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Cool addition for the fight - the Eucharist that's always on display in the basilica (as part of the ongoing charade of Connor being Christ) isn't destroyed during the fight, even though everything around it is. Instead, it begins to glow brightly within the monstrance used to display it, moments after De Rosa defeats Connor. The two of them approach to within perhaps ten meters of it, and De Rosa goes to knock it off the altar but is unable to get near it due to excruciating pain, so he storms off. Curious, Connor tries to approach it and is able to do so. He can even pick up the monstrance. Sometime later, someone notices the sacrament is missing, the implication being that Connor took it.

The beauty of fiction! John Paul II's tomb is up on the main floor, as is the Pieta, and the Chair of St. Peter. And who can forget the Baldaccino, which Connor knocked over in book one? I may also crack the church's huge dome. Should be fun!

Found a nice solution to Satan having so much power he almost brings the first church crashing down (when he appears to the first cardinal as the dark figure): De Rosa's zombie body will be home to multiple powerful demons, not just Satan, and they can combine their strength when needed.

It's an interesting concept, but the target for book one is the Catholic Church, the members of which are my target audience for book one. The Unholy Trinity won't go after other denominations until book two onward. Also, the dual timelines explain the discrepancies between an inerrant Bible and the story's timeline. Also, if someone comes along doing miracles and spouts explanations that appear to contradict the Bible, then that individual is an obvious antichrist, predicted by Christ in the New Testament, which shouldn't be believed. I don't think the Catholic Church would ever approve his words if they contradict the Bible without extraordinary proof such as provided by events in Rome, the Vatican, and the Holy Land related to the conspiracy surrounding Connor.

Also, I can't think of a realistic explanation in the new timeline that would allow prophets to interpret Revelation such that Christ will return as a boy, at the center of the conspiracy that will kill either Christ or Satan.

Hi Sol. The group Mysteries & Thrillers still needs to be deleted. Thanks

I've been thinking through the idea of alternate timelines some more to explain why the story's timeline doesn't match the Bible, which is of course from our real-world timeline. I think I need to find a better way to get our Bible into the story's timeline than to simply state that it "somehow" happened, perhaps because there is only one, inerrant God-inspired Bible across all timelines/realities, even though no other timeline except ours matches that Bible. It would be an interesting thing to discuss and try to explain that in the book, but I have no need or space for it.

The new, story timeline arose because of the wager (i.e., the story's timeline, where there is a Connor/wager, split off from the original timeline, where there was neither). A key question is, why does the new timeline not have its own version of the Bible, written prior to the wager being made? There ought to be biblical prophecies in the new timeline about Connor that pre-date the moment the wager was agreed to, which took us from the old, real timeline to the new, story timeline. Instead, the new timeline somehow simply ends up with the old timeline's Bible.

The best idea I can think of is to state that, before the wager, there was only one timeline, and once the wager was agreed to, the new timeline branched off from our old one, and both timelines (old and new) share identical history prior to the timelines splitting. As a result, the Bible, which was written for the original timeline (prior to the wager) is identical to the Bible in the new timeline since both timelines used to be one. I think that's a relatively straightforward explanation to wrap one's head around.

This issue only comes up because I want to leave the Bible inerrant while still explaining why the story timeline differs from it. Prior to the wager, the story timeline didn't even exist, so the prophecies could not have included information from it. Granted, God could have provided that information to the Bible's authors, but God had his reasons for allowing the prophecies to be written down in a way that only matched the old timeline, in which the Bible was written. It was left to Satan to take that into consideration, which he overlooked.

Instead, Satan read Revelation after it was first written and issued his challenge based on it, which split the new timeline off from the old one, with a Bible originally intended for the latter. The old timeline still exists, so there are today two timelines, and the prophecies are for the old one only. Now, is it fair for God not to tell Satan what will happen to him if he issues the challenge? I would say yes since, initially, the old timeline was all there was. Satan had yet to issue the challenge, creating the new timeline. He has free will, so he could have gone a third route that spared him from the Lake of Fire, but he saw the wager and the resulting new timeline as a way to defeat God and gain control over the Earth for all time.

As readers of Connor's story, we used to live in the old timeline, but we became part of the new timeline when it split from the former. There is now a Connor in our universe, and events will occur because of him that do not match our Bible, which is identical across both timelines.

Make sense?

I was trying to figure out how to explain away any inconsistencies between Bible verses that discuss Christ's return and the idea that Christ will return as a boy. Since that could be a very long discussion, I'll nip it in bud by relying on the fact that our modern Bible is actually from the old timeline. Because of the wager, our new timeline no longer has to match the Bible, although I still want to minimize the number of unexplained discrepancies. If you read the previous post, you'll remember that, although the Bible doesn't match our timeline, the Bible itself is inerrant for its timelime. That is the part the cardinals will discuss when they meet with Connor, which is a much shorter conversation. As noted in one of my previous posts, an earlier chapter will provide all the setup for that topic.

