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Has there ever been a Crapsack World like this?

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Worlder What? Since: Jan, 2001
What?
#1: Aug 5th 2014 at 2:06:14 PM

In the Call of Duty thread in the videogames forum, I made the remark "another year, another world war".

Now this doesn't apply to the Co D games, but I was wondering is there any setting where the world goes through a regular and rapid cycle of world war. My thoughts on such a setting is that it has at least six years of world war followed by a four year intermission for things to be rebuilt only for another world war to begin.

A seemingly endless cycle of global conflict that leaves entire metropolises in rubble, that are miraculously fully repaired just in time for the next war to topple them once more.

edited 5th Aug '14 2:07:59 PM by Worlder

Belisaurius Artisan of Auspicious Artifacts from Big Blue Nowhere Since: Feb, 2010 Relationship Status: Having tea with Cthulhu
Artisan of Auspicious Artifacts
#2: Aug 5th 2014 at 4:47:17 PM

I want you to do something. I want you to go to wikipedia and search for "List of Wars by Date" and I want you to find a time period between the 18th century and the 9th century where there hasn't been a war somewhere.

Tell me how you feel about this afterwards.

ArsThaumaturgis Since: Nov, 2011 Relationship Status: I've been dreaming of True Love's Kiss
#3: Aug 5th 2014 at 5:09:14 PM

[up] But I imagine that few or none of those would classify as "world wars": a given region would presumably have periods of peace (or relative peace) while other regions were at war.

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Belisaurius Artisan of Auspicious Artifacts from Big Blue Nowhere Since: Feb, 2010 Relationship Status: Having tea with Cthulhu
Artisan of Auspicious Artifacts
#4: Aug 5th 2014 at 7:19:57 PM

World wars are logistically impossible for pre-industrial societies simply because they can't stretch their supply lines far enough. Post-industrial or late industrial societies quickly find that war machines are just too expensive to crank out year after year. Case in point, the A-10, the M 1 A 1 Abrams, and AH-64 Apache are all considered aged relics but are kept around simply because the cost to replace them far outweighs the benefit of replacing them. Europe learned from the first world war exactly how costly large scale industrial age warfare is and shied away from it even when their old foe Germany started to make territorial gains. The entire concept of diplomatic immunity stems from fear of war.

ArsThaumaturgis Since: Nov, 2011 Relationship Status: I've been dreaming of True Love's Kiss
#5: Aug 5th 2014 at 8:04:00 PM

Fair enough, and I don't dispute that—but Worlder specifically mentioned world wars, I believe; hence the wars of those past centuries, even in their ubiquity, don't seem relevant.

If you're arguing that a cycle of world wars is impossible, then that just pushes our search towards speculative settings: appropriate application of magic or sufficiently advanced technology should be able to overcome the logistical issues with such a setting.

edited 5th Aug '14 8:05:34 PM by ArsThaumaturgis

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AwSamWeston Fantasy writer turned Filmmaker. from Minnesota Nice Since: May, 2013 Relationship Status: Married to the job
Fantasy writer turned Filmmaker.
#6: Aug 6th 2014 at 9:43:21 AM

You'd also have to take into account that, if the whole "world war cycle" ever became feasible*, then you'd see a massive cultural shift. People would spend less time worrying about their day-to-day lives and focus instead on "we should prepare for the next war." Men (and maybe women, depending on the culture) would grow up learning "how to become warriors," as opposed to "how to become a functioning member of society" like we have today.

* Historically, one goal of war has been to obtain gold, land, and/or people.

TL;DR, after just a few cycles the world would be filled with Proud Warrior Race types.

Award-winning screenwriter. Directed some movies. Trying to earn a Creator page. I do feedback here.
Worlder What? Since: Jan, 2001
What?
#7: Aug 6th 2014 at 11:00:19 AM

So far it seems no one has done a story in such a setting.

SantosLHalper The filidh that cam frae Skye from The Canterlot of the North Since: Aug, 2009
The filidh that cam frae Skye
#8: Aug 6th 2014 at 2:34:23 PM

Alternate History Dot Com's "Oneshot Scenarios" thread is oversaturated with them.

edited 6th Aug '14 2:34:29 PM by SantosLHalper

Halper's Law: as the length of an online discussion of minority groups increases, the probability of "SJW" or variations being used = 1.
Worlder What? Since: Jan, 2001
What?
#9: Aug 7th 2014 at 2:36:35 PM

It would certain make a nice setting for a modern military shooter videogame, right?

Tarsen Since: Dec, 2009
#10: Aug 7th 2014 at 2:50:33 PM

not necessarily. it'd provide a reason for gameplay but it wouldnt be distinctly more interesting than any other war shooter because war, regardless of world wide status or not, is still fought in skirmishes with guns and hiding behind cover and grenades and geurilla tactics and whatever. the most it'd change is the attitude of the characters, buuut i cant imagine it changing that much from the stereotype, and the biggest effect would be away from the focus of the fighting.

its not like shooter games havent pulled the "constant, endless warfare" routine before either, its only really the "world war" aspect in combination thats unusual, and i would think it'd be kind of hard to notice from an in character point of view in a game.

id assume the best way to show off the endless world war aspect would probably be to focus on the political side of things, which is probably super fucked up.

edited 7th Aug '14 2:52:59 PM by Tarsen

Worlder What? Since: Jan, 2001
What?
#11: Aug 7th 2014 at 3:34:40 PM

That or some Diabolus ex Machina involved in a "Groundhog Day" Loop.

edited 7th Aug '14 3:35:17 PM by Worlder

DeusDenuo Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Gonna take a lot to drag me away from you
#12: Aug 9th 2014 at 9:03:51 PM

Isn't that the Star Trek universe, to some extent?

Alternately, the only ones I can think of are the 100 Year War in Armored Trooper Votoms and maybe whatever the Zentradi and Mentradi had going in Super Dimensional Fortress Macross.

In Votoms, the wars take place on worlds, and sometimes they get to rebuild and become valuable before getting glassed again. I'm not sure if Macross really had much happening on planets, more than in space.

But no, I don't think it's possible to have a single planet that's capable of sustaining an endless cycle of global war. Maybe some setting where the two sides pack up and leave for another planet once the first one is bombed out, to start the cycle over again?

Worlder What? Since: Jan, 2001
What?
#13: Aug 10th 2014 at 9:48:43 AM

[up]You just managed to describe Transformers in that last sentence.

DeusDenuo Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Gonna take a lot to drag me away from you
#14: Aug 10th 2014 at 6:05:30 PM

[up] Ha! Yeah, exactly. Though I had something more along the lines of Independence Day or Chrono Trigger in mind, though.

Aszur A nice butterfly from Pagliacci's Since: Apr, 2014 Relationship Status: Don't hug me; I'm scared
A nice butterfly
#15: Sep 2nd 2014 at 2:47:36 PM

Tuchanka comes to mind.

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
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