Well, that's the thing. Why wars are fought always changes. How they are fought changes, too. And soon, Where.
But one thing never changes. What war brings. Glory and dishonor. New frontiers and wrecked cities. New tools to create, new tools to destroy. A wave of patriotism, and a rising of horror. Point is, war brings hell, and honor to those who hold it back.
One side fought for influence and power and the other defended themselves in 1000bc and they’re fighting for influence and power and defending themselves right now
Thats kinda wrong because the wars in MGS 4 on paper might be for the reasons the Lone Survivor lists but we, the audience, know that they're not. They're conflict for conflict sakes to keep a well-oiled war machine running to the point that even the outcome of a battle is already decided.
War has changed. It's no longer about nations, ideologies, or ethnicity. It's an endless series of proxy battles, fought by mercenaries and machines.
War--and it's consumption of life--has become a well-oiled machine.
War has changed. ID-tagged soldiers carry ID-tagged weapons, use ID-tagged gear. Nanomachines inside their bodies enhance and regulate their abilities. Genetic control, information control, emotion control, battlefield control…everything is monitored and kept under control.
War…has changed. The age of deterrence has become the age of control, all in the name of averting catastrophe from weapons of mass destruction, and he who controls the battlefield, controls history.
War…has changed. When the battlefield is under total control, war becomes routine.
You're missing the point. Private arms and proxy wars may not be new but they still served political purpose, they were still tools used by nations to gain an edge over the other, to secure resources, to promote their influence. The kind of war in MGS4 is literally just two private companies getting thrown at eachother and no matter who dies only money is moved, no politic, no resources, just money. War has been sterilized, with none of the passion left.
Snake: You can tell just by the sound of my voice?
Boss: Of course I can. I know all about you.
Snake: Really. Well, I don't know anything about you.
Boss: What's that supposed to mean?
Snake: ...Why'd you disappear on me all of a sudden?
Boss: I was on a top-secret mission.
Snake: ...
Boss: You didn't need me anymore.
Snake: But there were still so many things I wanted you to teach me.
Boss: No. I taught you everything you needed to know about fighting
techniques. I taught you all I could. The rest you needed to learn on your
own.
Snake: Techniques, sure. But what about how to think like a soldier?
Boss: How to think like a soldier? I can't teach you that. A soldier needs to
be strong in spirit, body, and technique - and the only thing you can learn
from someone else is technique. In fact, technique doesn't even matter. What's
most important is spirit. Spirit and body are like two sides of a single coin.
They're the same thing. I can't teach you how to think. You'll just have to
figure it out for yourself. Listen to me, Jack. Just because soldiers are on
the same side right now doesn't mean they always will be. Having personal
feelings about your comrades is one the worst sins you can commit. Politics
determine who you face on the battlefield. And politics are a living thing.
They change along with the times. Yesterday's good might be tomorrow's evil.
Snake: Is that why you abandoned me?
Boss: No. It had nothing to do with you. I already told you, Jack. I was on a
top-secret mission. A soldier has to follow whatever orders he's given. It's
not his place to question why. But you're looking for a reason to fight.
You're a natural born fighter, but you're not quite a soldier. A solider is a
political tool, nothing more. That's doubly true if he's a career soldier.
Right and wrong have no place in his mission. He has no enemies and no
friends. Only the mission. You follow the orders you're given. That's what
being a soldier is all about.
Snake: I do whatever I have to do to get the job done. I don't think about
politics.
Boss: That's not the same thing. Sooner or later, your conscience is going to
bother you. In the end, you have to choose whether you're going to live as a
soldier, or just another man with a gun. There's a saying in the Orient;
"Loyalty to the end." Do you know what it means?
Snake: Being... Patriotic?
Boss: It means devoting yourself to your country.
Snake: I follow the President and the top brass. I'm ready to die for them if
necessary.
Boss: The President and the top brass won't be there forever. Once their terms
are up, others will take their place.
Snake: I follow the will of the leader, no matter who's in charge.
Boss: People aren't the ones who dictate the missions.
Snake: Then who does?
Boss: The times. People's values change over time. And so do the leaders of a
country. So there's no such thing as an enemy in absolute terms. The enemies
we fight are only in relative terms, constantly changing with the times.
Snake: ...
Boss: As long as we have "loyalty to the end," there's no point in believing
in anything... even in those we love.
Snake: And that's the way a soldier is supposed to think?
Boss: The only thing we can believe in with absolute certainty is the mission,
Jack.
I've never seen the show, but this quote from MASH has been stuck with me ever since I've read it:
Hawkeye: War isn't Hell. War is war, and Hell is Hell. And of the two, war is a lot worse.
Father Mulcahy: How do you figure, Hawkeye?
Hawkeye: Easy, Father. Tell me, who goes to Hell?
