cheekbones, make eyes look bigger, etc.

They do the same thing with bodies: a lot of those "fitness supplement" "before and after" comparison photos you see in health magazines are actually shot on the same day, and then various tricks are used to make one seem far more attractive than the other.

JN1 wrote:

Jusu wrote:Hmm, so that's what a trumpet blast does to an Abrams. Stuart or anyone with drawing skill: I'm really interested on how the M1314A1 looks like, were those Gavins with the 57mm? I'm kinda forgetting.

Argh! Don't call the M113 a Gavin! That's the way to be posted to Alaska to dig latrines.
IIRC the M1314A1 is based on a hull developed for the FCV programme with a naval 57mm gun. It's described in some detail back in Armageddon.

Ah, sorry. My fault. I guess I need to lurk more to understand what is and what is not considered proper names for various things in here.

And thanks, I'm hunting down their first appearance, I remembered that a recently dead Russian soldier was sent to sit in one for their first battle.

If I recall, the Gavin looks like an elongated Bradley with radars and the PDS weapon on top.

Darth Wong wrote:I wonder if anyone can draw an angel in such a manner that it would suit the description. They seem to have a magical effect on the perception of humans, so that we see beauty which transcends anything we could draw.

So we just shop angel wings on Julia Roberts?

Jusu wrote:Ah, sorry. My fault. I guess I need to lurk more to understand what is and what is not considered proper names for various things in here.

Don't worry about it. It was a guy called Sparky with a long internet history who tried to christen the M113 the Gavin along with proposing all sorts of unrealistic uses for it. He's also been very critical of the Stryker, or 'armoured truck of death' as I think he's called it in the past.
Calling an M113 a 'Gavin' is usually a bad sign and makes someone a bit suspect.
It's not something that originated here, but it is why Stu sent Sparky to Alaska.

Nematocyst wrote:If I recall, the Gavin looks like an elongated Bradley with radars and the PDS weapon on top.

Seriously, don't call it a 'Gavin'. Its official designation is M113 Armored Personnel Carrier.

Also, the angel trumpets are seriously impressive. If they can rock a modern tank, I'm guessing they'd liquify anything that was inside a world war 2 era tank.

Damn, missed that. Sorry.

CaptainChewbacca wrote:

Nematocyst wrote:If I recall, the Gavin looks like an elongated Bradley with radars and the PDS weapon on top.

Seriously, don't call it a 'Gavin'. Its official designation is M113 Armored Personnel Carrier.

Also, the angel trumpets are seriously impressive. If they can rock a modern tank, I'm guessing they'd liquify anything that was inside a world war 2 era tank.

Yeah, I'd bet you'd get noticeable spalling in a WWII tank from an impact that hard, especially if they hadn't figured out spaced armor by that point. Awesome chapter by the way.

You know, this chapter does raise an interesting point: We've generally seen Heaven through the lens of the capital, where the control of the government is strongest (and therefore the most oppressive). Though we know from discussions that there were plans to clear out the humans eventually, I do wonder how many of the humans were stuck in menial positions cleaning households (as we saw earlier) versus living in what would be by their standards quite reasonable conditions in the countryside? Assuming that the human/angel ratio was fairly steady regardless of the area, you're probably looking at a substantial majority (on the guess that Heaven is not a majority urban society).

I'm not going to act as an apologist for what is obviously a situation where people were being misled and ultimately dumped into the hellpit, but I do think it fair to say that from the point of view of those who got into Heaven, the situation wasn't that bad (and frankly not too far from what was advertised to them...or indeed from what the Egyptians interpreted the afterlife as, if improved by certain degrees).

It causes one to wonder; Is a slave still a slave if they don't know they are a slave?

CaptainChewbacca wrote:Seriously, don't call it a 'Gavin'. Its official designation is M113 Armored Personnel Carrier.

Maybe the US Army should name whatever its next armoured vehicle is the Gavin just to annoy Sparky.

Found a good bit of background on Sparky and why we should never call the M113 the 'Gavin' here.

CaptainChewbacca wrote:It causes one to wonder; Is a slave still a slave if they don't know they are a slave?

If they're there willingly, I'd say no, because compulsion will remain in the realm of the hypothetical and so on. Basically at that point, he's there willingly in a menial job, and it's his call. I do have to wonder if he thought that way initially, but he probably did, given the advantages he cited are pretty noticeable in the short term. I don't see any form of compulsion there, it's the domestic servants and so on who got the short end of the stick. I do have to wonder how the heaven dwellers will acclimate to modern society though, that may very well be interesting.

