The Salvation War: Difference between revisions

* [[Almighty Janitor]]: The {{spoiler|head mason of Yahweh's palace}} ends up being in charge of Heaven by the end of the second book. {{spoiler|[[Just As Planned]].}}

* [[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.

** Chapter 41 of ''Pantheocide'' lays out just how multinational the war really is:''The Salvation War was a truly multi-national enterprise. That was why sub-munitions made in South Africa were delivered to China for installation in 227mm rockets that were shipped in Greek freighters to Hell where they were issued to American MLRS batteries that gained their mobility from oil that had been drilled in Saudi Arabia and refined in Singapore before being carried by Norwegian tankers to Dutch-built storage facilities on the shores of Hell. Early in the war, at least three economists were reputed to have committed suicide after trying to work out how to pay for everything.''

* [[Asshole Victim]]: Martin Chestnut.

* [[Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever]]: The Beasts of the Apocalypse each measure somewhere around '''two''' '''''hundred''''' ''feet''. The Baldricks can also weigh in at not-insubstantial sizes and they have Greater Heralds, Behemoths, Leviathans, Belial's breed of Wyverns, and other such fun supersized creatures.

* [[Awesomeness By Analysis]]: Humanity's biggest, baddest, strongest perk, elaborated on several times in ''Armageddon''.

* [[Bad Boss]]: Devils - that is, baldricks - [[Insistent Terminology|sorry, daemons]] - dealt with bad news by ''eating the messenger''. See also [[Shoot the Messenger]]. Angels are little better. As far as we know Yahweh hasn't killed anyone in his temper tantrums, but every time he gets bad news, the palace's chief mason is hard at work for a long time afterwards. The mason installed a bunker in the throne room early in ''Pantheocide''.

* [[BFG]]:

** Demons are definitely not immortals, but strong enough so that 5.56mm or 9mm won't kill them before they reach their target and tear it apart. Humans adapt by, among other things, mass-producing M4s and M16s that fire .50 Beowulf rounds (these already exist in real life but in smaller quantities), then by rechambering the M1 Garand (originally .30-06) for .458 Winchester (called the M114 and presumably the M115 carbine), and by using the monstruous Barrett M82A1 as the default sniper rifle. By the end of the first book, most military personnel carry either a Desert Eagle .50 or a S&W Model 500 as a side-arm.

** Abigor wielding a 30mm RARDEN autocannon as an assault rifle. Then again, he is something like twenty feet tall and made of muscles on muscles.

* [[Big Applesauce]]: Lampshaded by Michael - the last Bowl of Wrath gets poured on New York precisely because it's the city that always gets attacked in fiction.

{{quote|Links looked up, the terrific noise of the firefight was joined by something else, [[Most Wonderful Sound|a rhythmic throbbing]] that shook dust from the ceiling and caused the shelves on the wall to bounce. Over his head, the sky suddenly turned black and red as [[Macross Missile Massacre|a hail of unguided rockets]] passed overhead to slam into the buildings opposite.<br />

“It’s the Apaches!” }}

* [[The Determinator]]: There are quite a few of them, most of whom don't let a little thing like dying and being thrown into the bowels of hell slow them down. One Russian soldier even goes so far as to ''rejoin the unit he was killed in'' after being recovered.

* [[The Devil]]: Satan turns up a bit. He's a bit of a prick. However, in chapter 21 of ''Pantheocide'', it's revealed that {{spoiler|devils exist separately from the daemons of Hell, who do ''not'' see themselves as devils and seem pretty scared of them}}.

** Prince Charles of Lorraine had already attempted the "super-long line" against [[Frederick the Great]], albeit this Austrian version failed for a different reason (the Prussian cavalry feinting so that the Austrian cavalry and reserve moved to the Austrian right flank, while the bulk of the Prussian army moved behind cover to the Austrian left flank).

* [[Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?|Did You Just Flip Off,]] [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?|Then Shoot Cthulhu?]]: Yea and most verily.

* [[Doing in the Wizard]]: Demonic magic is later found to be the effects of things science had not previously studied before, and once such study does happen countermeasures and replication are soon set up: [[Mind Rape|Possession, demonic torment]], and the ability to open portals are found to be {{spoiler|EM-related psychic activities, which are blocked easily enough by tinfoil}}. Succubus' [[Horny Devils|seductive abilities]] are found to be due largely to {{spoiler|pheromones, and air filtration sorts out that issue}}. The [[Shock and Awe|combat magic]] demons cast are merely electricity generated by their bodies and channeled out (mostly through tridents). Gorgons' ability to [[Mind Control|control others]] or [[Taken for Granite|petrify them]] are due to psychoactive chemicals they inject into people to drug them into compliance or paralysis.

