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Left Alone ramblings
Jul. 19th, 2008 10:46 amPondering what to do in the Left Behind Fanfic of Doom.
I've got a rationale for the antichrist's behaviors (why he'd do stuff like claim "There's not going to be an earthquake and don't listen to those crazy religious nuts saying otherwise" on live TV the day before the massive earthquake he knows is coming, etc.) Now I'm waffling on keeping it at the batshit insane level of the books, or have the slight tweaks needed for it to be almost plausible.
Here's an example. One of the first things the antichrist does is demand disarming, because he's a pacifist. Everyone has to destroy 90% of the weapons and give the remaining 10% to the UN, which as we all know is the personal army of the secretary-general. Now, what's his rationale for the 10%? Including 10% of the world's nukes?
It's so the UN can be a true "peacekeeper" and come down like a sack of nuclear bricks on any country that doesn't obey its rulings, since that's what pacifism is all about. It's like asking the NRA to give up their guns so you can point guns at them and tell them what to do.
The sane way to do this is have friendly pacifist Nicky say that the 10% is insurance against any country not disarming completely. He's not putting their nukes into a massive armory and intending to use them against disobedient countries, he's keeping them as deterrents against any country that decided to keep a missile. After a decade, if there's no sign of this, he'll start the process of dismantling the UN's stockpile too. Okay, he's lying, but isn't that exactly what he's supposed to do?
But, my antichrist reasoning requires him to be over the top right to the edge of parody on purpose, so having his press conferences produce a "Wait, what the fuck?" response would be pretty much exactly what they should be like. But my characters aren't all operating on RTC crazy values of what pacifism and disarmament mean (those guys having been raptured already), so it's hard to say exactly how far it goes. Plus he's supposed to get more over the top as time goes on, and that doesn't work well when you start at unbelievable.
Sample from the first book, of Nicky's intended reforms as UNsecretary-general president god-king of the world:
"...The establishment of one religion for the world, probably headquartered in Italy."
"He's not going to get far with the Jews on that one."
"They're an exception. He's going to help them rebuild their temple during the years of the peace treaty. He believes they deserve special treatment."
"And they do," Bailey said. "The man is brilliant..."
Because the Muslims, they are such peaceful and easygoing people. Surely there will be no problems with them.
It's really hard to top this, and there are dozens of scenes like it in the first book, all of which happening in the first week. Later, Nicky-the-friendly-peacemaker drops nukes on America and gloats, but he doesn't do it on national television. And even then that's not so much "top" as "approach" because seriously, one world religion. But if I tone it down, where do I stop? And Nicky is supposed to be mindwammying all the non-Christians to believe anything he says (although all the Christians seem to think this is perfectly reasonable except that it happens to match the antichrist checklist, because there's nothing inherently odd about a one world religion in Rome while rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem. But then the main characters are just dumb in general so perhaps that shouldn't count)
Thoughts?
I've got a rationale for the antichrist's behaviors (why he'd do stuff like claim "There's not going to be an earthquake and don't listen to those crazy religious nuts saying otherwise" on live TV the day before the massive earthquake he knows is coming, etc.) Now I'm waffling on keeping it at the batshit insane level of the books, or have the slight tweaks needed for it to be almost plausible.
Here's an example. One of the first things the antichrist does is demand disarming, because he's a pacifist. Everyone has to destroy 90% of the weapons and give the remaining 10% to the UN, which as we all know is the personal army of the secretary-general. Now, what's his rationale for the 10%? Including 10% of the world's nukes?
It's so the UN can be a true "peacekeeper" and come down like a sack of nuclear bricks on any country that doesn't obey its rulings, since that's what pacifism is all about. It's like asking the NRA to give up their guns so you can point guns at them and tell them what to do.
The sane way to do this is have friendly pacifist Nicky say that the 10% is insurance against any country not disarming completely. He's not putting their nukes into a massive armory and intending to use them against disobedient countries, he's keeping them as deterrents against any country that decided to keep a missile. After a decade, if there's no sign of this, he'll start the process of dismantling the UN's stockpile too. Okay, he's lying, but isn't that exactly what he's supposed to do?
But, my antichrist reasoning requires him to be over the top right to the edge of parody on purpose, so having his press conferences produce a "Wait, what the fuck?" response would be pretty much exactly what they should be like. But my characters aren't all operating on RTC crazy values of what pacifism and disarmament mean (those guys having been raptured already), so it's hard to say exactly how far it goes. Plus he's supposed to get more over the top as time goes on, and that doesn't work well when you start at unbelievable.
Sample from the first book, of Nicky's intended reforms as UN
"...The establishment of one religion for the world, probably headquartered in Italy."
"He's not going to get far with the Jews on that one."
"They're an exception. He's going to help them rebuild their temple during the years of the peace treaty. He believes they deserve special treatment."
"And they do," Bailey said. "The man is brilliant..."
Because the Muslims, they are such peaceful and easygoing people. Surely there will be no problems with them.
It's really hard to top this, and there are dozens of scenes like it in the first book, all of which happening in the first week. Later, Nicky-the-friendly-peacemaker drops nukes on America and gloats, but he doesn't do it on national television. And even then that's not so much "top" as "approach" because seriously, one world religion. But if I tone it down, where do I stop? And Nicky is supposed to be mindwammying all the non-Christians to believe anything he says (although all the Christians seem to think this is perfectly reasonable except that it happens to match the antichrist checklist, because there's nothing inherently odd about a one world religion in Rome while rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem. But then the main characters are just dumb in general so perhaps that shouldn't count)
Thoughts?
