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How about if the verse says "He'll come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven," and he returns as a boy (like my first draft)? He's still flesh, blood, and bone, which is what he was when he left. He's still God. He's just not yet an adult, which I believe is a requirement to satisfy some of the verses about his return, so the Second Coming might not begin until he grows up, floats up into the sky, and returns on a fluffy cloud with a host of angels.

Or, what if the author of your verse was writing a prophecy during the Middle Ages and was trying to keep from being burned at the stake for heresy for suggesting that he will return but not in this dimension? It would still be factual to write he will return. And since God never lies, the interpretation of that would be: God didn't lie. He spoke in riddles to confuse the "authorities." And if we get the interpretation wrong, that's our fault, not his. We're too limited to understand it all.

Notes r.e. the Last Challenge:

- There are actually two Last Challenges. The real one, which requires Connor to choose who to throw the dagger at, Christ or Satan. And the fake one, which supposedly involves the coming of the Emissary to purge the Church of corruption (in reality, to purge those who resist Connor), and create the Lambs of the Lord, which are youth priests and priestesses, who Connor would be able to manipulate more easily than adult priests.

- Why would Satan issue the Last Challenge? Because he's desperate to avoid burning for all eternity in the Lake of Fire. He has no choice. His plan is elaborate, including many contingencies in case things don't unfold as he expects. That includes insisting that if Christ wins the challenge, then both Satan AND Connor should be cast into the lake. Satan intends to make it almost impossible for Connor to throw the dagger at Satan.

- Why didn't John of Patmos mention the Last Challenge in Revelation since Satan does issue it? Because Satan only did so because he read Revelation (circa 100 CE) and saw he would burn forever. Had John written about it, including the likely ending (God wins), Satan would have had to come up with something else.

- Why would Satan believe he has a chance at winning the Last Challenge given that God is omniscient and accepted the challenge? Given that part of the stakes is that God, if he loses, has to return to the spirit realm and no one gets saved, Satan should reasonably expect to lose.

- Why would God agree to the Last Challenge? Because he wants Connor to come into existence and eventually become the Lesser King to rule and redeem the damned.

- God tells Satan there is a way for him to win the Last Challenge, although Satan will never realize that the answer is for him to demonstrate his (non-existent) love for Connor.
- God also tells Satan that if he issues the Last Challenge, regardless of whether he loses, Satan will not burn, which is true since his demise will have him on an asteroid spiraling into our central black hole. Instead, God tells him when Satan issued the challenge that he will in fact be given a kingdom of his own, whose size will be smaller than the smallest grain of sand in the universe. This is true since God is referring to the black hole. Satan interprets this potential outcome as figurative language for Satan being humiliated when God grants him a mere spec as a kingdom.
- And God tells him that He wants Connor (Satan's future son) to be the one to decide at whom to throw the supernatural dagger. Naturally, Satan jumps at this.

- The ending of Revelation (Satan et al are cast into the Lake of Fire) is merely a warning, not a certain outcome. In other words, change your ways, or this is what will happen to you. That's the other reason John didn't write about the challenge: Revelation is just a warning of what could happen, in this case of what could happen with no Last Challenge.

To be continued...

Remember Connor's background: He considers himself the son of Satan, which to a certain extent, he is; he was kidnapped by Satan and raised since infancy by him and his minions, indoctrinated into Satan's lies; and he's genetically bred with an overwhelming need to follow Satan, which he doesn't realize until the middle of book 2. All of that makes it plausible that he might throw the dagger at Christ.

The dagger was originally in Satan's possession. It was forged by God for Connor to wield, includes the word Antichristus engraved in the handle (i.e., it's clearly labelled for Connor), and it is delivered to Connor when he is stabbed with it at the Vatican.

If you believe that humans are the only sentient species in the universe made in God's image, then leaving Satan to rule it all is no big deal since everything is racing away from us anyway. God would be leaving Satan to rule the galaxy/universe, with no tech to get from star to star. The tech that Connor will eventually use to help him rule The Thousand Worlds won't exist if Satan wins. So really, he's just getting the Solar System.

God doesn't have to worry about the severity of the terms if Satan wins since Satan will never realize that he has to love Connor or at least pretend to in order to keep Connor from turning away from him.

God will leave Creation behind anyway, moving with those who are saved to Eden in a different dimension. Although the Earth will be renewed, it will be done for Connor to use as the heart of his kingdom and the seat of his throne.

Hi Tamsin. My apologies for not responding sooner. I'm still massaging things, but I think I simplified things enough for the chapter to work. Since Augustine's real-life views conflict with my story, I'll have Satan include in Augustine's cover letter to the pope that some of what Augustine saw in his supposed holy vision disagreed with his own well-known views, which gives me the flexibility to break a few rules. Of course, the reader learns at the end of book one that the holy vision documented by Augustine was actually written by Satan, so stuff doesn't have to happen as Satan suggested. That fixes most of it.

In book three, the reader learns that God the Father accepted Satan's challenge, including some harsh (totally heretical) consequences, because he knew Satan would be unable to truly corrupt Connor (indirectly, his son) into throwing the supernatural dagger, created by the Father, at Christ. Christ, naturally, could easily sidestep the dagger, but he agreed as part of the Last Challenge to stand still and accept whatever Connor decides to do. The only way Satan could win would be if he actually showed Connor that he loved him, which he doesn't. Even faking it doesn't occur him.