* [[Dramatic Irony]]: A captain of a naval vessel repeatedly wishes to have Yahweh "[[Rage Against the Heavens|under my guns]]". Unbeknownst to him, {{spoiler|Yahweh was already dead by the last time he said it, and his body had been dumped in the lake that captain's vessel was maneuvering on at the time}}. So he got his wish, but not in the way he expected.

* [[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.

** 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.

* [[Fire and Brimstone Hell]]: More or less fit the description, though Hell is ''not'' described as a [[Single Biome Planet|Single Biome Dimension]]. Much of it is actually quite nice once the local torturing is stopped.

** well it's nice enough for the demons and the humans who are already dead, "first life" humans need protection to prevent them suffering serious lung damage from the pumice-laden dust in the air.

"Sir, for a week, I have been attempting to understand how your army works. With the aid of a very skilled and patient tutor. Sir, I regret to say ''I have failed completely. I am not fit to command and I must recognize that as a fact''. One day, perhaps, but not now." }}

** [http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?p=3226934#p3226934 Guillaume, dammit, Guillaume]!

* [[Fluffy Cloud Heaven]]: Not at all, though the streets and buildings are literally made of precious minerals, or at least studded with them.

* [[Fluffy the Terrible]]: The two-hundred foot tall, seven-headed, ten-horned Leopard Beast that took an entire US military base a good two hours to kill with everything at their disposal is named "Wuffles." It was Yahweh's favorite pet; [[Crowning Moment of Funny|he ''almost broke down into tears'' in front of Michael when Wuffles' death was reported.]] Both hilarious ''and'' kind of sad.

** And then we find out that the Scarlet Beast is ''actually named'' Fluffy. [[Tropes Will Ruin Your Life|Stuart blatantly said this is our fault.]]

* [[Food Chain of Evil]]: Higher-ranking demons are known to [[Shoot the Messenger|eat messengers who bring bad news]].

** Pretty much Abigor's invasion of Earth to a tee, even after he basically went from ancient history-era to Napoleonic Wars/American Civil War general overnight, minus artillery. After all, who do you think came up with his tactics first?

** Chances of a third book are low however, due to a person creating a torrent of the first two books, resulting in Stuart being unable to sell the series in dead tree form. (Along with all motivation to finish writing the series)

** It's since turned out that {{spoiler|"Jesus" was actually a human carpenter whose body had been possessed for years by Yahweh's son whose real name is apparently Elhmas, commander of the Incomparable Legion, and he's actually}}...

* [[Jesus Was Way Cool]]: It's pretty well established that Jesus is not as crazy, fanatical, or prone to anger as Yahweh. However, he doesn't seem to be very concerned about humanity and spends his time getting high on drugs. Possibly justified... if ''your'' Dad was a [[Jerkass]] who [[Cloudcuckoolander|believed his own all-powerful hype]] and threw hissy-fits every time someone told him something that didn't fit his worldview, ''and he was in charge''.... [[That '70s Show|you'd probably be getting baked a lot too.]]

** In Chapter 83 of Pantheocide, {{spoiler|Elhmas}} actually turns out to really ''be'' way cool. It turns out that he was the first angel to figure out how potentially powerful humanity was, and his {{spoiler|possession of Jesus of Nazareth}} was actually intended to instill stronger and more just morality among the humans so they wouldn't kill and hurt one another. In other words, he ''wanted'' to help humanity. Unfortunately, his message was perverted by humans, and he tried several more times over the years - {{spoiler|first with Mohammad and Islam, and later with what may have been Martin Luther.}} Each instance backfired on him, and he finally gave up and started getting baked with Michael. {{spoiler|When Elhmas confronts Michael about the deception and attempt to kill him, he just says that he's tired of it all, and that Michael's methods were correct - and then he gets baked with Michael again, after telling him that Elhmas is now the [[Man Behind the Man]].}}

* [[Karma Houdini]]: Several, considering that we're dealing with demons and short of pulling a [[Kill'Em All]], some were going to get off easy. By the end of ''Armageddon'', we have, among the ''worst'', {{spoiler|1=Euryale, (one of the masterminds behind Sheffield's and Detroit's attacks, i.e two 9/11s on steroids) who is now owning a perfectly legal and thriving business, Euryale Real Estate Company.}} and {{spoiler|Yulupki (same as above) who manages to start the Yulupki Express Delivery Service and ''puts Fedex out of business in mere months''.}} Those demons learn ''really fast''. (Both were able to pin the blame solely on Belial, the architect of the attacks (who is still alive), so presumably these would go south quick were the word to come out.)

* [[Klingon Promotion]]: Predictably, it's standard procedure in Hell (as noted by Abigor):

{{quote|''"Promotion by assassinating one’s superiors was a well-known tactic in hell, smiled upon as long as it was successful. A commander who couldn’t even protect himself was unfit to be in a position of authority."''}}

* [[Large Ham]]: As expected, both Satan and Yahweh are this, but both their sides generally have this going for them.

