PmWiki | Tripocalypse / PrologueTLRDR

Turns out that the fundies were correct.

After the Rapture which takes away millions of believers and hundreds of millions of small children around the world, Romanian politician named Nicholae Carpatescu rises to become secretary-general of the United Nations, promising to restore peace and stability to all nations. What most of the world does not realize is that Carpatescu is actually the Antichrist foretold from the Bible.

Coming to grips with the truth and becoming born-again Christians, Raymond Irons, his daughter Chloe, their pastor Bruce Noble, and young journalist Buck "Cameron" Williams begin their quest as the Tribulation Force to help save the lost and prepare for the coming Tribulation, in which God will pour down judgment on the world for seven years.

The protagonists and antagonists largely play their part as foretold by the divine plan, managing to one-up each other in sheer insufferableness while remaining remarkably civil to one another. For a play-by-play, see here.

Most of the prophecies have come true; God has poured His wrath on Earth, and for those that remain, it is the day of the Lord's coming. Cameron Williams and Raymond Irons are mortally wounded. Nicholae Carpatescu is taking heat over the destruction of New Babylon as people who are dependent upon its financial resources are committing suicide over the loss of their fortunes, and Lucifer briefly departs from Nicholae to remind him that he is nothing more than a shell for him to dwell in.

CATS (Custodial Arrangement of Thermodynamic Systems) members commiserate about their plans to thwart the apocalypse having failed one by one, due to either Nicholae's unwillingness to listen to sound advice, or God just making people invulnerable.

Meanwhile in Petra, Abd Al-Azrad finds Raymond mortally wounded but still alive. The moon suddenly disappears from the night sky, and then lightning flashes and meteors come falling down upon the Global Community forces, squashing a minority of them but not stopping them from advancing. During the ensuing darkness that lasts a few hours they see "the sign of the Son of Man", a cross made of electrical energy, appear in the sky. The instant that it appears, Raymond is miraculously and completely healed of all his injuries, and Ella and Hannah Palemoon see that all their patients in the infirmary are also miraculously healed.

At this point, Nicholae Carpatescu joins with Leone Fortunati to lead the Global Community troops around Petra to storm the city and overtake the believers. As they begin to advance upon the city, the cross disappears from the sky and suddenly immobilizes the troops, causing them to be stuck with their vehicles and weapons and lights inoperable. But seconds after that, a bright thick blinding shadowless light covers the land, and everyone sees that coming out of heaven is Jesus Christ with His army of saints following behind Him. He speaks, "I AM the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End, the Almighty", and as He speaks, the Global Community troops around Petra all die. Nicholae and Leone flee to Bozrah, hoping that the troops stationed there will prevail against Jesus and His army, but the same thing happens there: Jesus speaks, and all the troops and GC resources are destroyed, their corpses becoming food for the birds of the air.

CATS decide to try their last contingency plan to stop Jesus, since His powers seem to be Word-based, and route four trucks carrying plasma speakers to where they think Jesus will stop once the curb-stomp battles are over.

The majority of the remaining Unity Army forces are killed at the Valley of Megiddo amidst the words of Jesus and the hailstones that fall at the seventh Bowl Judgment. Nicholae and Leone are traveling to Jerusalem in the Royal Humvee; God turns the marshes of blood to ice, which soon melts and becomes a thick mire. As Nicholae and Leone try to flee to Jerusalem, all the people in Petra are given supernatural power to travel from there to Jerusalem by running at 70 miles per hour. When they finally reach Jerusalem, Nicholae attempts to storm the Jewish rebels hiding at the Temple Mount with an army on horseback, but the troops are afflicted with a flesh-dissolving plague that affects both humans and horses. Nicholae tries to curse God, but the moment he tries, a global earthquake occurs that levels all the mountains and elevates Jerusalem.

CATS lose one of their trucks, but keep moving as fast as the terrain will allow, using an abandoned bridgelayer tank to open the way. Operators figure out where Jesus is going to call the believers to Himself, and set up an ambush

Nicholae and Leone then gallop off to the Mount of Olives in a final attempt to destroy Jesus and the army of saints, along with the Jewish rebels, but the instant Jesus steps foot on the mountain, it splits into a valley running from east to west, causing the last feeble vestiges of the Global Community forces to fall as the rebels rejoice at Jesus' return; the Global Community is finally no more. Nicholae and Leone are briefly seen fleeing on horseback, but to no avail, as the Archangel Michael captures them.

CATS' ambush plan is temporarily derailed by one of the operatives going berserk and needing to be talked down from just rushing in, and the fact that carrying weapons will likely cause the operatives to be disintegrated; last minute changes are necessary.

After Jesus enters Jerusalem, He calls all believers unto Himself. Nicholae and Leone are brought before Jesus for judgment, and are sentenced to the Lake of Fire. Nicholae refuses to bow before Jesus, but ends up doing so when Satan is cast out of him. CATS operatives in lightning-proof armor take advantage of the believers' bystander effect and their surety that the battle is won by showing up pretending to be the Three Kings, and the vehicles are parked behind Jesus' Throne. At Jesus' command, Michael throws Nicholae and Leone into a hole in the ground that leads to the Lake of Fire, where they are banished for eternity. Jesus also deals with Satan, having Michael the archangel bound him up in a chain and then taken into the bottomless pit.

CATS strike: the Archangel Michael is hit over the head with the bridgelayer tank's bridge as he emerges from the pit, and falls back in. The plasma speakers are activated, and Jesus is prevented from pronouncing further judgements by heterodyning the air so that only the speakers' music can be heard. CATS operatives quicky bog down the Archangel Raphael and the rest of the angelic honor guard in melee thanks to their modern armor, and manage to trip Jesus' white steed so that it throws off its Rider. Before He can recover or start figuring out why His Word cannot be heard, Jesus is quickly confined inside an airless barrel deployed from one of the vehicles.

A second global earthquake ensues, undoing some of the unnatural flattening as the survivors instinctively try to put their homes back how they were, and a world no longer bound by Divine law answers. CATS begin building a containment area -- the game could not be won, could not be broken even, and could not be quit, so they slammed the pause button as hard as they could.

When this gathering had ended, Raymond and the rest of the Tribulation Force wonders what to do next...