The Salvation War

You know, when I first read the title, I had this flash in my head of a scenario where the people from the Salvation Army get fed up with being laughed at and abused by those who don't believe in God, take up arms, and start forcibly converting people at gunpoint. From what everyone else has said about the real story, I think my version would be funnier.

Rabid Badger wrote:

You know, when I first read the title, I had this flash in my head of a scenario where the people from the Salvation Army get fed up with being laughed at and abused by those who don't believe in God, take up arms, and start forcibly converting people at gunpoint. From what everyone else has said about the real story, I think my version would be funnier.

Oh thank god. I'm not the only one.

Can someone show me this wankeriffic discussion page?

Quote :

If you're approaching the story as a dramatic narrative, you're doing it wrong. TSW is a documentary. This assertion that the human military in TSW is a Boring Invincible Hero is like saying the Coalition forces invading Iraq in both Gulf Wars were Boring Invincible Heroes. Just because you know one side is going to win doesn't make the individual stories during that time any less interesting; otherwise you might as well go back to every war in history where there was a clear and decisive winner and say its boring because you know who's going to win anyway.

Quote :

TSW is not told in the fashion of a documentary, nor is it about actual, real-life events. Those are two absolute requirements to qualify something for "documentary." TSW is told in the manner of a dramatic narrative. It doesn't even qualify for "docu-drama" being as it lacks the element of actually being about real events. The story, in its entirety, is made up out of whole cloth. Assuming that it were told in a documentary style, the most it would qualify for is Mockumentary.

Quote :

That's sophistry and nitpicking.

WOW. I'm seeing disturbing parallels between this and the "rebuttal" from the guy who wrote F.A.T.A.L.

It doesn't surprise me at all that the forum that came up with this mess has a Star Wars vs. Star Trek subforum, a Sex Advice subforum, and the most anal-retentive set of rules on the entire fucking Internet. Not at all.

Mae Bedlam wrote:

WOW. I'm seeing disturbing parallels between this and the "rebuttal" from the guy who wrote F.A.T.A.L.

Fuck you for reminding me of F.A.T.A.L.

Now I'm going to have nightmares about rolling for asshole circumference again for a week.

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Apparently, ever single religious text ever is wrong, but Dantes Inferno is completely 100% correct?

Consistency! There be none!

Delcat wrote:

oh wow six paragraphs in and I'm already thinking about porn instead. Penguin, you're probably the authority here--is this stuff a) accurate and/or b) interesting? I'd venture a guess, but it's hard to think over the sound of the tech-fapping.

The answer is always C.

C: Uninteresting, inaccurate tech-fapping. Please, allow me to nitpick.

Quote :

There was a pause for a few seconds, electrostatic discharges in the atmosphere were playing havoc with radio communications but the systems filtering programs quickly cleared the white noise from the channel.

From what I understand from Electronic Principles and radio, this is pretty much crap. Electromagnetic interference, or EMI, is tougher to mitigate than that, generally. Although a signal might be cleaned up a bit, you'll never get rid of all of it, IIRC.

Quote :

“Confirm contact Eagle Flight.

This is a shitty callsign, and poor radio discipline. For one thing, nobody would get the callsign Eagle, as it is the name of a US warplane, the F-15 Eagle. This is to avoid confusion over the radio; imagine if you had a flight of Navy F/-18 Hornets with the callsign "Eagle" and then you had a flight of F-15s operating nearby.

It's poor radio discipline because whoever's talking is identifying Eagle as a "flight," which specifies it as a unit of airplanes.

Quote :

Bearing 358, range from Buster is 66.6 nautical miles.

LOLOLOL 666 LOLOLOL

IIRC, usually they just round out mileage like that. With aerial targets everyone's moving so fast, tenths of a mile are irrelevant.

Quote :

Target speed 184 knots, course one-three-fiver.

Christ, that's worse than "over and out." Anyone trying to use a radio and saying "fiver" should be shot. The -er is added to "nine" SPECIFICALLY TO DIFFERENTIATE IT FROM FIVE.

It's also stupidly selective, spelling it out like that. It should be an either-or proposition, otherwise it looks like the radio operator said "speed one hundred eighty-four knots, course one-three-five" which is also wrong.

