History Main / ForeverWar

* UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler ''wanted'' Germany to be engaged in a forever war, believing that any peace should be a temporary affair to consolidate gains and lick their wounds, and that the Third Reich should be back at war every 15-20 years. He thought that if a country was at peace for too long it made their people soft and complacent, and also believed that wars encouraged people to have lots of children which would result in Germany having an ever growing population through which they would cement their position as the dominant power on Earth.

* ''VideoGame/ArmoredCore'' largely runs on this trope, waged primarily between [[MegaCorp massive corporations]] in most incarnations of the series before ''VideoGame/ArmoredCoreV''. Taken to its ultimate extreme in the most recent (and [[{{Cancellation}} possibly final]]) game in the series, ''VideoGame/ArmoredCoreVerdictDay'', where three major factions -- [[MegaCorp Sirius Executives]], [[TheEmpire Venide]] and [[TheAlliance Evergreen Family]] -- are implied to have been at war for hundreds of years over the LostTechnology contained in the 'Towers'. Close analysis of lore suggests that global warfare has been the norm ever since the Lynx War of ''VideoGame/ArmoredCore4'', which happened [[ContinuityNod an entire]] ContinuityReboot and a half ago. And, if the [[BigBad Foundation Man's]] statement at the game's conclusion is correct, [[ShaggyDogStory it's never going to end]].

* On a very similar note to Xenogears, ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles3'' begins with a war between two nations called Keves and Agnus. With ChildSoldiers grown in pods until they're maturely 10, then living for 10 years doing nothing but fighting. No one even questions anything until the six main characters (three from Keves, three from Agnus) have a fateful encounter that reveals to them the existence of an organization that secretly controls both nations and wants the war to literally last forever.

* ''ComicBook/TransformersLastBotStanding'' deconstructs this. This story shows the reader what would happen if the fight between the Autobots, Decepticons, and even the Maximals and Predacons never stopped. The Transformers are stuck in a cycle of death and rebirth as they fight each other, draining planets and stars for their resources to fuel their neverending war, leaving countless civilizations and races dead and gone. Almost all stars in space have gone out, along with any other planet caught in the war. The surviving Cybertronians don't want to fight anymore and resort to converting whatever is suitable for energy as Energon is long since gone.

* It's eventually revealed in the ''Literature/TheThreeBodyProblem'' trilogy that this is the default state of the universe, due to the Dark Forest phenomenon. When one alien civilization discovers another alien civilization, neither can be certain that the other is not a threat. Even if the language barrier gets crossed, a friendly appearance can be used to conceal hostile intentions, and furthermore they are, by simply existing, competing for vital resources. Given this uncertainty, the safest thing for any given Civilization A to do if it discovers any given Civilization B is to immediately destroy them before the reverse happens. To quote the book:

* The Aws and Karjaz[[note]]Arabic transliteration is still a messy business[[/note]] were two tribes living in what is now Medina.[[note]]Then called Yarthrib.[[/note]] They had been fighting for over 120 years, and no one on either side could remember what it was about. It only ended when both asked the Prophet Muhammad to settle their differences.

** Episode XXV has the 300 Spartans fighting an evil machine that sends hordes of robots to attack day after day with no end in sight because the machine strips the battlefield of fallen robots to either repair them or salvage them for spare parts. The Spartans fight to protect their homeland from being stripped of its natural resources. The war ends when Jack shows them a hidden path that allows a strike team to attack the robots' main base. During the background story, the king admits he's the fifth king in the war and with his son fighting, that means the war has been going on for at least 6 generations.

* ''Manga/{{Appleseed}}'' It is implied that Deunan thought she was fighting one of these before being brought to Olympus.
-->"You mean the war's been over?"\\
"For years."

* A sort of one-sided example in ''Manga/AttackOnTitan''. While it's obvious why the humans are fighting the Titans -- they don't want to get eaten -- it's not clear what the Titans are, where they came from, or why they eat people. So their motives, if they're even intelligent enough to have any, are completely unknown, and so the struggle continues.

