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[R_H] wrote:

Darth Yan wrote:who would mccain have used as VP?

Hopefully not Palin, or Huckabee.

I've already speculated that both of them were Message deaths. Romney too, possibly. It probably would've helped McCain to not have an insane idiot as a running mate, especially after a lot of the demographic that likes insane idiots quietly offed themselves.

Land Phish wrote: Now that the salvation war is over, we can finally concentrate on answering that all important question:

What happened to Mr. Rogers?

Umm, same thing that happened to everybody, likely. The Phelps clan was right: he went to Hell. Though he'd be a topic of interest in the daily "who was rescued out of hell" reports. Or...when did Twitter start? If it was around already there would probably be feeds listing all the people who were just pulled out that they could identify.

Something ive been wondering about those that topped themselves after The Message. Logically some of them must have been recovered from the pit, be interesting to know their reactions.....'imagines Palin being hauled out by marines'....

Mayabird wrote:

[R_H] wrote:

Darth Yan wrote:who would mccain have used as VP?

Hopefully not Palin, or Huckabee.

I've already speculated that both of them were Message deaths. Romney too, possibly. It probably would've helped McCain to not have an insane idiot as a running mate, especially after a lot of the demographic that likes insane idiots quietly offed themselves.

Nah, I figure they were the kind of asshole that would be hypocritical enough to refuse to lie down and die, or arrogant enough to believe that they were exempt from the blanket "God hates you" thing. But they probably didn't end up running even if they did survive, since like you said, most of the idiots that would have supported them did end up dead.

Andehtron wrote:Something ive been wondering about those that topped themselves after The Message. Logically some of them must have been recovered from the pit, be interesting to know their reactions.....'imagines Palin being hauled out by marines'....

I think it was mentioned somewhere that some of them have been recovered, and were generally being subject to massive derision from pretty much everybody, both first and second lifers.

Twitter was founded in 2006. It would make sense to include mention of it even in Armageddon?

I want these books in hard copy.

mdrap16 wrote:I want these books in hard copy.

Me too. Stuart said something about it, but it didn't go anywhere.

Books are not printed in hardback, generally, unless the publishers KNOW that it will sell, because it costs a lot more. If the first edition comes out as a trade paperback and sells well, a new, hardback edition will often be published later. E.g. Eragorn.

wickeddyno wrote:Books are not printed in hardback, generally, unless the publishers KNOW that it will sell, because it costs a lot more. If the first edition comes out as a trade paperback and sells well, a new, hardback edition will often be published later. E.g. Eragorn.

Thanks, but that doesn't change anything.

Hard copy doesn't mean hardback. It means printed copy...

I'll take a copy anyway I can get one.

Stuart has explicitly said, repeatedly, that these books are going to be published. Publication takes time; months or years after the first draft of the manuscript is written.

And since Stuart already has a line of published novels out in a completely unrelated setting, he ain't bluffing about the publication thing on this, either. But you can bet it'll take a while longer.

There was a discussion about cover art for the first book (Armageddon) quite recently, for instance.

I remember that Eoin Coilfer came to my school, I asked him how long it took to get published, and he said that it took a year.

Nice ending Stuart, I was wondering was Yahweh the only angel that could control the weather? If others could do it may become a "source" of revenue for the angels with that ability they could bring rain to drought affected area on Earth and possibly relieve the dust storms in hell?

The Big I wrote:Nice ending Stuart, I was wondering was Yahweh the only angel that could control the weather? If others could do it may become a "source" of revenue for the angels with that ability they could bring rain to drought affected area on Earth and possibly relieve the dust storms in hell?

The mechanism for 'controlling' weather was to dump more energy into existing storm systems to make them more severe. Storms were never manufactured out of nothingness, and large-scale climate manipulation is incredibly dangerous, since you're actually INCREASING the net energy content of the earth's when you do something like that.

If you had a convenient region of cold air (Asgard, if we can find it, for instance, or a random uninhabited bubble universe), you could dump cold air into storms to bleed energy out But yes, dangerous game to play.

Simon_Jester wrote:If you had a convenient region of cold air (Asgard, if we can find it, for instance, or a random uninhabited bubble universe), you could dump cold air into storms to bleed energy out But yes, dangerous game to play.

Another bubble universe would seem to be unnecessary - you could just use a really big fridge, or run a pipe (with a pump) from the Antarctic through one portal to the storm through another portal. Although I'm not sure what cold air into the storm itself would do... it's the air rising off a warm sea beneath that powers tropical cyclones, so it might make more sense to try cooling the sea itself. Maybe just portal in a few good-sized icebergs to the eye of the storm and let it chill out by itself. (You'd want to stick to storms with eyes so you have a calm spot to portal into).

EDIT: Holy ****, this gives me an idea for a real-world application of this that seems incredibly tempting: Iceberg drones. Basically, make icebergs, stick a propeller, a rudder, and an automated/satellite-directable steering system on them, and sail them into tropical cyclones as they form, then have them sit around in the eye until the ice melts. Or airlift ice/dry ice in...

Drat. Someone's already thought of it. In fact, there's even an FAQ about why it wouldn't work.

... that reminds me of that British plan to make a aircraft carrier out of an iceberg.

Anyway... about the story... well, wow. Great read. Kudos on tackling this in such an interesting way.