In case anyone's wondering, here's the proper pronunciation (is rather "WELL DUH" at times):

Spoiler:

Quote :

For your information, Crown and Scepter are tracking also. They have locks.”

I'm going to go ahead and back up to that stupid 66.6 range thing again here.

The US Navy has, apparently, allowed a slow, unidentified, airborne contact to come within 70 miles of an aircraft carrier and its battle group without sending any F/A-18s to go check it out. This is well within the range of some serious air-launched antiship cruise missiles. A slow-moving contact could, then, be a Tu-95 "Bear" bomber armed with nuclear-tipped Kh-22 antiship missiles, which have a range of 200 nautical miles.

This is also within the range of the Aegis ships' SAMs. So, if this is meant to be a halfway accurate portrayal of the US Navy, it is a rather inept portrayal of them.

Quote :

There was a pause, a series of crackles on the radio, then the message resumed. “If targets are hostile, you are cleared to engage.”

For clarity's sake they would never say "If _____ you are cleared to ____." Because telling a pilot "you are cleared" means "you can do this."

Now imagine a burst of static in this transmission gone on just a hair longer.

"For your information, Crown and Scepter are tracking also. They have locks. (bzzt) "You are cleared to engage."

In this case the rules of engagement, or ROE, would be stated differently, usually along the lines of "you may only engage if fired upon," etc.

Quote :

Wong translated the message in his head. ‘Buster’ was CVN-76 USS Ronald Reagan, ‘Crown’ was CG-70 USS Lake Erie, an AEGIS cruiser, while ‘Scepter’ was DDG-93 USS Chung-Hoon, one of the Arleigh Burke class destroyers that now dominated the fleet’s surface combatant force. Also AEGIS-equipped, that meant whatever the targets were, they were now being tracked by three of the most advanced radar systems in the U.S. Navy.

First off, "Aegis" is the name of the concept and system. It's not an acronym. The acronym is ACS, or Aegis Combat System.

Secondly, the "most advanced radar systems in the US Navy" is debatable. The AN/SPY-1 radar system that is the heart of the Aegis system first came out in 1973. If we're talking about shipborne air-tracking radars, it might be accurate. But other radar systems have come out and were fielded since the AN/SPY-1. For example, the F/A-18E/F Super Hornets' AN/APG-79 radar, came out in 2007.

Quote :

The ‘lock’ part of the message was really interesting, that suggested the order to open fire was already being passed out.

No, it just means that they've been ordered to maintain a track on the targets.

I tried to warn some people who might get the wrong idea from the TV Tropes page that this was horrible. Everything was labeled vandalism and removed.

Somath Cegem wrote:

Apparently, ever single religious text ever is wrong, but Dantes Inferno is completely 100% correct?

Not totally 100% correct. I've been reading ahead a bit, and the part in Inferno where the spirits of the damned are insubstantial (Dante is noteworthy for having a shadow, meaning he's corporeal, unlike the other human denizens of Hell) isn't used here. Instead, the dead get shiny new super-regenerative bodies that never need to eat or sleep.

Shirou Emiya was wrong, apparently; people don't die when they're killed, they just get an upgrade.

Penguin wrote:

(smackdown)

I knew I could count on you

I wonder if it just gets worse from there on out, or if anyone called him on his bullshit.

...I can dream, okay?

What I like most about this is that Satan enters talking all of this shit about how he's taking over and everyone may as well off themselves, but then his entire army gets obliterated with surprising ease. I don't know about you, but if I were to declare war on an entire plane of existence, I would try to be certain I could at least hold my own in that war.

You know, maybe I'd buy my Demon Infantry some decent armor so they don't get a papercut and combust. Or perhaps arm them with something other than swords and such. I mean, you have billions of dead souls from throughout time, there has to be SOMEONE in there who knows how to put together a simple firearm, or perhaps an automatic weapon.

This sounded like a plausible concept. Really, if the world's going to end in may as well be some spectacular holy war of hellfire and angels and not some boring nuclear holocaust. But the execution is so amateurish, hair brained, and hamfisted, it makes me want to throw up in some tinfoil and eat it.

Ceres wrote:

According to book two, yes, Jesus is a pot smoking hipping. Meanwhile, the actual Yahweh is a deluded authoritarian that doesn't know what's going on, but seems pretty sure that he'll eventually win.