* ''Anime/GargantiaOnTheVerdurousPlanet'': The interstellar war between the Galactic Alliance of Humanity and the Hideauze. The original cause and reason for the war is known only to top officials in the Galactic Alliance, and they have been fighting a Total War against the Hideauze for so long that many of them see "kill the Hideauze" as their sole reason for being. When one soldier is questioned as to what he'd do if they ever won the war, he's completely at a loss. As for the Hideauze, we never see the war from their perspective, so it's unknown if they have a similar outlook on it, but the fact that they've never attempted peace (as far as we know) says something.
** Ledo, a Galactic Alliance soldier who got separated from his fleet when they were escaping the CurbStompBattle being dished out by the Hideauze in the first episode, eventually finds out there are Hideauze living in Earth's oceans. He's determined to wipe them out at all costs, and ends up abandoning a lot of his friends on Gargantia to do battle with them. Then finds out a shocking revelation in an ApocalypticLog about his foe in episode 9. [[spoiler:It turns out that the Hideauze were genetically modified humans, who were originally known as the Evolvers, and wanted to modify humans to survive in space to escape an increasingly freezing and hostile to humans Earth. Meanwhile, the precursor to the Galactic Alliance, the Continental Union, wanted to go into space too, but they wanted humans to stay humans. Both groups were fundamentally opposed to each other, and in space, turned into the Forever War that Ledo was taught about. Meanwhile back on Earth, all the ice seems to have melted away, and the humans remaining there forgot about the Evolvers, and the Earth Hideauze gradually morphed into the "whale-squid" that humans revere and try to leave alone.]] He doesn't take this revelation too well, as it contradicts everything he had been taught and trained for all of his life.
* ''Franchise/{{Gundam}}'' is something of a meta example. There are over a dozen TV series in it already and every one is built entirely around a war in different settings and characters. You'd think that the entire Gundam metaverse is in the state of perpetual war (especially true for the Universal Century, where many of the wars are explicit continuations of previous ones). To go even further, the series almost always (with a couple notable exceptions such as ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundam00 Gundam 00]]'') compounds the reality that no matter how many times the heroes win the war, another will come eventually as if war is tied to humanity's existence.

* The ''Cannon Fodder'' short in ''Anime/{{Memories}}''. In a walled city perpetually at war, everyone's lives and livelihood depend upon maintaining and firing the enormous cannons that make up most of the city. Nearly every building in the city is equipped with a cannon of varying size, able to fire huge artillery shells over the city walls. Though the story is centered around a young boy and his father, who works as a lowly cannon-loader, the film is dedicated to the lives of the anonymous citizens of the city who slave to fuel and maintain this parody of the twentieth century war machine. [[spoiler:All of the shells land in the desert surrounding the city. There is no enemy.]]

[[folder:Fanfiction]]

[[folder:Film — Live-Action]]

--> '''Blitz''': They're screaming at me, Credenza. They want to kill us, they want to EAT us! Why are they like this? They have every word for hate, but no word for happiness.\\
'''Tuff''': To a shark, hate and happiness are the s-same thing.
* ''[[http://www.blastwave-comic.com/ Gone With the Blastwave.]]''
** The first strip sums up the trope in a nutshell, as seen above.
* ''Webcomic/DraconiaChronicles'' -- The two races have been fighting each other for centuries and no longer remember the cause of the war. At this point the main reasons for fighting are vengeance and pride. It doesn't help that both sides are empathetically dead to the other. It's implied that the war has been enforced by a third race of mortals for their own reasons.[[note]]One of the characters is a fox who manipulates both sides, and she isn't working alone[[/note]]
** It should be noted that the ''gods'' of both sides have apparently agreed to end the ridiculous war, and seek to manipulate their followers into developing the moral character needed to consider peace. Unfortunately, they do so in... 'radical' ways. So radical, that both factions would rather keep fighting than admit their gods are mass-murdering jerkasses.

* In ''LightNovel/SoImASpiderSoWhat'' the humans and demons of the isekai world have been engaged in a centuries-long conflict that varies between hot and cold wars. The conflict started when humans began persecuting demons after the collapse of the ancient civilization due to [[spoiler:their misuse of MA energy]]. The demons eventually banded together and founded their own nation for protection and war soon followed. The most recent hot war has left all of the nations on the verge of collapse and they have been trying to rebuild during the current cold war [[spoiler:until Ariel starts a new war]].

