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Um...during the early parts of the great celestial war, were the demons not also technically 'angels'? I mean, it is implied that they slowly changed into their demony forms over millions of years, right? So did they originally start fighting with trumpets and stuff too?

Simon_Jester wrote: For that matter, are we sure exactly when Heaven stopped taking people? 1000 AD was a speculated number, but there's no obvious, specific reason why that date would be chosen. It's not like anything happened that year to make Yahweh displeased with humanity. If anything, there were an exceptional number of Christians making incredible shows of devotion and loyalty to him as part of the whole millenial craziness.

Around the year 1000 AD there was the age of pornocracy in the Catholic Church. As the Catholics were the dominant christian believe at that time perhaps yah-yah was really, really displeased with what he saw.

I got overpowered by the itch in the fingers to post after lurking around for a long time, so I have a little question:
It would interest me how the german and/or israeli public would react to the news of the concentration camp, since "Konzentrationslager" is a bit of a sore spot for them.
My money is on that the will get a tiny wee bit angry - and durm up a big force for the occupation of heaven, true to "never again".

A point I think needs to be made on Chestnut: He tried to milk his position for all it was worth. Had he been making extremely patriotic noises and simply requesting something like student loan help, I think a request like that would've been granted...the government does tend to prefer willing help over unwilling help, and a minor, reasonable request probably would've been granted. As it was, though, he tried to play his hand for all it was worth and it backfired royally.

Also, do remember that at one point I think Truman was pondering drafting either coalminers or steelworkers into the army to break a strike (I think it was the steelworkers, but I'm not sure), so...things can happen, and I'm pretty sure we have a DoW on Heaven still outstanding.

Simon_Jester wrote:Eh. I'd generalize 900 AD or so as being within the "medieval" period. It might be imprecise, of course, but it's not totally insane.

For that matter, are we sure exactly when Heaven stopped taking people? 1000 AD was a speculated number, but there's no obvious, specific reason why that date would be chosen. It's not like anything happened that year to make Yahweh displeased with humanity. If anything, there were an exceptional number of Christians making incredible shows of devotion and loyalty to him as part of the whole millenial craziness.

As this bit of conversation evolves, I'm wondering if Heaven was closed off when mankind's position on Earth had progressed to the point that Heaven wasn't so heavenly any more; their expectations had risen. It could have been living conditions, or expectations fed by the early Church.

If enough people started showing up and bitching, that could well have been the Triggering Event. We've not been given a date, just a ballpark time range that may not even been accurate.

I bet Yahweh closed the gates the moment people started requesting for the lesbian angel show. And there was no Montmartre Club to provide.

CaptainChewbacca wrote: Pedophiles, rapists, and drug users have all tried that defense at one time or another, and we like them BETTER than traitors.

We do??? I don't want to leap to any conclusions, but that statement would make me worry about possible consequences of any transfer of images from your computer to mine. Just for one example, Erwin Rommel's failure to reveal the June plot against Hitler to the Führer's security people meets just about any definition of treason. I do not know of any pedophile or rapist whose actions I find acceptable.

Bayonet wrote:

Simon_Jester wrote:As this bit of conversation evolves, I'm wondering if Heaven was closed off when mankind's position on Earth had progressed to the point that Heaven wasn't so heavenly any more; their expectations had risen. It could have been living conditions, or expectations fed by the early Church.

If enough people started showing up and bitching, that could well have been the Triggering Event. We've not been given a date, just a ballpark time range that may not even been accurate.

I haven't been following much of the outside commentary on the subject, but I have to say I assumed similarly. I figured, given our history, that they'd found us somewhere around the fall of Sumer and locked us out somewhere around the start of the Renaissance, when we'd gotten too uppity to be manipulated (and immediately following a massive re-stocking of their supply of Christian souls via the bubonic plague).

Anyone else confused that we can move millions of troops into heaven and still have surprise? Even the demons were telling the higher ups when they lost an army; is there no one telling their boss "hey, there's a new city thattaway, maybe you should check it out."

By corrolary, I am curious to see if Jesus attacks the human army, or portals back to earth to force them to come back.

lichtbringer wrote:

Simon_Jester wrote: For that matter, are we sure exactly when Heaven stopped taking people? 1000 AD was a speculated number, but there's no obvious, specific reason why that date would be chosen. It's not like anything happened that year to make Yahweh displeased with humanity. If anything, there were an exceptional number of Christians making incredible shows of devotion and loyalty to him as part of the whole millenial craziness.