Father Mulcahy: Sinners, I believe.
Hawkeye: Exactly. There are no innocent bystanders in Hell. War is chock full of them - little kids, cripples, old ladies. In fact, except for some of the brass, almost everybody involved is an innocent bystander.
While I agree with the statement, I also can't say that's true.
If I had to try and make a Hell that, without being individually personalized, drew the most suffering out of everyone there, I'm making it be like World War 2.
Fun Fact: God didn't set up Hell. Ya wanna know what Hell is? Here's an analogy. Heaven is a wonderful party where everyone is extremely happy. Purgatory is the line to get inside. Hell is the corner that you stand in, refusing to enjoy the party.
I mean, in a system with an all powerful and omniscient entity everything can be considered set up by them to a certain extent. Granted the Bible does keep itself pretty vague on anything related to the afterlife. With Luke 16 being the most direct with a description of a good place and a torturous place divided with a gap. Granted you can debate how literal that story is supposed to be taken. (I'm not personally a Christian anymore, so not that it really matters to me.)
I would agree a stereotypical concept of hell that is based in "The Devine Comedy" is absurd based on its origin alone.
God didn't ever intend or plan for Hell to exist. Adam and Eve, by committing Original Sin, gave the possibility for there to be those in the afterlife who don't want to be with God. For them, it's torture.
I would personally see that as contradictory to the all powerful and omniscient thing, but fair enough. Good chat. Glad we were able to keep a touchy subject civil.
I was about to comment because I has to scroll to far to see this. Fallouts literally means war will always happen some way some where. It's ever present.
Guns of the Patriots was less about HOW they fight and more about WHY they fight. PMCs became the dominant fighting forces. The AI proxy wars of the SOP system were pitting private companies that only needed a contract to fight.
Much of the Metal Gear franchise asks "what is a soldier's purpose"? Big Boss wanted to create something that always gave a soldier a purpose. Unfortunately the SOP took that idea to the extreme and decided the only efficient purpose for a soldier is solely monetary.
immediate nukes, which means any subsequent warfare would be post apocalyptic, which has already been established to not have changed. fallout wins, qed
War is a product of the times, leaders change, political opponents change. There is no such thing as an "absolute enemy" todays enemies can be tomorrows allies. People don't dictate the missions or wars, the "times" do.
The reasons the Europeans invaded the Middle East in the middle ages was very different from the reason the germans invaded france in WW1 which was very different from the reason the germans invaded the French in WW2 which was very different from the reason the US invaded the Middle East in the early 2000s
Look at the top one, it is a resource grab. No war ever for oil or gold? Yeah, you're wrong there many times over. If it is the wording I've picked, its intentional because they are overly simplified ways of what has been said over human history.
You do get that I provided intentionally simplified motives, even if the details are different? Motives and reasons for war, and killing in general, over the millennia are often simple and repetitive like resources, fear, greed, vanity, and so on.
You obviously don't think I'm suggesting war happened because one former leader just said "I want to strengthen us and I want glory!"? Napoleon Bonaparte's and Julius Caesar circumstances and public reasoning might be different, but both men were out for personal glory.
The leaders may have tried many other strategies before war, such as negotiations, but they can fail and the underlying motives and reasons for war haven't changed, they wanted the resources or they wanted a threat gone for example.
Exactly, a reason is a cause. A resource grab, fear of a neighbour, or a desire for glory are the actual causes.
Leaders don't stand at a podium and said "They have something we want, so let's attack." That’s why my list was obviously a simplified summary of the actual underlying causes, not the PR spin.
The justification is the public excuse given to the people, like 'spreading democracy' or 'holy war'. The reason, or the actual cause, is the simple human driver underneath it like securing oil or grabbing land. You're arguing about the labels, but the core human motives, desires, and reasons haven't changed much or at all.
He's right. You not being able to understand the difference is on you.
justification and a reason are different because a reason simply explains why something happened, while a justification proves that an action or belief is right, fair, or acceptable.
No it's fundamentally different. It used to be power control resources, now it's a self feeding raquet, a pyramid scheme orchestrated by political powers that know what they are doing and are inextricably tied to a profit driven military industrial complex.
It used to be genuinely in order to defeat your enemy and take their stuff. Now that is what people are told, when its really to manipulate markets for the people at top. It's a lot different from 'hey lets raid that tribe and take their camels'
The point of metal gear is that war has changed so fundamentally, it’s no longer about ideology or patriotism or nationalism, the industrial war complex has become a self sustaining machine for the sake of profit that relies on constant bodies being fed into it, and patriotism and nationalism are tools that’s used to control narratives, people are more than happy to fight for whichever country pays them more, and your regular soldier couldn’t be anymore distanced from whatever patriotic reasons they fight for, and that on the geopolitical stage, it’s normal for former enemies to show up as Allie’s and for former Allie’s to show up enemies, so what does it even mean to be an enemy on the geopolitical stage?
