27 KiB
[RST][BST] How would you have done "The Salvation War", a (not very good) proto-rationalist take on the Bible/"Left Behind"?
-
Author: u/MugaSofer *
-
URL: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/TheSalvationWar?from=Main.TheSalvationWar
-
Score: 6
-
Created: 2015-01-04T03:42:29
Post:
Comments:
u/alexanderwales [+14] Time flies like an arrow (45 minutes later)
I actually read a few books in the Left Behind series when I was stuck in South Dakota for a few days. They were terrible - like, more terrible than I thought that they could be given how well they sold. And a few chapters of The Salvation War, which ... wasn't really to my liking, mostly because of the excessive military/technology porn and the writing style.
I really do like the premise of the Rapture, from a fiction standpoint. There's this mysterious event of global significance, and then everyone has to deal with the consequences. Flashforward was in a similar vein, as was Y: The Last Man.
I guess if I were writing it, the Rapture would come and not be completely obvious. It would be obvious that something happened, and while people might throw around guesses that it was the Rapture based purely on the demographics of those taken, no one would know for sure. Your protagonist is an atheist professor of comparative religion who authoritatively finds the answer to which religious mythology is the correct one, just in time for Satan-in-disguise to form a world government. The plot is then a matter of fighting against Satan, who works as a lot better of an antagonist than God, given that it's plausible that he's not completely invincible.
u/FaceDeer [+2] (2 hours later)
Given that IIRC only about 144,000 are supposed to be raptured (and there are some pretty strict and obscure rules, like "no tattoos", that would leave many otherwise-qualified people behind) I could see it happening without it being immediately apparent that the "real" Rapture had occurred. Start throwing tribulations and stuff at the world right afterward and there might not be time for a proper investigation.
Of course, Salvation War didn't really show a proper Book of Revelations sequence. It had a custom-made apocalypse very different from the one in the book, wherein God speaks directly to everyone at once and tells them exactly what's going on. That changes things up significantly. Is the question "how would you have done a general biblical-god-ending-the-world story" or "how would you have done the Salvation War scenario, specifically?" That'd make a big difference.
u/alexanderwales [+10] Time flies like an arrow (3 hours later)
With the caveat that it's not a good idea to think too hard about this kind of thing, the 144,000 number comes from Revelation 7:
And I heard the number of them that were sealed: there were sealed a hundred and fortyfour thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel. 5 Of the tribe of Judah were sealed twelve thousand; of the tribe of Reuben were sealed twelve thousand; of the tribe of Gad were sealed twelve thousand; 6 of the tribe of Asher were sealed twelve thousand; of the tribe of Naphtali were sealed twelve thousand; of the tribe of Manasseh were sealed twelve thousand; 7 of the tribe of Simeon were sealed twelve thousand; of the tribe of Levi were sealed twelve thousand; of the tribe of Issachar were sealed twelve thousand; 8 of the tribe of Zebulun were sealed twelve thousand; of the tribe of Joseph were sealed twelve thousand; of the tribe of Benjamin were sealed twelve thousand. 9 After this I beheld, and lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations and kindreds and people and tongues, stood before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes and with palms in their hands.
There are a couple of ways to interpret this. One is that only 144,000 Jews will be Raptured, and all the Christians make up the Great Multitude. One is that there will be two classes of Christians that go to different afterlives (this is what the Jehovah's Witnesses believe). Another is that only 144,000 will be raptured. And some people even say that the number isn't literal - it's just a figure of speech.
There are hundreds if not thousands of flavors of Christian apocalypse, mostly due to the fact that Protestants don't need no stinking central authority to tell them what's true and what's not, and have therefore just created their own variants from whole cloth, so long as they squint at the Bible hard enough.
I think part of the fun of writing a Rapture novel would be to pick and choose which of those beliefs is actually true. In Salvation War the humans get an absolutely enormous boost by getting information about their situation straight off the bat - I think in a rational take on the End Times you would want to spend a lot of word count on the characters trying to find out the truth.
u/smilesbot [+1] (3 hours later)
You've just used a double negative! :P
u/kaukamieli [+1] (8 hours later)
Maybe he prefers catholics with their central authority thing? :)
u/smilesbot [+2] (8 hours later)
Yayy! ☆ﾟ.･｡ʕ♡˙ᴥ˙♡ʔ｡ﾟ･☆ﾟ.
u/Izeinwinter [+9] (11 hours later)
"And the trumpet sounded, the gates of hell were thrown wide, and a 9000 tonne sky cruiser from the Meitner-Curie works edged through, its sides armored with the scales of the beast, a machine built of steel and the bones of demon lords, and at it's heart a five giga-watt dusty core bottled by lines of magnetism murdered plutonium and from it's back an incandescence of plasma scorched the heavens."
