Hey, I'm replying to everyone at once!

David Hart Siegel wrote:

Two things (mostlyfor nightman, but there is a plea for the authors in
here as well): These look, to me, like Byakhee, from the physical
description through the method of summoning(Whistle with Aldebraan
visible), and the arrival from space

Byakee, I forgot about them! The bad whistling sounds familiar too ... but
that might be because it's also associated with Azathoth and Nyarlathotep. I
can't remember which stories they showed up in.

On the elder Gods/Great Old Ones concept: The idea of a human-friendly
force was added by thosewho came after HPL. IMHO, the uttersmallness of
man in the face of the Old Ones fits better with the EVA. Up to you,
authors, but if Third impact inovlves hoary Nodens smiting Deep Ones, I'll
be as disappointed as I was for the original End of EVA.

Then  David Johnston countered:

That is not entirely true.  Nodens, the relatively nonhostile Elder God, was
introduced by Lovecraft in a Dreamlands story as were the comparatively harmless
nightgaunts (who, being comparitively harmless and not having any mouths
obviously
weren't the creatures summoned from Aldebaran).

Right. Nodens is an  HPL creation, not something cooked up by a contemporary
or successor. Later authors may have embellished his concept of a
mostly-distant and impersonal force that opposed the Old Ones, but the precept
was his. I think this rubbish got started by certain critics who had
prejudices against some of the later writers (for instance Sandy Peterson,
author of the Call of Cthulhu RPG, who practically ranted about the Mythos
being polluted by 'later creations' in the foreward of one of the editions). I
think these people have convinced themselves that all the additional material
came after HPL died, or was done with none of his imput.  But the truth is
that Lovecraft had what amounted to a huge fanfic corps and he generally
approved of their additions and expansions; he certainly corresponded and
commented on them!

Also, unless August Derleth lied though his teeth about it, HPL described to
him that his original concept for his mythos was that a group of beings reined
over the Earth long before man arose until they lost their foothold on our
reality by overreaching themselves and being smacked down.  Cthulhu isnt' in
his city in suspended animation because of a meteor or a bad astrological
aspect ... he was SEALED in there.  If someone didn't lock him up and all but
throw away the key, explain why he and his peers haven't just popped back out?
Sure some of them are loose (though limited) -- Nyarlathotep and  Yog-sothoth
for instance. But even they are shown to need help. Sure Lovecraft's stories
imply a doom is descending but ... it's a doom we'll have to participate in
ourselves. Until we stop fighting against that mind-bending fate, it won't
happen. Cf., "Call of Cthulhu."

(Well, neither did Gainax...but thats a whole 'nother gripe)

Welll... the highest aspiration of Kaballism is to experience certain higher
truths ... insights or visions if you will... that are associated with the 10
sephiroth. It's generally recognized that the highest _cannot be experienced
as an INCARNATE human being, especially the final one, "reuinion with the
source" essentially rejoining with God. (Think about EoE in that light.)

Cherubim is good enough here:Its a word recognizable as a type of angel,
and any of the others that are suchare immediately though of as high
levels (Seraphim, etc.)

Actually, cherubim and seraphim are the two highest ranks (which is #1 varies
a bit) but I distinctly remember the phrase "cherubim and seraphim and all the
hosts of heaven."

Mr. Biles commented that

Ritsuko is not a master of the Kaballa, nor particularly a genius of
Angelology. :)

Did Ritsuko name them? I hear her announcing the name "we" picked. Wouldn't
those who knew better have imput? I'd rather see a more obscure angelic name
used -- Auphanim for instance. Though, after looking it up, I see the angels
associated with the lowest Sephiroth ARE actually the Kerubim. Oh well, it's
just a handle for the byakee anyway. I'll just chalk it up to ... uh, Mr. Get
Me Drunk and Pump Me for Info suggesting it. Yeah, that works...

Hmmmm..sleeping in a cold-place: i'd say Ithaqua, but I'd probably be
wrong,as he's more associated with the western side of that country.

Wisconsin, actually.  And since Toronto is on a major waterline, if there's
been sufficient global flooding to inundate Panama, wouldn't the St. Lawrence
seaway be one Great Lake? (Lucky Michigan has some mountains still...)

Onto Mr. Biles:

odd ... not sure what the point of the brooms was ... from cleaning up
inside maybe?

That would be telling. :)
Think about what happens later.

Oh dear, I hope that's not a deliberate cheap shot at my religion (wicca --
aka "witchcraft") -- I would be ever so offended.

And her "logic" here is what? She should have sent Shinji to the
laundromat with the math and kept the haiku? Actually didn't she say
she'd do ALL the homework if he did ALL the laundry?

That she should have done the laundry instead of volunteering to do the
homework.  She doesn't know Shinji is working on the poems at the
laundromat.

She doesn't? Then ... OH, she thinks she has to do the math AND write him a
Haiku?
But what you wrote doesn't read that way:

||        Misato frowned.  Maybe I should have done the
laundry, she thought. Math had never been her strong point.
Especially since she was pretty sure she already had a haiku
she'd written in high school about beer that she could have
scribbled down. ||

Clearly that implies that Math is one option, haiku+laundry is the other. You
should rephrase it along  the lines of she thinks about taking a break from
the math to go dig out an old haiku to recycle as his  literature homework.

She's expecting more than one to come into sight, since she hears several
of them in the apartment.

But she later hopes there are no more than 2 of them, only to find a roomful.

Haiku typically make some reference to nature.

Neat, I didn't know that! (... sheesh, simple enough detail, don't you think
my 4th grade teacher could have thrown that in along with the syllable
counts?)

She doesn't have renter's insurance?

Only a maniac would insure anything in Tokyo-3.

At first glance that seemed logical, but it's not; how would any insurance
company know that T3 is going to become Monster Central? Assumably, the city
is also billed as being built with the best tech available to help weather any
future "natural disasters" which might occur.  If anything, I'd think the
rates would be lower than typical, and breaking and entering would be a pretty
common thing to insure against.

Now, if you had just said she was too airheaded to think of renter's insurance
-- that I'd TOTALLY buy.

Oh well, anyway, it's a very interesting story, whichever way you slice it.

Just keeping you guys on your toes,

Nightman
*Who, after reading parts 1 and 2  managed to hunt down a copy of Strange Eons
off Ebay. First ed.*