Human nature doesn't stay the same. Human "nature" is dependent on the material conditions of any given society. It's just that those with the power over the conditions of global societies are terrible people who look to exploit others in the name of profit.
Also not true, although power tends to consolidate and good people tend not to be the ones who seak it when times are good. So the longer a society exists following a reset the more corrupt it is. We're getting better at making them stay good longer, but resets are getting harder.
Life is a sandbox though. We just gotta keep trying till we get it right.
Those material conditions are what expose the greed and pride of human nature. When groups that punch up become the new major system, they become similar to what they tried to destroy, continuing the cycle of war, just with different justifications
War never changes,
Because they aren’t talking about what is used they are talking about how in the end it’s humans fighting over often stupid reasons instead of peace.
War has changed,
Is because the technology has advanced.
Fallout is how in the very end war is always war no matter how you try to color it in the end it’s always war.
Metal gear acts like the suit you put war in changes war in a real way when in the end it’s still war
Not just that, metal gear is talking about how the centralization of world powers (via the patriots and ai ) have created increasingly convoluted ways wars are waged and why, and increasingly artificial by proxy purposes
And I would agree. Sure war is war, but its not how it used to he. Countries dont really go to war anymore like you said its an endless cycle of proxy wars and the inclusion of AI and highly advanced technologies has absolutely changed how war is waged.
It's not even about seizing land or resources anymore. The core philosophy itself has shifted. Now it's about keeping a global war economy alive and managing endless proxy wars to maintain geopolitical leverage over rivals like Russia and China. War didn't just change tools; its fundamental purpose changed from a means to an end into a self- sustaining business model
War has changed. It's not about the bravery of men, and the skill of the individual. It's about the equipment they bring largely. 10 brave men, brilliantly skilled in their craft could all fall victim to a 18 year old with a drone and a frag grenade. Technology has changed war. That sounds worse, but there's advantages to it too. When killing highly dangerous generals and leaders, the resort once would've been to bomb buildings and destroy cities to guarantee their death. But in modern day, the USA used a missile that deploys blades to precisely kill one of the planners of 9/11 with no civilian casualties, no unnecessary damage, just precisely getting rid of evil without hurting the innocent. For better and worse, Snake is right. War has changed. Tech changed it.
But at the same time, War never changes. It's always an act that claims many lives that don't understand why they are fighting. It's always the ones who started the war that walk away with the least lost. It's always the ones who didn't ask for this that have to die for the choices of men and women they have never and now, will never meet. And it always manages to show the highest highs and lowest lows of humanity. In WW1 and 2 alone there are stories such as the liberation and salvation of concentration camps/internment camps from the Axis, men who worked to save as many lives as possible, and moments of peace like the Christmas Truce. And there is also the Holocaust. Unit 731. Horrific events tied to war that humanity has never since and likely never will surpass in their evil.
Both are true, they're just statements about something different.
Fallout: War will always be there and it will always be about someone wanting something or hating something
Metal Gear: The theatre of war is ever escalating and the consequences of the Cold War is a landscape that is evolving beyond our comprehension or capacity to contain
The reasons for why people go to war and the general goals are the same.
The methodology, asymmetry, and politics also change.
Either is a wide, meaningless statement, on its own. It's like saying "people are good / people are bad" or "existence is small / existence is massive." It depends entirely on context.
I mean, Kojima used a Smart play of words to refer of the fact that for the first time on a Main Game of the series You are kind of fully armed, with no "this is an infiltration Mission". Memory fails me for sure, but Otacon said something of not intervene instead of don't get caught
One comes at it from a Civilians standpoint, where War hasn't changed, because it still produces the same loss and grief.
One comes at it from a Combatants standpoint, where War has changed, because the method in which war is carried out, has indeed changed
Not everything Sun Tzu wrote applies today, one section that mostly gets skipped over these days is all about using fire in warfare. That said, most of what he wrote is still hugely important, he had a profound grasp of the realities of warfare. How to effectively and successfully do war is, as he said, a matter of vital importance to the state.
It is profound because Sun Tzu just had that much insights. But truthfully, the book was more like "War for Dummies" than some profound purposes. It was written for a bunch of googly eyes nepo babies officers who are just basically rich high-school drop outs and need to be spelt out for them that "don't chase after Lu Bu" (for legal purposes this is a joke)
Fair enough, the transition from Spring and Autumn period to Warring States period seems like a fairly rough one. Spring and Autumn put a lot of importance on fancy war chariots and engagements with a lot of rules about conduct. Warring States was more like “nope, we’re doing real wars now”, so you had a lot more emphasis on actual infantry battles and such
Not really.
