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The bet was made shortly after Satan read Revelation, so early in the second century.

With respect to your previous comments, God knows everything, God will win.

Here's the logic I've tentatively settled on (unless someone blows this up on me):

Like everything in the Bible, the version of Revelation we have has to be interpreted correctly. So, when God shows it to us, common sense says that the correct interpretation of the future currently in the Bible is: Satan and sinning humans, change your ways or Revelation is what will happen to you. It's God's final warning.

As a result, Satan knows he must do something else, otherwise his butt will burn. Rather than stop sinning and return to worshipping and serving God, Satan cooks up the challenge, which, if he succeeds, offers him a different way to escape the fire while simultaneously forcing God and the angels to leave Earth, so Satan can rule it. Since God has a greater purpose for the challenge, he accepts.

The prophets, too, realize that Revelation is a warning (as are many Bible stories), not to be read literally (e.g., prove your obedience to God by killing your son, unless an angel stays your hand), so they have no problem writing it the way they did, which was done under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Humans, being smart too, have enough intelligence that they can figure this out as well (hell, I did, and my brain's not exactly firing on all thrusters, lol). It's just that most humans suck at interpreting the Bible correctly (45,000 denominations and counting), so most Christians think Revelation is literally what will happen.

Many Catholics have begun to realize what God intended, and have changed their interpretation, including the fact that much of the wording in Revelation is figurative, not literal. They too realize God is saying: Satan and sinning humans, change your ways, or Revelation is what will happen to you.

One might ask why God didn't simply come right out and say the above words. Sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn't. He didn't, for example, include an explicit statement prior to the story of the Flood (sinning humans, changes your ways, or I'll drown you all). Similarly, in Genesis, in the story of Adam & Eve, he didn't say, sinning humans, don't disobey me (i.e., don't eat the fruit), or I'll punish you severely, although he does say that elsewhere. Tons of examples where God has decided to show, not tell.

Here, too, dual timelines are no longer needed.

Satan (De Rosa) can't, but Connor can. He's descended from both De Rosa (a recently killed member of the breeding program) and Campagna (unknowingly descended from an escaped member of the breeding program from centuries past), so he's actually more powerful than Satan, although I haven't figured out when the best time is to use that. His brawl with De Rosa inside St. Peter's Basilica in the middle of book two is interrupted when Connor collapses (Adam is trying to break through). Connor doesn't like reading the minds of people he cares about because he gets flooded with a lot of their private thoughts.

EDIT: I just figured out when to use it. During the aforementioned brawl, Connor allows his father to belt him in the face a few times before grabbing De Rosa's thrown fist midair with one hand and beginning to crush it. Surprises the hell out of Satan, after which Connor really lets him have it, right before Connor collapses.

Are you referring to the loop I mentioned earlier but didn't explain? If so, it goes like this:

Assume John always knows and writes about what really will happen in the future. Since the challenge doesn't appear in Revelation, Satan will issue one. But, John should have foreseen that and mentioned it in Revelation, including the fact that Satan loses. Of course, as soon as Satan reads that, he knows not to issue the challenge, at least not that one. But if he doesn't issue it, then John would have written Revelation as we know it. And again, Satan would issue the challenge.

To prevent this loop, God prevents Satan from knowing his final fate. So, Satan would have issued the challenge and spent 2000 years preparing for it (breeding humans to produce superhuman Connor). Even though Satan no longer knows his fate, he has no choice but to proceed since winning is the only way he can escape the lake of fire.

He also no longer knows the fate of the Antichrist, the False Prophet, any of the demons, and all mortal sinners. If he did, that would give him too much information, from which he could probably guess his fate, and the loop would exist yet again.

So, God has to prevent Satan and us from knowing our fates. God is also more than willing to let Satan sweat over his ultimate fate.

Naturally, the fact that there are two possible futures, both equally valid, though only God knows which will come to pass, is really two timelines but without me having to even mention the word or describe the concept.

The only issue is whether Christians/Catholics will view God's actions as "lying" to the prophets. I say no because both timelines are equally valid, and either could come to pass based solely on Satan's decision about the challenge (naturally God knows in advance what Satan will decide, but that doesn't remove Satan's free will).

And God chooses to show the prophets the future that does not result in a causality loop, which also serves God's purpose with regard to the future rescue mission undertaken by Connor/Adam.

I'm doing this from memory, which is never a good thing, but for Catholics, the 1000 year period has been underway since shortly after Christ's death, when they developed the concept of the Eucharist. That is, to Catholics, the real presence of Christ on Earth.

It therefore follows that Satan is already in the bottomless pit, locked away. Naturally, that's not a physical pit, nor is there a physical chain around him. Since, figuratively speaking, his power is diminished in this period, what we see in the real world is his remaining influence.

I included the aforementioned chain in the first draft: the Christian cross around De Rosa's neck. It was secured around his neck by St. Michael at a moment when Satan was distracted. It's what causes his painful stigmata every time he kills a clergyman. That's what keeps him from killing more of them. The chain also prevents him from leaving his current (De Rosa) body.

