Countering Apolycapyse figure with sword

[Kyriakos]

Why did the armies of hell choose Iraq ? . Normal Hollywood thrillers have New York as the focus of conflict. Anime have Tokyo as focus . And if the armies of hell wanted to strike down 'holy places' they have either Mecca or Jerusalem in the Middle East.
Or was there an demonic summoning?

^Maybe the alien radars just picked up an unusual concentration of white phosphorus ammunition

 

[Evie]

As I remember it it was just that Mesopotamia was the heart of human civilization for a very long time or some such.

As I remember it, the fact that the aliens weren't checking humanity for updates very often (because they had gotten into a routine of doing fact finding every other century or so, because of how little humanity was changing at a time) was a major plot point, since it meant they were completely unprepared for the enormous jump in human capabilities between 1800 (or was it 1900?) and 2000.

 

[Benefactor]

Why did the armies of hell choose Iraq ? . Normal Hollywood thrillers have New York as the focus of conflict. Anime have Tokyo as focus . And if the armies of hell wanted to strike down 'holy places' they have either Mecca or Jerusalem in the Middle East.
Or was there an demonic summoning?

Apparently the Biblical Apocalypse starts in the Middle East, I'm really not all that familiar with it to be honest but that was the justification given.

It also provided a nice arena for large amounts of tanks and artillery to fight large amounts of demons.

 

[timtofly]

Or the Roman empire?

 

[druidravi]

I'm not much familiar with Christianity but don't they have Christ and anti-Christ fighting with swords ending the world or something? Hinduism has the last avatar of Vishnu Kalki coming and ending this age . These were what I actually based the thread on , deities with swords.

 

[Kyriakos]

^In the end, there can be only one

 

[timtofly]

There is something about a white horse upon which sets the "Word of God". There is a sword that comes out of the mouth of this individual. The 'anti-christ' and the false prophet are captured and all else is destroyed, while the birds eat the remains. It is in Revelation 19.

 

[r16]

Why did the armies of hell choose Iraq ?

makes a perfect setting when one is fed some 20 years of Saddam rhetoric and his evilness which , to be honest , involved some truth . Anything helps when one believes the only risk to a great scheme is botched PR in this Anglosphere thing .

 

[PhroX]

I read a story on the Internet based on this idea once. Basically an army from Hell invades in the middle of Iraq, it quickly gets destroyed by the human forces in the Middle East and the remnants are chased back through the portal they opened. This is followed by the Human invasion of Hell.

As a story it was pretty all over the place in terms of quality, but the premise was fun enough.

The Salvation War unless I miss my guess. Pretty much agree with you on it, some issues with the writing (the author is much better describing military aspects than human ones), but it's a pretty fun read. It does take the idea of putting the supernatural up against modern militaries pretty well - the central point being that what we're capable of now is on the level of if not beyond what much ancient mythology ascribes to gods/demons/etc

 

[TrafficJam]

The number given in Revelation 9:16 (in the King James version) is "two hundred thousand thousand" - 200 million, not 200 thousand. And they are demonic in nature, not human. A non-human force that large, with command over fire, smoke, and brimstone, will probably vastly overpower any kind of resistance that humanity could put up.

Besides, if you're taking the part about the number of the force and the horseman with the sword literally, then it would stand to reason that the rest of the account should be looked at literally as well, namely that no kind of resistance (at least any kind of effective one) is mentioned at all. Even if humanity does put up some kind of resistance, the end result is the same - 1/3 of everyone who's left on earth at the time will be dead.

 

[Kyriakos]

^Thanks TrafficJam, i just checked with the prototype:

9:16
καὶ ὁ ἀριθμὸς τῶν στρατευμάτων τοῦ ἱππικοῦ δισμυριά
δες μυριάδων· ἤκουσα τὸν ἀριθμὸν
αὐτῶν.
¹⁶
And the number of their mounted troops was 200,000,
000. I heard the number of them.
9:17
καὶ οὕτως εἶδον τοὺς ἵππους ἐν τῇ ὁράσει καὶ τοὺς κ
αθημένους ἐπ’ αὐτῶν, ἔχοντας θώρακας
πυρίνους καὶ ὑακινθίνους καὶ θειώδεις· καὶ αἱ κεφαλ
αὶ τῶν ἵππων ὡς κεφαλαὶ λεόντων, καὶ ἐκ τῶν
στομάτων αὐτῶν ἐκπορεύεται πῦρ καὶ καπνὸς καὶ θεῖον
.
¹⁷
And this is how I saw the horses in the vision, and
those sitting on them: Having breastplates like
fire, that is, dusky red and sulphur colored; and t
he heads of the horses like heads of lions, and fro
m
their mouths comes fire and smoke and sulphur.
9:18
ἀπὸ τῶν τριῶν πληγῶν τούτων ἀπεκτάνθησαν τὸ τρίτον
τῶν ἀνθρώπων, ἐκ τοῦ πυρὸς καὶ τοῦ
καπνοῦ καὶ τοῦ θείου τοῦ ἐκπορευομένου ἐκ τῶν στομά
των αὐτῶν.
¹⁸
By these three plagues, of the fire and smoke and s
ulphur coming from their mouths, one third of
humanity was killed.
9:19
ἡ γὰρ ἐξουσία τῶν ἵππων ἐν τῷ στόματι αὐτῶν ἐστιν κ
αὶ ἐν ταῖς οὐραῖς αὐτῶν· αἱ γὰρ οὐραὶ
αὐτῶν ὅμοιαι ὄφεσιν, ἔχουσαι κεφαλάς, καὶ ἐν αὐταῖς
ἀδικοῦσιν.
¹⁹
Now the power of the horses is in their mouths and
in their tails; for their tails are like snakes,
having heads, and with these they do injury.
9:20 Καὶ οἱ λοιποὶ τῶν ἀνθρώπων, οἳ οὐκ ἀπεκτάνθησα
ν ἐν ταῖς πληγαῖς ταύταις, οὐδὲ
147
μετενόησαν
ἐκ τῶν ἔργων τῶν χειρῶν αὐτῶν, ἵνα μὴ προσκυνήσουσι
ν τὰ δαιμόνια καὶ τὰ εἴδωλα τὰ χρυσᾶ καὶ τὰ
ἀργυρᾶ καὶ τὰ χαλκᾶ καὶ τὰ λίθινα καὶ τὰ ξύλινα, ἃ
οὔτε βλέπειν δύνανται οὔτε ἀκούειν οὔτε
περιπατεῖν,
²⁰
And the rest of humanity, those who were not killed
by these plagues, they did not repent, neither
of the works of their hands, such that they worship
demons and idols made of gold and silver and
bronze and stone and wood, which can
148
neither see nor hear nor walk,