* ''FanFic/BadFutureCrusaders'' played with this with Sonhos Vale, the country where Apple Bloom grew up after fleeing Equestria. The east populated by zebras and gryphons, and the west populated by ponies, have ''hated'' each other for so long that neither side even remembers why or who started it, but when the west actually decided to fight with [[MedievalStasis medieval-type weapons and armor]], the east with early UsefulNotes/WorldWarI era technology like firearms, vehicles, and even [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill tanks and early fighter aircraft]] [[CurbStompBattle kicked the living crap out of the west in very short order.]]

* In ''FanFic/EquestriaGirlsFriendshipSouls'', Soul Society, Hueco Mundo and the Vandenreich have been stuck in a three-way deadlock for centuries, no side able to get a definite advantage on the others as they've built up their forces and abilities while performing probing attacks against each other. [[spoiler:This is at least in part intentional on the end of the Zero Division, who want the war to keep going in order to prevent the factions from possibly teaming up and interfering with their own plans for the world.]] The faction leaders (Captain Commander Scorpan, Hollow King Tirek, and Quincy King Sombra) believe that Sunset, the Humane Five, and Twilight developing their spiritual powers and the influx of magic from Equestria [[spoiler:coupled with Human Starlight Glimmer's own plans against the celestial hierarchy to stop the Zero Division's plans]] have finally signaled the turning point for the war to heat up to a decisive conclusion, with all sides gearing up for the coming storm.

* ''LightNovel/ShakuganNoShana'': The ongoing war between Flame Haze and Denizens is fated to go on forever, considering both side are immortals, until their luck runs out, [[spoiler:which is the reason why the male protagonist Yuji has to take a FaceHeelTurn to end the war]].

* In ''LightNovel/SoImASpiderSoWhat'' the Humans and Demons are in a perpetual state of war, varying from open conflict to cold war. The war died down after the last Hero and Demon King died due to both sides being exhausted but kicks up again due to [[spoiler:Shiraori needing to sacrifice enough people to prevent the end of the world]].

* In ''Videogame/EndlessSpace'', the Cravers can never be at peace; they must [[HordeOfAlienLocusts continuously expand lest they consume their own civilization]]. At best, they can be in a state of "Cold War" with nearby empires, which allows outpost colonies and fleets in neutral space to be attacked, but prevents established colonies and ships within empire borders from being attacked without a Declaration Of War. During the course of a game, the Cravers will be involved in nearly constant back-and-forth wars for hundreds of years. The mechanically similar Necrophages of ''Videogame/EndlessLegend'' likewise cannot engage in diplomacy.

* Invoked in ''Videogame/MiddleEarthShadowOfWar'', where the main goal of the Shadow Wars fourth act is to put Mordor in a state of perpetual war (or at least long enough to keep Sauron busy between the time period of ''Literature/TheHobbit'' and ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings''), meaning that you must fight through a series of increasingly-difficult fortress battles. Eventually however, [[spoiler:Talion ultimately succumbs to his Ring's power and becomes a servant of Sauron, but his actions at least lead to the events of trilogy]].

* ''Videogame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic'': The planet Voss has been immersed in a bloody civil war between its two sentient species, the Voss and the Gormak, for centuries. It's even called "the Eternal War of Voss". It's been going on for so long that both sides have forgotten [[spoiler: that they're actually the same race; Voss force use warps their appearance]]. It's predecessor, ''Videogame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'', has the Rakata, a violent species that once ruled most of the known galaxy in ancient times, but who eventually lost their empire and destroyed themselves in a violent civil war that ended when the various warlords unleashed weapons of mass destruction during the fighting on their homeworld. The survivors went underground and by the time they finally emerged, most tribes had long since forgotten their past, but still went right back to fighting each other anyway, albeit with primitive weapons like spears instead of blasters and warships. While this probably can't technically be counted a ''single'' conflict since the Rakata spent thousands of years underground before finally emerging (and again most tribes don't know their species dark past), an ancient Rakata computer the player can find still refers to it as a "never-ending-civil war".