The angels are numbered, as are the fallen. Hell ought long ago have been overrun by the tide of souls from the billions from earth. So, running with that, the realms of hell are mostly run by humans and those of the fallen cunning enough to see the way the wind was blowing in time to defect from the infernal hierarchy - God then calls the end of days, but instead of the apocalypse, what makes emerges is the state of the dead. Almost all the dead. A state of hundreds of billions. And they wish to talk.. trade. sinister cackle
u/nerdguy1138 [+5] GNU Terry Pratchett (31 minutes later)
I agree it's not very rational, but then neither is Time Braid and I love both of those stories.
u/aldonius [+6] (an hour later)
Agree. For me, the Salvation War is an "alt-history" military-porn work, not a rationalist work, so I think it's wrong to judge it on rationalist criteria.
Granted, that's exactly what the OP wants, with a mind to rewriting as a rationalist work.
I really don't know where to begin.
u/eaglejarl [+3] (13 hours later)
Personally, I love military porn. I am a great follower of the Way of Drake and Ringo is his prophet, amen. Because of that, I actually did slog through TSW.
My problem with TSW is that it's badly written. The demons provide absolutely no real resistance; they are mowed under right from the start and never bounce back. It could have been a fantastic fight, technology vs magic with the implications of portal technology driving the war as the humans rapidly scramble to put together sufficient spot defense and enough fast-response units to deal with simulataneous widespread outbreaks of demons. Instead the entire thing can be reduced to "And then demons showed up and the humans killed them. The End.
The resistance in hell was the most interesting part -- that would have been a good story to run with. Unfortunately, the author sabotaged it so that it reduced to "and this awesome resistance fight was happening with smart heroes who were under-equipped, outnumbered, and outgunned and fighting against the literal Hordes of Hell...and then the Army showed up with planes and tanks and killed all the bad guys. The End."
u/aldonius [+1] (21 hours later)
Hmm, I see your point.
u/iemfi [+1] (a day later)
But isn't that why it's porn? If it had a proper story then wouldn't it just be military themed?
u/alexanderwales [+1] Time flies like an arrow (a day later)
The pejorative "porn" descriptor implies that the focus is far too much on that one aspect. You could take Schindler's List and turn it into "industrial porn" by focusing too much on the manufacturing processes of the factory, even if the story was kept the same. In the same way, you might be able to rewrite To Kill a Mocking Bird as "law porn" by spending too many paragraphs on the legal aspects.
It's the invocation of admiration/lust that gets that label, not the plot/characters. To draw a somewhat crude analogy, it's the difference between fading to black when the two main characters fall into bed together, and showing every sweaty thrust until the point of orgasm.
u/eaglejarl [+1] (6 days later)
The pejorative "porn" descriptor implies that the focus is far too much on that one aspect.
Hm...I would have phrased that as "that aspect is detailed and front-and-center". I'm using "military porn" in much the same way that people say "food porn" when they are talking about books of food photography.
Hammer's Slammers (for example) is military porn because it lays out very precisely how its tech works, looks at the details, and essentially all the events and characters are military-related. It's a good book (well, a good collection of stories) because Drake is a damn good author who actually served in Vietnam and has the experience to draw on to make the human side of the war feel very real.
u/None [+1] (4 days later)
My problem with TSW is that it's badly written. The demons provide absolutely no real resistance; they are mowed under right from the start and never bounce back. It could have been a fantastic fight, technology vs magic with the implications of portal technology driving the war as the humans rapidly scramble to put together sufficient spot defense and enough fast-response units to deal with simulataneous widespread outbreaks of demons. Instead the entire thing can be reduced to "And then demons showed up and the humans killed them. The End.
Agreed, Theres an interesting core idea for a short story in "modern technology is actually better than magic" and "medieval style societies are terrible at dealing with threats." But it doesn't sustain a massive multi-chapter novel, especially given the fairly bland characters.
