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Stuart wrote: Seriously, I think you must have been really unlucky in who you've been talking to on this. My experience so far is that the really vituperative comments and obsessive hatred for the book have come from a tiny minority who make up in noise what they lack in numbers.

I live in Brazil, a mostly Catholic country, where, despite stated in our counstitution that we are a Laïcité State, recently the Judiciary decided that Crucifixes in courtrooms were "Cultural Symbols"- ' cause the law explicitely says Religious symbols are a no-no. Last Census we had the MAYOR of the city where there were the biggest concetratrion of atheists say that they were taking measures to change that (please bear with me on this one) WHEN IT'S FUCKING ILEGAL TO DO SO!

Also, I live in one of the most backward parts of the country, wich doesn't help at all.

Surprisingly, I don' t get much hatred, I get patronizing comments, mostly - The ever so delightful "You will come arround eventually" and "You can' t undestand the Bible without faith" at least twice a month- wich I am used to. Now, there are a few atheists here too and not "dick christians" with I often debate religion(I´m a law student, we debate all the time.) Now, a few days back I mentioned it to one of those christians about TSW( I didn´t say "lol we kill god", obviously, I explained what I was about ) and most if not all said it was a mockery of their religion, and that it should be illegal(yeah, for law students they haven´t payed much attention to constitucional law ). Withouth even reading it. People I openly discussed religion with. And seemed reasonable. Now I am not saying all of them felt like this, buit it was the general vibe I got out of them.

Simon_Jester wrote:

Valiran wrote:Personally, I'm hoping that the river will be wide enough to fit an Iowa-class battleship inside it. Let's see Yah-Yah survive a full barrage of sixteen inch cannons to the face.

Aaah! No! Not the Iowa-class! To explain why I say this, assuming Stuart doesn't get back and do it first:

As an alternative suggestion, and the image that immediately sprang to my mind:

How about an Invincible class carrier with its flight deck liberally covered with AS-90s. (With the odd Challenger II and Stormer for point defense.) It's not like any carriers are really needed any more with on demand portals, and the centre-deck lifts would probably be more protected against counter-fire than the side-mount lifts you get on American carriers.

You could even have some marines on board firing AT rockets and machine guns! Of course they probably wouldn't be United States Marines but...

It may not be practical, but it sounds too awesome to not do that.

I'm going to talk about TSW to those two guys that sometimes knock on my door to talk to me about Jesus. See what they think (if they ever come back. I shouldn't have recited them Judges 1:14 when they asked me what Bible passage I like the most)

Stuart wrote: "Portals Sir, you must learn to think in portals."

Is this a reference to the videogame of the same name?

Nematocyst wrote:It may not be practical, but it sounds too awesome to not do that.

I'm going to talk about TSW to those two guys that sometimes knock on my door to talk to me about Jesus. See what they think (if they ever come back. I shouldn't have recited them Judges 1:14 when they asked me what Bible passage I like the most)

Are you sure you mean Judges 1:14? Its an incredibly mundane and un-funny passage.

Undoubtedly. "Now you're thinking with Portals!"

Dave wrote:

Stuart wrote: "Portals Sir, you must learn to think in portals."

Is this a reference to the videogame of the same name?

Of course it is, Stewart already reference Apature Science as well though I doubt that reference will survive the editing process, though this one might....

I don't think that phrase is so well known to the general public as to provoke copyright issues.

CaptainChewbacca wrote:

Nematocyst wrote:It may not be practical, but it sounds too awesome to not do that.

I'm going to talk about TSW to those two guys that sometimes knock on my door to talk to me about Jesus. See what they think (if they ever come back. I shouldn't have recited them Judges 1:14 when they asked me what Bible passage I like the most)

Are you sure you mean Judges 1:14? Its an incredibly mundane and un-funny passage.

Damn, meant 1:19. Thank you for catching it.

Oh, those damned iron charioths. I usually go for the rape ones.

They totally should've done that instead of the iron ones.

I'm religious to an extent and TSW doesn't offend me... It's a story that I read the same as other sci fi / fantasy / alt history stories of its type. Stuart makes it quite clear that TSW isn't a 'take that!' against religion but does what Star Trek, Stargate and other series have done in making the 'gods' ultra advanced aliens (well not so much in this case )...

I wouldn't be reading if this story had devolved into a retarded take that like Pullman pulls in 'His Dark Materials'... I always find it funny though how atheists on a tear write or sound exactly like brain dead 'regular' religious fanatics do...

Basically 4 things will kill a story for me 100%...