:: ''Total Annihilation'''s SpiritualSuccessor, ''VideoGame/SupremeCommander'', makes it clear that its galaxy is coming dangerously close to this state, especially during the Aeon campaign. They don't call it "The Infinite War" for nothing. The SpiritualSuccessor to both, ''Videogame/PlanetaryAnnihilation'', is set thousands of years after one of these left the galactic civilizations in ruins. Then the robotic commanders start to self-repair and start the whole thing over again.
* Justified in the case that they're both immortal, Kaguya Houraisan and Fujiwara no Mokou of ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'' have fought each other on a daily basis for several thousand years.

** The Hatfield-[=McCoy=] feud, which followed almost immediately after the war. [[Wiki/{{Wikipedia}} The Other Wiki]] officially lists it running from 1881-1891, but the initial start of the trouble was from a murder of a Union Soldier in 1865, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking alleged theft of a pig in 1878, and an outstanding bootlegging warrant.]] During the feud proper, 15 people died. Because issues with state lines involved, it grew to such a problem that it almost sparked a war between Kentucky and West Virginia! The resulting trials of the participants lasted until 1901 (the last one was for the bootlegging).

** While it hasn't necessarily been the same groups involved, war in the Middle East (specifically, the "Holy Land") has been [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pKMV6e5kEo fairly constant]] almost since the beginning of recorded history.

* UsefulNotes/TheKashmirQuestion between UsefulNotes/{{India}} and UsefulNotes/{{Pakistan}} has dragged since both countries' independence in 1947, with each side holding contradictory positions and neither willing to compromise.

* The [[Machinima/RedVsBlue Red and Blue Teams]] in Blood Gulch aren't really fighting so much as slacking off at opposite ends of the box canyon, and it only ''feels'' like they've been there forever, but if one's thing for sure it's that neither side has any clue why they're supposed to be fighting. They later travel to Battle Creek, where two teams of immortal zealots fight to Capture the Flag while spouting comments and insults straight out of X Box Live, and are revived at the end of each match, like a very stupid type of [[WarriorHeaven Valhalla]].

* Adolf Hitler ''wanted'' Germany to be engaged in a forever war, believing that any peace should be a temporary affair to consolidate gains and lick their wounds, and that the Third Reich should be back at war every 15-20 years. He thought that if a country was at peace for too long it made their people soft and complacent, and also believed that wars encouraged people to have lots of children which would result in Germany having an ever growing population through which they would cement their position as the dominant power on Earth.

* According to Creator/{{Herodotus}}, Persia's invasion of Greece was kind of like this... for the Persians. The Greeks knew ''exactly'' what they wanted out of it (that is, not to become a Persian province), but Xerxes wasn't entirely sure what he was doing there: Greece was a resource-poor and the Greeks already in his empire (in Ionia, what is now western Turkey) had proven to be ungovernable. The only reason the Persians even ''thought'' about conquering mainland Greece was a peculiar battle in which an Athenian army assisted Miletos (a Greek city in Ionia) in reasserting its independence; in the process, they managed to torch the Persian provincial capital at Sardis. This made Xerxes' father Darius (who was Shah at the time) VERY angry once he got over his confusion (Athens was a tin-pot town nobody important had ever heard of). Darius shot an arrow into the sky, and swore "O God, grant that I may punish the Athenians;" later on, he had a servant remind him of his pledge at dinner daily, and various plans for fighting the Athenians were drawn up. Xerxes was not so preoccupied, and was rather confused with Darius' request that he also try to "punish the Athenians;" supposedly, the only thing that convinced Xerxes to go at all was a recurring dream of a phantom telling him to go to Greece.

* The UsefulNotes/ColdWar was expected to last forever until it suddenly ended in 1991.

* On a very similar note to Xenogears, ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles3'' begins with a war between two nations called Keves and Agnus. With ChildSoldiers grown in pods until they're maturely 10, then living for 10 years doing nothing but fighting. No one even questions anything until the six main characters (three from Keves, three from Agnus) have a fateful encounter.

