Zavirdyaev continued to hang in the air. Landskricht stretched out next to him, as if he was lying on a table, and she was standing over him - it seemed that she herself turned him that way.
- So, in those days, in the twentieth century, a small anomaly occurred, when war lost its former appearance and began to be seen as something that, having happened once, would end everyone once and for all. In addition, local wars were waged, but they also took on the appearance of real slaughterhouses. Of course - suddenly such wonderful machines appeared, which no one had really tested and on which such hopes were placed. Even today's front, which everyone who is threatened to get to is so afraid of, has a somewhat more restrained appearance. And here, oddly enough, we must give credit to technical progress - at first it spoiled everything, and then, with its assistance, everything began to straighten out. The rate of its growth slowed down. Human life was no longer a transition from a candle to a TV, but a transition from a desktop computer to an AI, from a gasoline car to a hydrogen car. The apocalyptic perception of war, all this psychopathy began to evaporate. The bright and full of crazy entertainment twenty-first century ended, the twenty-second began. The shuttle cabin muttered some speech messages.
- So, in the second year of the War, and for some even in the Pre-War years, it became clear that this way, in the War, you can live. The principles that worked in the olden days, when the war was going on as usual and the rabble lived their ordinary lives, suddenly began to return and work. Anti-missile defense on both sides dampened the intensity of the attacks of the first days of the War, then everything began to calm down and even some rules were developed. Parity principles, guaranteed mutual damage, gradual escalation-de-escalation with delayed feedback. This was thought out back in the Pre-War years. Nevertheless, it must be said that the beginning of the War was not thoroughly orchestrated and could have turned out to have much more serious consequences. However, what happened - this is also nothing but a catastrophe. Then, in the following months, the level of control over the Military Process began to strengthen. Bilateral control. Landskricht's face lost its emotion again. Now it loomed above, illuminated by a bright white light against the background of the light cabin of the ship. It was creepy.
- I will immediately stipulate that the War is not some kind of contractual process - each of the parties, the Western and Asian Blocs, pursue their own and only their own goals. Only these goals have long ceased to consist of a direct, much less a complete defeat of the enemy. In the wars of the distant past, by the way, this was also often the case. Both sides also identified internal goals. Some of these goals have already been achieved by both sides - this is the end of the story with the US national debt and the occupation processes within the Asian Bloc. Of course, if one of the parties wanted to commit suicide and along with the enemy, some of this would have worked out - something would have undoubtedly flown, but this does not happen. And it was not like this before. You know how they used to imagine it - there is a president, he has a suitcase, in the suitcase there is a button. This has never happened, it is just a cliché for the average person. One way or another, productive forces adapted to the War, emerged from the period of degradation and passed into a static state, and recently development has begun, only along a somewhat distorted path, from the point of view of a person of the pre-war past. The Soviet Union, especially the first one, was accused of hypertrophied militarization of production and life in general, although in everyday life everything was not so clearly expressed. Now the entire Western World has followed this path, which it drew in its imagination, denouncing that hapless enemy in the Cold War.
Landskricht leaned slightly, at the same time gently tilting Zavirdyaev. Now her face looked straight into his.