The saying goes, “War never changes,” but that is not true. War does change—technology advances, ideals and ethics evolve, strategies diversify. It’s the effects that war has on the participants and the innocent bystanders that doesn’t change. Little, if any, good ever comes from it, but I’m not the first to tell you that.

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Betham: Good evening. I’m Cherith Betham and in the studio with me tonight is an officer of our great nation’s army. He’s been in at least two dozen battles spanning his eighty-nine-year career and has witnessed both the glories and horrors of frontline action. He has requested that his name and rank be kept anonymous, but will allow me to call him by his first name, Ronner. Ronner, thank you for joining me tonight.

Ronner: My pleasure.

Betham: You’ve come here this evening to discuss the current state of the war and the climate you predict for the future. You also know a great amount about the war’s history, which we are all very interested in hearing. For the record, how old are you?

Ronner: One-hundred-nine years old.

Betham: And, Ronner, you were drafted into the war at age 20, correct?

Ronner: Yes, as were my father and grandfather, and every man in my family for many, many generations.

Betham: How old were your father and grandfather when they passed?

Ronner: My father is still alive. He’s currently 154 and retired. My grandfather was 123.

Betham: Ronner, here, is said to be among the first generation to live past 200 years old. Did you have a job before being drafted into the war? Were you in school?

Ronner: I didn’t finish high school. I got my alternative certificate at 17 and had been working as a librarian’s assistant since 15.

Betham: That would explain your vast knowledge about the history of the war, then. As you know, many of us today know little about the war past four, 500 years ago. Those of us who do not live as long as members of the military have primarily what’s taught in schools, as well as our own experiences, to go off of, but the knowledge is out there in books. I think the biggest question on the minds of those who do not have access to libraries is—if you can tell us from your readings, Ronner—when did the war start?

Ronner: No books will tell you history from that long ago; not that I’ve been able to find. The war is old, possibly as old as our current calendar. If that’s true, then the war started 2,022 years ago, but it may have been even earlier. The earliest records I can find are from 908.

Betham: For reference, the 10th century saw the invention of the earliest mechanical clocks and the popularization of gunpowder. But the war is much older than that, you suspect. What evidence is there to suggest that the war may be 2,000 years old? And what might the beginnings of the war have looked like in a time when paper was a brand-new technology and chess was still hundreds of years from conception?

Ronner: I believe chess to have been inspired by the war. The primary evidence I’ve found for the war’s antiquity are references made in books. Quotes from ancient scholars mentioning times before our oldest records. A scholar called ██████, who was supposedly alive before the war, was quoted as saying “A war of these great proportions and lengths will be not forgotted by men unborn and will likely rage until the dusk of humankind on this new calendar starting with the day the first blood was drawn 15 years this morrow. Only then will books not tell of its magnitude for they will have been consumed by the corona of the sun.” The quote is from the year 15.

Betham: So, the books you had access to as a librarian’s assistant included information from years as early as the year 15?

Ronner: The quote was in a book written in 1625. The author stated that it had been passed along for generations and was likely mistranslated and unintentionally altered to some extent.

Betham: Very interesting. For those who might not remember from school, the first programmable computer was created in the 1630’s. We will return to the topic of those restricted texts later, but let’s move on to another question many civilians would like to have answered: What is it like out on the front lines of battle?

Ronner: Abhorrent. Words can’t truly describe what one sees on the frontlines. More bodies than kids I went to school with. Deafening cries cut short by the ringing aftermath of a DNADDP [deoxyribose nucleic acid distortion and deconstruction pulse]. Most of the time, your pain is internal since most of us have bioelectronic alterations to protect our bodies. The smell is often unbearable—rotting flesh, burning fields, internal bleeding—that is, if you haven’t had your olfactory sensory neurons removed, as I have. (gestures to face)

Betham: Absolutely devastating. For those watching and listening, I can see behind our privacy screen that Ronner has no nose to speak of, and his hands are indeed not made of flesh. Ronner, speaking of some of what you just mentioned, could you tell us some of the ways the war has progressed over the ages in terms of technology and strategy? What are some of the newest inventions that those not directly involved in the war might not know about?

