Armageddon???? (Part Fifty Up)

UF: Stories written by users, both fanfics and original.

Moderator: LadyTevar

Locked
User avatar
CaptainChewbacca
Browncoat Wookiee
Posts: 15746
Joined: 2003-05-06 02:36am
Location: Deep beneath Boatmurdered.

Post by CaptainChewbacca »

hongi wrote:
“Uriel?!” Memnon exclaimed.

“Last he moved upon man, the Land of Khemet wept bitter tears.
Egypt isn't it? Is he referring to the Tenth Plague?
Yes, Khemet = Egypt. To be fair, Egypt got jacked more than once by God, so it isn't necessarily the 10th plague he's talking about.
Stuart: The only problem is, I'm losing track of which universe I'm in.
You kinda look like Jesus. With a lightsaber.- Peregrin Toker
ImageImage
User avatar
dragon
Sith Marauder
Posts: 4151
Joined: 2004-09-23 04:42pm

Post by dragon »

KlavoHunter wrote:This couldn't've possibly been this great big badass angel, if he got splattered by some Canister and 25mm fire.

Appoloin described himself as, more or less, a minor herald angel, befitting his role of carrying a message from On High to a single Baldrick.
Well considering some of the demons, including groups of them, got vaped by tank rounds and it lived through one, couldn't have been to minor. Either that or the angels are a fair bit tougher than the demons.
"There are very few problems that cannot be solved by the suitable application of photon torpedoes
User avatar
JCady
Padawan Learner
Posts: 384
Joined: 2007-11-22 02:37pm
Location: Vancouver, Washington
Contact:

Post by JCady »

Academia Nut wrote: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.
User avatar
DarthShady
Jedi Council Member
Posts: 1872
Joined: 2007-09-15 10:46am
Location: Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Contact:

Post by DarthShady »

JCady wrote:
Academia Nut wrote: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.
That just proves God is an asshole.
Great chapter Stuart i was looking forward to seeing angels get involved.
The Great Chorus must not be disturbed. The Chanting must not cease.
The Angel seemed worried that humans might do something to interrupt the chanting.Is heaven worried about a human invasion?
User avatar
Sidewinder
Sith Acolyte
Posts: 5466
Joined: 2005-05-18 10:23pm
Location: Feasting on those who fell in battle
Contact:

Post by Sidewinder »

Was it a wonder that these bastards had their way with the women of this wretched place while his kin had to forcibly take what they wanted?
This makes me wonder: can Angels and Demons breed with humans? Do Nephilim exist?
Please do not make Americans fight giant monsters.

Those gun nuts do not understand the meaning of "overkill," and will simply use weapon after weapon of mass destruction (WMD) until the monster is dead, or until they run out of weapons.

They have more WMD than there are monsters for us to fight. (More insanity here.)
User avatar
The Duchess of Zeon
Gözde
Posts: 14566
Joined: 2002-09-18 01:06am
Location: Exiled in the Pale of Settlement.

Post by The Duchess of Zeon »

Sidewinder wrote:
Was it a wonder that these bastards had their way with the women of this wretched place while his kin had to forcibly take what they wanted?
This makes me wonder: can Angels and Demons breed with humans? Do Nephilim exist?

It's funny that this whole line about Nephilim and psychic powers has come up, because Stuart's drawing of Luga actually bears some strong resemblences to what my old roommate kitten actually looks like (if you're curious, Stu, I do have a picture, if you have an e-mail address) in terms of facial bone structure, to the point that I was a bit weirded out when I first saw it.
The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. -- Wikipedia's No Original Research policy page.

In 1966 the Soviets find something on the dark side of the Moon. In 2104 they come back. -- Red Banner / White Star, a nBSG continuation story. Updated to Chapter 4.0 -- 14 January 2013.
User avatar
Crayz9000
Sith Apprentice
Posts: 7329
Joined: 2002-07-03 06:39pm
Location: Improbably superpositioned
Contact:

Post by Crayz9000 »

This has interesting implications for Christian theology (not that it exists any more in universe except as a historical footnote, of course).

#1 is, how do you explain the accounts of the "virgin birth?"

Option A: Assuming that the "Angels" were in fact interbreeding with humans, one of them (Gabriel) came down, knocked Mary up (possibly in a manner that didn't involve intercourse, a sort of telekinetic artificial insemination, thus explaining the "virgin" part) and then she bore a hybrid.

Of course, for option A to be possible, it would mean that both percys and baldricks would need to have a significant portion of human DNA identical, at least in the reproductive sense. This of course fits in very cleanly with the idea that the percys and baldricks are actually genetically engineered beings: if the Nameless One had taken early humans, done nobody-knows-what to them genetically, then there's a chance it would still have been possible for them to reproduce with normal, unengineered humans.