Re: Deebles

This is why I suggested portalling in cold air, just as (presumably) angelic weather control works by portalling in hot air. The Antarctic might work, I suppose. I'd be just as happy using a bubble universe for the purpose, though, if we can find one, because I'd rather not find out what happens when the reverse flow starts spilling hot air masses into the arctic. I'd rather drain a certain amount of energy out of Earth's atmosphere permanently than just redistribute it, especially with global warming still being a long-term concern on Earth.

EDIT: No, I'm not saying this is a viable global warming solution. I'm saying that on general principles I'm more comfortable with shifting the heat somewhere else than with redistributing it on Earth.

Simon_Jester wrote:Re: Deebles

This is why I suggested portalling in cold air, just as (presumably) angelic weather control works by portalling in hot air. The Antarctic might work, I suppose. I'd be just as happy using a bubble universe for the purpose, though, if we can find one, because I'd rather not find out what happens when the reverse flow starts spilling hot air masses into the arctic. I'd rather drain a certain amount of energy out of Earth's atmosphere permanently than just redistribute it, especially with global warming still being a long-term concern on Earth.

EDIT: No, I'm not saying this is a viable global warming solution. I'm saying that on general principles I'm more comfortable with shifting the heat somewhere else than with redistributing it on Earth.

Actually, would it be possible to establish semi-permanent portals in large smokestacks to dump the smoke in a relatively uninhabited bubble world? I know that's not the end-all solution to this, but...

GrayAnderson wrote: Actually, would it be possible to establish semi-permanent portals in large smokestacks to dump the smoke in a relatively uninhabited bubble world? I know that's not the end-all solution to this, but...

Maybe, but how would you KNOW it was uninhabited?

Simon_Jester wrote:Re: Deebles

This is why I suggested portalling in cold air, just as (presumably) angelic weather control works by portalling in hot air. The Antarctic might work, I suppose. I'd be just as happy using a bubble universe for the purpose, though, if we can find one, because I'd rather not find out what happens when the reverse flow starts spilling hot air masses into the arctic. I'd rather drain a certain amount of energy out of Earth's atmosphere permanently than just redistribute it, especially with global warming still being a long-term concern on Earth.

EDIT: No, I'm not saying this is a viable global warming solution. I'm saying that on general principles I'm more comfortable with shifting the heat somewhere else than with redistributing it on Earth.

The problem with pumping in cold air is that it won't necessarily block the power generation the way rising warm air would fuel it - because the warm sea below the eye of the storm would continue to send warm air up, and it might even rise faster if the air above it were cooler. Maybe, however, you could pump cool air into the sea directly.

One other thing that might be achievable would be to steer hurricanes away from landfall by selectively heating/cooling different sides of them.

Deebles wrote:
The problem with pumping in cold air is that it won't necessarily block the power generation the way rising warm air would fuel it - because the warm sea below the eye of the storm would continue to send warm air up, and it might even rise faster if the air above it were cooler. Maybe, however, you could pump cool air into the sea directly.

One other thing that might be achievable would be to steer hurricanes away from landfall by selectively heating/cooling different sides of them.

Which opens up a mammoth industrial-sized can of worms (hint:it's the one with 'weaponization' on the label).

The problem with a hurricane as a weapon is that its actually TOO powerful. If you can control and manipulate portals, you have the industrial and technological base to precision-drop a tactical nuke or quickly deploy a heavy armor division. A hurricane will wreck everything in sight in a very politically incorrect way, and it won't seriously damage hardened targets.

Basically a hurricane guidance weapon is like a two-hundred foot crossbow; If you can build one and use it properly, you have far better and more effective ways to kill people.

wickeddyno wrote:

GrayAnderson wrote: Actually, would it be possible to establish semi-permanent portals in large smokestacks to dump the smoke in a relatively uninhabited bubble world? I know that's not the end-all solution to this, but...

Maybe, but how would you KNOW it was uninhabited?

Assume that we've used portals to shoot some probes through. There's no such thing as a 100% certainty, but you can get to "we have every indication of there being no life on this world".

GrayAnderson wrote:

wickeddyno wrote:

GrayAnderson wrote: Actually, would it be possible to establish semi-permanent portals in large smokestacks to dump the smoke in a relatively uninhabited bubble world? I know that's not the end-all solution to this, but...

Maybe, but how would you KNOW it was uninhabited?

Assume that we've used portals to shoot some probes through. There's no such thing as a 100% certainty, but you can get to "we have every indication of there being no life on this world".

Ah, so your target would be lifeless worlds, not just uninhabited worlds -- that makes a big difference.

CaptainChewbacca wrote: The problem with a hurricane as a weapon is that its actually TOO powerful. If you can control and manipulate portals, you have the industrial and technological base to precision-drop a tactical nuke or quickly deploy a heavy armor division. A hurricane will wreck everything in sight in a very politically incorrect way, and it won't seriously damage hardened targets.

Basically a hurricane guidance weapon is like a two-hundred foot crossbow; If you can build one and use it properly, you have far better and more effective ways to kill people.

I'm not sure that it would require as much of a technological base as you think. I'm thinking of it as a terrorist weapon, and one with plausible deniability. "It wasn't us, it was the Jellies!" "No, it was the Baldricks!" "No, it was the wacko theist humans*!"


*I'm sure there are some people who managed to survive the Message but somehow still believe in a god or gods and probably think that everything that the media are reporting on is a fiction meant to fool everyone. I mean, there are people who still believe in flat earth and geocentrism in the real world.