Ronner: (chuckles) It’s funny that you say anyone could be uninvolved in the war. It has consumed humanity and has simply become a way of life. But I don’t blame you or anyone with that mindset—that people could be “not directly involved.” The war is the backdrop for mankind today. So much of what we know today, all of it, in fact, has come about in times of war, this war. As you mentioned, the war did, indeed, if my belief is correct, begin around the same time paper was invented. In fact, I’m sure paper was created as a direct answer to the question of how to better keep track of what happened in the war—for easier record keeping, map making, communication. Obviously, humanity has come a long way since then, but only in a material sense. Since even before the war, humans have always sought destruction. Our greed consumes our minds and blocks out reason, blocks out logic and rationale. Morals are tossed out if it means we can stomach what must be done to feed our selfish desires for power. Strategies have only advanced to keep ahead of the competition. Many see the nation of ████████ as the devil, but we are devils, as well. In the eyes of our enemy, we are the cause of the destruction.

Betham: Do the books you’ve read tell us anything at all about why the war started? Is there a clear answer as to who is responsible for firing the first shot? What keeps this war going if there isn’t a clear goal that has yet to be accomplished?

Ronner: Nobody truly knows why the war started, or who started it. Everyone who was alive when the initial declaration was sent has long been dead. This war has seen the rise and fall of empires. Successful farmers became rich nobles, bandit lords turned into generals, kings became presidents, then supreme leaders. By now, any original purpose that the war held, any sense of reason and explanation, has long been lost. Soldiers are numbed before they even see battle; my generation fights blindly as my father’s did, and my grandfather’s. As will my son’s and my grandson’s.

Betham: The future seems quite grim. Ronner, do you see any hope for an end to this war any time soon? Is there anything that can be done to prevent another 2,000 years of conflict? Who must we sit in a room and have discuss the politics of such an unending, fleeting reign of decimation?

Ronner: Nobody is in charge of this war anymore. All we have to go on are the records left by past leaders which discuss the current state of things at the time. Plans that they wanted carried out by future generations. Who’s to confirm their legitimacy? As a soldier, even starting as a student in school, I was taught to hate ████████ and its people and allies. In the military, you are told to fight and you are told to die, and I will do so without question and without thought. Families suffer on both sides of the conflict, yet we think of none of that. All I know—all I’ve ever known—is that the people on the other side of that border have been killing my fellow countrymen, my brothers, our fathers, and it’s up to me to get revenge. It’s like an instinct inside of me. There’s no hesitation; it’s on sight. If I see someone from that opposing army, no matter what they’re doing, what they might intend by their actions, it doesn’t matter if they’re wounded or have their hands raised, I will eliminate them. Man, woman, it’s all the same to me. By now, an enemy is an enemy; they all look the same. And as far I know, they all feel the same towards us. You ask how any future conflict can be stopped. I tell you with certainty that nothing will stop this war. I believe that ██████ was correct in his hypothesis that the Earth will sooner be swallowed by our star than see the end to this war.

Betham: Ronner, it has occurred to me that we seem to have reached a critical point in the war in which everyone involved—soldiers, officers, civilians, historians—none of us know what our reason for fighting is. I am truly shocked by this revelation, as I’m sure many of our viewers are. Ronner, please, tell us how this could be. What is there for us to look for in all this suffering? Perhaps you can look inward and inform us as to how you feel about it all? What is your purpose—what wasyour purpose?

Ronner: Ma’am, I never knew.

Betham: (brief pause) Um, many feel that the government cares more about fighting this war than the people of our great nation. What do you say to such a proposition?

Ronner: The government cares little for anything but the war. I understand that civilians are starving, but the harsh reality is that everyone is starving. I’m starving, my soldiers are starving, my superiors are starving, and our enemy is starving. You wouldn’t believe what percentage of deaths in this war come simply from fatigue. You wouldn’t believe the technologies humans have created with the sole goal of preventing starvation without food.