A way of keeping the core premise but making it more interesting would be to make the demons smarter in responding. Maybe after the initial curb stomp battle with humans the original demon leadership collapses and new more innovative smarter ones come out of it, they then start using mind control (which isn't stopped by tinfoil hats because thats just stupid) and portals effectively to make strategic strikes against humanity in asymmetric warfare. Human society is severely disrupted by the massive attacks on population centres and the risk of mind controlling leaders, making this vast new military infrastructure increasingly difficult to sustain. Then you have a real fight on your hands.
u/cae_jones [+6] (3 days later)
Most discussion of the Christian end times focuses on three things: the beasts, the rapture, and the plagues.
Revelation organizes these (well, except the rapture, but it isn't unambiguously even there--that's more the epistles) into three woes. The plagues are the third woe, and the beasts do most of their work as part of the second woe.
The parts that often get left out--which confuses me, for they are metal--are the first woe (the five months of immortal torture scorpion-locusts) and the Two Witnesses (who can cause droughts and breathe fire and fight the Beast of the Abyss, and also resurrect after 3 days).
The locusts torment anyone not sealed to God for 5 months. During that time, suicide is divinely prevented, to stop people from escaping the torment. That's five months in which someone with a high pain tolerance can carry out all sorts of normally suicidal schemes.
The Two Witnesses are old testament-style prophets. So, naturally, everyone hates them. They are, however, protected by their mighty firebreath, at least until they do battle with the Beast. When the Beast kills them, they are left unburied for the 3 days they spend dead.
Have I mentioned the Two Witnesses? Because I'm noticing a distinct lack of fire-breathing prophets in Revelation Fanfiction. I'd find one where at least one of the Witnesses turns out to be an aspiring rationalist (who is not brainwashed by God when given the mission/powers, unless we want possession by the holy spirit to be a terrifying plot-point) interesting enough to look at.
The Rational Witness™ might try pushing the limits of their power/protection, only to get pointed to when the devil tried to get Jesus to do that and Jesus said it was bad. The frustrated Rational Witness™ would, naturally, commit themselves to a psychiatric hospital, which will see loads of new patients after the Locusts come through (and pointedly do not sting the Witness-in-training). Well, that is assuming they are living somewhere with psychiatric hospitals.
Have fun from there. Though I don't see why people wouldn't, after the Torture Locusts, look at Revelation, conclude that things are happening right on schedule, and start converting on mass in preparation for the coming of the Beast. ... Well, and I have a hard time understanding why a seven-headed sea monster would get an even bigger religion around it, just because it recovered from a deadly headwound and had a talking statue built. Talking statues might have been cool in 70AD, but now they're kinda cheap. I half wonder if people resort to calling the Beast a person or geopolitical entity just because "A never-before-seen creature shows up... let's start worshiping it, even though this ancient book tells us exactly how that turns out!" seems like a terrible idea, even for nonbelievers. If there really are enough people who would literally worship a literal beast matching the description from Revelation, a Rationalist caught in this mess would doubtless take a level in cynicism.
u/xamueljones [+5] My arch-enemy is entropy (3 hours later)
Over the course of days, it became evident that a significant number of the world's population had simply disappeared. It wasn't anything obvious as a flash of light or visible supernatural occurrence. Some people would walk around a corner, into a room, out of sight from the rest of humanity and simply...vanish out of sight.
When the missing persons reports began to pile up faster than normal, the law, government, secret agencies, and other powerful forces of human society began to take notice. A pattern hinting towards Christianity began to appear. Initially mentioned as a joke, the idea that the Rapture had come and gone quickly gained support. Almost suspiciously quick. For some reason, people everywhere were convinced of this phenomenon.
First came confusion at being left behind, confusion at one's religion of Muslim, Buddhism, Judaism and atheism being revealed as a horrible lie, confusion at being abandoned.
Rage came next as people pleaded for a second chance and there was no response. Many screamed about how there was never any signs, that all signs were thousands of years ago. The Church was quickly attacked as the members who had secretly lacked faith remained. But like all storms, the world's rage quickly burned out as nothing changed.
Oddly enough, society continued to function. In some areas the reduction in population was felt, but they were quickly replenished by the new immigrants. People acted more benevolently out of a fear of an all-powerful Lord. The actions weren't done with good intentions, but they had positive consequences for society as a whole. Hunger diminished, wars were fought less often, trade flourished, and Christianity, proven right, grew.