* ''Anime/LegendOfTheGalacticHeroes'': The [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Long War]] between the [[TheFederation Alliance of Free Planets]] and the [[TheEmpire Galactic Empire]] is centuries old, and much older than any cast member alive at the beginning of the series, going on for exactly ''158 years, nine months and 21 days'' before it ended ([[ForWantOfANail and it would have continued had one Imperial officer not acted on her own or another arrived at the right place just a little later]]). It's explained that it's spent a lot of that time being a cold war in stalemate, mostly involving border skirmishes, and the only reason it is really still going is because the Terraist Church are intentionally fanning the flames of war to advance their own agenda which requires the destruction of both sides. The only people who remember the reason of the war (workers fleeing an at-the-time oppressive state and refusing to come back) are historians.

* ''VideoGame/ArmoredCore'' largely runs on this trope, waged primarily between [[MegaCorp massive corporations]] in most incarnations of the series before ''VideoGame/ArmoredCoreV''. Taken to its ultimate extreme in the most recent (and [[{{Cancellation}} possibly final]]) game in the series, ''VideoGame/ArmoredCoreVerdictDay'', where three major factions -- [[MegaCorp Sirius Executives]], [[TheEmpire Venide]] and [[TheAlliance Evergreen Family]] -- are implied to have been at war for hundreds of years over the LostTechnology contained in the 'Towers'. Close analysis of lore suggests that global warfare has been the norm ever since the Lynx War of ''VideoGame/ArmoredCore4'', which happened [[ContinuityNod an entire]] ContinuityReboot [[UpToEleven and a half ago]]. And, if the [[BigBad Foundation Man's]] statement at the game's conclusion is correct, [[ShaggyDogStory it's never going to end]].

If by some miracle one side ''does'' manage to win it usually isn't portrayed as a good thing. Questions like [[AndThenWhat "And Then What?"]] might come up -- they've become so used to war that they don't know what they will do now that there is no longer someone to fight. A more common conclusion of hostilities, especially when the wacky heroes become involved, is them trying (and often succeeding) to ReconcileTheBitterFoes.

* This is Yukari final plan in ''WebAnimation/DiamondInTheRoughTouhou'': [[spoiler:she says that Gensokyo [[WeHaveBecomeComplacent has become complacent]] with outsiders, and not only outsiders but its own residents as well. She is concerned because most youkai gain their powers from human fear and if the humans don't fear youkai anymore, they start to lose their powers and fade away, and thus Gensokyo's existence may come to an end. Thus, she's been bringing selfish outsiders to create a state of perpetual war between youkai and humans and thus prolonging Gensokyo's lifespan. This is her "Paradise". Ultimately she doesn't succeed fully due to Brolli dying not in the circumstances she expected, however [[KarmaHoudini she still gets away]]]].

* ''Podcast/BrimstoneValleyMall'': Perhaps unsurprisingly, the war between Heaven and Hell has been going on for longer than any demon or angel can remember, and while both sides have agents on Earth and make moves against the other's cause relatively frequently, the result is an eternal a stalemate. As Asmoraius explains, no one on either side is even sure who's winning, because "the score has been pretty much even as long as anyone can remember."

* In ''VideoGame/{{Iji}}'', The Tasen and [[spoiler: Komato]] have apparently been fighting for thousands of years. While they still remember why, they seem to have trouble understanding what it would be like to ''not'' be at war.
** [[spoiler: After the Tasen are wiped out by the Komato, it's heavily implied in the ending that the Komato may turn on themselves now that they no longer have an enemy to fight.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/OKKOLetsBeHeroes'' features the feud between Mr. Gar and Lord Boxman, which has been going on for several years before the start of the series' events. A variation in that while Lord Boxman knows why he's fighting ([[CardCarryingVillain albeit for silly reasons]]), Mr. Gar treats him as a persistent nuisance. Sure enough, the feud itself is a prominent part of Aeason 1.
** The episode "A Hero's Fate" focuses on ''Webcomic/RPGWorld'''s Hero having pursued Galgarion for so long that he eventually abandoned his teammates, so that he can level up without any distractions and get strong enough (he's level 90 at this point). When K.O. gets sick of the constant grind and tells Hero to do something else with his life, Hero and Galgarion admittedly forgot why they've opposed each other for so long, then Galgarion takes the time to remember that [[spoiler:they're long-lost siblings and he was under the impression that Hero was the evil one]]. [[spoiler:Hero suggests that they've actually both been GoodAllAlong, and they decide to put their feud on pause, with Hero going back to Cherry so he can start a family with her]].