Option B: a powerful or not-so-powerful "Angel" was sent down, tricked Mary and everyone involved into thinking she was pregnant, and posed as a young human child.

I'm not entirely convinced of option B, since it requires pretty much nonstop mind control of a large number of people (that is, everyone who would have ever seen Jesus). Not that it's outside their power, it just doesn't make as much sense given the biblical and other scriptural accounts of half-breeds.

Both options would mean that the Gnostic accounts of the Gospel may have actually been correct, e.g. the Gospel of Thomas's account of a young Jesus striking another child dead for annoying him. However, Jesus' disciples, being totally brainwashed (or perhaps actually being hybrids themselves or even "Angels"), would have written these accounts off as the heresy they indeed did later on, coming up with the abridged Bible that we have today.
A Tribute to Stupidity: The Robert Scott Anderson Archive (currently offline)
John Hansen - Slightly Insane Bounty Hunter - ASVS Vets' Assoc. Class of 2000
HAB Cryptanalyst | WG - Intergalactic Alliance and Spoof Author | BotM | Cybertron | SCEF
User avatar
Sidewinder
Sith Acolyte
Posts: 5466
Joined: 2005-05-18 10:23pm
Location: Feasting on those who fell in battle
Contact:

Post by Sidewinder »

Crayz9000 wrote:#1 is, how do you explain the accounts of the "virgin birth?"
In my college philosophy class, the professor mentioned that "virgin" was a translation for a Hebrew term meaning "woman who has not yet given birth to a son," i.e., that Mary was NOT a virgin when Jesus was conceived.
Please do not make Americans fight giant monsters.

Those gun nuts do not understand the meaning of "overkill," and will simply use weapon after weapon of mass destruction (WMD) until the monster is dead, or until they run out of weapons.

They have more WMD than there are monsters for us to fight. (More insanity here.)
User avatar
Beowulf
The Patrician
Posts: 10619
Joined: 2002-07-04 01:18am
Location: 32ULV

Post by Beowulf »

Sidewinder wrote:
Crayz9000 wrote:#1 is, how do you explain the accounts of the "virgin birth?"
In my college philosophy class, the professor mentioned that "virgin" was a translation for a Hebrew term meaning "woman who has not yet given birth to a son," i.e., that Mary was NOT a virgin when Jesus was conceived.
Two problems with that: Jesus spoke Aramaic, most likely, and Mary merely not have given birth before would have been nothing special whatsoever, yet the gospels make a big deal about it.
"preemptive killing of cops might not be such a bad idea from a personal saftey[sic] standpoint..." --Keevan Colton
"There's a word for bias you can't see: Yours." -- William Saletan
User avatar
Robo Jesus
Padawan Learner
Posts: 156
Joined: 2006-01-05 07:01am

Post by Robo Jesus »

JCady wrote:
Academia Nut wrote: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.

What's more, the original explanation for why "Noah's Flood" (which I believe to be an embellished account of the area of the Black Sea flooding with water almost overnight after the Ice Age drastically rose the sea levels) occured was that there were too many Nephilim living amongst mankind, and God didn't want that. After all, having large numbers of Humans who could fight back on almost equal terms with His servants, as well as the servants of Hell was something he did not want.
This is sickening... You sound like chapters from a self-help booklet! Prepare yourselves!
User avatar
Sea Skimmer
Yankee Capitalist Air Pirate
Posts: 37389
Joined: 2002-07-03 11:49pm
Location: Passchendaele City, HAB

Post by Sea Skimmer »

Robo Jesus wrote:
What's more, the original explanation for why "Noah's Flood" (which I believe to be an embellished account of the area of the Black Sea flooding with water almost overnight after the Ice Age drastically rose the sea levels) occured was that there were too many Nephilim living amongst mankind, and God didn't want that.
I doubt it’s anything so grand, the Black Sea flood is thought to have occurred around 5,600bc, quite an awful long time before the Bible was written, and myths about great floods are common. It’s more likely that it was based on stories of floods on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which could be very devastating in there own rights, and which continued to occur well into the 20th century. If you’re a poor Bronze Age farmer you’ve probably never traveled more then 20 miles from the place you were born at, and it wouldn’t take that massive a flood to make it seem as if the whole world has been drown.
"This cult of special forces is as sensible as to form a Royal Corps of Tree Climbers and say that no soldier who does not wear its green hat with a bunch of oak leaves stuck in it should be expected to climb a tree"
— Field Marshal William Slim 1956
User avatar
Robo Jesus
Padawan Learner
Posts: 156
Joined: 2006-01-05 07:01am

Post by Robo Jesus »

Sea Skimmer wrote:
Robo Jesus wrote:
What's more, the original explanation for why "Noah's Flood" (which I believe to be an embellished account of the area of the Black Sea flooding with water almost overnight after the Ice Age drastically rose the sea levels) occured was that there were too many Nephilim living amongst mankind, and God didn't want that.
I doubt it’s anything so grand, the Black Sea flood is thought to have occurred around 5,600bc, quite an awful long time before the Bible was written, and myths about great floods are common.
So?