CaptainChewbacca wrote:It causes one to wonder; Is a slave still a slave if they don't know they are a slave?

An Delta will never miss being an Alpha since they were always a Delta. So yes, only less miserable if than if they knew, I guess.

CaptainChewbacca wrote:It causes one to wonder; Is a slave still a slave if they don't know they are a slave?

Do they have the freedom to leave, or to refuse to bow and show deference to their lord? They might think that this life is pretty good, as the life of a slave goes, but that doesn't mean they're not slaves.

I wonder if the 'slavery sans punishment (provided your Angel isn't an asshole)' afterlife is worth spending this life auditioning for that one.

Nematocyst wrote:I wonder if the 'slavery sans punishment (provided your Angel isn't an asshole)' afterlife is worth spending this life auditioning for that one.

If the alternative is burning for 10,000 years before some demon snuffs you out, its really a no-brainer. Compared to hell (or even life in dark-age europe) Heaven is astonishing. There's no disease, no bad weather, no barbarians, heck I don't think it even gets DARK outside. So they farm fertile ground 12 hours a day, pray for 4 hours, and then sleep for 8 and do it again the next day. I don't doubt it gets boring after a few centuries, but if you came to heaven by way of the sharp end of a visigoth's spear you might ENJOY boring.

And that woman in Hell thought her master wasn't so bad because he didn't beat her too often.

Anyway, this story has been taking its dear sweet little time to get to the deicide-ing. I've had this little ditty lined up for months. Hoping I can finally use it in a chapter or two.

I'm having trouble understanding exactly how the trumpeting is supposed to work. Could someone please explain the rational behind these issues?

First, how exactly does an 8-12ft tall humanoid generate the impulse to rock a 70-ton tank without being flung backwards and/or their neck snapping? A very muscular 6 foot tall human might weigh on the order of 220 pounds. If we add ~30 pounds for wings, then even a large (12' tall) angel would weigh only about a ton.

Second, how does the same humanoid generate sound waves in a tight enough pattern that they can aim at even semi-distant targets and manage to hit without the majority of energy dissipating into the environment?

Third, how do they aim and time their trumpet blasts well enough to hit fighter jets, given both the distance and speed at which modern aircraft can engage their targets? Humans can have a lot of trouble hitting high speed aircraft with bullets, and with bullets you get more than one shot.


Thanks to anyone who can explain this to me.

Gogyra wrote:I'm having trouble understanding exactly how the trumpeting is supposed to work. Could someone please explain the rational behind these issues?

-snip-

Thanks to anyone who can explain this to me.

The same way demons and angels can fire focused electromagnetic energy from metal weapons;

... quantum.

Salvation War isn't 100% going to make sense, because we're trying to rationalize the irrational and that only goes so far.

xthetenth wrote:Drafting Private Chestnut was because they could since there was a draft on

Draft =/= grabbing people off the street and beating them until they say, "Yes sir." That's more usually called 'press ganging'. The SSS documents that I have been able to find says he merely has to have 'an occupation' (portal aerial) not 'a job'. And indeed a person can have an occupation (career) even if they are currently without a job. I think that the portal equipment counts as a vital war industry. Consider if your interpretation was true. Then in times of war the US government could save huge amounts of money (which is always a problem in times of war) by drafting the entire population of Boeing and Lockheed and insist that $50k+ professionals and executives suddenly have to make do with $1000 a month - minus deductions. All other professionals at DIMO(N) were offered healthy compensation, yes? That stage seems to have been skipped for Chestnut. So they saving money argument doesn't really hold water. Nor does the 'and use force if needed' part, since he *was* willing to work if they paid him a salary appropiet to the uniqueness of his skill. There are thousands of executives in America with 6 figure incomes. His requests were extravigent, but not completely unreasonable since (once again) the US government effectively pays the baulk of those salaries already to the Boeing and LockMart CEOs.

I do not claim to be an expert in this are (is anyone here?) but I’ve looked and have yet to find documentation that drafting in the US at any time ever worked this way. Can anyone point them out? Also can anyone point out the parts of SSS which give officers above a certain rank the ability to draft people because they don't like them? The impression I got of Sparky and Chestnut was that he made a nuisance of himself so they solved the nuisance by drafting him. Not, "You remember that guy we all hate? Well he just got drafted by random chance! Ha ha ha!" Again, everything I've found on SSS indicates it's supposed to be random and fair. The term lottery features quite strongly.

Speaking of money problems...

