I’ve been thinking about something that keeps popping up, in both literature and reality.

Basically, people portray the enemy as a diminished caricature, thinking this is already half the way to victory. Portray the enemy as a caricature and that will make him weak, and you strong. Then, as you lose, your entire world falls apart.

The counter-argument is always: “but if we say good things about the enemy, that will be just spewing their own propaganda”, as if stating facts about the enemy is somehow a hostile propagandistic act. Don’t let facts and evidence stand in the way of good propaganda, right?

People weren’t always this stupid, naive and indoctrinated. I watched WW2 films made by the US military, describing German air defence. It was excellent, and I don’t think anything of the sort could be made today without the author being accused of working for Hitler. The film starts by describing the mathematical and technical methods used by the Germans; basically, they will observe your aircraft, notify the air defence battery, make the calculations of your speed and direction, speed and direction of their FLAK ammunition, and calculate for the intersection with some statistical spread. Essentially, if you allow them to do this, you die. You will absolutely die because yes, those FLAK cannons can absolutely hit your aircraft all the way up there, they don’t make mistakes and they don’t miss. The only way for you to survive is to listen to these instructions and apply them diligently. You will pass their observation posts here. Then, change your direction according to the instruction sheet you received. Absolutely follow this to the letter, because our mathematicians did the calculations to thwart their mathematicians, and both know their stuff. Then fly for as long in that direction as that sheet says, and then at the exact moment it says change the direction again. What is that for? Well, you need to allow the German observers to notify the FLAK guys about your direction, speed and altitude. Then, you need to make sure that those numbers are incorrect by the time the guns fire, and when those shells explode up there, you will be elsewhere. If you’re not elsewhere, you will be dead because the Germans are excellent mathematicians and marksmen and they don’t miss. Have a nice day now.

Imagine this today – NATO stating something factually correct about Russia and China. That will never happen. You always have stupid stereotypes, people get promoted for making fraudulent, diminished reports about the enemies’ capabilities, and so on. Then, when their strategy fails, they make a surprised Pikachu face – how is it possible that the Russia didn’t go bankrupt, that they are economically thriving, that they are making all those superweapons? They must be getting the drones from Iran because they can’t possibly make it themselves? After all, they are a gas station masquerading as a country. The fact that they are routinely flying people to space longer than America, let’s ignore that. Also, how is it possible that Iran just closed the strait of Hormuz? Yeah, it was the obvious and expected move, but the people in the CIA who reported obvious and expected moves by the enemy got fired long ago, and the still employed people know how it’s done properly. Tell the politicians what they want to hear.

I always remember that key sentence from “Salvos”, Sicar’s response to Manos’ question as to how this whole mess is possible: “We must have underestimated the power of the Enemy and the Traitor. That is why Venas is dead, Hartia is defeated, and over half the legions have been freed.”

Yes, that happens when you underestimate the enemy. The enemy doesn’t become weak and stupid because you made statements to that effect. The Germans don’t start missing your airplanes because your propagandists state that their marksmen are all slaves from concentration camps who can’t aim. The Russians don’t run out of ammunition because you dreamt about it.

But let’s use the “Salvos” examples rather than the real world, lest people be too upset by the offence committed against their beloved propaganda. For instance, Salvos very early on notified the Adventurers’ Guild about Belzu – what level he is, that he uses curses and illusions, that he uses Mindreapers to amplify his magic and control hordes of monsters and the undead, and so on. It would be obvious to any rational actor that they are dealing with a very dangerous, rational strategist. Instead, everybody kept talking about a “rampaging Demon”, as if he’s another Lucerna who goes around and kills everything because he’s insane. They didn’t investigate his capabilities properly. Instead, they kept sending people to fight him, and everybody ended up dead. They kept calling him “the Primeval Demon”, as if his name and capabilities don’t matter, just his level. The problem was, his level was the least of their problems. It was his capabilities that got people killed. You approached him, and you found yourself in an illusion so convincing, you thought it was reality. It was like fighting Lord Mara from Zelazni’s “Lord of Light”. You are inside a dream, you fight fictions, don’t see actual attacks, don’t see the enemy where he is, see him where he isn’t, he fakes being injured or killed to deceive you, and then you are dead. Or, he curses you with something so strong it completely incapacitates you and you don’t know where it came from or how to fight it. People who had no business fighting Belzu got killed because they didn’t wear amulets of Greater Curse Resistance, or Aura of Greater Protection, or they fought him when he wielded the Sword of Alexander and they didn’t have a Divine weapon or shield. Or they didn’t have spatial senses or premonition to counter his illusions. Basically, they went with strength against deception and were easily defeated.

