#forever war

[ringmaster-cainette]

Some highlights of the Europa Ice War

[emeraldtintedsword]

people seem to think that the Eye of Jove always watches us, a bleeding spot to witness all our sins upon the snap-freeze hellscape. they are under some impression that our chilling excuse for a moon must hang in place, motionless above the churning storms below. but the moon goes on its fated path, arcing around and around our sand-gold father, and sometimes when we look up all we see is the indifferent backside of a giant. no bleeding hole like the ones we make on ourselves, no eye to witness.

those are the worst days. when there is nothing to see it happen, something wretched lurches out of every soldier down here. no one to remember the evil we spill.

i dread to think what the forever war is like on the other side, on the trenches locked below the cold empty sky.

[fuck-it-we-bawl]

It's pretty easy to tell the difference between the tunnels that are part of Europa's natural geography and the ones that were dug entirely by human hands, our side or theirs. You just have to know what to look for.

When I spent a month with the Tunneler Corps, watching them carve away at the ice in their Excavator Suits, they pointed it out - it's all in the shape. Man-made tunnels are rounder. Natural ones tend to have angles; a lot are just thin slices of nothing in the ice, like clawmarks.

Best not to think about that one.

Another thing: the artificial tunnels tend to be straighter. It's just basic logistics that you want the most direct route between the place where the guns are boxed up and the place where they get fired. 'Course, they have to go around pitfalls, and chill vents, and the hard ice, but still - very open, not many corners. Not nearly as many as you get walking the winding corridors that the moon so graciously provided for us ahead of time.

The whole straight-no-bends thing seems like a great idea until something happens. Something like a lucky zealot gets the jump on a tunnel crew and takes their Excavator for a joyride.

I didn't even know they could move that fast.

When something like that happens, you suddenly feel real grateful for every little bend that breaks line of sight between you and the lunatic in the industrial mech ten paces behind you and closing. Doesn't matter that those things don't have any standard weapons on them when they can put a three-foot drill through your ribcage or crush any part of you they get a grip on with those metal mitts into soup.

Turns out the pressure plating makes for pretty good armour too, but then again, if it's good enough to tank a couple of tons of ice cave-in in a pinch, small arms fire is small fry. They put him down eventually, but by that point the bastard had repainted half a klick of tunnels with everyone slower than me.

I put in for a transfer to the surface not long after that. It's not like it's safer up here - I'd just feel a little better dying with the knowledge that I got to pick which direction I ran in.

[thefreethoughtprojectcom]

We don’t need another march to war. We need voluntaryist peace, because no politician is riding in to save us, and freedom doesn’t come packaged in bombs or missiles.

Read More: https://thefreethoughtproject.com/antiwar/the-liberation-of-hell-trumps-iran-ultimatum-and-the-death-of-america-first

#TheFreeThoughtProject

[victusinveritas]

"There seem to be holes in the strategy."

Nothing gets past this guy.

[chumbology]

Supplies getting low as fuck lately. Censors try to hide it but talk trickles through about raids on the shipping lanes.

Seems like the bodies working the asteroid belts finally had enough of making somebody else rich. Or maybe the company just missed a shipment and they're trying not to starve. 

Good news is, plenty of water to be had around here. And we're used to shitty-to-no grub anyhow, so a week on quarter rats ain't exactly life changing.

Supply always plans for this shit regardless, it’s why we got a buffer cache. It’s way fuckin less than it should be, cause brass is worried about theft and enemy raids, but it's still there, and the HQs got hydroponics going as well if the shit really hits the fan.

Course, if supply is disrupted for long enough – well, it's happened before, and shit gets real fucked, real quick. A body gets hungry enough and all the civilization leaves it in a hurry. 

This place is so fuckin barren that shit devolves a lot quicker than back home, too. No forest to scrounge in, no locals to pillage. Only people left to turn on are each other.

Bodies start dropping bodies to take their rations, or -- that other thing. Those that aren’t willing to go there start to eat bits of their psuits, furniture, boots, anything even remotely edible, and some things that aren’t. Anything to fill their bellies.

Course, sometimes it makes the bodies real eager to fight. Rumor spreads that the enemy’s sitting on a pile of supply and suddenly that private who's all doom and gloom and The Real Monster Is Man becomes fucking foaming at the mouth rambo.

Some bodies are saying brass withholds supply for just that reason, but that’s horshit. A hungry body can't fight for shit. A hungry body is weak and stupid. A hungry body doesn’t think too hard about who it’s hurting to feed itself.

‘S why Brass is scared shitless about supply getting disrupted. It’s the last thing they’d let get fucked up on purpose, speak to any CO and all they fucking talk about is supply. We're all way the fuck out there by ourselves, and if there's a mutiny, earth ain't gonna be able to send a relief force for months. That’s what the enemy was, to start, a mutiny. ‘Course, they mutinied for other reasons. Probably.

That's why we're not allowed within 300 meters of HQ with a weapon. Thats why the MPs are always armed and armored to the tits. That's why the MPs always get fed first. Brass is just as scared of us as they are of the enemy.

[thekalpar]

For years the government of Terra has told us to make due while they looted our planet. When our hab units failed did they send us replacements?

crowd angrily No!

So long as the water and brine flowed, they didn't give a damn that we lost our children and our old to frostbite! And when we closed the pipes and demanded they help us, did they listen to us? Did they treat any of us like human beings?

crowd angrily No! No!

You're goddamn right they didn't. They sent in their drop troops, their hired guns, and they forced the pipes back open again! They forced us back to work at the point of a gun and didn't care if we froze to death as long as they got their water.

crowd Shame! Shame!

Well I've heard the song of Europa! Our planet cries out to us, she begs us to defend her! Join me, siblings! Embrace the ice song! We will throw off the imperialist yoke and protect our beloved planet, and in turn she will take care of us! Embrace the ice song!

Recording of Europan resistance meeting, possibly first recording of Ice Cult on Europa

[tomorrowusa]

Trump’s unprovoked attack on Iran has no mandate – or legal basis

US president violates UN charter just days into his Board of Peace era, and chooses to take the biggest gamble of his administration

For some reason Trump thinks he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. This despite starting unprovoked wars abroad, mowing down US citizens inside the country, and frequently using violence porn in his rhetoric such as the recent SOTU.

Of course there is no authorization from Congress or other legal justification.

The first war of Donald Trump’s Board of Peace era has begun – an unprovoked attempt at regime change in collaboration with Israel, with no legal foundation, launched in the midst of diplomatic efforts to avert conflict, and with minimal consultation with Congress or the American public. Trump’s recorded eight-minute address after the first bombs had fallen, made clear that this would be no limited strike aimed at cajoling Tehran into concessions at the negotiating table. He warned that if Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) did not surrender they would be killed, and the country’s armed forces, its missile and navy would be smashed.

We don't know how far this new Trump war will go. He may just drop a lot of bombs and declare victory or US ground troops could get deeply involved.

Trump is a hypocrite who previously complained about US wars.

Trump has long railed against the folly of the Iraq war. He campaigned twice on a platform of ending US military entanglements abroad, and lobbied aggressively to be awarded the Nobel peace prize based on the factually shaky claim to have ended eight wars. Barely 10 days before launching the war, he had hosted the inaugural meeting of his Board of Peace which was supposedly going to resolve conflicts, not just in the Middle East but around the world.

"Peace Board" my ass. Iran is a Middle Eastern country of over 90 million people which includes several large ethnic minorities and is currently run by religious extremists. What could possibly go wrong?

If anything, this could be the most accurate headline regarding this war.