Who is the Enemy?
"They" are the enemy. "We" are "their" enemy. "I" am an enemy. Am I my own enemy?
What is this:
Is that China having a weapons platform that makes it and it alone more powerful? What if China isn't an “it”? What if China is "Us"?
Conventional, 99% mentality requires an enemy to be "there". External. It’s easy to imagine that you are someone else’s enemy simply because they are yours and you oppose them. Who considers that they themselves may be the enemy or even their own enemy?
If every nation is actually signed up to the same version of the future (Climate Change, Agenda 2030, Agenda 21, Covid-19), then just because one of them fires a bigger gun, it doesn't mean they’re the enemy, or the only enemy, or the biggest enemy, or your enemy per se. It means the human race just added something to its overall arsenal. The 1% doesn't fire weapons at itself. It deploys the children of the 99% in war and they fire the weapons at each other because they don't know any better. You don’t win in business if you kill yourself while doing it. You can win in business if you stay alive and some of your tools get used up and/or some of your customers eventually die. Most major businesses have a such track records. DuPont, Bayer Monsanto, Tesla, Big Pharma, the list goes on.
Integration of power and its coalescence into a global unipower means that one has to mentally transcend nation states and boundaries to work out whether there's an enemy, identify who it really is and where any such enemy is operating or based. Then you have to be prepared to entertain the idea that the enemy (if there is one) is now all around, and that you may have even become your own worst enemy.
On a simple level, anyone who has voluntarily dosed themselves with medical treatments that they didn’t understand then died or were injured as a result, must consider that, in fact, they were their own worst enemy. They did that to themselves, didn’t they?
Hey, look! Afghan isn't over.
Good job China just sorted out those long range orbital hypersonic missiles (see above). We can keep blowing up caves and trapping Afghani bears in them. They are one of the world's top threats to life. Afghani bears. Real hairy, real dangerous. ISIS is now an integrated, better equipped and politically legitimised entity with which we do some form of business. The war business.
SCENE 47: SHIPPING CONTAINER IN RAMMSTEIN AIRFORCE BASE
Nameless Faceless Commander 01: Pound those caves from space, soldier!
Nameless Faceless Expendable Troop 01: This is soooo much better than my PS5! I thought those graphics in VR were good, but on this system it looks real. I can't make out the pixels! Aaaannnd….
Screen displays a massive strike landing from orbit, bang on target. Half of a mountain is engulfed in a black hot UltraHD resolution puff, which clears to reveal half of the mountain is literally gone.
Nameless Faceless Expendable Troop 01: BoomYa! Bombdown! THAT’S our 85% kill bonus locked in! Wooo! IKEA new season here we come!
Nameless Faceless Commander 01: Good kill. Strike some bears! Make it five. Five… bears. Damn fine work, you!
Nameless Faceless Expendable Troop 01: “You”, sir? No, I prefer “They”. See? It says it on my pronoun badge.
Nameless Faceless Commander 01: “You” is “They”, numbnutz. Pronoun. Second Person. PLURAL! Didn’t major in English grammar, did you, soldier?! That’s why you’re pulling the trigger when I tell you to.
Nameless Faceless Expendable Troop 01: Sir, yes, Sir. My mistake, Sir!
SCENE 48: DEVELOPER MEETING
Nameless Faceless Expendable Developer 01: We found that operator efficiency increased linearly with the degree of platform immersion. VAC - Vision quality, Audio quality, Control interface fluidity - is maxed out. Kill ratios went up as we got the platform realism via VAC immersion higher. But it's plateau'd now. The Brass wants us to take another step forwards. Any ideas?
Nameless Faceless Expendable Developer 02: Well, the senses... what are we missing? I know, taste and smell...?
SCENE 49: CHOPPER TOUCHING DOWN IN AFGHANISTAN THEATRE
Nameless Faceless Expendable Troop 01: Sir, I really don't like this chopper ride. The shipping container in Rammstein was a lot more comfortable.
Nameless Faceless Commander 01: Soldier, park that whining! Remember the brief! Get out at the DZ. Put on the gear. Identify and mark the bear caves for the orbital hypersonic platform. That gets they their 85% kill bonus that they've been hitting since they joined Rammstein. They don't want to lose their apartment, do they? They need the cash to redecorate with the new IKEA range of dogshit chipboard and plastic. Uncle Chau will see them right if they see him/her/it/them right...
Nameless Faceless Expendable Troop 01: But we were doing that from behind the desk in the shipping container.
Nameless Faceless Commander 01: We want the last 15% out of they, soldier! Uncle Chau wants 100% commitment from its Peace Force in the fight against murderous Afghani bears! So, once they've called in the first strike and got their 85%, get in amongst the kill zone and lick the bodies, smell the air, suck it all in. Get back in the chopper and do it all again in DZ 2. The Devs say the licking and the sniffing will get them over the 85% performance boundary. Understand?
Nameless Faceless Expendable Troop 01: Err...
Nameless Faceless Commander 01: There's a Bang and Olufson system in it for they.
Nameless Faceless Expendable Troop 01: Sir! Yes Sir!
…
SCENE 53: CHOPPER RELANDS AFTER SUCCESSFUL STRIKE
Nameless Faceless Commander 01: Pilot, standby for my signal. Lift-off when I tell you we’ve got them onboard. Do not flee from incoming bears. We need to recover them. They’ve got kit on them that we cannot afford to lose. It’s the only in-field, human-portable development rig. It’s worth at least five PS5s!
Nameless Faceless Chopper Pilot 01: Sir! Yes, Sir! Recover them all then lift off on your mark!
Nameless Faceless Commander 01: Negative visual… Negative bears… Come on, soldier. Goddammit! …. Come on… Come on… How much goddamn licking and sniffing can… Postive visual! Pilot, standby! Strike team inbound to our poz!
Nameless Faceless Expendable Troop 01 appears from dust and smoke, boards CHOPPER.
Nameless Faceless Expendable Troop 01: One DZ down, one more to go, Sir! B&O surround sound heaven here we come!
Nameless Faceless Expendable Commander 01: Pilot! Lift-off!
Nameless Faceless Chopper Pilot 01: Sir! They’re not all on board yet!
Nameless Faceless Expendable Commander 01: Yes they are! Lift-off before the bears get us!
Nameless Faceless Expendable Pilot 01: They? But there’s only one operator on board. What about the rest of them? I’ve never left anyone behind! My recovery bonus will be screwed and I’ll miss out on the Hugo Boss three-piece suit, personal fragrance and complimentary bathroom set! Sir!
Nameless Faceless Expendable Commander 01: Sweet Jesus! Haven’t you done the pronoun training yet, Son! That’s “they”, <jabs finger at Nameless Faceless Expendable Troop 01> errr… “them”. THAT’S “them”! It says it on their pronoun badge!
Nameless Faceless Expendable Pilot 01: Excuse me, Sir! “Son”? But I identify as…
Nameless Faceless Massive Bloodthirsty Afghani Bear 01 - 10 appear at max sprint from the smoke, dust and falling ash. The BEARS swamp the CHOPPER.
ALL Nameless Faceless Expendables: Argh!
Pullback from scene of hairy, murderous carnage illuminated by the dull glow of the CHOPPER’S internal lighting and the bright, pin-point glow from the goggles of the HUMAN-PORTABLE ORBITAL LAUNCH DEVELOPMENT KIT.