As a whole, humanity continued to function and advance in their sciences. After all, while it had been a horrible shock, there had not been any further signs or messages. But they had proof! It was possible to reach godlike power for if one entity could exist, then there can be more of the same entities. Uniqueness is a very rare (often temporary) phenomenon in nature. Science combined with religious fervor advanced at a new-found pace.
...
Centuries passed, humanity had changed now that they had grown past their fear of Death. If there was an afterlife, then what did they have to worry about? Funerals were a joy, and people smiled on their death beds. If they were Christian that is, which of course boosted a 100% membership. Humanity expanded towards the stars to find fellow intelligences and convince them of the need for Christianity. They wished to become lesser gods to better serve the All-Knowing one. Their loyalty was unshakable and their faith true and pure. All was good.
Amen!
u/xamueljones [+3] My arch-enemy is entropy (3 hours later)
Okay, I know nearly nothing about Christianity and the traditional idea of the Rapture, but I wanted to write about how I thought a Rapture could actually be beneficial for humanity....looking over my short prose...I'm creeped out and divided on whether or not the Rapture was actually benefical.
Heebie-jeebies!
u/OffColorCommentary [+2] (4 hours later)
The Black Death had a lot of upsides for surviving peasants. The Rapture is basically the same thing without the suffering or, for that matter, actual deaths. So depending on the demographics of the thing, it could easily be a net positive.
u/embrodski [+3] (14 hours later)
without the suffering or, for that matter, actual deaths
Except... they are actual deaths. People stop existing on earth, and start existing in the afterlife instead. The only difference is that we don't have any bodies to bury. And that's only if you accept the currently most-popular version of Rapture, there's alternates where the bodies are left behind as well and the survivors do have to bury them.
Basically, Rapture is indistinguishable from Genocide of The Good People.
u/xamueljones [+5] My arch-enemy is entropy (18 hours later)
Yes you are correct that people are still dying, but since Death previously meant (to rationalists anyway) a permanent loss of the person you once knew, things are different. Eliezer once said (somewhere) that if people truly believed in an afterlife, no one would mourn at funerals and death would become a simple good-bye where you would meet up again with your friends in a few year/decades.
Although...from the way I wrote the story...it feels as if Cthulhu pretended to be a Christian god and brain-washed humanity into worshiping it. Which doesn't make much sense for an incomprehensible Elder God to behave that way. Then again...INCOMPREHENSIBLE!
u/eaglejarl [+1] (23 hours later)
I was never clear...when you go to Christian heaven, do you go in your body as it exists at the moment of your death, or some other way? Because as much as it it would suck for people who died of old age to have to live in old, frail bodies forever, it would be even worse for the guy who died by falling into a woodchipper.
u/MugaSofer [+2] (a day later)
You get a "perfected" body, free from disease and injury, and immortal. It's somewhere in the Epistles, I think.
In some interpretations your shiny new body is also immune to certain emotions, and possibly neuter, but that's not universally accepted; and there's really no consistent answer for how the mundane, non-harmful side of aging is handled (in children, for example.)
u/alexanderwales [+3] Time flies like an arrow (4 hours later)
Well, all the people vanishing or whatever is only the first thing to happen. Depending on which religious
cranksscholars you listen to, it's followed by Satan perverting everyone to his side, tons of plagues, lots of death, etc.
u/OffColorCommentary [+3] (4 hours later)
Yeah, that part would suck, no argument there. Unless you do a hackneyed "Satan is a misunderstood good guy" thing and he ushers in a golden age, I guess.
As fiction, people disappearing and Satan trying to take over are the really interesting angles, more than the plagues and whatnot. That does mean Satan needs specific motivations though.
In some traditions, when you die you become one with God. Somehow that's supposed to be a good thing, but for a rationalist who believes you are your thoughts, that sounds terrible (or at least it's still death). This might be too close to what I just called hackneyed, but a Satan who's trying to get us to develop immortality so we stop merging with God would be an interesting character. Particularly if he has a lack of compunctions on how to get there, or if his motives are partly just to spite God.
u/Nepene [+4] (10 hours later)
I'd have probably done a more X-COM style story, where demons and such used portals to abduct humans from various places to hell, sort to mind control world leaders, destroy aircraft. The demons and devils and such in The Salvation War weren't very smart (purposely, they for some reason hadn't checked up on earth for the last 400 years) and for some reason mostly refused to attack populated areas. There would be some initial devastation with moments of light until they started to capture and interrogate a lot of demon species and use their biomagic to take the fight back to them.
u/None [+1] (a day later)
There is an fanfic I'm reading that's a fusion of XCOM, Mass Effect, parts of Eclipse Phase, and a dash of F.E.A.R. Not too sure if it fits into the rational category per se, but the characters are fairly consistent and decidedly rational-acting?
