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The Last Trump

 The Last Trump
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TVTItem
 The Last Trump
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The Last Trump
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TheLastTrump
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First published in Fantastic Universe (June 1955 issue) by Isaac Asimov, this Short Story is about Resurrection Day. It follows two characters; Etheriel and R. E. Man.Etheriel, a very low-ranking angel, is trying to find a flaw in Archangel Gabriel's presence, but cannot. Smiling, Gabriel blows his trumpet, and with that sound, everything in the universe aside from Earth is swept away, becoming the nothing it was before the Word was spoken. Earth itself is now suffused in a soft warm light.R. E. Man wakes up to see that the world has ended at exactly the appointed time. Therefore, he gets up and starts wandering around town to see how everyone is dealing with their afterlife. Several Slice of Life-style stories are told about the fate of humanity, interspersed with Etheriel's progress in navigating the Celestial Bureaucracy to convince the Chief (God) to undo the end of the world.This story has been reprinted several times; Earth is Room Enough (1957), The Far Ends Of Time And Earth (1979), Angels And Awakenings (1980), Catastrophes! (1981), Faszination Der Science Fiction (1985), The Complete Stories, Volume 1 (1990), and An Anthology Of Angels (1996).
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fetched
2024-03-15T20:30:54Z
 The Last Trump
parsed
2024-03-15T20:30:54Z
 The Last Trump
processingComment
Dropped link to God: Not a Feature - ITEM
 The Last Trump
processingComment
Dropped link to GoodVersusGood: Not a Feature - ITEM
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Dropped link to TheNamesake: Not a Feature - ITEM
 The Last Trump
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DBTropes
 The Last Trump / int_18d15922
type
Title Drop
 The Last Trump / int_18d15922
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Title Drop: Unusual for this trope, the title is used quite early in the story because it announces The End of the World as We Know It, and most of the story itself is about Etheriel trying to prevent the end, after it ended.
 The Last Trump / int_18d15922
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The Last Trump / int_18d15922
 The Last Trump / int_1d47dc06
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Alternative Calendar
 The Last Trump / int_1d47dc06
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Alternative Calendar: The End of the World as We Know It is scheduled to take place the first minute of 1957, but Etheriel uses the existence of alternative dating methods to argue with God into allowing Earth to continue until everyone agrees the year is 1957. Satan immediately gets to work on supporting proposals for years to be measured from the Atomic Era.
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 The Last Trump / int_1fffccf7
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No Plot? No Problem!
 The Last Trump / int_1fffccf7
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No Plot? No Problem!: The b-plot of R. E. Man walking around town after The End of the World as We Know It has no narrative arc, just a collection of scenes where people are dealing with the changes since Judgement Day occured.
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 The Last Trump / int_2164d2a1
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Energy Beings
 The Last Trump / int_2164d2a1
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Energy Beings: In this story, angels are without physical substance, formed by energy and leaving energy in their wake. Archangel Gabriel finds it quaint that Earth has matter-to-energy equivalence, because it allows for the Nuclear Option.
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The Last Trump / int_2164d2a1
 The Last Trump / int_396d046e
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Fun with Homophones
 The Last Trump / int_396d046e
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Fun with Homophones: The angel (who is made of Pure Energy) Etheriel's name sounds like ethereal, which means "extremely delicate and light in a way that seems too perfect for this world".
 The Last Trump / int_396d046e
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The Last Trump / int_396d046e
 The Last Trump / int_4977559e
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Our Angels Are Different
 The Last Trump / int_4977559e
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Our Angels Are Different: These angels are made of energy and working for a Celestial Bureaucracy of multiple worlds/universes.
 The Last Trump / int_4977559e
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 The Last Trump / int_553c910e
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This Isn't Heaven
 The Last Trump / int_553c910e
comment
This Isn't Heaven: Two different characters realise the afterlife wasn't what they expected: One of the resurrected souls claims this is Heaven, but R. E. Man is quick to point out that he's never repented, never been to church, and believes a lot of things about God that would bother them. One of the resurrected souls points out to R. E. Man that there is nothing beyond Earth, buildings are crumbling, hills are flattening, desires are gone... Soon, there will be nothing but a featureless plain and people. They believed that Fire and Brimstone Hell undersells divine imagination; an eternity of nothingness is a torture of a divinely inspired everlasting hell.
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 The Last Trump / int_5a4d64c3
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Only One Afterlife
 The Last Trump / int_5a4d64c3
comment
Only One Afterlife: Since everyone had different ideas for what the afterlife should be, Satan suggested that the common elements of all afterlives be used, so God resurrects everyone to live in a featureless plane.
 The Last Trump / int_5a4d64c3
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The Last Trump / int_5a4d64c3
 The Last Trump / int_65eaeac0
type
Mass Resurrection
 The Last Trump / int_65eaeac0
comment
Mass Resurrection: Resurrection Day has been announced, so people are waking up from death and climbing out of their graves. The most recently dead wake up first, but everyone in the world will be resurrected.
 The Last Trump / int_65eaeac0
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The Last Trump / int_65eaeac0
 The Last Trump / int_6d167cf
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Good Needs Evil
 The Last Trump / int_6d167cf
comment
Good Needs Evil: The Chief explains that the Adversary is still a servant of his, because Good is defined by the eternal struggle against Evil.
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The Last Trump / int_6d167cf
 The Last Trump / int_77a55dfa
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Endless Daytime
 The Last Trump / int_77a55dfa
comment
Endless Daytime: After The End of the World as We Know It and everyone starts waking from death, there is no sunlight, just a pervasive light and warmth. One of the characters believes it to be the light of the First Day; before the sun, moon, and stars were created.