Events happen, and they end up as part of the lore and culture of the people. The story gets passed along verbally to each generation by the storytellers as "having happened long ago", and as no one has kept written records, dates are lost. An Angel stops by a couple millennia later, someone asks about "when that story happened", and the Angels pulls some random date out of his ass and then tries to twist the story to fit with the propaganda he's spreading. After all, he feels the 'sheep' will believe anything they're told, and if you use stories and fables that are already known, things end up all the easier for the Angel as he only has to alter existing material instead of having to create new material from scratch.

Sea Skimmer wrote:It’s more likely that it was based on stories of floods on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which could be very devastating in there own rights, and which continued to occur well into the 20th century. If you’re a poor Bronze Age farmer you’ve probably never traveled more then 20 miles from the place you were born at, and it wouldn’t take that massive a flood to make it seem as if the whole world has been drown.
Heh. Context plays a large part as well; something many people forget when discussing subjects like this, but I do agree with you. However, nothing is ever as simple as it appears, and sometimes it isn't as complicated as it appears either. I'll give an example.

Egyptian Priests used Tobacco, a plant only found in the Americas as part of thier mummification rituals. This has been proven by chemical studies of mummies and tombs. Now, we know that Tobacco was not growing in Europe or Asia, and we know that the Egyptians did not have direct trade with the American Continents to get tobacco, so how did they get a hold of it?

The answer is simple. If they can't get it through Direct Trade, then they got it through Indirect Trade. Someone would trade with someone, who would trade with someone else, who would trade with someone else, and so on. So we know that goods impossible for the Egyptians to get did infact get to them. And where goods go, so too does word of mouth. And if you have a good story to tell, well, people would talk about it. And the people they talked to would talk about it, and it would continue so on until it becomes a widely known meme.

As with all things, Context is very important.
This is sickening... You sound like chapters from a self-help booklet! Prepare yourselves!
User avatar
Crayz9000
Sith Apprentice
Posts: 7329
Joined: 2002-07-03 06:39pm
Location: Improbably superpositioned
Contact:

Post by Crayz9000 »

Robo Jesus wrote:Egyptian Priests used Tobacco, a plant only found in the Americas as part of thier mummification rituals. This has been proven by chemical studies of mummies and tombs. Now, we know that Tobacco was not growing in Europe or Asia, and we know that the Egyptians did not have direct trade with the American Continents to get tobacco, so how did they get a hold of it?
Actually, it's been hypothesized that that did not in fact happen. See this link for more information. In a nutshell, the mummies tested had been exposed (wrapped and unwrapped) to secondhand smoke from grave robbers and unscrupulous handlers from 1881 on.
A Tribute to Stupidity: The Robert Scott Anderson Archive (currently offline)
John Hansen - Slightly Insane Bounty Hunter - ASVS Vets' Assoc. Class of 2000
HAB Cryptanalyst | WG - Intergalactic Alliance and Spoof Author | BotM | Cybertron | SCEF
User avatar
Robo Jesus
Padawan Learner
Posts: 156
Joined: 2006-01-05 07:01am

Post by Robo Jesus »

Crayz9000 wrote:
Robo Jesus wrote:Egyptian Priests used Tobacco, a plant only found in the Americas as part of thier mummification rituals. This has been proven by chemical studies of mummies and tombs. Now, we know that Tobacco was not growing in Europe or Asia, and we know that the Egyptians did not have direct trade with the American Continents to get tobacco, so how did they get a hold of it?
Actually, it's been hypothesized that that did not in fact happen. See this link for more information. In a nutshell, the mummies tested had been exposed (wrapped and unwrapped) to secondhand smoke from grave robbers and unscrupulous handlers from 1881 on.
Hmm, interesting. Heh, I remember a few news stories in Yahoo about that a few years ago (the Tabacco residue being found specifically inside of the Mummies (and not just outside (which raises some disturbing questions about how that happened)) and that's what brought up the contraversy regarding that, and then nothing was followed up that I ever remember seeing. I do know that there have been finds in some of the houses of Romans of what appear to be mosaics of Pineapples, though the Tobacco example was really the first thing that popped to mind (and I ran with it as I am lazy :p).
This is sickening... You sound like chapters from a self-help booklet! Prepare yourselves!
User avatar
Illuminatus Primus
All Seeing Eye
Posts: 15774
Joined: 2002-10-12 02:52pm
Location: Gainesville, Florida, USA
Contact:

Post by Illuminatus Primus »

I'm pretty sure the early contact stuff is typically the realm of pseudohistory.
"You know what the problem with Hollywood is. They make shit. Unbelievable. Unremarkable. Shit." - Gabriel Shear, Swordfish

"This statement, in its utterly clueless hubristic stupidity, cannot be improved upon. I merely quote it in admiration of its perfection." - Garibaldi in reply to an incredibly stupid post.

