The Salvation War: Difference between revisions

The answer author [http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/default2_bioSS.htm Stuart Slade] gives: the governments of the world [[Rage Against the Heavens|declare war on Heaven and Hell]].

 

 

From The Amazing Randi trying to discover how to peer into Hell, to the rampaging demons that appear in civilian areas around the world, to the worldwide mobilization for war, the story covers a worldwide stage. The second volume, ''Pantheocide'', concerns the war with Heaven and shows that the forces of Heaven are far better commanded and more dangerous than the forces of Hell.

 

 

Unfortunately, due to the creation and spread of a torrent of the stories, physical publication of the work seems to have been made impossible. The creator has other irons in the fire that still have the potential to be published in dead-tree form, but ''The Salvation War'' is now radioactive as far as publishers are concerned. Without this incentive, it appears as though the third part of the series, ''Lord of War'', is not going to be written.

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{{tropelist}}

* [[Alien Blood]]: The baldricks, of any subspecies, can have blood that is anywhere on the color wheel (usually yellow, green, or purple), or black. Harpies also have acidic, flammable blood. The coloration is likely a result of secondary pigments in the blood, since judging by their genetics they are almost certainly an evolutionary offshoot of the hominid family from Earth; they should have hemoglobin in their blood. Angels' blood isn't immune to the trope either. Sometimes it's red, more often it's white or silver. It seems that daemon and angelic blood pigment is also a type of blood group.

* [[Alien Geometries]]: Some of the physical laws, [[Wrap Around|especially relating to direction]] are... different in Hell.

* [[Alternate History]]: The Message came around in early 2008, so everything since then. The author also made up or resurrected a few military projects (for example, Aurora).

* [[America Saves the Day]]: Averted. While the Americans provide the backbone of Earth's military response to The Message by virtue of having the most powerful military on the planet, it's very much an international affair, with the British and Russians in particular playing very big parts in some of the initial victories, while the Iranians both opened the first battle over Iraq with an aerial attack and commenced the tank charge that broke a demonic army there.

** The mysterious voice in Memnon's head that appears very occasionally, giving him advice. If a 3rd book is ever written, it is likely that this will be a plot point.

* [[Chekhov's Gunman]]: Uriel, strongly hinted throughout ''Armageddon'' to be (more or less) a [[Person of Mass Destruction]] and Yaweh's incoming [[Superweapon Surprise]]. Later is a feared presence throughout the first half of ''Pantheocide'', {{spoiler|killing tens of thousands and aging up hundreds of thousands (not to mention killing nearly all animals in the area of effect), though his effectiveness is greatly limited by tinfoil, short duration, and human willpower. He is finally killed in the Battle of Los Angeles, as detailed by other tropes.}}

* [[Chronic Backstabbing Disorder]]: In Hell, this is actually a ''way of life''.

* [[Church Militant]]: The Papacy contributes motorized infantry brigades to the HEA, complete with an Archbishop as a brigade commander.

* [[Combined Energy Attack]]: {{spoiler|Michael is able to borrow powers from his entire club, and even angels throughout heaven, through a network based on synchronized music.}}

* [[Crap Saccharine World]]: Heaven. It's described as having "pretty rolling green hills, nice little forests, and air so clean it tastes like wine." The Eternal City is made out of precious stones and is incredibly beautiful. Don't expect to see too much of it if you're a human, though. Most of them live in slums outside the city, and work as slaves for the Angels. It's also shown that Yahweh isn't a very good leader, and because of that all but the most loyal of the Angels are running some sort of conspiracy against him. Once Lemuel-lan finds out and starts making arrests, paranoia sets in, and people in the Eternal City become fearful and distrustful.

* [[Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass]]: ''Bill Clinton'', in his brief cameo appearance; (he {{spoiler|[[Crowning Moment of Awesome|takes down a Succubus with a shotgun]]}}).

