Chapter Text
In the year 2053, shortly after all warfare was outlawed, humanity was first introduced to the next evolution of violent conflict. Surprising nobody except for the lawmakers who did it, criminalizing anything without fixing the root cause of the problem does absolutely nothing to solve it. And thus, the nations of the world merely changed their ways to continue ignoring their actual problems, and taking it out on others.
The first sign of a battle came as extensive cyber-warfare disabled or destroyed all possible avenues of surveillance or oversight. Cameras were broken, satellites obscured, and locals bribed or threatened into silence. After this, the armies marched in, in all their terrible glory. In a cruel twist of fate, the banning of warfare caused militaries to adapt and develop far faster than they would have if nothing had been done.
With war itself being a crime, ‘war crimes’ were a thing of the brutish, uncivilized past. As such, the refined, honorable armies of the future used all of the most despicable tactics ever devised by mankind. Traps were laid; chemical weapons deployed with impunity; medics, civilians, and soldiers became synonymous, and battles only ended with the annihilation of the enemy. Of course, the technology evolved alongside the atrocities, and with time some of these battles were fought entirely autonomously, but it was often cheaper to simply send more and more human lives to their doom.
With the stage set, the most horrific, unforgivable wars in human history took place, unwitnessed and unregulated. Curiously, once the bloodshed drew questioning eyes and ears, it abruptly vanished. Bodies were destroyed, battlefields were wiped clean, and records were burned, just in time for onlookers to arrive and find the absence of crime. It was as if it never happened, and the bloodstained hands of killers were washed clean.
This often happened time and time again, with bloody wars fought under the cover of night, and they never existed during the day. Time and time again, the world sought out violations of the mandate against war, and yet all they found was pristine, untouched battlefields, free of death and destruction. It truly was a perfect system, free of lingering consequences, where wars could be fought and tidied up just as easily.
Of course, this is the real world, and that’s utter nonsense. The wounds or death and destruction cannot simply be waved away, and nothing is truly secret. Some perpetrators were sloppy, and their wars were an open secret. Everyone knew what they did, there was just no proof of it, and no evidence to prosecute with. Others were more subtle with how they went about things, with the only signs of their actions being the gaping holes left behind in the lives of the survivors and communities.
In truth, even the most clandestine of wars are closely monitored and recorded. The perpetrators, their peers, and anyone with power knew exactly what happened in these conflicts, and while everybody loses in this kind of war, Nobody wins, and Nobody has grown very, very powerful indeed.