Around the year 1000 AD there was the age of pornocracy in the Catholic Church. As the Catholics were the dominant christian believe at that time perhaps yah-yah was really, really displeased with what he saw.

You're forgetting Islam. Considering how big the Abassid Caliphate was at the time, that's a rather large omission. However, it's pretty easy to see that between the pornocracy and the Abassid's really following through on rules like "the ink of a scholar is more holy than the blood of a martyr," that Yahweh would get pretty pissy with humanity, and if anybody's capable of carrying out a thousand year decree due to a fit of pique, it's this guy. It would also explain why he didn't hand the place over to Satan, because the place got better by his standards (The Christians became less corrupt and Baghdad got sacked in 1258, taking a lot of scientific knowledge and scholars with it).

Yahweh may not have cared much about the corruption of the churches, as long as they made the right noises and motivated the peasants to live properly.

As for Islam, the relationship between Yahweh in this setting and Islam is unclear, and his attitude towards Islam around the time that the gates of Heaven closed (whenever that was) are equally unclear, so far as I know.

Simon_Jester wrote:Yahweh may not have cared much about the corruption of the churches, as long as they made the right noises and motivated the peasants to live properly.

As for Islam, the relationship between Yahweh in this setting and Islam is unclear, and his attitude towards Islam around the time that the gates of Heaven closed (whenever that was) are equally unclear, so far as I know.

I'd say Islam is very likely in Yahweh's name, considering how he's unclear on which religion the pope is from. I doubt that'd happen with just two religions, he'd probably just blame the one his "idiot son" founded and continue on with his day. It also makes sense that after he got a bit of time to see that Christianity had spread really far that he'd try to get another religion going. It makes quite a bit of sense to me that he'd try to have Gabriel, who hadn't been subverted yet, try to make a religion to his specifications and that Islam would be the result. Yes this is just supposition, but I'd consider it quite feasible, and it just strikes me oddly to think that Islam suddenly sprang up with Yahweh and co. in the divine position without their influence when they were behind the other two, considering the number of other religions floating around Mecca when Mohammad was making Islam.

islam does have a less militant history then christianity did in it's early days (muhammed actually had a rule that forbade killing non combatants, and he was pretty damn leniant for the standards of his day. certainly more so then moses and joshua were during the old testament.)

Emerson33260 wrote:We do??? I don't want to leap to any conclusions, but that statement would make me worry about possible consequences of any transfer of images from your computer to mine. Just for one example, Erwin Rommel's failure to reveal the June plot against Hitler to the Führer's security people meets just about any definition of treason. I do not know of any pedophile or rapist whose actions I find acceptable.

Hey, you stupid piece of smugness, take it the other way and don't accuse me of liking kiddie porn. In America we hate pedophiles and rapists and take an even more dim view of treason. How was that hard to understand? Going out of your way to misunderstand someone just makes you look like an idiot.

Darth Yan wrote:islam does have a less militant history then christianity did in it's early days (muhammed actually had a rule that forbade killing non combatants, and he was pretty damn leniant for the standards of his day. certainly more so then moses and joshua were during the old testament.)

Less militant than Judaism, yes, very early Christianity, say what? Christian groups didn't really start fighting wars until it had become the state religion of the Roman Empire, and those wars weren't in the name of Christianity. Islam got started immediately with conquest and spread massively due to this conquest (granted without forced conversion, but with definite enticements), unlike Christianity which didn't really start with wars to spread itself until the crusades. Islam was much more aggressively spread until the crusades (and when Islam got bogged down in India, by that point the guys doing the conquering only really cared about the conquest and not spreading Islam).

Enforcer Talen wrote:Anyone else confused that we can move millions of troops into heaven and still have surprise? Even the demons were telling the higher ups when they lost an army; is there no one telling their boss "hey, there's a new city thattaway, maybe you should check it out."

Surprise isn't on the battlefield, it's in the head of the victim. Everybody in Heaven knows that humans wrapped up Hell in relatively short order and have awesome firepower packed into relatively small units. They would have been expecting something along the lines of the invasion of Hell with initially small units probing in etc. The massive three-pronged sledgehammer blow that is landing on their terrain is a massive strategic surprise simply because it is so far outside their experience. What is now happening is the payoff for Petraeus's early game where he deliberately held back on the true extent of his forces firepower in order to keep them as a future hole-card

By corrolary, I am curious to see if Jesus attacks the human army, or portals back to earth to force them to come back.