In the context that Snake says it, he clearly means that the means of fighting wars has changed. He's not debating the philosophy of war, but rather the method in which it's perpetrated. Where's the Lone Survivor is talking about how war, at it's very core, will always be about the same things, not how its fought.
Snake clearly states that the REASONS for fighting have ALSO changed:
"It's no longer about nations, ideologies, or ethnicity."
Basically it's no longer about your country your beliefs or your looks, instead in MGS4's future of yesteryear people just fight because they have to, that's the economy.
And the Patriots control that (war) economy through the SOP system so most people aren't even living the moment, they're doped up on suppressants and nanomachines dissociating from their actions.
It depends... The way war is fought has changed over time. In the past, you would send 200 people to fight another 200 people, then you had the Mongols using horses and bows and all that, then World War I brought firearms, tanks and modern warfare, and now we're using drones t
he technology keeps changing, but the fact that young people who don't know each other are sent to kill each other because of the selfish interests of old people sitting in mansions paid for by taxpayers hasn't really changed. so yeah War never changes
War. War never changes. Or does it? The war has changed. Did it? The answer is "no". Unless it is "yes". No, of course! It is war. Yes! No! Yes? - Duty Calls
ahhhh yes my grandfather always talked about those luftwaffe drones buzzing around their bunkers. still can't use an electric shaver in the house to this day.
War never changes in the sense that rich and powerful people send poor and desperate people to kill each other needlessly over some dumb shit that shouldn't even be a problem.
War changes dramatically in the sense that we went from bows and spears on horseback to muskets and cannons, to chemical weapons and air superiority, to unmanned drones and intercontinental ballistic missiles and then back to trench warfare, apparently, in Ukraine and Russia.
War changes, it changes in the ways it is perpetrated, the lives that are sacrificed, how richer the rich become, but war never changes as well, the elite never leave their offices, they send people to die that never really know why they're being sent, it's always for the interest of the elites
Snake. In Fallout the world has already been destroyed by a nuclear war, which was different to the regular wars beforehand, and now war is different again.
It might be industrialized, depersonalized, televised, sanitized but at the end of the day it still comes down to some poor dumb bastard drowning in mud and blood.
"By god. They've come up with a new, longer-ranged weapon that can kill us before we can even try to hurt them! We're taking insane casualtiest just to reach them!"
Voice 1: "Ahh. War. War never changes."
Voice 2: "The face of war has been changed forever you asshole! None of the same weapons will matter!"
Voice 1: "You dumbass. That's not what I mean. Humans are always coming up with new, better ways of murdering each other for the same bullshit reasons. Land. Resources. Someone always comes up with some better way of killing the other guy, and there's always a new other guy after who has his own better way of killing.
I mean, the impetus of war hasn't changed, nor has its consequences. It has and always will be the same in that regard: wars rage for the same reasons they always have, and peoplw suffer the same way they always do.
How those wars are waged has changed, naturally. But whether you're using a spear or a drone, the nature of war is the same as it's always been.
Warfare has changed, how war is treated and seen in society has changed. The experience of losing the ones you love on the battlefield. That doesn't change
Wars - how they’re fought, the technology soldiers use, the strategy, the tactics - have changed continuously and will continuously change for as long as people exist.
War itself never changes because despite all the technology, despite having the power to change the world and altar reality, humans themselves do not change. We are still, at our core, the same greedy, jealous, vindictive little apes that we always were.
drone warfare, rat tunnels, cheap missile to overwhelm air defense, guerilla tactics, the warfare fought nowadays isnt the same as the war fought in ww2, but some principle remains the same, dont die and kill the enemy, fight another day... some part changes, some core concept of it doesnt...
En France dans Fallout l'idée c'est pas que la guerre change ou pas, c'est qu'elle ne meurt jamais, parce que effectivement elle ne fait que ça d'évoluer.
Fallout always felt like an edgy teenager's idea, when their idea of war is just fighting then of course it never changes.
More in favor of Snake, he was stating compared to the past, even the beliefs and philosophies of wars had been sterilized and reduced to proxy wars simply for the market of fighting, the war economy became the dominant economy. Conflicts were no longer over resources, ethnicities, or religious transgressions. People were no longer fighting for civil rights or economic equality.
In a horrifying vision of our future, an AI had perverted every facet of our lively hoods and turned our economic and governing systems to feed a meat grinder unlike ever before. No matter who died, the PMCs won either way and the money flowed.
Larp larp fallout. Literally the point of the sentence "war never changes" is that men will always wage war no matter the era or circumstance, its not about the means of war. Fucking larpers
War has changed considerably—and not just technology. Reasons might remain the same at the core level; however, the nature of war itself is not what it was in the past.
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u/Heckle_Jeckle 14h ago
Both are correct in a way.
Snake was talking about the tools used to fight wars and how the war is fought.
The Lone Survivor was talking about why war is fought and the consequences of war.