1. Sue... If I'm reading a story about Harry Potter putting in 'and his sister' will have me running said story off my metaphorical lawn with my metaphorical 12 gauge...
2. Take That! of basically any stripe... conservative/liberal/religious/atheist/misc... snipes will get by but as soon as it interferes with the plot or flips a main character I'm gone...
3. Wangst/Deus Angst Machina... Cerebus syndrome is usually a terminal condition similar to rabies and has to be put down in the same way...
4. Filler... not so much with general stories but touch of death to webcomics and the reason I can't even watch/read anime/manga anymore...

The biggest train wreck I ever saw which had all 4 of these was A Modest Destiny the webcomic... where the comic went from a pretty lighthearted but still kinda edgy comedy in season 1 to 28 Weeks Later in season 2... The characters going from likable to putrid in 5 seconds (We learn that the comic relief is an undead pedophile murderer...). The plot going from basically character driven and flaky but in keeping with the comedy to 'involved' but really just a springboard for the author's unhinged atheist rants and Bush Derangement Syndrome... There's even a (canon) Sue in the aforementioned comic relief's vamp sister...

TSW has none of this... while Mike edges close sometimes he's still on the side of a plausible 'Magnificent Bastard'...

Spekio wrote:Hey, can I ask you a personal question? How come you are not offended?
Every single christian I talked about this series of books either told me I was going to hell(or to go to hell).

I'm a Christian, and frankly the only objection I have to this is that there is almost literally no tension because of the disparity in power.

And hell, that's not even an objection, really.

It is, after all, a hypothetical scenario. What good reason would I have to complain about that?

Two updates in one day, that's the stuff. The long awaited invasion will soon begin. I honestly feel sorry for the angels. Despite the stories spreading around about humans in recent times, they have no idea what they're up against.

Could we have a tactical nuke detonated in the city? Pleeeaassseee. Just a little one.

I don't think they'll actually nuke the Eternal City, as it would lead to much undue loss of life, among "civilian" angels and second-life humans alike- probably more than humanity is willing to accept, especially considering that Michael, Lemuel and Maion are proof that some angels are willing to work with us, even if their leadership is hostile. Add this to the fact that, in the long term, the Eternal City is far more useful as a city, and not a steaming, radioactive crater.

Honestly, if I were going to authorize the use of nukes, it's going to be if Yah-Yah leaves the city, either to attempt to battle us himself(I wouldn't mind seeing him try...), or in an attempt to escape when we start to take the city. Either way, it would only happen if he placed himself far enough away to minimize collateral damage and if killing him could not be achieved by more mundane methods. (A cruise missile and liberal use of a demon-portable chaingun was enough to take down Satan, I can't imagine it would be that much harder to kill Yahwah.

usagihunter101 wrote:I don't think they'll actually nuke the Eternal City, as it would lead to much undue loss of life, among "civilian" angels and second-life humans alike- probably more than humanity is willing to accept, especially considering that Michael, Lemuel and Maion are proof that some angels are willing to work with us, even if their leadership is hostile. Add this to the fact that, in the long term, the Eternal City is far more useful as a city, and not a steaming, radioactive crater.

Honestly, if I were going to authorize the use of nukes, it's going to be if Yah-Yah leaves the city, either to attempt to battle us himself(I wouldn't mind seeing him try...), or in an attempt to escape when we start to take the city. Either way, it would only happen if he placed himself far enough away to minimize collateral damage and if killing him could not be achieved by more mundane methods. (A cruise missile and liberal use of a demon-portable chaingun was enough to take down Satan, I can't imagine it would be that much harder to kill Yahwah.

I hate to disappoint you but at the moment, at no point in either story has Abigor actually gotten around to using his 30MM chain gun, all he's done with it so far is use it to threaten the other dukes when he showed up to become the new ruler of hell, Satan was dead as a dornail after eating on cruise missile to the chest and then another to the head a few moments later...

I hate to nitpick but the RARDEN is not a chain gun, its more of a 30mm SLR, as it can only really fire short bursts of 6 rounds at a time. The low rate of fire is one of the reasons behind the move to a 40mm CTA.

usagihunter101 wrote:Honestly, if I were going to authorize the use of nukes, it's going to be if Yah-Yah leaves the city, either to attempt to battle us himself(I wouldn't mind seeing him try...), or in an attempt to escape when we start to take the city.

Killing him in battle will make him look like a heroic martyr, making the remnant Angels fight twice as hard. We can't let that happen.
And if he escapes, we'll track him in no time, like we did with Satan. However, reusing that act would look bad, not to mention it would greatly speak against Stuart's writing.

Oh, I'm well aware that the use of tactical nukes in unlikely. I just think it would be awesome.