* [[Lampshade Hanging]]: Following the story getting its own page on this site, some references back to it have started appearing, including:

** Moreover, Hell has a total of 6666 legions, each consisting of 6666 troops; most of these are reserves, save for 999 of them as a standing (and usually fighting each other) army.

* [[Number Two]]: Number One from the submarines.

* [[Nuclear Option]] / [[Nuke'Em]]: One of several contingency plans for attacking Satan's palace, but as {{spoiler|the imprisoned Abigor}} learns, far from the most devastating:

{{quote|'''Targeteer:''' The destruction of Dis would take the lives of nearly every demon living there. It would leave no building standing, and in its wake there would be giant radioactive firestorms. After the fires died, there would be nothing of Dis left save craters; what was once a city would become a charred, radioactive wasteland. Nobody, human or demon, would live there for ten thousand years. We can do that, General. And we would be right to do that, after how {{spoiler|your people have treated us in the past}}...A quick death in nuclear fire is the least that {{spoiler|your race}} deserves...But I warn you, we can be pushed too far for that. This map...Is still not the worst we can do. {{spoiler|General, if you really anger us, we will try and [[Defeat Means Friendship|bring democracy to your country]]}}. [[Don't Explain the Joke|(That last bit is sarcasm.)]]}}

* [[Our Monsters Are Different]]: For the most part, the monsters stick to their mythical descriptions.

** [[Our Angels Are Different]]: Extraordinarily beautiful (by human standards) [[Winged Humanoid|winged humanoids]] who vary in size and power over 7 ranks, from "Ishim" (human-sized) to "Chayot-ha-Kodesh" (>20 feet tall). They fly with sacs filled with hydrogen in their bodies and use their wings for thrust and maneuvering; they have electrical generators in their backs that let them use telepathy, open portals (with enough power), know what a material is made of at long range, produce the hydrogen to fill their flight sacs, and charge their weapons with electricity for massive damage; they have the ability to know and speak any language, probably from reading the minds of humans with their telepathy; they also have the ability to shoot the sonic equivalent of a laser. They seem to be an offshoot of genus ''Homo''.

** [[Our Demons Are Different]]: They are of the same species as the angels (despite their vastly different appearance) and have the same electrical generator and "tongues" ability. Their electrical generator still allows telepathy and material examination, in all cases. They have a similar 10-rank system to the angels, going from "Minor Demon" to "Lordly Demon". They have wings (usually vestigial), horns, and pointed tails. They either have hooves or clawed feet.

** The most common variety of demon has not been given a specific name. Their electrical powers are sufficient that they can charge it into a trident and shoot a bolt of ball lightning over range.

* [[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.

* [[Redshirt Army]]: This applies not to the humans, but to [[The Legions of Hell]], due to the simple fact that their tactics are a few ''thousand'' years out of date...

* [[Real Life Writes the Plot]]: The 2010 Haiti earthquake was written into the story after a month, with demons helping the relief efforts.

* [[Required Secondary Powers]]: The flying baldricks have sacs of some kind gas, light enough to allow them fly and flammable to allow them to breath fire. Unfortunately, it makes their own blood both acidic and catches on fire if it touches baldrick's own skin. The regular ones have large muscles on their back which makes up for the large amount of energy required by such large creatures, and gives them the power to fire electric bolts through their tridents.

* [[Retired Badass]]: The centenarian Chinese Korean War vets who manage to fend off a demon attack on their village despite the obvious ravages of age.

{{quote|This was the point where amateurs always got it wrong. They either overplayed the nonchalant bit or were too obviously trying to avoid detection. The great art was simply to behave the way everybody else did. Anyway, Bodie already had his marker. It was a forgery of course, but that really didn’t matter. Once he was through the gate any challenge would be answered by his forged token and the Ishim would assume that it had been issued normally. All humans looked the same to them anyway.}}

* [[Rock Beats Laser]]: Nope, many bronze tridents won't beat one M1 Abrams. And there's still people surprised by the following [[Curb Stomp Battle]]...

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

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

** The author has explained that the way Heaven was invaded is actually the payoff of Petraeus' plan from as far back as ''Armageddon'': not only did holding back in invading Hell (i.e. small units committing probing attacks) [[We Have Reserves|leave much in reserve]], it also left Heaven unprepared for getting "tank rushed" from three directions at once.

* [[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...}}

* [[Unusual Euphemism]]: In an interesting example, given that the situation has rendered standard religious expletives obsolete, we are treated to a tank commander (and later on, some of the forumites) swearing by [http://www.gdls.com/ General Dynamics Land Systems], the company that made her M1 Abrams.

