The Salvation War/Funny

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Some of the many in The Salvation War: The scene in chapter 78 where Michael brings Yahweh up to date on the recent events of the war is priceless.

Michael: And let the good times roll.

    • Oh, does he ever when Pantheocide rolls around. Booze, heroin, rock 'n' roll, and lesbian angel sex show, anyone?4
    • When Michael delivers the news about the war to Yahweh, each incident results in greater and greater temper tantrums from the One Above All, causing greater damage to the throne room every time. The head mason eventually just gives up trying to repair the damage and just builds a hidden bunker to hide in during the tantrums. Made even funnier by the fact said head mason actually raises a white flag during said tantrum and unceremoniously kicks out a couple of other angels who tried to get in. Since then, he has smartened up and is selling tickets to those who want a place in his bunker.
    • There's also the British officers talking rather disparagingly of the American "brown, whiskey-like substance"...
    • When the demons ask the damned humans where do they manufacture their war machines, one of them answered, "Hobbiton!". Another said The Emerald City.
    • Unfortunately, a lot of Pantheocide has made people forget about the sheer gems that could be found in Armageddon????, such as this otherwise "filler" example of a rap video from Chapter 15 of how the war had very quickly changed American culture:

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

    • In addition to the preceding demonic heralds sent to announce Satan's dominion over humanity that were summarily killed by human forces, a larger one is mortally wounded by Russian tanks. Unfortunately for him, while the detonation charges are being set to finish him off, he's forced to listen to a Muscovite politician droning his way through Vladimir Putin speeches about Russian awesome:

A few minutes later, the preparations were ready. Suranov looked up at the politician who was starting the third speech of his program. "Tovarish. We are about to blow the beast. Please come down."
"But I must finish the President's Speech to the Iron Worker's Union."
There was a hideous racking groan from the beast, muted only by its failing strength. Suranov got a clear mental picture of it begging to be put out of its misery, anything other than to have to listen to another speech. The Colonel could see its point. "Now, Tovarish, my orders are to destroy this thing then bring samples back for analysis."

    • This Troper considers Guillaume, from the "Don't wake me while I'm sleeping" side story, to be a walking, talking, frothing-at-the-mouth Crowning Moment of Funny simply for the sheer... dissonance of his mindset and motivation compared to just about everyone else. This Napoleonic-era Russian noble with French title, pissed at both the political realignments on Earth since his death at Borodino and that the Earth-native militaries aren't interested in committing genocide against the demons, ended up leading a regiment of rampaging jaegers in a quest to find Tsar Alexander I and restore his empire, this time in Satan's former capital of Dis, home to over 20 billion undead humans... Oh, and to kill undead Napoleon.
    • Half the Goldman-Sachs board is killed, leading them to hire the ACLU to sue for their right to continue running the company along with the still living staff (and stop that staff from their first act after the attack: awarding bonuses to themselves from the dead peoples' salaries).
    • General Asanee's little clean-up while Myanmar attacks ends in hilarity when she catches a radio man sleeping on the job thanks to the indecisiveness of his superiors. He decides to be honest and tell her what he was doing. Asanee proceeds to promote him, the one man she's come across who knew exactly what he doing.
      • Which is a total play off of George Patton during the Battle of the Bulge, but that makes it all the more hilarious for anyone that picks up on it.
    • Carl Friedrich Gauss plays along with Michael's plan, acting like a scatterbrained Bunny Ears Lawyer as he spouts "demented nonsense" to pinpoint the spot that Michael needs to attack.
    • "They killed Wuffles!"
    • Upon reaching the ninth circle of Hell, Abigor confirms to the humans that it is the place reserved for traitorous souls. When queried about the occupant of one last, unfilled hole, he replies, “A countryman of yours I think. One called Robert Macnamara.”
      • Made either Hilarious in Hindsight or quite the opposite when you realize that he passed away last year.
      • Poetic justice.
      • In the current version, Robert McNamara is simply listed as one of the traitors who is occupying the 9th circle. The currently-unused but waiting pits now are reserved for "Some network television executives. The ones who cancelled Firefly"
    • The "Where Are They Now?" half of Armageddon?'s epilogue. George W. Bush is flipping channels in the Bush ranch when he finds: Abigor is offering assistance to earthly humans in the wake of Hurricane Ike; Luga the succubus has her own talk show, in which she threatens to throw Michael Vick into a ring of rabid pit-bulls; Yulupki has started her own naga-based delivery service; and Euryale the gorgon has formed an alliance with New Rome...through real estate.

