Bill Martinson wrote:
Phil Fleischmann wrote:
And BTW, "Armageddon" isn't quite the right name for this. It's more like "Post-Armageddon". How about "Denouement"? Or "Aftermath"?
People tend to think of Armageddon as the name of an event, but it is more properly a place name (Har Megiddo, הר מגידו). The biblical reference is in Revelation 16:16, "And they gathered them together to the place called in Hebrew, Armageddon" (emphasis mine). In common parlance, the place name has come to be used as a shortcut for the Battle of Armageddon event, much like the place names Korea and Vietnam are sometimes used as shortcuts for the wars in those countries, the name Frankenstein has become a sloppy shortcut for "Dr. Frankenstein's monster," etc.
Anyway, in spite of our cultural dumbing-down trend, I think it still works as a literary parallel, and is a much more evocative word than the more general descriptions. The system was called Armageddon long before there was ever a massive space battle there, and it is still called that ages later — it's just that the word has since taken on more levels of meaning.
Yes, I'm aware of all that. It's the "mountain of Megido". Which is a place on Earth. In addition to the popular understanding of "Armageddon" as a climactic battle, it's an Earth-specific cultural reference. Not a big deal, just a consideration.