 The Last Trump / int_77a55dfa
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 The Last Trump / int_7c58fe32
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Louis Cypher
 The Last Trump / int_7c58fe32
comment
Louis Cypher: The name of R. E. Mann is a reference to the Persian word Ahriman, which means "adversary", like the Hebrew word Satan.
 The Last Trump / int_7c58fe32
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The Last Trump / int_7c58fe32
 The Last Trump / int_85515d8a
type
Naked on Revival
 The Last Trump / int_85515d8a
comment
Naked on Revival: The humans who were alive when the trumpet announced Resurrection Day are clothed, while the humans who were dead are crawling out of their graves completely naked. This distinction will be lost, as the clothes people were wearing dissolve away, just like the landscape is fading.
 The Last Trump / int_85515d8a
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The Last Trump / int_85515d8a
 The Last Trump / int_9e1eef4c
type
Always Lawful Good
 The Last Trump / int_9e1eef4c
comment
Always Lawful Good: The angels are product of Divine Will, and follow every Commandment they are given. This provides a bit of Good Versus Good conflict as Etheriel tries to get through the Celestial Bureaucracy and convince the Chief to not destroy the Earth.
 The Last Trump / int_9e1eef4c
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 The Last Trump / int_a10f3840
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Heaven
 The Last Trump / int_a10f3840
comment
One of the resurrected souls claims this is Heaven, but R. E. Man is quick to point out that he's never repented, never been to church, and believes a lot of things about God that would bother them.
 The Last Trump / int_a10f3840
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The Last Trump / int_a10f3840
 The Last Trump / int_a1d753b6
type
Featureless Plane of Disembodied Dialogue
 The Last Trump / int_a1d753b6
comment
One of the resurrected souls points out to R. E. Man that there is nothing beyond Earth, buildings are crumbling, hills are flattening, desires are gone... Soon, there will be nothing but a featureless plain and people. They believed that Fire and Brimstone Hell undersells divine imagination; an eternity of nothingness is a torture of a divinely inspired everlasting hell.
 The Last Trump / int_a1d753b6
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1.0
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The Last Trump / int_a1d753b6
 The Last Trump / int_b8cbdffb
type
Celestial Bureaucracy
 The Last Trump / int_b8cbdffb
comment
Celestial Bureaucracy: Archangel Gabriel must show junior seraph Etheriel the paperwork for the Act of Ascendancy they're here to announce/enact. Acts countersigned by the Chief cannot be revoked. Meeting the Chief is to be done by appointment, and there's a six-winged cherub who acts as his secretary.
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 The Last Trump / int_c0e07e0
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Archangel Gabriel
 The Last Trump / int_c0e07e0
comment
Archangel Gabriel: Gabriel's arrival kicks off the start of the story, blowing the last trumpet to signal the end of the universe.
 The Last Trump / int_c0e07e0
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The Last Trump / int_c0e07e0
 The Last Trump / int_ca7ec334
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Two Lines, No Waiting
 The Last Trump / int_ca7ec334
comment
Two Lines, No Waiting: Two stories are told at the same time; the A-plot is about angel Etheriel and his quest to prevent The End of the World as We Know It (because then Satan would win), and the B-plot is about R. E. Man checking out how humanity is handling The End of the World as We Know It.
 The Last Trump / int_ca7ec334
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 The Last Trump / int_d129e13e
type
"Eureka!" Moment
 The Last Trump / int_d129e13e
comment
"Eureka!" Moment: Etheriel realizes that the Act of Ascendancy is scheduled to take place in 1957, but it doesn't specify Anno Domini; arguing with God that the Act should be postponed until everyone on Earth agrees that the current year is 1957.
 The Last Trump / int_d129e13e
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The Last Trump / int_d129e13e
 The Last Trump / int_d2ce1cbd
type
Reasoning with God
 The Last Trump / int_d2ce1cbd
comment
Reasoning with God: Archangel Gabriel announces that it's time for Judgement Day, but Etheriel, a junior angel, points out a loophole in the declaration, plucks up his courage, and successfully argues for the whole thing to be postponed. (God's reaction to the argument turns out to be, more or less, "Oh good, I was hoping somebody would bring that up".)
 The Last Trump / int_d2ce1cbd
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 The Last Trump / int_d71d51fd
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The End of the World as We Know It
 The Last Trump / int_d71d51fd
comment
The End of the World as We Know It: The world is scheduled to end at the very first minute of the year 1957. Once that occurs, Archangel Gabriel will blow his horn, and everyone will wake from the dead. The universe itself will go away and Earth will transform into a featureless plane with warm light suffusing everywhere. There will be Only One Afterlife; everyone is left to talk and think.
 The Last Trump / int_d71d51fd
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 The Last Trump / int_d9c4365c
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Reset Button
 The Last Trump / int_d9c4365c
comment
Reset Button: Once God has been convinced to postpone the Day of Judgement, he resets the world/universe to the minute where the world ended.
 The Last Trump / int_d9c4365c
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 The Last Trump / int_f4edd0ac
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In Mysterious Ways
 The Last Trump / int_f4edd0ac
comment
In Mysterious Ways: Once Etheriel figures out how to convince the Chief to postpone Judgement Day, the Chief says he knew the arguments the whole time, and was waiting for the angel Etheriel to figure it out himself.
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The Last Trump

The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

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hasFeature
Alternative Calendar / int_b52261c0
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American Literature (J To M) / int_b52261c0
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Archangel Gabriel / int_b52261c0
 The Last Trump
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Endless Daytime / int_b52261c0
 The Last Trump
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Energy Beings / int_b52261c0
 The Last Trump
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Featureless Plane of Disembodied Dialogue / int_b52261c0
 The Last Trump
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Fun with Homophones / int_b52261c0
 The Last Trump
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Heaven's Devils / int_b52261c0
 The Last Trump
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The Last Title / int_b52261c0