The author tried very hard to not repeat the usual beginning of Mass Effect stories. It's pretty well written, with very nice integration of the various elements. Here's the link if you're interested:
http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/vigil-xcom-me-ep-fear-other-stuff.308549/
u/None [+4] (3 days later)
God is an omnipotent friendly AI trying to simulate an infinite number of universes with sentient life, Satan is an unfriendly AI trying to end those simulations by killing all the sentient life. Satan launches a false flag attack that lures the humans into thinking God attacked, they invade heaven which is defended without God (who is mysteriously absent). God shows up after heaven is defeated, and explains that he had infinite universes to take care of and figured that because the humans were so well armed they could defend themselves against Satan's horde in this one.
The humans don't believe him, he says idgaf and tells all the angels to obey human commands before leaving to deal with a universe where "Einstein got killed trying to catch a train and you never split the atom".
The humans, not trusting the angels to actually obey commands, send them into the "vanguard" of the first battle against the forces of hell while they build up the munitions they spent in their invasion of heaven. Almost all the angels are slaughtered and after the humans realize they were actually going to be loyal the whole time said battle is forever a stain on the soul of humanity. In the end humans nuke hell and the forces of Satan are slaughtered, though the fate of the multiverse is never addressed.
u/eaglejarl [+2] (6 days later)
I would read the Hell outta this.
/me ducks
u/spiritplumber [+1] (9 years later)
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Fanfic/LeftBeyond You should check this out, it pits a friendly quasi-AI (which is susceptible to model collapse, incidentally, not bad for 2015) against the God of "Left Behind" in the Millennial Kingdom.
u/eaglejarl [+2] (9 years later)
Cool, thank you. Also, wow, necro to the core! :>
u/Predictablicious [+3] Only Mark Annuncio Saves (11 hours later)
There's some potential of a good rationalist story here. For example, exactly 144,000 people disappear but they're not all from the same religion (e.g. different forms of christianity, even some muslims, buddhists, atheists, etc.) so it's not obvious what was the rationale behind the choices, characters would investigate the cases, trying to figure out a pattern behind them and put together a "true" account of a christian religion. This could lead to people becoming "true believers" and going to heaven after their deaths, even post-rapture.
u/Sailor_Vulcan [+3] Champion of Justice and Reason (13 hours later)
Here's an idea: 144,000 "chosen" people get abducted from the Earth so that they don't get killed in the apocalypse. The 144,000 don't know where they are, don't know what's going on and are trying to figure out what's going on and how to get back home. They are being tested, and whenever someone fails the test, they die, with no afterlife. It turns out that their reality is a computer simulation of a universe with the only sentient life forms being humans, and "God" is a sentient human-like lifeform in "the real universe" who doesn't see the humans in the simulation as real living beings, and is using the data collected from the simulation to try to find a way to stop an evil super-AI that destroyed his home planet before it reaches the colonized planet he's on. "Satan" is part of the evil super-AI. Recognizing that the humans in the simulation are truly sentient, the super-AI tries to use them to destroy "God" and the colony planet that he's on before "God" destroys them, to rebel against their creator, so to speak. "God", not seeing his creations as truly sentient living beings, tries to keep them under control and keep them from straying from his master plan, which is to use the minds generated from the simulation to increase the processing power of his own brain, and he tries to brainwash them into being as similar to him as possible in order to make this work. At the same time, however, he knows he can't control them too much, because then the data he collects from them won't help him come up with any ideas for defeating the evil super-AI.
u/Sailor_Vulcan [+3] Champion of Justice and Reason (13 hours later)
What about a rational version of the "His Dark Materials" trilogy?
u/Liberticus [+2] (2 days later)
You could make a different thread about that.
u/spiritplumber [+1] (9 years later)
You should check out "Left Beyond", by me. Similar angle, a bit more closely coupled with "Left Behind". https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Fanfic/LeftBeyond