After the End, except it never stopped ending...

[RyanW]

I've been thinking a little about a possible setting where a global war didn't destroy civilization. Instead, it devolved into a multi-lateral stalemate, where the parties involved continuously fight one another. All resources go into the war effort. Peace is simply what happens when production has to catch up with destruction. The world is a dystopian hellhole, and fixing anything is always postponed until after the war.

And this has been going on for generations, or even centuries. The purpose of the war is now to simply win the war. To prevent "them" from destroying "us" by destroying "them" first. Whatever resource the fighting started over has long since been consumed or destroyed. Whatever ideologies led people into conflict have been abandoned in favor of a perpetual totalitarian war footing on all sides.

A game set on the battlefield would be a grimdark death campaign, but a campaign of people dodging the war - both enemy attacks and friendly "recruitment drives" - would... well, it would still be grimdark, but I think there is potential there.

[Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2]

That's how the Daleks got started in Dr Who. A thousand years of war, starting with energy weapons and at the end with trench warfare and bolt-action rifles. The contaminated environment, full of radiation, chemicals, and bioweapons, began a cascade of mutations, creating a wasteland of monsters.

[evileeyore]

In the grim darkness After the End there was only war, war never changes...


For some inspiration there's Gone With the Blastwave.

[Anaraxes]

It was a bright cold day in April, and the dice were rolling 13s.

[Nereidalbel]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

In the grim darkness After the End there was only war, war never changes...


For some inspiration there's Gone With the Blastwave.

Sometimes, I have to wonder how long the list of mental Disadvantages is for the Reds.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Nereidalbel

Sometimes, I have to wonder how long the list of mental Disadvantages is for the Reds.

Shorter than it was for the Greens.

[Jack Sawyer]

As others have noted, similar ideas have been presented (I can think of Supreme Commander and Total Annihilation to add to that list) so I guess it depends on how you dress up that idea and move forward with it as far as themes and details and other fun worldbuilding stuff.

Like, just to throw up some random ideas, let's say that lots of raw resources to build and maintain most kinds of armored vehicles as we know them (MBTs, naval warships, etc.) decline, and we also see many kinds of fossil fuels (or more extreme, chemical power sources of many kinds) also disappear. What tech might still persist and be usable (at least to maintain if not build) and how might that impact things like warfare, society, etc.? Electrically driven stuff on the high tech end becomes more viable (you might not see gunpowder guns, but you could see electrothermal guns, EM guns, energy weapons) and infantry might become more relevant than is currently true. Electrical vehicles would be more common, and what vehicles exist may be more easily threatened by said infantry as well (not as big, or heavy, or as heavily armored.)

You might also see this co-existing alongside less sophisticated weapons and technologies. Muscle powered, airguns, possibly whatever chemically-powered guns that could still be built or maintained (and whatever chem fuels exist probably something along the lines of wood-powered and biofuels.) Pretty sure black powder (and possibly something like guncotton) could still persist (possibly other kinds of gun propellant, so I may also be wrong about the 'powder guns disappear'. Maybe light gas guns and liquid propellant become viable, even.)

[Gadget]

probably something like the Nu-Earth setting of Rogue Trooper

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_Trooper

[dcarson]

Beyond the Farthest Star by Edgar Rice Burroughs fits. The hero is transported to the planet Poloda where a war at WW II tech has been going on for a century.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2

That's how the Daleks got started in Dr Who. A thousand years of war, starting with energy weapons and at the end with trench warfare and bolt-action rifles. The contaminated environment, full of radiation, chemicals, and bioweapons, began a cascade of mutations, creating a wasteland of monsters.

I think that the movie version of H.G. Wells Things to Come is more accurate on what the situation would be for the fighters after a few decades: so much of the infrastructure is devastated that the old central governments are gone.

Originally Posted by dcarson

Beyond the Farthest Star by Edgar Rice Burroughs fits. The hero is transported to the planet Poloda where a war at WW II tech has been going on for a century.

Unless it is a variation of the Cold War, I doubt that a WW II tech war could go on for more then 40 years and even that would be pushing it.

Even with people underground you still need the means to transport fuel and material to the factories and odds are that is going to out in the open where the enemy can blow the crap out of it.