The Fifth Illuminatus Primus | Warsie | Skeptical Empiricist | Florida Gator | Sustainability Advocate | Libertarian Socialist |
Image
Sean Mulligan
Padawan Learner
Posts: 156
Joined: 2006-08-20 07:55pm
Location: Alpharetta, Georgia

Post by Sean Mulligan »

Illuminatus Primus wrote:I'm pretty sure the early contact stuff is typically the realm of pseudohistory.
Well, some of it is right. The Vikings did visit America and set up settlements centuries before Columbus.
User avatar
Stuart
Sith Devotee
Posts: 2935
Joined: 2004-10-26 09:23am
Location: The military-industrial complex

Post by Stuart »

Headquarters, Multi-National Force Iraq, Green Zone, Baghdad.

Once again, General Petraeus was standing before the great screen in his command center, only this time it was linked directly to the Pentagon, the White House and an increasing number of capitals around the world. The screen showed President Bush, Defense Secretary Warner and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice but he knew that many, many more people were watching than that.

“Sir, we have the initial reports from the battles on the flanks in. We have successfully routed both flanking forces. In the North, the First Armored is already outflanking the baldrick main body and moving into positions to its west. In the South, the Iranian Shamshar Division under General Fereidoon Zolfaghari is also outflanking the enemy and we expect it will link up with the First Armored sometime tomorrow. At that point, the enemy main body will be completely encircled. Our casualties have been remarkably light. A Challenger main battle tank, a Bradley fighting vehicle, two HEMTT trucks and of all the soldiers involved in the fighting, only twenty five have lost their lives. As far as we can tell at this time, all our losses were victims of harpy attacks.”

“Enemy casualties?” Secretary Warner spoke urgently.

“We’re not into body counts Sir, not after Vietnam, and the enemy dead are so smashed up it’s impossible to tell how many there are. Details of the pursuit through the night are also only just coming in and it appears the enemy believed that fighting would stop at dusk. We didn’t oblige them of course, we kept going and made it a twenty-four hour battle. During the process, we overran a lot of baldricks who had settled down for the night. So I cannot give you a figure I would be confident with.”

“An estimate, a guess, anything?”

“At a conservative estimate, I would say the enemy cannot have lost less than 60,000 dead, probably many more. What’s left of the flanking forces is falling back on their main body. That main body is still advancing on the center of our line, we expect them to launch their attacks in a few hours. We’ll be concentrating all of our airpower to sweep the sky clean of harpies. Once we’ve done that, the ground forces can repeat the punishment we handed out yesterday. If anything the balance of forces is more favorable to us in the center than it was on the flanks. Once the harpies are out of the way, we can start using our helicopters over the battlefield again.”

“How are your munitions supplies holding up?” Warner’s voice was concerned.

“Very well Sir, we are well-supplied here, we built up a good stockpile in case Iran invaded us and they built up an equal stockpile in case we invaded them. Some, not much but some, of the stocks are interchangeable and the Russians are flying in more. There’s a couple of Il-76s here now, unloading rockets for the Iranian artillery. Secretary Warner Sir, may I ask how the production ramp-up is proceeding? We’re OK for ground forces ammunition but we’re running through AIM-120s at a terrifying rate. After tomorrow we’re going to be real short.”

“Not well General. The problem is that so much of the need is inter-related. The AIM-120 is a good example, we’re accelerating production of the missile as fast as we can but we’re short of guidance systems. We’ve got AIM-120 airframes backing up out of the door waiting for the guidance modules. Raytheon have come up with a partial fix, they’ve designed a new weapon, the AIR-120. Essentially its an AIM-120 with a simple inertial stabilization system that keeps it flying straight and level. They’ve packed it with a warhead that’s three times more powerful than the AIM-120 and given it a fast-burn motor for high speed. It can be carried on a standard triple ejector rack in place of a single AIM-120. Raytheon will build as many AIM-120s as they can get guidance modules for and the rest will be AIR-120s.

“It’s the same across the board I fear. We’ll get it straightened out but we’re running off stocks until we do.”

On the screen, Petraeus nodded. It was more or less what he has suspected.”

White House Conference Room, Washington DC

“Thank you General Petraeus. Doctor Surlethe, what are the results from our investigations of the baldricks.”

“They’re going to start flooding in fast now Sir. We’ve had only limited samples to work with to date but now, with all this in Iraq, that’s going to change. And we’ve got the succubus that defected. We could learn a lot simply by dissecting her.”

