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Nice. Wuffles! Man, Yahweh is a complete dick. Making ginormous monster-creatures his personal pets, mang.

Though man, monster animals can apparently open portals. If Wuffles is a natural creature, or something, then that means portal-ing is actually a naturally evolved feature of Heaven lifeforms! Or, is a bodily function that can be bred into them!

I like the fact that Stuart has taken the liberty to combine my new self-insert with my apparent love and fanhood for Luga

Simon_Jester wrote:That's a pretty epic failure. So I suspect that the colonel had already managed to convict themselves of incompetence before Asanee even got there.

My only quibble with the scene was it was too long and dragged on a bit -- do we need to hear Asanee fire what seems like everyone in/near that CP personally?

midnight77 wrote:Am I alone in thinking the leader of the second conspiracy is Jesus?

I want to believe... but considering his do-goodery in the bible I doubt it. Especially if we take his drug antics and Yah-Yahs dissappointment into account.

By the way, great heavenly beast equals pet was a funny idea.

The length of the war could be stretched a bit (by human standards) if it was taking place, say, prior and during the destruction of Atlantis or other presumed ancient civilisations. By that ould still put it pretty much in the 35k years range instead of the 4-5M years proposed.

Gil Hamilton wrote:Hrm, that's interesting, because we KNOW there was a portal that directly connected Heaven and Hell, the Heavengate. They ought to investigate what made THAT one special and they might have a good answer how to get from Earth to Heaven.

Presuming there would be a residue of some kind, yes, but I don't think there is.

Gil Hamilton wrote:<mountain metaphor>

That is an interesting analogy. If you would assume the energy is like way water would flow... That makes me wonder if the Heaven-Hell-Gate was self-sustaining or needed regularly new energy.

Simon_Jester wrote:He's got some of the same psychological weirdness as Apolloin (from Armageddon); the kind of mind that will go "Look how beautiful everything is! Behold the glory of Creation!" while staring at a pile of decomposing corpses that he himself just created.

Well, corpses anyway. Considering the thoroughness with which he kills things, do the organisms responsible for decomposition die too? If so, the corpses would be notable for their lack of decay. Of course, I also have to wonder if the survivors of Uriel's attacks end up with bad cases of the trots as a result of their intestinal flora dying off.

MKSheppard wrote:

Simon_Jester wrote:That's a pretty epic failure. So I suspect that the colonel had already managed to convict themselves of incompetence before Asanee even got there.

My only quibble with the scene was it was too long and dragged on a bit -- do we need to hear Asanee fire what seems like everyone in/near that CP personally?

That scene did do a fair amount to establish that not everything is running perfectly in the human camp. Granted, that would be apparent from other things but all that detail did establish a fair amount of character, if Asanee is going to figure more prominently later on.

Buritot wrote:Presuming there would be a residue of some kind, yes, but I don't think there is.

Aha. There might not be physical evidence left behind by the Heavengate, though there might. You'd be surprised how good scientists are good are finding physical evidence left behind by phenomena. There might be some induced radioactivity or all the clay pots in the area have their structures aligned with a magnetic field caused by the portal (this is a real technique!) because they were nearby when they were baked. Who knows? It's worth investigation. After all, it WAS the only known portal to Heaven that wasn't completely owned and operated by Heaven.

Even so, there is still other things that can be done. After all Baldricks spent all their eternity guarding the thing, sitting down the support staff of the Heavengate and interviewing them would be a good start. Talking to people like Luga is good, but finding some high unholy muckity mucks in the Naga and Gorgon communities would be even better. Try to weed details out of them about the daily goings on; if there is maintence, if there are regular specific visitors, et cetera. Hell Gates Alpha and Beta don't seem to have support staff Baldricks keeping them open, they just seem to be. Did the Heavengate? Were there a coven of Naga always on staff there doing weird shit that the Baldricks guards learned to carefully steer clear off? Did they have any magical instruments?

Once you get a mound of voodoo woodoo bullshit from the Baldricks, start sifting it for facts and consistancies that reveal the gems in what made the Heavengate special.

That is an interesting analogy. If you would assume the energy is like way water would flow... That makes me wonder if the Heaven-Hell-Gate was self-sustaining or needed regularly new energy.