The Big Bad is his number two, Archangel Micheal I think, who is the brains behind the operation. As God's general, Micheal is free to send Yahweh loyalists to battle so they get killed. His plans, ifrc, is to let the humans kill his enemies, and maybe God, so he can take over.

Let's see, what else... oh, and Micheal also has a hidden dimention thing with prostitutes imported from Singapor (!). He also has a drug operation and half of heaven is addicted to meth (!!).

As I said, Jesus is a pothead, and lights up joints with his buddy Micheal, but I don't think he knows that Micheal is up to.

Ceres wrote:

The whole story is trying to be a parody, but its a REALLY poorly executed one.

And did I mention the female stripper angels doing some lesbian fondling at Micheal's drug den/club thing for the amusement of the drugged-up clientele?

Oh I didn't? Silly me...

I DEMAND AN EXPLANATION FOR WHY HEAVEN HAS BEEN REPLACED WITH NEW JERSEY!

Given that the the entire story is an exercise in letting atheist libertarians feel superior to everyone else, naturally 'Heaven' would have to be akin to a place everyone can look down on. New Jersey is a natural choice for such a place.

One also has to keep in mind just how childish the author is. He probably considers that a hilarious take on Heaven.

One thing that's hilarious is that Satan apparently teleports his demons in directly in the vicinity of people able to deal them swift death. His flying demons stray near a carrier battle group. His swimming demon gets too close to an attack sub. His land demons wander near Soviet Russian tank divisions.

Quote :

“I’m not getting any blade beat Sir. None at all. In fact I’m getting no machinery noise at all. No pompholugopaphlasmasin.” The sonar operator got the odd word out without missing a beat. He was referring to the odd selection of pops, hisses, squeaks and rattles made by machinery as it went about its daily tasks, an odd selection that was a clear signature to a passive sonar system.

In all the research I care to do (a few minutes' googling), this term seems to have originated during WW2 and promptly stayed there. It was also a term used to describe the noise a U-Boat made as it broke apart and was crushed by the sea as it sank, not just generic mechanical noise. Which, IIRC, is referred to as a "transient."

Worse, this bit of technospooge is retardodundant. Basically, what this sonar operator tried to just say in this travesty of a line is, "I'm getting no machinery noise at all. No machinery noise."

Oh, and I can't imagine an enlisted man wasting everyone's time by trying to impress them with his mastery of obscure, long words. There's a reason aircraft maintainers call things like vertical stabilizers "stabs," and why sonar technicians call whales, fish, and other assorted biological contacts "biologics."

Military communications are supposed to be clear and concise. This is something completely lost on the author, as he insists on making everything an unclear, redundant jumble, as demonstrated by his repeated, erroneous use of "fiver," and his overuse of message repetition. I imagine he uses "I say again" so much simply because so many military-oriented action movies usually use phrases like "you are clear to engage, I say again, you are clear to engage" at really dramatic points.

You mean that wasn't a particularly bad allergy attack? Something new every day...

I love how they like to pretend the story to be a documentary-like war report, but the war follows neatly their favored themes and ideals. Humanity plows through Heaven and Hell

Rabid Badger wrote:

You know, when I first read the title, I had this flash in my head of a scenario where the people from the Salvation Army get fed up with being laughed at and abused by those who don't believe in God, take up arms, and start forcibly converting people at gunpoint. From what everyone else has said about the real story, I think my version would be funnier.

You're probably right. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Penguin wrote:

There's a reason aircraft maintainers call things like vertical stabilizers "stabs," and why sonar technicians call whales, fish, and other assorted biological contacts "biologics."

Because almost all jobs lose their charm by the second year, and cold reality sets in? And since U.S. is not in an all out war with anyone, most soldiers sit around imitating your avatar?

One has to wonder, as well, how many people were actually left to clean the mess and fight after all the religious ones (which, as far as I know, comprise the overwhelming majority of humankind) killed themselves.

Psy-4 wrote:

Penguin wrote:

There's a reason aircraft maintainers call things like vertical stabilizers "stabs," and why sonar technicians call whales, fish, and other assorted biological contacts "biologics."

Because almost all jobs lose their charm by the second year, and cold reality sets in? And since U.S. is not in an all out war with anyone, most soldiers sit around imitating your avatar?

