Beyond War: Warfighters

Warfighters can be broken down into three classes - those who know there are Advanced Warfighters, of which there are Advanced Warfighters and non Advanced-Warfighters; and those who do not know what the term means due to their limited knowledge.

For those who do know the meaning of the term, but are not themselves Advanced Warfighters, the word is terror.

Sheer terror.

Because to know what these single soldiers are capable of and the power they wield, even theoretically, is enough to bring an end to conventional war forever - for fear that one of their kind would be compelled to act against it.

Ignorance is bliss, and most conventional warfighters do not know the Advanced Warfighter technology or any party or individual who exists in possession of such fantastic and unimaginable weapons. As no conventional nation or state could stand against even one Advanced Warfighter, the existence of such political and military bodies seems a sort of poor-man's proof that the stories are just that - stories. Legends.

Every legend is true.

The Advanced Warfighters are real, and every myth and supernatural tale by the fire is the product of something in their wheelhouse having touched the ordinary world. Usually with such terror that it impressed itself upon the very mind and memories of the people who witnessed it and their descendants.

While a conventional warfighter or civilian in such a terrestrial culture thinks there is no evidence of the supernatural or of aliens - the very evidence is in the records of their people considered to be "well known stories" that in childhood the species innately remember as 'true' - passing on to the status of vague lost and indistinct memories over time as ordinary life assumes control of that "cultural memory" and overwrites the general expectations and instincts with conventional survival information. The overwrite is temporary, as the original records remain and occasionally surface - as well as pass on in their children - quantum entangled with their consciousness and fundamental material in their offspring.

The appearance of Advanced Warfighters or a single individual can therefore be "traumatic", and as such - most exercise a substantial effort to conceal their nature, blend in, and assume a non-threatening character or shape around terrestrial life. Like that of a pet or small animal, or other person themed non-threatening like an elderly person or child. In this way, Advanced Warfighters can operate and communicate with their terrestrial cousins, without traumatizing them or disruption their belief systems needlessly.

This embedding also creates a substantial deterrent against other Advanced Warfighters engaging or imposing their will against a population - as the risk of exposing one's self first is tremendously high where another warfighter may be present and able to coordinate a response. As a result, most terrestrial influence is accomplished second-party, through a proxy, who may be far easier to excuse or abandon should response to the alien source of action be uncovered or the plan thwarted by domestic resistance.

Wars - on small populated worlds - are there fought by proxy rather than directly between Advanced Warfighters, as their power would quickly escalate to a planetary or stellar disaster if left to their own devices and direct interaction with opposition.

The best way to describe this to conventional terrestrial audiences would be to say, "It is a Cold War among angry space wizards, vampires, robots, artificial intelligence, tiny drunk tribal fairies, angry fat people half your size, hot rocker boys (and girls), space punks, vast armies of land sharks, an irate octopus, several dolphins with social theories, a couple of misguided mice, about six hundred million radiated mutants with socialist leanings, a goldfish who talks like Winston Churchill, a giant dragon the size of Jupiter, and a very stoic cowboy."

Fortunately there are no "flying monkeys", "sassy amoeba people", "six legged cigarette smoking fighter jockeys", "giant mindless ants", "ten foot tall spiders with blasters", "worms with legs and ray guns", "moth people", "gigantic poopin bats", "green guys in Germanic helmets", "racist cults", "blue sex machine commandos from the 70s", "green animal women", "multicolored robot lions", "magical girls with wands", or "Sexually themed giant robots" in Beyond War. All you have to contend with are "shadow people", "six foot tall owls", "animal-human-hybrid-intelligence", "transhumanism", and the collapse of all government, social, and economic systems in the face of immortality and a technology that makes perpetual records of your thoughts and experiences on a scale exceeding cat pictures on the Internet.

Or you could just play Beyond War - and run into all that. (And buy the mix-tape.)