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I spent part of the evening farting around with Gemini, getting it to analyze my trilogy (themes, archetypes, biblical connections, etc.) and some back and forth on the series title. It didn't like "As Darkness Gathers" either. :-) It gave me a bunch of suggestions for alternate titles, all of which stunk. But the chat did lead me to "Savior of the Damned - An Apocalyptic Saga" which has a nice double meaning: In book one, Connor is the supposed Emissary of the Lord, come on behalf of God for one last attempt to turn people from evil and save them before the imminent Last Judgment. Of course, at the end of book 1, you learn he's really the Antichrist. Then at the end of book 3, he learns that he was always intended to rule the damned (those not saved) across The Thousand Worlds, punishment planets (part of the "virtual" Lake of Fire) of various levels of severity for different degrees of sin/evil (Hitler and Stalin will be neighbors, lol), and that Connor's real task, as the immortal Lesser King, is to lead them all to holiness. The more holy a population becomes, the more paradise-like their worlds will become as well. Naturally, there's much more to it.

EDIT: Just realized when I shortened the book one title to The Emissary that I forgot to check how often that title has been used (way too much). So, the book one title will have to go back to The Holy Emissary.

How about this? Don't forget to turn up your volume to hear the song with the video.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/kji93qHFmNBrub5EA

>>I’m pretty sure an AN/UYK-3 is the missing link between me and finally achieving some level of control around here.

Now that you mention it, some of those switches might be useful in trying to herd cats. Or trying to keep Gandalf from knocking over the Christmas tree or a scratching post at 2 AM.

Dirk

Assembler? Tsk, tsk. Kids these days.
Charlton Heston would have poked machine code directly into RAM!
On a Timex Sinclair 1000!!!
Before breakfast.

In a moment of insanity, I briefly considered getting a second cat, thinking they could keep each other company. But ... twice the cost, twice as much carnivore poop, twice the hair, twice as many zoomies, twice the critters trying to jump on a hot stove the second I turn my back, twice as many paws and tails always one centimeter behind me, twice the demands for attention, twice as much distraction from writing, twice the sound of galloping hoofs across my hardwood floors, twice as much destructive mischief, etc. And there's no telling if they'd even get along.

In other words, Marilyn, you're a saint!

But, Gandalf is also an insanely sweet little furball, affectionately referred to as demon-spawn several times a day. :-) My brother and his partner, Maria, who have two cats, came over to finally meet him, and she absolutely adored him.

He's also devilishly clever. When he hears me moving around in my bedroom in the morning, he comes in and meows up a storm until I feed him. Well, my contractors were already in the house one morning working, and he went down to them and meowed up a storm until one of them decided he must be starving and fed him breakfast (he knew I wouldn't mind him feeding the cat). Sometime later, when he heard me moving around, he came up and meowed up a storm until I fed him. :-)  That's not the only time he's manipulated me into doing what he wanted.

His IQ is definitely higher than mine, although, apparently, that doesn't take much. :-)

I stopped posting and reviewing many weeks ago due to being sick (chronically exhausted and then the flu), drained of time by my contractors (who wrap early next week, yay!), and drained of even more time by my cat, who insists on playing fetch with toy springs (hours a day if I allowed it) and won't go to bed unless I do. Hell hath no greater chaos than a cat being ignored or up too late. I'm also stuck on a major plot point and working through it requires serious focused time, which the little furball doesn't allow much of.

You have to have them hosted on another site, then point your forum post at the image on the other site. I use postimages.org (it's free), but there are others. Some of what follows is from memory, but close enough you'll be able to figure it out. Very easy to get set up with them (you'll need to create an account, as far as I know).

Upload your image(s) to your postimages.org account. Click on My Images on the upper right of that site. Hover over the uploaded image that you want to link to. One of the floating icons that appears over the image is for "sharing". Click on that icon, and you'll get a list of possible link addresses that you can copy into your forum post here. Use the link address for "Thumbnail for Forums". Click the copy icon to the right of that link address, and paste (ctrl-v) into your forum post, like so:

Voila! It'll take you a few minutes to set up the account on the other site, but once you've done it once, the whole process will seem trivial.

Click on Quote on the bottom right of this post to see the link address I copied here to bring up the thumbnail above. The entire line beginning with "[url=" came from postimages.org (the image itself is hosted on postimg.cc, which is what the url points to). Just copy and paste as I noted above.

Anyone who clicks on the icon will be taken to a full version of the image on postimg.cc. I'm sure some of the other link addresses might be useful too, but I haven't played with them.

Dirk

I swear, my cat seems more like a toddler all the time. He gets upset/vocal and starts biting (though mildly) when I stop playing fetch with him, despite 1.5 hours of me throwing colorful toy springs down the hall for him to chase. And he's a holy terror at bedtime, when I put his toys away to stop him from making noise while I (and my neighbors) are trying to sleep. It also causes him to stop running around on my hardwood floors, which sounds like a lightweight galloping horse running up and down the hall.

Of course, now that he's asleep, he's absolutely adorable, but then what sleeping toddler isn't? :-)

Speaks for itself.