No.

1.) Shorthand has nothing to do with how much you like your job.
2.) If you define "all out war" as WW2 type scenarios, surprise! A lot of this shit happened then, too, it's just really boring to make movies about soldiers being bored, unless they're also cold, hungry, and might get shot. And you don't drag it out too far and get back to the OMG KILLING ACTION that everyone's really watching the show for.

Everyone is entitled to their opinions, especially on subjective matters such as thsi but allow me to make you folks not look like retards and fix the factual errors in your snarks.

gaijinguy wrote:

Apparently, the plot goes as follows. Satan tells us he's going to take over, so all religious people commit suicide for some reason, miraculously turning humanity into a species of Mary Sues that doesn't rip itself shreds even though Ragnarok has apparently been scheduled for some time next Thursday. Said Mary Sues proceed to declare war on Heaven and Hell, who are of course completely lame and have no powers that can't be handwaved away with explanations that make The X-Files look like hard science.

Except that first God sends a message for his followers to lay down and die. Week after that, Satan demands surrender. Declaration of War is a propaganda stunt to prop up morale, like the Doolittle Raid in WW2. All the powers of Heaven and Hell are based on their descriptions in Bible and the author has mostly managed to make them work through known science. It's actually much more closer to hard sci-fi than any Star Trek episode ever, even though some explanations at first glance seem outlandish, they are based on real science, just taken a step or two forward - exactly the mantra of hard sci-fi.

gaijinguy wrote:

The writing is pretty much impossible to describe, but I'll take a shot at it: imagine Tom Clancy in full gun-wank mode combined with Phillip Pullman in full atheism wank mode combined with an understanding of the natural sciences that makes Tom Cruise look rational. The fun part? The story I linked to, above, is allegedly the cleaned up version of this POS. Enjoy!

Gun-wank is such a curious term. Should we have terms like "conversation-wank" too? Or mayde "drama-wank"? The descriptions are spot on, technical details are mostly correct and the story reveals the nastiness of modern warfare much better than many others, sanitized version. When did Clancy have multitude of "friendly-fire" incidents in his stories? The "militant atheism" in the story apparently you argue about apparently is just the butthurt that assaults christians when their sky fairy isn't all-powerful and just daddy - the whole point behind the story if superstition vs reason. The natural sciences are also correct. Some details have been wrong, which is understandable in a first draft. Maybe your personal grasp on science isn't as strong as you might hope for? And as previously mentioned, the clean up means that only the comments&discussion between chapters have been removed.

gaijinguy wrote:

Yes, I set up my LJ for the sole purpose of tearing this piece of shit a new one.

Hopefully you only comment on writing style and characterisation in future then. Happy tearing! Then to your circle-jerk:

Exodia's Right Leg wrote:

One has to wonder, as well, how many people were actually left to clean
the mess and fight after all the religious ones (which, as far as I
know, comprise the overwhelming majority of humankind) killed
themselves.

The story clearly states that about 10% of humanity committed suicide and these were mostly the deeply religious christians, jews and muslims. Death toll outside Abrahamic religions was neglible. Might be shock to you but in western countries, large majority of "religious" people just go through the motions, without a "personal connection to God", no matter what the fundies sprout.

Psy-4 wrote:

Even Mikky Bay had the U.S. army pwned repeatedly, before they delivered an ass kicking.

Don't confuse something done to dramatize a movie with reality. Saying that Bronze Age army should have managed to give modern US Army trouble is ludicrous. And the demons actually do score some victories, when they get to melee range, thanks to their superior physique.

I bet you think Avatar has a realistic portrayal of combat between natives and high-tech forces.

Keith Fraser wrote:

I think this story is probably what the Alternate History Forums would call a 'wank', in this case a Humanwank. (The TV Tropes version, though it applies mainly to countrywanks, is Republic Of Mary Sue [yes, it may surprise you to learn that that's a TV Tropes link, beware etc.]).

Not really, as humans do make mistakes and face setbacks and disasters in the stories, so your argument is flawed.

Zeiss Manifold wrote:

it's the fact that they're set up from the beginning as complete pushovers.