* [[Unwitting Pawn]]:

** Michael-Lan is aware that his "street-corner pharmaceuticals" aren't really 'the good stuff,' but thinking that the electric trolley the Myanmar junta gave him to haul them with (''Pantheocide'' Chapter 10) is ''just'' a gift. The first one was. The second one, however... let's just say {{spoiler|it had a very high ''boom'' quotient.}}

** The entire Myanmar military is played for one in an attempt to keep the Human Expeditionary Army busy fighting on Earth. However, Gabriel-lan underestimated how far humans had come with teleportation technology, so the would-be war is very quickly wrapped up. At the same time Kim Jong-Il is almost tricked into the same plan, until his son talks him out of it. The plan not only failed, but backfired spectacularly. The entire conflict basically proved the HEA's newfound dominance over Earth, as well as sending the message that the HEA was capable of defending its members, pulling the allies even closer rather than driving them apart like the angels intended, and getting North Korea to finally sign up for the war effort in so doing. They really had no way of knowing it was even possible, much less that the humans had achieved it. It also helped that the humans foresaw the angels trying to pull this tactic.

** Belial was Hell's resident [[Evil Genius]] and the only demon lord who actually did any appreciable damage to humanity. In Pantheocide, {{spoiler|Michael tricked him into running a concentration camp which was supposedly established by Yahweh, and set things up so that said camp will be the first thing the human armies come across when they enter Heaven.}} Needless to say, Belial and Yahweh are going to be in the ''shit'' when that happens (well, ''more'' shit, anyway).

* [[The Uriah Gambit]]: [[Magnificent Bastard|Michael-Lan]] gets rid of those angels who jeopardize his plans by sending them to fight the humans.

** This becomes a complication for the humans in Hell and has already gotten the Russians busy in ''Pantheocide''. It's led to a split between the living and newly dead as opposed to the rest of the dead, to the point that the Human Expeditionary Army is actually guarding the demons from their former victims:

{{quote|"The people on Earth had been cheering their armies on, and still were in some senses, but the film of the battlefields in Hell had stunned them. Especially the scenes along the Phlegethon River with the piles of mangled Baldrick corpses that went on for square mile after square mile. For perhaps the first time, they realized the incredible disparity of firepower that had existed between the human armies and the Baldricks. The sight of the dead where the Baldricks had tried to fight tanks with bronze tridents had changed opinions in a subtle but very marked way. Humans now pitied the Baldricks who had stood so little chance and had died not even understanding what it was that was killing them. It was rumored that change in attitude was also causing trouble in Hell, with the refugees from the pit unable to understand why the newly-dead from Earth should be sickened by the slaughter they'd inflicted."}}

** It's also a problem for those in charge of training the new demon auxiliary military units. Demons, used to marching in large infantry formations and a lifetime of backstabbing, have absolutely no concept of supporting fire. To demons, they don't see why they should stay behind and put themselves at risk to help a rival unit that can steal all the glory.

** Robert E. Lee experiences it when he tries to learn modern warfare techniques...from a black, female soldier. He often gets all his men wiped out in simulations, and between them can only plead his century and a half of torture in Hell be seen as sufficient penance for his [[My Country, Right or Wrong]] beliefs during the war.

{{quote|'''Benedict:''' We have much to be thankful for. We live in comfortable homes that are ours to keep. No soldiers come to burn them down in the night. We have our fields to tend and our crops to grow and they do not get trampled down or stolen. We have clothes to wear, all we need to eat and much more besides. We live our days in peace. Truly, is this not the Paradise we were promised?}}

* [[Villainous Breakdown]]: Against human weaponry, ''entire demonic legions'' suffer of this. {{spoiler|Abigor}} suffers this ''twice'', {{spoiler|once when his army is literally pulverized, then when he learns about nuclear weaponry}} but got better through the power of [[Heel Face Turn]]. Then we got {{spoiler|Beelzebub, who kinda gave up and let himself be torched by A-10 Warthogs, Belial who experimented the full effect of the [[Chronic Backstabbing Disorder]], and more recently Uriel, who was happy to find peace in death...}}

* [[Villain Protagonist]]: To a degree; [[Word of God]] says that Michael-lan is supposed to be the protagonist on the Heavenly side.

** Lampshaded in passing by a second-lifer dead at Verdun, who joined Hell's [[La Résistance]] and kept amusing his colleagues (intentionally) by bombastically saying how much ''worse'' Verdun was compared to Hell. Even worse, with second-lifers being able to heal from almost anything that doesnt kill them -even moreso than the demons and angels- and being bothered by close to nothing else, he is ''right''.

** Unfortunately, as the sarin showed, they're not the only ones on the receiving end.