“No way.” Director of National Intelligence Donald MacLean Kerr jumped straight on the idea. “She’s the first live baldrick we’ve got our hands on. We need to talk to her, she knows how hell is organized, what its chains of command are, what its social and political structures are like. We’re not dealing with a different country here, or even a different world. We’re dealing with an entirely different dimension. We need to know how that dimension works, what its economy is like, if indeed it has an economy. We need to know what sort of enemy we are fighting and what his resources are like. We can’t get any of that from her dissected corpse.”

“And suppose she won’t tell you?” Doctor Surlethe jumped straight back.

“We could always waterboard her?”

“How do you know she can’t breath water?” Secretary Rice’s voice was droll.

“Exactly my point.” Surlethe was getting impassioned. “Military and political data is all very well, economic information too, but first we need to know much more about the baldricks themselves. How do they work? Can we get some idea of what powers they take for granted but seem magical to us? I’m sorry Don, but investigation of the baldricks themselves must come first. Which is rather unfortunate for her of course.”

“Gentlemen.” The room quieted as President Bush spoke. “You are forgetting that this succubus came over to us on a promise that she would not be ill-treated. We did not make that promise but it was made to her on our behalf by our allies. We cannot go back on our word. We must not.”

“She didn’t defect voluntarily, she had a ring of guns pointed at her.”

“I know. If she’d fought, she’d still probably have killed some of those women. She chose not to.”

“Sir.” General Petraeus spoke from the screen. “There is a practical side to this as well. We have one defector who came over on a promise of good treatment. How we treat her may very well decide how many more baldricks decide to surrender or, even better, defect. If they get the idea that surrendering is a way out from certain death facing our tanks and artillery, it might end this war more quickly. It may very well mean fewer of our people get killed. Treating surrendered enemy personnel with extreme brutality has never worked to the favor of those committing such acts.”

“I agree.” Secretary Warner added his emphasis. “We’ve danced on a thin line during the War on Terror and shot ourselves in the foot doing it. We should not repeat that mistake.”

“General, Secretary Warner, your practical comments add weight to my instincts on this. Doctor Surlethe, you may investigate the succubus using non-invasive methods provided they do not inflict harm upon her. You may, with her consent, take blood samples etc. But there will be no dissection, is that clear?” Surlethe nodded. Unhappily but still a nod.

“Mister Randi, how is your end of this going?”

“Very well Sir, we made a breakthrough today. A young…..” Randi hesitated and then decided to keep going. “… woman came in, she can see in to hell. We have her trying to contact some of our deceased personnel now. Hunting through psychics and mediums was a false step, none of them turned out to be anything other than common mountebanks and tricksters, but we have found some interesting cases under psychiatric care. Also, our advertisements have brought in a few people with promise. We have another young lady who can get into the mind of a demon and she’s exploiting that right now. As soon as we can work out how to expand that from talking to one demon into talking to all of them at one, we’ll launch Radio Free Hell.”

Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, USA.

Lugasharmanaska was utterly bewildered. She’d been on earth not so long ago, a mere couple of centuries, but she’d had nothing like these experiences then. How had all these machines suddenly appeared? She’d flown for hours in a huge sky chariot, one loaded down with crates of more things called supplies. The crew had been nice to her of course, that was inevitable, they’d offered her food and drink and she’d accepted it even though it wouldn’t quench her appetite much. Her body craved raw meat, preferably torn from a still-living body and the thing she’d been given didn’t even come close. Just what was a ‘hot pocket’ anyway?

She could have adapted more easily to the sights around her if there weren’t so many of them. The city she had been assigned to was bad enough, all those tiny chariots racing around, but this great field was full of the huge Sky Chariots. Even as she watched, a different one was coming in to land. To her incredulous eyes, it changed even while it did so, its swept-back wings suddenly swinging forward to reach straight out. Then it touched down on the long black strip and started to slow. Immediately a band started playing, making her jump.

“Yeah, bands do that.” The Air Force policeman watching her was sympathetic. Of course. Her mind-mask didn’t work any more but the miasma was still doing its job of creating sympathy with the humans around her. “It’s the 32nd Tactical Fighter Wing standing up. That’s the first F-111 to rejoin the Air Force.”

None of that made much sense to Lugasharmanaska. She did note one thing though, the Sky Chariot that had brought her was painted light gray, the one that had just landed was a cloudy mix of gray and orange-red. It never occurred to her that its paint job was an exact match to the skies of hell.

A long black ground chariot had pulled up and she was escorted into the back seat. The driver looked at her with hate that quickly faded to mild affection. The door closed behind her and the chariot pulled away. Lugasharmanaska couldn’t see where the horses were hidden. Still, it didn’t matter. What did matter was that she was safe. She quickly recalled the split second of blind panic when she looked at the ring of guns pointed at her and knew death was but a split second away. Miasma had done its work, Lugasharmanaska didn’t know it but the panic had kicked her glands into working overtime and secreting human pheromones that created sympathy for her with everybody around. That had bought her just enough time. She’d worked her situation out with speed and hedged her bets by surrendering. If the demons won, she would have fulfilled her mission and penetrated the enemy leadership, gaining vital information. She would have done her duty and be rewarded. If the humans won, and looking around her Lugasharmanaska had an unpleasant feeling they might, she would be the first defector and would also be well-rewarded. No matter who won, she would be safe.