I tell my doctor his pills make me stupid.

I understand what you're saying, Terry, but the whole premise of the challenge is that things will not end the same way as originally prophesied by John and others. Since I insist that the Bible in my story remain inerrant, the question becomes, what's the best way to explain how that is possible? The alternate timeline is okay, but there is a lot of complexity to the concept if you think about it. The write-up for it is fairly straightforward for those who want to read at most a few paragraphs about how it works and move on.

But many readers these days are very savvy, and I don't want to publish something that is fatally flawed the moment you peek under the hood. If you do focus on it, then you have to think about things like: How many instances of me are there in the multiverse? Are we each distinct individuals, no more alike than twins, or are we connected on a deeper level? If the latter, how many souls are there for me? Is it just one that is somehow shared by all of us? I'd be okay with raising all those issues if that was the focus of the novels, but it's not. And there are many more issues beyond those above.

The other alternative I also considered right from the beginning was to sidestep multiple timelines (2 in this case) and have God give the prophets a vision of the future that is identical to our future. The latter would come true only if there was no challenge, which is the real world we live in. So, the Bible prophesies tell our future.

But the challenge changed that, which is a future God chose not to reveal in full. In part, it's to keep Satan from knowing his future. But mostly it's to prevent a crazy time loop. I'll skip the details for now.

As noted in my earlier posts, God wants Satan to issue the challenge, which is exactly what he eventually does. God's role in steering Satan to that chosen path amounted to having the prophets write the prophesies we see in the Bible, knowing that Satan would read and act on them in an attempt to prevent them from coming to pass. But the prophets and Satan are intelligent and have free will. They should have at least considered what will happen when Satan reads Revelation. The fact that they didn't doesn't change the fact that the outcome still required conscious decisions on their part. God knew what their decisions would be, but they made the choices.

While it's true that Satan really had no choice (lake of fire or mystery prize behind door #2), he made it far worse for himself. As mentioned in the ancient letter (written by Satan), demons and glorified humans have the ability to tolerate the Lake of Fire, although it still involves great suffering, but not so much that the punished beings can no longer contemplate their eternal punishment. After all, what's the point of a punishment if the condemned are in such searing agony that they are nothing more than tortured animals without even the ability to think anymore. Their whole existence would be reduced to one endless thought: agony!

Instead, Satan foolishly upped the ante by suggesting that if Satan won the challenge, God and the angels should return to the spirit realm and abandon Earth forever, leaving it to Satan to rule. God said okay, but if Satan loses, the temperature in the lake of fire will rise a thousandfold (oops). Since the challenge remained Satan's only escape from the lake, he had to accept.

And God has no need to fog Satan's mind.

I could ramble on, but I'm tired.

That reminds me, in addition to the Bunny Divine news broadcast, which only lasts for a few paragraphs, I could write a real short story about the killing of Mama and many other mobsters, with Kay as the protagonist/assassin.

That's what embedded credit cards are for.   Add a few replicated copies of Galaxinet throughout the solar system (and the rest of settled space), and you're good to go. Anyplace in the galaxy you go, if they have a copy of Galaxinet, you won't be able to do much of anything until overdue bills are paid. Very basic food, clothes, shelter, and medical care might be exceptions, but your choices will be very restricted. Of course, none of this will make it into the book, and someone much smarter than me can figure out how to build banking and other services into a galactic database that only gets updated every 12 hours. Too bad the scarcity of atreidite for interstellar travel is holding up progress on that front.

Do they need to meet (often)? No. I think the story works well enough without forcing them together. Although, as Amy observed years ago, it was pretty much two stories most of the way. In an earlier draft on which she commented, they had no interactions in acts 1 and 3, and virtually none in act 4. That was three quarters of the book. I think the Royals Forum fixed act 1 well enough. I don't know if there's much more I can do to bring them together (electronically or otherwise) in acts 3 & 4.

Although, after Joseph and Paul escape slavery and go to the palace in search of Apollo's assistance, instead of them being shot, I could have Joseph and Apollo meet again, but I then still need Joseph and Paul (or Joseph and Catherine) to end up in "Heaven", the nickname for the prison where Joseph and company end up, so named because of it's high mortality rate.

I can't see Apollo being angry enough at Joseph to throw them into that prison, so it would have to happen after a face to face meeting. I suppose they could leave the palace, perhaps with special Imperial identification to get them all the way back to New Bethlehem. Something goes wrong, and their IDs are lost or stolen.

Of course, all this is in addition to everything else that has to happen during the chapter in which Apollo and Joseph meet, which is fine since I have plenty of room to expand my chapters in novella form.

Not much opportunity for prolonged tension between them, though.