Betham: Speaking of technologies, um, many proponents of the war efforts say that if it weren’t for the war, technology and human evolution would have moved at a much slower pace, and that some of what we have today might not have come about for… hundreds of years more. What can you tell us about the development of humankind during this war?

Ronner: As I mentioned earlier, humans have invented many things for the purpose of serving the war. Weapon technology is usually the first to see a major boom, followed by protections against such weapons. Back in the days of exploration, finding a new land with native people meant more soldiers, more land on which to build bases and factories. Once the first computer came about, that was it. We were on the moon by 1700 and less than 100 years later, Mars. Unfortunately, since space was considered neutral territory, nobody could use it for the war, so funding was cut and by 1820 and our last shuttle to Mars was on its way home. Once anti-aging technology was established, well, things got interesting. The amount that a human could accomplish in a single lifetime increased exponentially. Members of the military could serve longer, so long as they didn’t die in battle. Perhaps that’s nothing, though, compared to what we have today. Science was given an incredible amount of attention thanks to the need to surpass our enemy. Bombs capable of disrupting the structure of one’s DNA and preventing him from birthing offspring and thus slowly dwindling the opposing army’s supply. Lasers capable of penetrating the frontal lobes of your brain and disabling your voluntary motor skills. Mechanical suits used to empower soldiers with abilities beyond natural human capabilities thus creating beings of absolute destruction that feed on their own flesh should they run out of supplies in the field. These are all inventions that would never have come about if the war had ended a century ago or a millennium ago. I’m sure there’s some good in those creations, but all I can see is the wake of devastation they gouge as our countries’ armies slaughter each other for something that doesn’t even exist in the minds of our leaders anymore, if it ever did.

Betham: (brief pause) I’d like to return now to talking more directly about what you’ve read in libraries. History classes in schools teach very little about wars before this one, the war. What were wars like before this war if your readings describe any?

Ronner: Don’t let the vast length of time that this war has been going fool you into thinking that nothing existed before our war. Of course, there were wars before this one, “thewar.” However, record keeping was all but nonexistent in those times, so I suppose there is no physical proof aside from ancient spear heads that wars were waged before this one, but if the human race is as old as our archaeologists say, then I have no doubt that war has existed since before this war. Weapons back then were surely used for hunting, too, though. What war may have been like back then, I do not have the slightest idea, but it couldn’t have been as cruel as the climate of today.

Betham: Okay, Ronner, I have just one more question for you before we have a brief intermission. What can you tell me about the ██████ ██ █████ on the day of ███████ ██, ████?

Ronner: (long breath) Where do I start? I suppose you could say that ███████ ████ is responsible for the whole thing. Without her, ████████ never would have breached ████ ██████. █████ █████████, the standing ██████████ ███████ of the ███ █████████ in charge of overseeing ███████ ████████ had broken the treaty set by ██████████ before they merged with ██████. The treaty stated that ███ ██████ ██ █████ █████████ █████ ██ ████████ ██████ ███████ █████ ███ ██ ██████. ██ ██████ ███ ████ ██████ ███████ █████ ███ ███ ██████ ██ █████ █████████ █████ ██.████████ ██████ ███████ █████ ███. ██ ██████ ██ ██████ ███ ████ ██████ ███████ █████ ███ ███ ██████ ██ █████. █████████ █████ ██ ████████ ██████ ███████ █████ ███ ██ ██████ ██ ██████ ███ ████ ██████ ███████ █████ ███. With everything as fragile as it was at the time, ███████ ████ had no choice but to █████████ █████ ████████ ███████ ████ ██████ ██ ████████████ ███ ████ ██████ █████ █ █████ ███ ████ █ █████ █████. You won’t find any of that in any books, though.

Betham: (pause) I think we will have plenty to discuss after this brief intermission. I’d like to thank Ronner, again, for joining me this evening. We will be right back with the interview after this break.

[End of transcript]