Sacramento, California

Norman Baines sighed and rubbed his eyes, and glanced at his watch. He'd been sitting in front of his computer for about ten hours, plowing through a weeks' worth of reports for his job. He didn't actually have to work forty hours, as long as it LOOKED like he did. "Time for breakfast." Victor, one of his cats and self-appointed overseer gave a 'rowr' of approval as he hopped down and padded after Baines towards the kitchen. Two other cats, Roger and Clarence, soon joined him as they all gathered around their communal bowl. Baines peeked through the kitchen blinds and gave the sky a glance. "No eternal darkness yet," He said with a wry grin. His 'boys' looked up at him, curiously, "looks like the betting pool is still open!" With that Victor, Clarence, and Roger bent down to their dry food. Fixing a bowl of nondescript bachelor chow, he wandered over to the couch and turned on the TV.

He sighed at the empty beer cans on the coffee table, they were his way of coping with the betrayal he'd felt after the Message came out. A man in his late twenties, Baines had been very active in his church, a faithful man but also fairly rational. And, as Dawkins had said, extraordinary claims required extraordinary evidence. He'd gone to services once, but it had seemed hollow. Now he spent his days processing reports for his job from his home computer, enjoying the relative safety of his home.

Picking up the remote, he flipped through the channels.

*CLICK*
"Hey kids, its Bill Nye the Science Guy here! Be sure to keep your foil hats on at all times, you can never be too safe. Let's see how science protects YOU from the baldr-"

*CLICK*
"The Top Ten Signs that annoying guy in your office might be a demon number ten: Instead of decaf he drinks brimsto-"

*CLICK*
"And if you act now we'll throw in a FIFTH digital camera for free so you can monitor your home for demons twenty-four-seven!"

*CLICK*
"Coming through the desert in West Iraq, if you come to East Compton I'm gonna bust a cap! Don't bring your demon nonsense up in my hood, the Crips are rollin' large and we up to no good!"

Baines sighed and looked at Clarence, now bathing himself on the recliner. "I don't know if its more disconcerting that he's rapping about demons, or that it's a good tune." There was a loud knock at the door. He walked over and picked up a digital camera. Opening the door, he turned it on and looked at the screen. Humans.

He looked up and his eyes widened. It was in fact two men in suits and two men in army uniforms carrying automatic weapons. "Norman L. Baines?" One of the suited men asked.

"Ye-yes, sir." Baines stammered It was a strange feeling to be unused to talking to someone else. He hadn't said five words to a human being since the Message. He stuck out a foot to prevent Victor from making an escape.

“My name is Robert O'Shea, I'm with the Pentagon. This is my colleague, Doctor Watts. May we have a few moments of your time?" He stood solidly, implying that his request was nothing but. Dr. Watts, however, looked like someone who would rather be anywhere else.

"Ah, sure, come on in." Baines shook himself out of his momentary daze and ushered the men in, hurriedly moving dirty dishes and stacks of books and papers out of the way. One guard remained at the front door and the other simply nodded to O'Shea and began to move through the house. "Please, sit down.", Baines gestured to a dingy sofa. O’Shea sat down, but Doctor Watts remained standing, studying one of Baines's bookcases. "How can I help you guys?"

"We wanted to talk to you about your book, Mr. Baines." O’Shea opened his briefcase and pulled out a thick, collated document bound in plastic.

"I never… my…" Baines took the book and his eyes bulged as he read the cover, The Science of Hell, by N. L. Baines. "But this wasn't published! Where… how in the hell did you even GET....CHARLIE!" He looked at O’Shea. "Charlie gave it to you! That bastard!"

"That's right Mr. Baines, your brother gave this to us. Don't be hard on him though. The President recently signed an executive order requesting all knowledge of demonology and demon-history be surrendered to our department. Had Lt. Baines withheld this document, he could have been tried for treason." O’Shea leaned in closely, his eyes scrutinizing Baines inch by inch "Where do you get your information, Mr. Baines?"

Baines's mind swam. He'd had this same feeling in graduate school when he showed up for his final on archaeological methods after spending the night cramming for medieval literature. "What? Uh... I just kinda read-up on it. It's a hobby, you know?"

A snort from Dr. Watts drew Baines's attention to the bookshelf. "This is the Key of Solomon?" Baines shrugged. "In Latin? That's a bit more than a 'hobby', Mr. Baines.

Baines felt his hackles rise, "And what? I'm supposed to trust that dipwad, Mathers to translate it correctly for me?"

