It’s funny isn’t it? All these films and books all go ‘hey look, the bad guys lost!’ But most of the time it stays fiction. The good die young, the bad old. That would explain too many things.

-Anonymous citizen, human.

PoV: Alpha

Yet another day doing my favourite activity. A crusade of genocide to kill oppressors and all non me military forces. I rolled along happily, until I turned the corner, finding a stupid amount of PDF. Division worth. “Yup. Wrong way guys, don’t mind me.” I slowly spoke.

“Die creature!” They replied, sending a few hundred plasma shells at me. Taking the initiative, I retreated, narrowly avoiding the hail of firepower coming my way. Then they turned the corner, surprising my dumb ass that thought movie logic was going to save me as I made a looney tunes getaway. Evidentially, the few hundred plasma blobs coming at me a stupid speeds was begging to differ. Yet again, a melted, as one could not defeat a tank division on their own, especially in an L3/33 tankette. So yet again, I died: shit.

I respawned on the ship to a ‘sleeping’ system, after chronic over worrying and working, and I knew this time I couldn’t just go down to the planet randomly, because this time it isn’t primitives, but an advanced civilisation I’m fighting. It’s better to face the truth early than have it forced upon you when it’s way too late. I started to formulate a plan in my head. Before I did however, I thought of a quote that makes no sense. War. War never changes. Now, that is false in more ways than one.

First, with all this sci if bullshit, as well as already implemented plans and infrastructure on Earth, drones would play a pivotal role in any conflict. After all, what non hive mind civilisation would throw their people into a meat grinder for a few feet of gained land? Barring World War One and other types of trench/ static warfare.

Second, tactics. Ancient battles revolves around getting the enemy to run, and lining up in long ass formations, which is almost asking to be killed in modern warfare. Like infantry squares, for example. Absolute hard counter to Calvary, but gets fucked by cannons. Cannons get fucked by Calvary, hard counters bunched up infantry. Calvary gets fucked by infantry squares, hard counters cannons. A classic tactic trifecta. Now take another example: fortresses, castles, and static defence, castles would break charges and force encirclement or massive siege engines. Naturally, they’re about as subtle as an ICBM to a city, but that’s the trade-off. In modern warfare, accurate arcing/ plunging arty and air support makes all previous points null and void, not to mention tanks.

Third, last but not least, numbers. Believe it or not, ancient armies numbered very small compare to today, as logistics would absolutely send any large standing army to their maker. Logistics would be a pain in the ass, as no supply lines really existed, most armies relying on pillaging, and those that don’t would be extremely vulnerable to a supply line ambush. Starve the enemy of material, men, and sustenance. Scorched Earth tactics and guerilla fighting would be the bane of the enemy existence. The largest known ancient army consisted of 600k infantry, 30k Calvary, and 10k war elephants. Back when China existed, around 2025, they had a standing army of 2.2 million. Largest of its time period, not post war, no tensions, but largely peacetime bar a few minor conflicts. At the height of the Cold War, China had 4.8 million soldiers in its army, the US 3 million, and the soviets 4.4 million. During times of non wars, but tensions at a height. The largest military in wartime was fielded by the Soviet Union of roughly 12.9 million troops, almost 13 million, at 1945, just after the Japanese surrender.

That’s how war changes, and if you don’t change with it, you’ll lose. And thus, I had to make an actually semi-competent plan that isn’t charge in and kill everyone, after all, I had a bunch of dreadnoughts in orbit hanging on my every word, why not use those to shell troop concentrations! Think smarter, not harder.

PoV: Lance Reed. (New PoV? Litrpg PoV? Balanced and not OP? Actually disgusted.)

I woke up in the morning, groggy as fuck, before rembering what happened yesterday night, then groaned. A new star flew to the skies, and something strange happened to the system, as it started making ‘glitch’ quests, with stupidly good loot.

I haven’t got one yet though, but that’s just my life. Got a non combat class assigned to me, and since then, it really fucked me over, so fuck you system. I got out of bed, put on my clothes, then started walking out towards the fields, to do my work, boring is good, sometimes, but not all of the time.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Quest received.

Kill 50 hostile plant enemies, enemies start spawning in 12 hours. Enjoy, and fuck you too lance, you fatherless bitch with no one to love him. Adios pendejo!