Stuart wrote:The draft was already established. He was going to get drafted anyway.

Really? He was? The US is planning to draft everyone? Hmm. According to the CIA there are 100M eligable and fit for military service. All of them? Okay. 100M people at $10,000 per anum each... Well that's a trillion for wages each year, plus another 2 trillion each year for other costs, and about 5 tillion for training. This is an excessive amount of military spending, even by American standards. Even if you take out a huge chunk for the local volonteers. If it's not 'all of them' (for any reason, such as cost, or practicality) then it's a lottery, with rules, and doesn't the certainty of that 'anyway' dissapear? In which case wasn't it exceptionally lucky and convenient (for DIMO(N)) that he was one of the 1 in 50/100 that actually get drafted at all. In either case none of the other experts in the centre got drafted. I must have missed the part when it happened to kitten and Randi. If it was done personaly and only for Chestnut, simply because he was unpleasent, then we do appear to come back to the abuse of power issue.

And the torture was of Miss Branch by inmates (the kind of thing that happens in prisons because the guards can't supervise everybody all the time) and the hazing of Private Chestnut was a series of what were engineered to seem to be accidents, and in all honesty, I don't particularly fault the supervisors for not going to excessive lengths to determine whether anything was happening.

Well here's the difference of opinion. I think if you deliberately throw someone into a pit full of angry bears then you are responsible for the injuries they get. I also think anyone who disagrees with that definition of responsibility is an idiot, and anyone who claims, "Oh but I didn't know that would happen," is a liar and/or a moral coward. Ethics aside, putting Branch in the general population might also be questionable for military reasons. Spies are potential intelligence assets as double agents. I do not believe it is sensible to risk their lives so casually.

CaptainChewbacca wrote:Again, she was arrested for treason, not Christianity.

Except that the specifics of her charge was that she was 'talking to an inhabitant of heaven' an act more usually referred to as prayer; and considered by many a vital part of Christianity. So in effect she was arrested for being a practicing Christian in a time when the 'christian' god was an enemy of the state. Now turning to the law books, we have part of the constitution saying you can't talk to god (because of treason), and another part of the constitution stating that we specifically cannot legally stop you talking to your god (because of the 1st amendment). That appears to be a conflict/loophole, one that is present because no one has ever considered god as a potential enemy of the state. Also, if what you said about precedence is true, then the 1st amendment overrides the whole constitution when it comes to religion, including the part about treason. So that would make her not a traitor.

Any kind of legal court would be capable of clarifying this instantly. But until then...
In fact such a Supreme Court decision might fit in well with the dead tree version of Armageddon. Given the number of religions extremists in America today, who might be quite willing to help yahweh, and even the potential headaches such a constitutional conflict might cause... It's likely someone in the US government would have realised it within days of the Message. It’s a loophole they would want to close and could do so easily.

My problem is with the law. I don't doubt what she did.

Are you sure Branch helped with attacks on Earth? Has Michael actually used any information she's passed on? Did she pass on any information beyond DEMO(N)'s location? Given that he doesn't seem to have noticed her capture, she can't have been passing him information that regularly.

CaptainChewbacca wrote:Don't make Michael a saint. <snip> Who is better? A master-criminal who committs atrocities and shows remorse? Or a police officer who shoots a hostage in the leg so they can't be used as a shield?

Believe me, I know what Michael is.

But the image of some DEMO(N) officials that springs to mind isn't a Dirty Harry style cop, but rather a giggling child. "HeHeHe! I got to hurt someone I don't like and got away with it! Aren't I clever! HeHeHe!" It is poor logic to use the excuse that there are worse people out there as an excuse for acts which are at best morally questionable.

I know I'm just a snot-nosed, two-post newbie, but what did you think of my loudspeaker-wielding, heavy-metal-spewing tank idea, Stuart? I was hoping the breaking into Belial's camp would be made by the sound of distorted guitars... :p

ANTIcarrot wrote:I do not claim to be an expert in this are (are you?) but I’ve looked and have yet to find documentation that drafting in the US at any time ever worked this way. Can anyone point them out?

Once martial law is declared, the government gets wide latitude to do all kinds of things, do they not? Or has martial law not been declared? I was under the impression that it was. Entire cities have been destroyed, after all.

I can certainly understand "quantuming" away the second and third issues; they're conceivably possible with sufficiently advanced technology. The first issue, though, is simply a matter of Newton's laws being violated. If a 70 ton tank lurches to one direction, *something* is going to experience a huge impulse in the other.