Watts wasn't listening as he pawed through more books, "O’Shea look at this nonsense: A Field Guide to Demons, A Dictionary of Angels, Dragon Magic, Secrets of the Vatican, Norse Runes and Magic..." He shook his head in disgust. "He's just a nut. We're wasting our time."

Baines was on his feet in an instant. O'Shea was startled that this mild-mannered scientist could look so enraged "Now you listen to me, you pompus, self-assured, g-man prick! I don't come into the Pentagon and tell you how to polish your desk and shuffle your papers, so don't tell me what I know in my own house!" He took the books out of Watt's hands, and pointed at the couch. "By the way, you're right. Most of what's in these books is ridiculous superstition and nonsense, collected by centuries of nut-jobs. However," his voice began to change into the voice of an excited professor and O'shea was briefly reminded of his History professor back at NYU.

Watts rolled his eyes. "For example?"

Baines sighed condescendingly, "qui habet aures audiendi audiat. Alright, Captain PHD, take a look at this!" Baines walked over to a wall and pulled down a large hanging rug with a flourish revealing a large chart. There were hand-written notes, string, and pictures all over it. Both men stared blankly, as though unsure if Baines might turn into a baldrick at any moment "THIS," He pointed to the chart. "Is just about every book ever written about Judeo-Christian demons and hell, set chronologically." He pointed to lines connecting them. "As you were so kind to point out, they're about eighty-five to ninety-five percent crap, but they have common threads, and those threads migrate over time." He traced the lines with his fingers. "You can see here's old-testament, pre-Christian stuff, and it trends onward, and then BAM." He stopped at a prominent 'zig' "Constantine and the Roman Empire. Changes opinions, but some things stay the same. We also have shifts during the Dark Ages, and a BIG shift with Dante. But, if you look hard enough you can sift through the crap and find out what makes sense."

"Makes sense? Robert, this man is a GEOLOGIST." Dr. Watts got up and walked toward the opposite wall. He scratched some paint from the wall, revealing silvery metal underneath. "And his entire house is wrapped in aluminum foil. I'd wonder if anything DOESN'T make sense to him."

"Wait a second," Baines raised a hand. "I did my house like this because I have an aluminum allergy. You got a better idea? And for your information Doctor," again he spat out the word, "I only WORK as a geologist. You have my book, you have my file. You know what I've studied, but it's obvious you're here because you want to know what I know." Baines spoke slowly and with purpose, as though he were waking up from a dream and finding the real-world was a much better place for once.

"It makes sense to me, Watts. And remember, he figured out how demons could fly before we knew they existed." O’Shea stood up and walked towards the chart. His fingers traced various threads, and as he looked at Baines, he felt he was seeing the man for the first time. "He may be a little crazy, but you should see the people Randi is getting." He pulled out a cellular phone and pressed a button. "He's a keeper." He closed the phone. "Norman, how'd you like to go to Washington?"

The front door opened and soldiers came in with boxes and hand-carts. Baines waved them off. "Whoa, whoa, whoa! Back the truck up!" He glanced warily at O'Shea, "I've got a job here, and you still haven't told me who you're working with." The agent handed him a card.

DEPARTMENT OF INTELLIGENCE AND MILITARY OPERATIONS (NETHERWORLD)

"D.I.M.O.(N)? Kudos to your acronym department. You're kidding me, right?" His smirk faded as he looked at his living room. There were two government agents, two armed soldiers, and four more soldiers loading his entire library and home into boxes. "Have I been drafted?"

"Not exactly, Norman. It's kind of like eminent domain. You've been forcibly hired," O’Shea stuck out his hand and smiled for the first time. "Welcome to government work, Mister Baines. The pay sucks, but you get to kill things and nobody will call you crazy."

Baines felt weak at first, with everything moving so quickly around him, but he then gave O'Shea's hand a firm pump and said resolutely "I'll go get my lightsaber and then we can go." Then he thought for a second. “What about my cats?”

O’Shea sighed quietly. “You have carry-boxes? They might as well come as well. Nothing could be crazier than the way things are going right now.”

(Note of appreciation to Chewie who wrote the last section).
Last edited by Stuart on 2008-02-18 12:15pm, edited 1 time in total.
Nations do not survive by setting examples for others
Nations survive by making examples of others
User avatar
CaptainChewbacca
Browncoat Wookiee
Posts: 15746
Joined: 2003-05-06 02:36am
Location: Deep beneath Boatmurdered.

Post by CaptainChewbacca »

Woohoo! Its up! I didn't write it all, Kodiak did a good bit of editing on my writing.
Stuart: The only problem is, I'm losing track of which universe I'm in.
You kinda look like Jesus. With a lightsaber.- Peregrin Toker
ImageImage
User avatar
The Duchess of Zeon
Gözde
Posts: 14566
Joined: 2002-09-18 01:06am
Location: Exiled in the Pale of Settlement.