Since it will probably take me a long time to finish cleaning up and publishing Archangel (since Connor v2 is the priority), I'm seriously considering publishing the first act of Archangel Syndrome as a longish novella (about 50K words) and putting that up as my first book. I would then take an occasional break from Connor (probably at the end of each act) to clean up and publish each subsequent act of Archangel as novellas 2-4, resulting in the following:

Novella 1 - the first act of Archangel. The two points in the first act where Joseph and Apollo commit to their destinies, determined that nothing will stop them, would be the end of this novella, give or take an epilogue/preview of novella 2. A trimmed version of Brain-Masters would then get punted to the beginning of novella 2. I could then restore to novella 1 one of my favorite deleted chapters (the one where Apollo is almost whipped to death at the Colosseum by Nero, after which Apollo has to undergo surgery without anesthesia).

Novella 2 - the entire second act of Archangel (the Young Leaders Conference), ending with the assassination of both Regent Mary and Nero. This act is currently rather short, even if I prepend a trimmed version of Brain-Masters to it, so it gives me the option to have the delegates visit Catholika and maybe one other planet. Depends on how much new material I care to write. Since the pope would be female, I have a few folks here I can choose as the pope (probably either Georgina or the Virgin Marilyn, both Protestants in real life). And I would definitely include a bit of crossover nonsense from the Connor books.

Novella 3 - the entire third act. Apollo is sworn in, is haunted by Nero (assuming the changes aren't too complex), up to where Apollo is overthrown and "hung" on New Bethlehem, including being accidentally decapitated as he is hung. Joseph accidentally ends up on a slaver ship, is enslaved on Earth, then imprisoned, then is rescued by Leonardo (the loonie taxi driver), and boards a transport for home, knowing an attack on New Bethlehem is now imminent.

Novella 4 - the fourth act of Archangel, consisting of the main battle and its aftermath, including the current epilogue, in which Joseph throws himself off a cliff, and Apollo concludes God is real and decides to build a Christian empire. I would reveal at the end of this novella the cause of the supernatural beings that plague Apollo and Joseph.

Beyond finally getting something published, an added advantage of doing this is I get enough room to flesh out each act of Archangel. In spite of cutting unnecessary chapters from act one about a year ago, by the time I fleshed out the rest of that act to what I consider an appropriate level of detail, I was back to a huge first act. I suspect the same will be true of subsequent acts, heading toward 200K total words. I always have the option at the end to put them together as one big book.

The main problem with these, I think, is that Joseph and Apollo don't meet at all in novellas 1 and 3, only in novella 2 and briefly at the end of novella 4. Naturally, they regularly interact via Galaxinet during novella 1 (via the Royals Forum, where they piss each other off).

Thoughts?
Dirk

I have to admit, I'm a bit fuzzy about personal timelines vs. collective timelines. The Kelvin Timeline that JJ Abrams created for the Star Trek franchise, so he could change anything he wanted, is what I consider a collective timeline. I haven't watched anything new from Star Trek in many years, but I don't recall them ever discussing that there are infinite universes, and each decision by each person leads to another universe, which is what I call a personal timeline.

Tentatively, in my story, only God creates an alternate timeline and "moves" us there. Although I don't go into details in my 4th century document (already posted, by the way), it implies the original timeline has been abandoned. I couldn't do the challenge and also leave the characters, which technically includes us, on our original timeline since that breaks biblical inerrancy.

So, rather than God creating duplicate copies of us for the new timeline (which includes the challenge) while also leaving the original version of us in our real world timeline (where there is no challenge), I chose that he moved us there and abandoned the original timeline. That creates its own set of issues, though. While there may be only one of each of us in the multiverse that way (each with their own soul), somehow God recreated the whole universe (from the galaxies down to every non-human life form in existence) and put us there. What about all the microbes in and on our bodies, many of which we need to live? Did those move to? And the pet cat I was holding when God moved us? And every ape, even though some have almost the identical DNA as us? Etc.

Thanks.

Just to clarify, when I was asking about act 1 vs act 2, I meant within the first book. Joseph's homeworld doesn't get destroyed until the end of the first book, which leaves a nice opening for a book 2 if there ever is one, although Joseph's fate at the end of book 1 is currently unknown. He jumps off the cliff wanting to know if Michael (or God) will save him. Fade to black....

At the beginning of book 2, I intended Joseph to crash onto a rocky shelf sticking out 10-20 feet below where he jumped from. So, technically, God saved him :-)

As noted in my previous post, both teenagers commit one chapter (each) prior to them leaving their home planets for the Young Leaders Conference. So, I could end the act after the commit or after they leave their planets.

In Star Wars, Luke commits after his aunt and uncle are killed, but he doesn't leave the planet until after they get to Mos Eisley, hire Solo, and blast their way off the planet. According to a couple of online sites about story structure, act 1 of Star Wars 4 ends when Luke tells Ben he wants to go with him to Alderaan and become a Jedi.

So, Apollo's & Joseph's commits are the end of act 1. The commits are far powerful moments anyway than each of their last chapters on their planets.

Thanks for your help.
Dirk

It means pinning a thread to the top of the forum, so it's always there, regardless of how many other threads are created or updated in the same forum. Have a look at topics in the Premium forum. A whole bunch of them are pinned there.