EDIT: The same solution will allow me to use a more comprehensive battle between Connor and De Rosa. They'll both begin with human armies, then the demons attack on De Rosa's behalf, and all seems lost. That's when St. Michael leads a charge of angels against the demons. Modern weapons won't work around Megiddo because it's the site of Christ's imminent return, so only tech that existed during Christ's time will work (kinda lame, but I can't have tanks and other modern hardware, not even grenade launchers or guns, since all that's too violent). And like the timeline changes, I'm going to rely on the 8th century manuscript to explain why my story even has a real battle, which otherwise wouldn't be Catholic. Although, technically, my battle is between Satan's forces and those of the Antichrist. As a result, this is not the battle in Revelation, which won't happen.

I forgot to answer this. De Rosa was a weak character in the first draft. He and Campagna were completely interchangeable with respect to the hunt for the AC. Only her alcoholism and hunt for her son distinguished her from De Rosa. In the next draft, where I replace the NOCS (Italian SWAT) team with a two-hundred-year-old demon-hunting team, De Rosa will be the devil-may-care (pun intended) modern-day leader of the team. She'll be promoted to chief inspector (from senior inspector) and become his boss, causing (I hope) plenty of friction between them. As a result, they can't be on friendly terms prior to the investigation beginning, unlike now, where's he's the Vatican's liaison officer and she's worked with him many times.

Why would Connor turn nastily away from De Rosa? De Rosa is his godfather and, by all appearances, they're very close, although Connor gets pissed off at the end once De Rosa admits that the wager with God is the real reason Connor exists.

I also have to be careful not to give any hints about either Connor or De Rosa. Two of my story's four Christian readers to date guessed that Connor is/may be the Antichrist. There's a huge hurdle to jump when it comes to Christian readers since most serious Christians are highly sceptical right from the get go that Connor could be Christ returned as a boy because, to them, it can't happen. As a result, they may never even read the book.

The above was a quote from Wikipedia. I didn't write it. I know he's referred to as the accuser, although I don't know if he still has that role in the NT. I wasn't there. :-)

From Wikipedia (article about Michael):

LAST UPDATED 2/20 at 6:45 PM.

From what I've read, I believe Michael is more powerful, although it's always possible that Michael never faced him one-on-one. There's a mosaic at St. Peter's Basilica of a victorious Michael standing with a raised sword and his foot on the head of Satan. But that's imagery and not necessarily based on anything biblical.

Assume the chain is made by God since it has supernatural powers (otherwise, how would you chain a spiritual being?). But then, so what? The wager involves Connor choosing whom to kill using the dagger from book one. Does it matter if Lucifer is stronger than Michael or not? Strength isn't gonna decide that contest. Love might, though. De Rosa has been whispering "I love you, son" and "The world is against us" to Connor since he was an infant. Since he took Connor away from his family (his mother and her relatives), Connor had no other bonds. God only required that Connor be raised a Catholic. It was De Rosa who chose an orphanage, trying to further minimize any chance of a strong bond between Connor and others, although he develops somewhat of a bond with Romano. So, the question is, can the people who really love Connor develop a strong enough bond with him to overcome De Rosa's inertia.

Connor's Soul

Without revealing the 3rd party, I'll say that for the wager to go ahead, Satan needed an ovum and a uterus, supernaturally enhanced sperm, and a human soul. The reason it has to be a human soul is that Connor is genetically almost completely human (with DNA from his mother, DNA from the zombie known as De Rosa, and some adjustments made by Satan to the DNA in the zombie sperm to give Connor his supernatural powers). Naturally, only God can provide the soul. But why would he? Because Revelation prophecy says Christ doesn't return until after the AC appears.

Here's the catch (I think I mentioned this before): Satan asked for "a human soul." And that's exactly what he got. But Satan didn't think to insist on a "new" soul. So Connor is what we might call an "old soul". :-)  But, as with Christ, who didn't know the full details of who he was and why he was on Earth until he was baptized as an adult, the soul within Connor hasn't yet fully reawakened to realize who it is, why it came, and what it's supposed to do. That soul awakens slowly over the years. In the meantime, it is heavily influenced by events in Connor's life, including the lies Connor's father told him, including Satan's manipulations to make Connor love him unconditionally. Just to be clear, that soul is Connor since Connor has no existence or will of his own without a soul. But that soul, though not fully awake and heavily influenced by current events, has instincts from it's past life, among them instincts about right and wrong, which play a role in the failed attempt to kill the pope.