So the phrase used is δισμυριάδες μυριάδων (dismyriades myriadon), with dyo meaning "two", and myriades (myriads in english) meaning 10.000. So indeed the total number of the horsemen would be 200 million.

The "horses" those beings are riding also seem to be quite more dangerous than a simple frightening creature with which one can charge with...

 

[warpus]

200 million horsemen... Imagine all the horse poop and what that would do to the atmosphere

 

[druidravi]

The number given in Revelation 9:16 (in the King James version) is "two hundred thousand thousand" - 200 million, not 200 thousand. And they are demonic in nature, not human. A non-human force that large, with command over fire, smoke, and brimstone, will probably vastly overpower any kind of resistance that humanity could put up.

Besides, if you're taking the part about the number of the force and the horseman with the sword literally, then it would stand to reason that the rest of the account should be looked at literally as well, namely that no kind of resistance (at least any kind of effective one) is mentioned at all. Even if humanity does put up some kind of resistance, the end result is the same - 1/3 of everyone who's left on earth at the time will be dead.

200 million or 0.2 billion vs 7 billion ,or it is 1 demonic horseman vs 35 humans. Leaving out the old,young,old, infirm and in worst case you have 1 horseman vs 10 humans. Let the horseman bring on their fire and brimstone vs modern weapons , tanks and fighters,bombers,missiles,artillery. I think 1 tank could easily bring down atleast 100 horseman irrespective of what manner of smoke and fire they use.

I guess this adds an argument for gun rights. Assault automatic weaponry vs horses,smoke and fire .. Bring it on.

 

[Benefactor]

The Salvation War unless I miss my guess. Pretty much agree with you on it, some issues with the writing (the author is much better describing military aspects than human ones), but it's a pretty fun read. It does take the idea of putting the supernatural up against modern militaries pretty well - the central point being that what we're capable of now is on the level of if not beyond what much ancient mythology ascribes to gods/demons/etc

Yes, that's it, thanks .

The human scenes were generally a bit rubbish, but I must admit he did do a good (i.e. funny) job with Satan and later God, they were proper hammy scenery chewing villians.

 

[TrafficJam]

200 million or 0.2 billion vs 7 billion ,or it is 1 demonic horseman vs 35 humans. Leaving out the old,young,old, infirm and in worst case you have 1 horseman vs 10 humans. Let the horseman bring on their fire and brimstone vs modern weapons , tanks and fighters,bombers,missiles,artillery. I think 1 tank could easily bring down atleast 100 horseman irrespective of what manner of smoke and fire they use.

I guess this adds an argument for gun rights. Assault automatic weaponry vs horses,smoke and fire .. Bring it on.

I guess if you assume that demons and their demonic horses can be killed with modern weaponry, then yeah, you've got a point. Whether or not that's a good assumption is another question.

 

[Benefactor]

I guess if you assume that demons and their demonic horses can be killed with modern weaponry, then yeah, you've got a point. Whether or not that's a good assumption is another question.

Well, I don't think the Bible mentions modern weaponry, and seeing as modern weapons work on everything else it seems a safe bet they'd work on demons .

 

[Kyriakos]

Well, I don't think the Bible mentions modern weaponry, and seeing as modern weapons work on everything else it seems a safe bet they'd work on demons .

FWIW the very passage discussed here (which i posted a few posts ago in both Greek and English) mentions that the horsemen would be protected by some sort of panoply made of fire and sulphur. Not sure what that is supposed to mean, but i doubt any human army ever used such an armor (do note that the english translation presents the armor as merely being "like fire" - in color- but the original Koine Greek does not make a simily at all. It just names the armor as being of fire and sulphur, and like the plant known as Yakinthos in Greek -a purple flower, pic will be given below)

Pic of that purple flower:

 

[TrafficJam]

Well, I don't think the Bible mentions modern weaponry, and seeing as modern weapons work on everything else it seems a safe bet they'd work on demons .

Ha! Well, not a bet I'd be willing to take, but if you're ok with it, then more power to you.

 

[Gucumatz]

I too fear the a-polka-lypse

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

Regarding modern weapons versus biblical creatures, there's a video game franchise based on that premise.

It's called "Doom".