Um, no? It is stated several times in the first "book" that had the demonic invasion come as late as WW2, the outcome might have been quite different. Go back to the 19th century and the demons would have won. It is only because our scientific and technical breakthroughs during the 20th century, especially the later part, that humanity can effectively fight back. Still, the cause plenty of casualties, thanks to their incredible ferocity and courage, even under horrific bombardments.

unskilled78 wrote:

I kinda like the story, but it is kinda pathetic how the only way Hell poses a threat is sheer Zerg Rush.

Not so, they also subvert and infiltrate and have weapons of mass destruction, though naturally these are less effective, since it is basically a Bronze Age society with some "magic" sprinkled in - funky evolutionary paths, basically.

Unless I'm banned, I'll comment on the rest bit later.

Quote :

Everyone is entitled to their opinions, especially on subjective matters such as thsi but allow me to make you folks not look like retards

Stopped reading here due to toxic levels of irony.

I see Slade's suckups have finally found the place.

Hey, Garfunkel. All that stuff you typed up? All the defending you just did?

That still doesn't make this story good.

KGarrett wrote:

I see Slade's suckups have finally found the place.

I'm not even registered on either stardestroyer.net or Stuart's own forum. I haven't read his The Big One books. Literally, there is much to improve in his prose, I wager, though since I'm neither literary critic or native speaker, I can't fairly judge that. Just wanted to straighten out some misconceptions - isn't much better to argue and/or critic with straight facts, instead of either lies or misunderstandings?

So, let us continue.

Delcat wrote:

Funny, they're not any more biologically plausible now. ...
..so its blood vessels are...made of...steel, or
something? And every time they cut themselves shaving or peeling a
particularly nasty banana or something, this happens?

No. That part you quoted deals with the flying "emissary" which have very interesting biological composition. It is later revealed that:

Armageddon wrote:

The only way this thing can fly is if it weighs virtually nothing so
its wings provide propulsion and lift, not steerage. The only way we
can think of doing that is if the body contains a lot of very light
gas, probably hydrogen. We think that is why they burned so fiercely
when they were hit. The pilots reported that the creature’s blood set
them on fire, we can only think that there’s some sort of body process
in there where very acid blood reacts with a mineral to give off the
hydrogen needed. That would allow the Baldrick to breath fire as well.

Normal demons do not have the same biological composition, hence they can bleed without any extra complications. At the same time it is a solution for a large creature capable of flying.

Delcat wrote:

aaaand I am officially out before the Russian politicians/gorillasaur bestiality scene, thank you very much

which didn't happen, as the politician was reading a declaration of war / surrender-demands to the dying demon.

Penguin wrote:

From what I understand from Electronic
Principles and radio, this is pretty much crap. Electromagnetic
interference, or EMI, is tougher to mitigate than that, generally.
Although a signal might be cleaned up a bit, you'll never get rid of
all of it, IIRC.

Yes and no. EMI can be mitigated enough, that you can get a signal clear enough so its understandable. It's not 100% perfect but near enough so speech gets through.

Penguin wrote:

This is a shitty callsign, and poor radio
discipline. For one thing, nobody would get the callsign Eagle, as it
is the name of a US warplane, the F-15 Eagle. This is to avoid
confusion over the radio; imagine if you had a flight of Navy F/-18
Hornets with the callsign "Eagle" and then you had a flight of F-15s
operating nearby.
It's poor radio discipline because whoever's
talking is identifying Eagle as a "flight," which specifies it as a
unit of airplanes.

No. First of all, it is a flight, not a single plane. And callsigns have nothing to do with the nicknames of warplanes. No-one in any command center thinks about Eagles, Hornets or Falcons no matter what planes they have at the area, they speak and think of only the callsigns. Been there, done that.

Penguin wrote:

The US Navy has,
apparently, allowed a slow, unidentified, airborne contact to come
within 70 miles of an aircraft carrier and its battle group without
sending any F/A-18s to go check it out. This is well within the range
of some serious air-launched antiship cruise missiles. A slow-moving
contact could, then, be a Tu-95 "Bear" bomber armed with nuclear-tipped Kh-22 antiship missiles, which have a range of 200 nautical miles.

This
is also within the range of the Aegis ships' SAMs. So, if this is meant
to be a halfway accurate portrayal of the US Navy, it is a rather inept portrayal of them.