So, the third party you mention, although it is Connor, isn't yet fully aware of its past. As Connor grows, his soul grows with him and changes based on Connor's experiences, since they're inextricably linked. Connor will eventually learn who he is, probably in a series of reveals, at which point he develops full awareness of true right and wrong, although there are no easy decisions (e.g., he still loves his father). But ... the soul within Connor doesn't want to burn in the Lake of Fire either (can you blame it?). So, one would think, it would be driven toward destroying Christ. That soul is, however, so traumatized by an evil it unwittingly unleashed on Earth long ago, that it planned an extraordinary rescue mission, which can only happen just before the end of Revelation. But the soul learns from God in book 2, that, for the rescue to succeed, it will need to sacrifice itself in the Lake of Fire, which it didn't expect and terrifies it. Damned if it does, damned if it doesn't. The only obvious way it can save itself is to remain allied with Satan, kill Christ, and abandon those it came to Earth to rescue.

It's at that point, when all of Connor's life experiences and relationships become critical. They will ultimately determine whether his soul has the courage to proceed with the rescue mission and sacrifice itself to an eternity of agony.

As noted, Connor is inseparable from his soul in all of this, although it becomes necessary to distinguish the two at times when writing about them. Fundamentally, there's just one soul and one body, with old experiences (from the soul's former life), which return to its awareness slowly, and new experiences (from Connor's life), which change the soul until it becomes as much Connor as not.

Inerrancy of the Bible

This is going to be complex, made more so by the need to not invalidate the Bible, which is inerrant. To understand what follows, you have to think of all of us as living in the same timeline as Connor and the wager. In other words, make believe we are on his timeline (this is fiction after all, which is supposed to take us to a universe that doesn't actually exist, so pretend it does, and we're in it). I refer to Connor's timeline as the new timeline, which began when Satan read the original prophecies, didn't like the ending, and issued his challenge to God. Our real-world timeline, where there is no Connor or wager, I refer to as the old timeline, a path we left when everything shifted to the new timeline.

Somehow (still trying to figure this out), when we shifted to the new timeline, we were left with a Bible intended for the old timeline, perhaps because a holy document originally written for one timeline won't change just because we shifted timelines. Perhaps there is only one Bible across all realities, and it cannot change, including St. John's original prophecies. So, we're on the new timeline, but our Bible was written for the old timeline. Things will happen that don't match the Bible, but the Bible remains inerrant (for its timeline).

Still with me?

Now, someone in our timeline (a saint?) in the past experienced visions (from the Holy Spirit) that our timeline doesn't match the Bible, so he wrote a new interpretation of Revelation that did match our timeline, including mention of Connor as the Antichrist and the wager. Satan got his hands on it, and made a few critical changes, one of which being that Christ will return as a boy named Connor. Satan then put it in a monastery in the 8th century, where he would later ensure that it was found. However, it wasn't taken seriously by the Church. But because the author is a saint, it also wasn't declared to be heresy. It was placed in the Vatican archives, and Cardinal Song (the False Prophet) declares it to be valid after he supposedly sees Connor (aka Jesus) in the council meeting in chapter 15. Then, as the story continues to unfold, the Council of Cardinals discovers that things are unfolding as prophesied in the ancient manuscript. Those events were inserted into the manuscript by Satan, who subsequently makes sure that the events he wrote about actually happen (e.g., Connor (Jesus) gets stabbed at the Vatican and dies, only to come back to life).

If you're able to follow that, then there is hope that I can write about it and make it work for the story.

I have to be careful not to make the first two chapters even longer. I currently have each of St. James's ships hit twice. The first time it does a lot of damage to the three ships, but not enough to fully cripple them. The second time, it hits like a bomb under the bridge of the Almighty (it shears off a big chunk of the main part of the vessel). Including the sister ships, that makes for a total of six strikes, most of them different in the specific damage they cause, so there is pretty good variety as far as trying to describe/keep the battle interesting. A 20% reduction could work, although it wouldn't really change much about the battle, but it might seem more realistic. For example, perhaps the Hercules ups the amount of energy it produces for the beams as part of the second strikes in order to really damage the Colonial ships. Doing so also damages (overloads?) the neutrino reactor onboard the Hercules, although not enough to fully cripple it (she loses all ability to fire weapons and engage her stardrive, but she can still maneuver at sublight).

I've been skimming a few articles on energy frequencies, since shields are really just energy. I could perhaps explain the superweapon by stating that it requires a huge amount of energy to produce beams powerful enough at "extreme frequencies" to do real damage, frequencies outside the range of what ordinary shields are designed to protect against since they were never intended to repel beams at those frequencies since nova/supernova weapons can't produce them. It requires too much energy to do so, which the Hercules is only barely able to produce six times before its neutrino reactor is damaged.

Some technobabble cacas like that. The alternative to frequency babble might be to use "phase" babble, the physics of which would remain conveniently undefined.