It’s not that the people who knew how it is to fight Belzu didn’t talk. It’s that the others didn’t want to listen. They didn’t ask. Edithe fought him, and nobody asked her for tactical advice; instead, they underestimated her for her levels, because a lvl. 170 must know better than a lvl. 100 even though that lvl. 100 is the only person with a Skill that’s a total antidote do Belzu’s illusions. Like, what could she possibly know that would be useful to us. Also, what would Salvos possibly know that’s useful – she just faced him multiple times in battle and lived, when higher-levelled people died. “We know everything there is to know about Demons”. Yeah, right. Also, it was constantly repeated that Belzu killed Mori Gladius – that was completely untrue. Mori Gladius and Salvos defeated Belzu in battle. He was forced to use up his best curses to fight Salvos clones, and he used up his Grand Skill to fight Mori Gladius. Mori defeated it with his own Grand Skill and was about to kill Belzu, when Levithus intervened and stabbed him behind his back. Mori and Salvos actually won, and the battle was lost when it became a completely different battle, against the general of Regnorex’s forces in the Mortal Realm. They keep misinterpreting the evidence and fighting against imaginary foes with imaginary properties, instead of just facing the facts and dealing with them properly.

Let’s return to this world. The Christians have all those ideas about fighting Satan, not being deceived by him, and so on. They read the Bible, see how he offered Christ things as temptation, and Christ refused. They see this as encouragement – they would do the same, or at least Christ would do it for them, as they live by his name. Oh, really? They would never kneel before Satan, accepting him as their God? All the while, they pray to the One God Creator of this world, who has all the power here, thinking that they are praising the Lord and giving proper credit where it is due. Somehow they manage not to see the part of the scripture where Jesus doesn’t contradict Satan when he offers him all the kingdoms of the Earth. Did Christ say “they are not yours to give, because that is the dominion of the Lord”? No, he didn’t. Instead, he called Satan the Prince of this world. So, when the Christians are praying to the Lord of this world, who are they actually praying to? In their desire not to give Satan power, they are completely misreading the battlefield.

Wishful thinking and diminishing the enemy doesn’t result in victory in a war, and it does nothing to diminish the enemy. If you want to diminish the enemy, you need to recognize where his assets are, and attack them. You need to be able to read the facts and reality correctly, and act accordingly. If the Enemy is too powerful or too well protected for Jesus and the angels of the Lord to attack him directly, then shut the fuck up about fighting him and try not to be here in the first place. If Satan is protected by the Word of God, who gave him power until his given time runs out, this means that during that given time no external force can touch him. Only his own sin can harm him. What you can do is not be a target, not be on the battlefield, not delude yourself with silly ideas about winning with power and virtue. Oh, you’ll say, but if we admit that Satan is that powerful, would that not make us afraid, and thus in his power? Of course it would make you afraid. You need to be. You could use a good dose of fear. People who are afraid of Satan and sin are less likely to foolishly do things that will make them his slaves. They will tremble in realization of their circumstances and pray to God for salvation, which happens to be the best course of action available to them. Who even told you that fear is bad? It’s the lack of fear in this place that makes you but a hapless victim. You have no basis for courage or self-confidence. Fear is your shield and prayer is your weapon. Stop acting as if you’re on a vacation in some amusement park. You’re in hell, in the dominion of Satan, and the only way out of his total control is through humble and sincere prayer to the Lord.