If you would have read a little bit more, you would have found the explanation - the larger demons and angels have an innate ability to create small portals between their dimension and Earth. Hence they just popped in, not that USN allowed them to waltz in.

Penguin wrote:

Secondly, the "most
advanced radar systems in the US Navy" is debatable. The AN/SPY-1 radar
system that is the heart of the Aegis system first came out in 1973. If
we're talking about shipborne air-tracking radars, it might be
accurate. But other radar systems have come out and were fielded since
the AN/SPY-1. For example, the F/A-18E/F Super Hornets' AN/APG-79
radar, came out in 2007.

Like Aegis wouldn't have been updated since 1973. But your argument goes wrong, because he deliberately states that "now being tracked by three of the most advanced radar systems in the U.S. Navy" and earlier he wrote "Crown and Scepter are tracking also", which means that the 3 most advanced radars are the one in the cruiser, the second is the destroyer and the third is Hornet the protagonist is flying.

Penguin wrote:

No, it just means that they've been ordered to maintain a track on the targets.

Uh, no. Do you know anything about how military radar systems work? When people talk about radar locks, they mean that a firecontrol-radar is spamming the target, keeping it in the targeting box. That is an inherently hostile move and even under the strickest of ROE's, allows the targeted plane to start self-defence measures, because the next step is either inbound shells or missiles. Search radars do not "lock on target", only firecontrol-radars do.

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

What I like most about this is that Satan enters talking all of this
shit about how he's taking over and everyone may as well off
themselves, but then his entire army gets obliterated with surprising
ease. I don't know about you, but if I were to declare war on an entire
plane of existence, I would try to be certain I could at least hold my
own in that war.

Again, this is explained further in the book. The demons and angels have extremely long life-spans compared to humans, leading into a totally frozen society, where the only innovator is cast aside almost as a court jester. They do not visit Earth often at all, in fact it is mentioned that they do it very rarely. The rapid changed in humanity during the last ~400 years take them completely by surprise. And because their society is such an rigid mess, they are unable to adjust quickly enough. In fact, it is debatable that the adjustments they make are unrealistically swift, considering that the whole war takes less than a year.

If you were a absolute dictator with thousands of years of memories, you would find it bit hard to adjust your thinking and reactions quickly too.

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

You know, maybe I'd buy my Demon Infantry some decent armor so they
don't get a papercut and combust. Or perhaps arm them with something
other than swords and such. I mean, you have billions of dead souls
from throughout time, there has to be SOMEONE in there who knows how to
put together a simple firearm, or perhaps an automatic weapon.

They have armour that is enough to deflect demon tridents and claws, because in thousands of years they haven't needed anything else. They have not progressed in metallurgy because they have never needed it. And the souls are not interrogated - they are tortured, killed or put to slavery, according to the demonic tradition which Satan has dictated to them and which they follow blindly. Again, the theme of the book: superstition vs reason.

Penguin wrote:

One thing that's hilarious is that Satan apparently teleports his
demons in directly in the vicinity of people able to deal them swift
death. His flying demons stray near a carrier battle group. His
swimming demon gets too close to an attack sub. His land demons wander
near Soviet Russian tank divisions.

Well, that's artistic licence. He needed to have encounters with the emissaries to start up the story, so they conveniently met with powerful forces in air, land and sea. I personally would have preferred one to get into a large city, where it could have created some havoc as police are trying to bring it down but it really isn't a huge deal.

Penguin wrote:

Military communications are supposed to be clear and concise.

Yes, supposed to. Rarely is. Jargon, catch-phrases, etc infest it as much as any other "professional speak".

Penguin wrote:

As he insists on making everything an unclear,
redundant jumble, as demonstrated by his repeated, erroneous use of
"fiver," and his overuse of message repetition

Ever been in a real military briefing? Repetition is endless. He only uses "fiver" in the first chapter, iirc, so again - that's ridiculously nitpicky.[quote="InkWeaver]

Hey, Garfunkel. All that stuff you typed up? All the defending you just did?

That still doesn't make this story good.[/quote]

Oh, that wasn't my intention at all. As I wrote earlier, it's subjective and as you can see I haven't touched the parts which I either agree with or which are purely subjective. I only wanted to counter false information, quotes taken out of context or similar stuff.