Keep in mind all analogies are suspect. I happen to LIKE the PES Mountain/Valley analogy, because I have a special place in my heart for spectroscopy and physical chemistry, in addition to it seeming to fit the facts that have been presented. If we go with it and call the Heaven-to-Hell Portal forbidden by Portal Selection Rules, then it stands to reason that a good way to go is to figure out what is queering the system to make the portal possible.

Somehow, I just knew the that huge-ass beastie was gonna have a cutesy pet name. It's sort of a divine Rule of Funny for fiction or some such.

And we have Micheal-lan still being as delightfully self-serving and conniving as he was the last we saw him in this story. His suggestion to have Jesus lead an Angelic attack, though, is something to think about. It seems to me like he'd want Jesus dead since he may have the political clout to be a serious challenge to any attempt by Micheal to take control of Heaven. Then again, there may be another possibility related to the fact that I took the mention of Jesus in the first book to me that he was just some guy who'd rather smoke pot and laze around--and tolerated by his father only for the fact that he's his son. It may be Micheal wants Jesus to be captured (as mentioned by others before, Jesus does have good press with the humans) so that Jesus can name-drop him positively to the humans so that they'd be amenable to having him take control of Heaven after the war.

Of course, I could just be over-thinking a small mention.

Oh, and Shroom actually convinced you to put a John Baylor in The Salvation War? Man, is there no universe he won't pop up in?

Junghalli wrote: Am I to take this as proof that the statement in Armageddon of the Celestial War being 4-5 million years ago was quietly retconned away?

No, all will become clear in due course. Well, sort of.

Ilya Muromets wrote:Oh, and Shroom actually convinced you to put a John Baylor in The Salvation War? Man, is there no universe he won't pop up in?

Having him bring Luga to a dinner date where he's eating mushrooms and she's eating raw livestock legs while casually conversing ancient celestial atrocities is... well... so like him.

So's the fact that he can eat his mushrooms and savor them while Luga's messily masticating her mammal meal meats.

Maybe he should become one of the US' interviewer/conversationalist with the demons - especially if Nagas, Gorgons and Baldrick guards are getting interviewed regarding the Heavengate. Like, he might like them and get along better with them than regular humans.

Maybe he can go to hell with Luga and the two of them can dilly-dally in their investigations!

But yeah - DIMO(N) totally needs to go looking into the Heavengate. What's up with that?

Though man, monster animals can apparently open portals. If Wuffles is a natural creature, or something, then that means portal-ing is actually a naturally evolved feature of Heaven lifeforms! Or, is a bodily function that can be bred into them!

Let's not be completely sure about that (I'll need to go reread the secoond to last chapter before I can say for certain, but at the moment are we capable of just disregarding the idea that maybe the angelic equilvelent of Nagas opened up a large enough portal for the beast to be pushed through before seeling it up?

Granted given just how freaking large that beast is, and that its harder to close portals from heaven to earth, I'm surprised that the angels were so "on the ball" about shutting down whatever portal Wuffles had used to get to Earth. But then I suppose with Micheal being the one designing the game plan he'd understand the importance of how the portal has to be closed ASAP less humanity take advantage of it.

When the animul was dying, it was instinctively trying to conjure up a mental image of Heaven to portal home to with its tails tucked and its flesh eviscerated by human weaponry. Too bad it died like a pussy before it could do that.

Wuffles?

That just makes me keep on chuckling. So, did Yahweh only have one pet? Or does he have multiple lurking around?

Is Yahweh actually becoming more thoughtful and calm as the weeks go by? Or was he/it just in grief over a beloved pet's death?(I know Michael brought this up, but I wanted to reiterate the question.)

Hell, seeing Yahweh think rationally about war with Earth after his overgrown hissyfits would make for interesting reading, but he's way too much of an egotist to have that happen.

On an unrelated note, since the portal in the heavengate building closed, what happened to the heavengate, the guards guarding it, and the baldricks guarding it?

When the animul was dying, it was instinctively trying to conjure up a mental image of Heaven to portal home to with its tails tucked and its flesh eviscerated by human weaponry. Too bad it died like a pussy before it could do that.

Just reread the necessary sections of the second to last chapter and you're right.

Of course this brings up the question of, how did the animal know what the section of Earth it was suppose to portal down to look like? Did Micheal have somebody take some pictures and show them to be the beast? How do you convience it to leave its sanctuary when it's been basically just hanging around there for the last umpty million years... I guess it'd be easier to figure out if we knew how intelligent it was...