George W. Bush: Condi, I thought we’d won this war.

    • Abigor witnesses arguments on various message boards, and comes to a moving conclusion on how this endless search for the truth was a vital part of putting humanity in a position to do as well as they have. Then he concludes that there are still many people in these arguments that are "obviously completely nuts," with a particular Take That to a guy who trolled the story's host site just a few days before the chapter was posted, claiming to have done personal research showing that shooting someone in the head will hardly ever kill them.
    • The tinfoil hat.
      • "There are always eccentrics who deny that the tinfoil hat is absolutely essential to prevent baldricks taking over their minds.”
    • It turns out that almost every nation in the Human coalition had a special operations unit outside of the Eternal City, except England, Australia, or New Zealand -- one of theirs is already inside.
      • "I can honestly say that Her Majesty's Armed Forces have no covert operations groups stationed outside The Eternal City." Sir Michael Jackson sounded positively righteous. Asanee's head snapped around to look at him and one of her eyebrows was raised.
      • Myth: "Rich men can't enter the kingdom the Heaven"? BUSTED!!! Also, "Jamie wants big boom!".
    • The true story of the reason Jesus was crucified: The Romans didn't care at all about his preaching, but his disciples were selling moonshine tax-free everywhere they went, and Judas was skimming from the payoffs to the authorities, having collected 30 pieces of silver by the time he was caught.
  • A demon flies down to demand the surrender of Singapore. The demand is written on a scroll that the demon drops on landing. Littering is a serious offense in Singapore, so the police riddled the demon with bullets, and then beat it to death.
  • This may be just because Tropes Will Ruin Your Life, but read the description of the huge final battle against YHWH closely. Yes, YHWH and Michael are using their immense psionic lightning powers to perform a Beam-O-War, in a hard science story. The physics of Heaven may be running on Rule of Cool.
  • Chapter 37:

“Whoosh, blam, thank you Ma’am. You’re dead.”

  • Chapter 31 of Pantheocide has a court ruling concerning evidence given by a witness who Luga intimidated into speaking. The judge says, and I quote: "As for you gentlemen from the FBI. Shame on you sirs. You conceived this attempted end-run around the Constitution and deceived this poor innocent succubus into becoming part of your schemes." Poor innocent succubus.
  • In chapter 71 of Pantheocide features a doctor totally chewing out a high ranking demon and angel after they start posturing in a hospital. They both shut up and the angel (who is basically one down from an Archangel) produces this absolute gem:

"Err, yes." Lemuel was speaking for them both. "My apologies, you too Memnon. We'd better forget what happened in the past or the humans might get angry with us."

  • The part where the gorgon that manages to enter Earth and establish a cult, Lakheenahuknaasi, discovers the "marvels" of how powerful a Wiki Walk is. Absolutely hilarious.

Her tame human had shown her the invocations of 'goo gul' and 'wiccan pee-dee-ah', which had revealed to her a treasure trove of secrets. The last was protected by an insidious spell that caused her to constantly lose track of what she was looking for, flipping from page to page until she was reading irrelevant nonsense about 'collectible card games' and 'sonic the hedgehog'.

  • Belial's summing up the raving of the mostly-insane WWII GM exec, who has been tricked into revealing that Detroit is a center of human industry.

"So Detroit makes all the chariots for the state of Democracy? Which is ruled by Uncle Sam and populated by Feds? And your great general Eff'dee'ar is leading your armies against us, the ones you call the gooks?"

  • Michael-lan had the good fortune and capacity to set up a nightclub in Heaven; that's all well and good, but then, in chapter 31, we get this bit.

He'd really wanted to rescue Elvis and bring him to the club here, but he'd failed. He couldn’t quite understand it, he'd never had any trouble before in intercepting a dead human and whisking them away before they turned up on the Plateau of Minos.