If he portals back with the Host, the Eternal City will be left undefended.
Unless there's more to the Host than what Jesus commands.

Lagmonster wrote:

Bayonet wrote:

Simon_Jester wrote:As this bit of conversation evolves, I'm wondering if Heaven was closed off when mankind's position on Earth had progressed to the point that Heaven wasn't so heavenly any more; their expectations had risen. It could have been living conditions, or expectations fed by the early Church.

If enough people started showing up and bitching, that could well have been the Triggering Event. We've not been given a date, just a ballpark time range that may not even been accurate.

I haven't been following much of the outside commentary on the subject, but I have to say I assumed similarly. I figured, given our history, that they'd found us somewhere around the fall of Sumer and locked us out somewhere around the start of the Renaissance, when we'd gotten too uppity to be manipulated (and immediately following a massive re-stocking of their supply of Christian souls via the bubonic plague).

I think we may have an explanation for that line about how it's easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into Heaven. Even way back in the day, rich people did have it much easier than the normal lot and would very likely find an eternity of work and prostration to be less than satisfying.

Considering the high level of religious faith throughout Medieval Europe, I think 1000 is too early for the gates of heaven to close, but if you're gonna stick with that date, perhaps Yahweh got a little pissed of at the corruption in the Latin Church (but what about Byzantine Christianity???) sometime prior to the reforms of Gregory VII (and the seemingly endless number of reforming Popes in the middle/high middle ages). Its conceivable that Yahweh jumped the gun after closing heaven off, and was simply too lazy and/or stupid to look at what happened after Gregory VII.

Cecelia5578 wrote:Considering the high level of religious faith throughout Medieval Europe, I think 1000 is too early for the gates of heaven to close, but if you're gonna stick with that date, perhaps Yahweh got a little pissed of at the corruption in the Latin Church (but what about Byzantine Christianity???) sometime prior to the reforms of Gregory VII (and the seemingly endless number of reforming Popes in the middle/high middle ages). Its conceivable that Yahweh jumped the gun after closing heaven off, and was simply too lazy and/or stupid to look at what happened after Gregory VII.

1,000 isn't a canon date, it's an in-story guess by the characters as to what the cut-off date might have been. I'd put it somewhat later, probably around the rennaissance or the reformation.

Umm...

-points up to earlier post near top of thread-

I know I do not stand out much, but could you please answer my question? I'm really curious about that. ^^

Heatherine wrote:Um...during the early parts of the great celestial war, were the demons not also technically 'angels'? I mean, it is implied that they slowly changed into their demony forms over millions of years, right? So did they originally start fighting with trumpets and stuff too?

As has been said before, at a certain point the Salvation War is reconciling mythic history with science. If I had to pull a science-y explanation out of my ass, I'd say that demons were changed by some sort of virus, and one of the changes was the loss of the trumpeting ability in exchange for the lightning-throwing.

CaptainChewbacca wrote:

Heatherine wrote:Um...during the early parts of the great celestial war, were the demons not also technically 'angels'? I mean, it is implied that they slowly changed into their demony forms over millions of years, right? So did they originally start fighting with trumpets and stuff too?

As has been said before, at a certain point the Salvation War is reconciling mythic history with science. If I had to pull a science-y explanation out of my ass, I'd say that demons were changed by some sort of virus, and one of the changes was the loss of the trumpeting ability in exchange for the lightning-throwing.

IMHO, I believe there was speciation - remember, Demons have a way higher reproduction rate than angels. For all we know, yaweh is 10 billion years old.

Stuart wrote:1,000 isn't a canon date, it's an in-story guess by the characters as to what the cut-off date might have been. I'd put it somewhat later, probably around the rennaissance or the reformation.

Oh! So if that was the case, could it be that things like the Crusade actually were supported by Heaven to some extent, at least tacitly?

Heatherine wrote:

Stuart wrote:1,000 isn't a canon date, it's an in-story guess by the characters as to what the cut-off date might have been. I'd put it somewhat later, probably around the rennaissance or the reformation.

Oh! So if that was the case, could it be that things like the Crusade actually were supported by Heaven to some extent, at least tacitly?

That depends entirely on the relationship between Islam and Yahweh in the TSW universe. Something which, I think, is mostly conjecture at this point (though IIRC in Armageddon there were references to the Islamic world getting hit pretty hard by The Message).