Augmented Attrition & Preemptive Argumentation
Cannon Fodder in 3D
Setting: An endless, grey terrace suspended in a quiet mist. The only feature is a single, ornate iron chair.
(Sophia stands, observing the mist. Frederick, dressed in the austere uniform of a Prussian king, approaches and gestures to the empty space around them.)
Frederick: An efficient use of space, I suppose. No distractions. No tedious courtly affairs. Just the purity of thought.
Sophia: And the echoes, Frederick. Can you not hear them? They are woven into the very fabric of this place.
Frederick: (Listening intently) I hear the distant thunder of artillery. The percussion of history being written. It is the sound that lends legitimacy to a crown, the most convincing of all diplomatic communiques. It is the final word in any debate over a ruler’s right to rule.
Sophia: You hear the argument, but you are missing its texture, its depth. You perceive it in two dimensions: a king’s will on one axis, the force required to impose it on the other. A simple, flat equation. Power equals victory.
Frederick: It is the equation that builds nations and secures borders. A general cannot afford to weep for every line of infantry. He sees a deployment, a strategic asset, a necessary expenditure for a greater stability. The individual soldier is a component in a grand and vital machine.
Sophia: And that is where the third dimension appears, the one you choose to flatten. I do not see a component; I see a universe. A young farmer who knew the smell of rain on dry soil, a tailor who dreamt of opening his own shop, a son whose mother awaited a letter that would never arrive. You call them ‘fodder’ for your great machines of iron and powder. You see them as fuel for the fire of your ambition.
Don't forget your great guns, which are the most respectable arguments of the rights of kings.
— Frederick the Great (1712-1786)
Frederick: A harsh assessment. It is not ambition, but order. Without the strength of the state, an apparatus defended by those very men, what becomes of the farmer’s field or the tailor’s shop? They are consumed by chaos. Their sacrifice, while regrettable, underwrites the peace and prosperity of millions. It is a terrible, but necessary, calculus.
Sophia: The calculus has evolved, but the principle remains. Your great guns were forged in foundries and aimed across fields of mud. The new cannons are more subtle. They are forged in algorithms and aimed at the minds of billions. The arguments they make are streams of data, shaping belief without firing a single shot.
Frederick: (Scoffs lightly) A war of ideas? A childish fantasy. An idea has never stopped a cavalry charge.
Sophia: Has it not? The new cannon fodder is no longer just the young man in a uniform. It is the citizen drowning in curated falsehoods until he despises his neighbor. It is the online mob, an army of anonymous avatars deployed to shatter a reputation. It is the factory worker whose livelihood is sacrificed on the altar of a distant economic strategy. The bodies do not always fall, but the humanity is expended all the same. The kings have changed, the arguments have gone digital, but the fodder is still seen in two dimensions: a data point, a vote, a consumer, a casualty statistic.
(Sophia turns to face him, her gaze serene but piercing.)
Sophia: Tell me, Frederick. The young man who lit the fuse on the first cannon in your greatest victory. You saw him as the glorious start of your respectable argument. But did you ever see him in 3D? Did you see the tremor in his hand? Did you know the name of the girl he carved into the stock of his musket? Did you feel the silent implosion of his world in the moment your great gun began its roar?
(Frederick opens his mouth to speak, but no sound comes out. The distant, percussive thunder he heard before now sounds hollow, and for the first time, he feels the silence that follows each and every blast.)
Sophia: That is the third dimension. It is the depth of the human cost. And it is the one dimension for which no king, and no machine, can ever truly account. It is the ghost in your equation.
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