I'm not so sure that Yahweh's death would make the rest of the angels fight harder, after an eternity worshiping him and seeing him as an all powerful, all knowing deity, his death might make the angels just give up in horror and sadness.

Ahahahah! Stuart made Shep a Failsprey pilot!

Oh and I remember that list:
87. If the thought of something makes me giggle for longer than 15 seconds, I am to assume that I am not allowed to do it.

usagihunter101 wrote:I don't think they'll actually nuke the Eternal City, as it would lead to much undue loss of life, among "civilian" angels and second-life humans alike- probably more than humanity is willing to accept, especially considering that Michael, Lemuel and Maion are proof that some angels are willing to work with us, even if their leadership is hostile. Add this to the fact that, in the long term, the Eternal City is far more useful as a city, and not a steaming, radioactive crater.

Honestly, if I were going to authorize the use of nukes, it's going to be if Yah-Yah leaves the city, either to attempt to battle us himself(I wouldn't mind seeing him try...), or in an attempt to escape when we start to take the city. Either way, it would only happen if he placed himself far enough away to minimize collateral damage and if killing him could not be achieved by more mundane methods. (A cruise missile and liberal use of a demon-portable chaingun was enough to take down Satan, I can't imagine it would be that much harder to kill Yahwah.

Several chapters ago it was mentioned that the use of all WMD has already been authorized-remember the final angelic battle that was supposed to take place on Earth and provide an opportunity to portal into Heaven? What has happened now is that the final battle has been moved to Heaven instead of the Middle East, and I'm pretty sure the Earth humans are going to have much less hesitation to use nukes in Heaven as compared to Earth.

General Schatten wrote:Ahahahah! Stuart made Shep a Failsprey pilot!

Beat me to it

tim31 wrote:

General Schatten wrote:Ahahahah! Stuart made Shep a Failsprey pilot!

Beat me to it

Failsprey sounds awkward. Aren't there any better slurs?

Spekio wrote:

CaptainChewbacca wrote:

Nematocyst wrote:So you have a map or something? Awesome!

I don't have a MAP, I have lots and lots of descriptions of Heaven from various sources. Revelations 22 references the 'River of Life' flowing from the throne, and Revelations 4 describes a 'great sea as of glass' before the throne of God at the foot of the temple.

And, practically, a city the size of Heaven as described must have a VERY large source of fresh water.

Hey, can I ask you a personal question? How come you are not offended?
Every single christian I talked about this series of books either told me I was going to hell(or to go to hell).

Hold on a second. I'm a Christian as well...now, granted I am of the Catholic persuasion (as opposed to the Protestant one), but I do consider myself to be observant. In my experience, Catholics tend to be pretty laid back about this sort of stuff in comparison to Evangelical Protestants ("Mainline" Protestants are always a mixed bag). Bear in mind as well that these tend to be the same people who condemn Harry Potter, or who think D&D involves actual spellcasting.

In general, I find that this series does not offend my faith; I enjoy it as well-written entertainment that makes me think, but I find that it is not designed to undermine it or cast doubt on what I believe. Stuart knows his material well enough that he manages to make me think about things, but from my point of view the story is no more offensive than a theological "what-if" discussion...or, for that matter, a Terry Pratchett Novel, and the Church has not to my knowledge zapped it with the film office.

More to the point, the series is not atheistic from what I can tell. There are powers heaped on top of powers, but that simply makes it fantasy in an unconventional context. And the story hasn't excluded the idea of there being an ultimate power out there in some form; if anything, the second life machinery hint at something "above" what we're seeing that hasn't intervened for reasons we don't know. As to religious institutions, it has a well-worn point on fanaticism which the Church also tends to hold to, but in general I find that it portrays my faith and the leaders thereof in a very positive light, all things considered. I particularly liked Benedict's CMOA in the first novel.

I thought the Baptists were worse than the Evangelical. Westboro and Landover make the people condemning Harry Potter and D&D look like well mannered smart people.

Also, why all the hate on the Osprey? We finally get a VTOL capable of holding more than two dudes and we treat it as if it was something other than a godsend

Nematocyst wrote:I thought the Baptists were worse than the Evangelical. Westboro and Landover make the people condemning Harry Potter and D&D look like well mannered smart people.

Also, why all the hate on the Osprey? We finally get a VTOL capable of holding more than two dudes and we treat it as if it was something other than a godsend

Depends on the group of Baptists and Evangelicals. And I think the thing about the Osprey is that a rather large number of sacrifices were made to get the compromise and it has a nasty tendency to crash while carrying said more than two dudes.