Post by The Duchess of Zeon »

Sean Mulligan wrote:
Illuminatus Primus wrote:I'm pretty sure the early contact stuff is typically the realm of pseudohistory.
Well, some of it is right. The Vikings did visit America and set up settlements centuries before Columbus.
Also, we have strong evidence that Hellenistic-era Greeks explored so far north as to discover Iceland, and then pressed on beyond it to reach the Pack Ice. But that is not really at all the same thing, considering they went north from the British Isles through the Orkneys and Faroes.


Stuart: Nice update. What's the composition of forces in the allied centre, however?
The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. -- Wikipedia's No Original Research policy page.

In 1966 the Soviets find something on the dark side of the Moon. In 2104 they come back. -- Red Banner / White Star, a nBSG continuation story. Updated to Chapter 4.0 -- 14 January 2013.
User avatar
Sidewinder
Sith Acolyte
Posts: 5466
Joined: 2005-05-18 10:23pm
Location: Feasting on those who fell in battle
Contact:

Post by Sidewinder »

May I assume the F-111s will soon be executing missions in Hell?

I wonder what would happen if the harpies tried to "shoot down" a human fighter or bomber by flying into the air intakes? Probably nothing good, but kamikaze attacks are probably Hell's only option against jets.

By the way, thanks for letting us see how Luga's mind works.
Please do not make Americans fight giant monsters.

Those gun nuts do not understand the meaning of "overkill," and will simply use weapon after weapon of mass destruction (WMD) until the monster is dead, or until they run out of weapons.

They have more WMD than there are monsters for us to fight. (More insanity here.)
User avatar
phongn
Rebel Leader
Posts: 18487
Joined: 2002-07-03 11:11pm

Post by phongn »

The Duchess of Zeon wrote: Stuart: Nice update. What's the composition of forces in the allied centre, however?
25th Mechanized Infantry Division, the 10th Mountain Division and the 15th Marine Expeditionary Brigade are in the center, plus the 82nd Airborne and two brigades of 4ID in reserve to the north, it looks like. I guess the Russian Army reinforcements are still heading down.
User avatar
MKSheppard
Ruthless Genocidal Warmonger
Ruthless Genocidal Warmonger
Posts: 29842
Joined: 2002-07-06 06:34pm

Post by MKSheppard »

Bill Nye is ten times awesome. :D
"If scientists and inventors who develop disease cures and useful technologies don't get lifetime royalties, I'd like to know what fucking rationale you have for some guy getting lifetime royalties for writing an episode of Full House." - Mike Wong

"The present air situation in the Pacific is entirely the result of fighting a fifth rate air power." - U.S. Navy Memo - 24 July 1944
User avatar
LadyTevar
White Mage
White Mage
Posts: 23145
Joined: 2003-02-12 10:59pm

Post by LadyTevar »

Well well... That does explain why the hookers were so nice to Luga -- She Smells Good.

Demon Mind Tricks blocked, but she can still make us feel warm and fuzzy via pheromones. Nasty trick... makes me wonder how that 'evolved' in the Succubi, or if it was something that they found out by accident.
Image
Nitram, slightly high on cough syrup: Do you know you're beautiful?
Me: Nope, that's why I have you around to tell me.
Nitram: You -are- beautiful. Anyone tries to tell you otherwise kill them.

"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP" -- Leonard Nimoy, last Tweet
User avatar
CaptainChewbacca
Browncoat Wookiee
Posts: 15746
Joined: 2003-05-06 02:36am
Location: Deep beneath Boatmurdered.

Post by CaptainChewbacca »

Looks like Surlethe is going to be getting a lot of company at DIMO(N), between the crazy scientists and the defecting demons.
Stuart: The only problem is, I'm losing track of which universe I'm in.
You kinda look like Jesus. With a lightsaber.- Peregrin Toker
ImageImage
User avatar
Kodiak
Jedi Master
Posts: 1400
Joined: 2005-07-08 02:19pm
Location: The City in the Country

Post by Kodiak »

CaptainChewbacca wrote:Looks like Surlethe is going to be getting a lot of company at DIMO(N), between the crazy scientists and the defecting demons.
Don't forget the whack-jobs and nut cases who have been talking with demons all their lives.
Image PRFYNAFBTFCP
Captain of the MFS Frigate of Pizazz +2 vs. Douchebags - Est vicis pro nonnullus suscito vir

"Are you an idiot? What demand do you think there is for aircraft carriers that aren't government?" - Captain Chewbacca

"I keep my eighteen wives in wonderfully appointed villas by bringing the underwear of god to the heathens. They will come to know God through well protected goodies." - Gandalf

"There is no such thing as being too righteous to understand." - Darth Wong
Locked