** Also Elhamas, a.k.a. {{spoiler|Jesus, or rather the angel who possessed him}}. For all of ''Armageddon'' and half of ''Pantheocide'' he seemed like a stoned slacker, the biggest letdown to a father with unreasonable expectations ever. We get one hint that he's smart before {{spoiler|the army he's in command of gets nuked. But then he comes back at the end and reveals that he survived and admits that Michael's way of guiding humanity is more effective than his... but he'll be watching just in case Michael lets the power go to his head.}}

* [[Fantastic Religious Weirdness]]: the whole story, obviously. More specifically, though, people of different religious persuasions reacted differently to The Message. Many devout individuals did indeed lay down and die as they were commanded. Many [[The Fundamentalist|Fundamentalist]] leaders, on the other hand, remained behind and rationalized The Message as being meant for everyone but them, and/or a judgment against their own enemies. Most of humanity seems to have adopted [[Nay Theist]] beliefs with speed that's hard to imagine, but several denominations have come to an accommodation between their beliefs and the war; for example, see references to the Catholic Church elsewhere on this page.

* [[Fantastic Slurs]]: "Baldrick(s)" for demons and, more recently, "Jellies" for angels.

* [[Faux Pas]]: A photographic interpreter picks a ''very'' bad time to make a seemingly lighthearted joke in Petraeus' Heaven HQ, for which Petraeus just ''stares'' at him until he's "feeling thoroughly miserable." Mind you, the interpreter was being flippant to a general faced with the very real possibility of having to {{spoiler|nuke the Eternal City's walls -- and thus the slums around them -- or to [[Kill'Em All|nuke the place, an urbanized country in size,]]''[[Kill'Em All|en masse]]''}}... the Eternal City holds around 250 million inhabitants, and the human-angel ratio is guesstimated out-of-story as 10:1. Do the math and enjoy the brain bleach.

** When {{spoiler|Detroit is getting destroyed by a lava-portal}}, [[Jerkass|Karl Rove]] remarks that the city's destruction might make the state a Republican one. The rest of the people present were not amused.

* [[Punch Clock Villain]]: "Just doing my job" is a fairly good excuse for most of the demons and angels. An interesting subversion appear however when some demons or angels {{spoiler|particulary Uriel}} begin to ''really'' hate the humans because they just refuse to do what was expected, laying down and die.

* [[Puny Humans]]: The Baldricks all tower above most humans, but they learn the hard way that modern weapons tech ''more'' that makes up for it.

* [[Rage Against the Heavens]]: Just in case you didn't notice, this series is a shining example.

** Unlike most such stories, however, God and Satan have a good reason to be afraid.

** ... or the U.S. Marines.

* [[Translator Microbes]]: Something about the spawning process in Hell also makes people able to understand each others' speech.

* [[There Is No Kill Like Overkill]]: The refitting of pretty much every aircraft from the last fifty years to fly again (among them the American B-29s Enola Gay and Bocks Car plus B-52s (called the "Gray Ladies" by the USAF) from the Davis-Montham boneyard), the mass conscription to fill out the ranks, the arming of pretty much every remaining civilian of earth for the duration of the war, and that's not getting into {{spoiler|what the [[Legions of Hell]] do to Sheffield and Detroit later on...}}

** The refitting looks like overkill only up until you see {{spoiler|the entire force of B-2 bombers get taken out}} in the opening of ''Pantheocide'', and in ''Armageddon'' the times when the demons' sheer numbers almost ''did'' turn the tide. Oh, and [[It Got Worse|it gets worse]]: the angels weren't ''nearly'' as doomed in the air. From the looks of it, all of this mobilization is actually needed.

* [[Too Dumb to Live]]: When Satan asks what a [[wikipedia:MQ-1 Predator|predator]] is, a nameless demon gives the definition of "a hunting bird." Not only is this excessively literal, but it's also the definition of a ''raptor''. [[Ludicrous Gibs|You can guess how Satan reacted to that]].

* [[Tower of Babel]]: Near the end of Pantheocide, Petraeus muses on how the Tower of Babel story where Yahweh cursed humans with multiple languages was an attempt to prevent them from uniting against him, similar to what they were doing right now.