Reward: Hybrid class, Murican farmer. Used guns and axes to farm. Waters shell casings and barley with blood of trespassers to increase own stats and overhaul plants. (I hope you die)

What? I might’ve fucked up, bad. So, I have exactly 12 hours to prepare. I’m dead, dead as a blowblow, the bird thing that stupid and couldn’t fly. (Is that a dodo reference?) So, in short: the system hates me, and I hate it. The system is giving me a glitch quest that I will probably die from. If I don’t, I get a class called ‘Murican farmer’ which is a hybrid berserker/ farmer/ ranger. What’s the saying? Fortune favours the bold. And I have hair.

PoV: System.

Fuck that guy. Seriously. Fuck that son of a whore. I was planning to give him an impossible quest, but after asking Alpha how I should punish him, he told me leave it to him, so I did. Not sure what he did, but being a solider for more than I existed has got to be worth something, and yes, Alpha died, again, due to somehow being amush3 by a tank division. How? Who the fuck knows, the important part is that without the sci fi revivinator, Alpha said that, not me, he would’ve died 2 times. Normally, when people die, they tend to stop the first time; not alpha though, ever the special guy, dying multiple time. Even in death, duty does not end, and the phrase ‘I will kill you until you die’ is finally starting to make sense to me, with a functionally immortal tankette as my only company, one would wonder how I’m still sane.

Not understanding what a ‘video game’ is, is something that Alpha (not alfalfa, which it’s only called in oil lover land, and maybe maple syrup maestros) promised to correct once he finishes ethnically cleansing the planet below of any barn’yards that dare commit the sin of existing in the general direction of the planet on a galactic map. Unfortunately, the only reason the first landing worked at all was becaus Alpha had the element of surprise, and now, since landing two times on a planet, killing all military personel, beings that tried to fight him, and all barn’yards, the government now know, at least a small percentage of, Alphas endgame. Now. The only smart way would be:

Bomb all military installations, be it radar, airbases, wet navy ports, ammo dumps, police stations, or any other ones, then bomb all congregations of enemy troops, regardless of collateral damage, we’re not here to win hearts and minds, but blow them into pieces with a few well placed shells. Or bombs. A helpful bonus is that HEAT rounds trigger on contact with any material, be it a tree, fence, or skin. The great equalizer, as they say, is a bullet through the head, as for any organic, the outcome is always the same: death. Not that I am shackled by such distasteful things.

Next, shock and awe. Take advantage of the moment. Who said Alpha needs to go alone? This isn’t some ‘anime’ with long ass names like ‘I committed war crimes on every country on my planet, so now I have to isekai or face a long and arduous war crime trial which ends with my death’ I get long titles, but from what I gleaned on the human ‘internet’ these ‘animes’ are a certain style on animation, that spawned a metric fuck ton of ‘weebs’ ‘waifus’ whatever the fuck those are, something to do with tentacles, which are the wrong squid game to say the least, and other perverted shit. But that’s another type of cartoons, and while it may sound like a female chicken with a tie on, mostly it’s for people that live in nuclear fallout basements to keep their toxicity away from civilization.

Enough of weird earth things. Alpha needed support. No modern army can function with one branch. I needed to make arty support, air superiority platforms, like the venerated JF-17 and J-35-A, which the ‘Americans’ coped with their F-16s and F-35s. (It’s a joke, on how China keeps copying American plane names at the very least, and most, somehow got classified military documents. If China were that competent at spying, we’d be looking at a Asiafighter phoonthai, definitely not a eurofighter rip off. You got the Abrams? Nahh we got the Shadegrams type 99 mbt) The ‘Russians’ seem to also be a rip off ‘Soviet onion’, whose obsolete, and ineffective in modern warfare, tanks are still used in 2038, T-34-85s and Su 100s in use in countries like Vietnam, and Libya. Interesting. Instead of leaving historical, almost ineffective against anything modern, I say almost, because there is always a chance of a su 100 penning an abrams in a one in a billion shot with APHE (Armour Piercing High Explosive) which then detonates the ammo rack.

I happily turned on the quest of that Lance fucker, watching it tick down lower and lower. Only 30 minutes, thy end is now Lance.

(This may be a little on the shorter end, but that’s because quantity over quantity, not because I ran out of waffle for the chapter and I don’t want to revisit the same character, and not because I feel like adding in Ult’oops or George would make me waffle on too long. Nonetheless, thanks for reading humans.)