Excidium Planetis wrote:"Aside from the fact that we have no polo players in Excidium Planetis*, we did not wish to conduct a high stakes sporting competition, which provides no military training to our forces and thus offers no benefit to the loser in any way, whereas the Aeiouian Mock War provided much combat experience to both sides. We could indeed have created a simulation, but simulations do not mimic reality completely, do not offer quite the same training experience as the real thing, and, more importantly, I would argue that they would still be a war of conquest.
"The issue here is at what point is something merely a game rather than a war? In a simulated war in which there is a real planet at stake, is it not still a war of conquest, even if it is a cyberwar? One could even argue that because the Aeiouians are infomorphs, the war actually involved their soldiers personally."
"Regarding the possibly reduced accuracy and lesser training benefits of a digital warfare simulation, it would be the consideration of the Dominion that such would be worth the costs you would save," the Mouth says. "Sending real drones out to fight and be destroyed sounds horrifyingly expensive! However, doing it on a digital scale could cost considerably less.
"But to address what you said was more important... it is the concession of the Dominion that you may be correct. The draft declares that conquest involves military 'force,' which could conceivably not be limited to the realm of the physical and include the realm of the simulated."
The Mouth drums its fingers on the table for a bit and adds, "The Dominion has only one inquiry left. In your consensual warfare, why do you feel a need for territory acquisition to be involved? If it is, at the end of the day, little more than a glorified game or training exercise, why does territory need to be ceded?"