Junghalli wrote:Maybe that's why we haven't encountered anybody from deep prehistory in Hell yet. It was before Yahweh did whatever voodoo he did to humans that made the reincarnation system accept them. Presumably before that everybody who died would have just, well, died.

Or went to the Happy Hunting Grounds or whatever; it's strongly implied that there's at least one other group of powerful beings that have a vested interest in the fate of (some?) human souls.

FaxModem1 wrote:On an unrelated note, since the portal in the heavengate building closed, what happened to the heavengate, the guards guarding it, and the baldricks guarding it?

At a guess, they had to find something else to do for a living.

FaxModem1 wrote:That just makes me keep on chuckling. So, did Yahweh only have one pet? Or does he have multiple lurking around?

Yes, there are. Michael mentioned it in the recent chapter:

Stuart wrote:Could Wuffles getting killed have knocked some sense into him. If it had, perhaps it was time to arrange for some more of his pets to be blown away by the humans.

And it's still unclear if these are the same beasts as in his throne room. Concerning the beasts incentive to portal to Earth - At least I would get bored of all the millennia long chanting in the throne room.
Which indicates the beasts aren't located in it at all. Do you think Yahweh would throw lighting around if his beloved enormous pets were idly sitting to his side? Most of those currently in the crowd ducked for safety during his tantrums to avoid electrocution.
Now that is a thought... if the magic in angels also equals electricity, overdosing them would seem oddly appropriate.

Stuart wrote:No, all will become clear in due course. Well, sort of.

Seems to me that the Celestial war DID happen 4-5 million years ago and many of the current generation of Baldricks are descended from proto-human draftees of that War. Then there was another conflict on Earth during semi-recorded history, with the new generation.

Gil Hamilton wrote:

Stuart wrote:No, all will become clear in due course. Well, sort of.

Seems to me that the Celestial war DID happen 4-5 million years ago and many of the current generation of Baldricks are descended from proto-human draftees of that War. Then there was another conflict on Earth during semi-recorded history, with the new generation.

...nah. The Baldricks may be long lived but a war in times of the stone age mostly meant a few guys of rivalling tribes throwing rocks at each other. The emphasis lies on rivalling tribes. If we put it in this terms - the Heaven Tribe and Hell Tribe - a war would, from a modern perspective, consist of bickering at each other. Their longevity makes it also easy to hold grudges and voilá you have a war from their perspective and a rivalry from ours. Or trench warfare since no one was able to get a hold over the other one and the lines were pretty clear. It all depends on the Baldricks and Angels definition of war.

I think the biggest thing in this chapter was the hint thrown in about the nature of Yahweh, the angels and the demons. He said Satan and Yahweh had a "family resemblance". I imagine that Yahweh's nature is similar to that of the angels, and Yahweh and Satan are either brothers, or father and son. I'm guessing Satan as a younger brother, as their relationship would fit that mold.

Anyone else think that Michael's constant snarky mental comments is going to be what eventually brings about his downfall? He could either accidentally blurt something out, or be too busy putting down his opponent to notice that knife in his back.

Yeah, he should TOTALLY make a Freudian slip! Which would be totally silly and shit since he's spent like BINILLIONS of years masking his feelings. But a Freudian slip on part of Micheal Lan would be hilarious!

Like, right afterwards after he actually mutters something out loud, he and Yahweh will have an awkward silence before Micheal goes on like "and moving on to our next agenda, Almighty Father..."

Yeah. Like, Micheal actually calling Yahweh 'Yah-yah' in his face.

Wuffles!

Seriously, that was classic.

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Jesus would make an interesting intermediary. So far as I can tell, humanity isn't holding it personally against him that daddy's being a jerk; he would seem to be the only party who could actually work out some sort of parley. Not only that, but he's probably the only one around who could still manage a collective double-take from the humans at this point.

I do have to wonder...are there cease-fire terms that Michael (or Jesus as the frontman in the negotiations with Michael sitting behind the scenes) and humanity would be willing to accept with one another? I know Yah-yah's head on a pike is one of them, but other than that?

And Yahweh actually being scared enough of the humans not to care

BTW, won't heaven have huge ass oceans, due to God damning up the waters of the earth in Genesis?

Not anymore - after he dumped it all on all those whores who heckled ole Noah.

Not in this setting. If sea levels had risen thousands of feet in recent history it would show in the geological record. And in this setting, that can reasonably be interpreted to prove that it didn't happen.