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The Forever War (graphic novel)
Encyclopedia
The Forever War is a 1988 Belgian science fiction
graphic novel
trilogy drawn by Marvano and closely based on the award-winning The Forever War
novel by Joe Haldeman
, who has noted that he "supplied all of the dialogue and scripted [the comic] like a movie".
Drawn in the ligne claire
style and originally published in Dutch
as De Eeuwige Oorlog, it tells the story of William Mandella, an elite
soldier fighting for Earth in a centuries-long interstellar war
against the 'Taurans'. The series focuses mainly on the dehumanising effects of war and its attendant bureaucracy
.
s such as the inhumanity
of war
(both during combat and in the administration of it) and the change of a society faced with centuries of war footing against an almost totally unseen enemy. Most importantly, it portrays personal experiences of a soldier who, due to pure luck and the Einsteinian time dilation
of interstellar travel
, fights in and survives the whole length of the war, to end up in a world he does not recognize anymore.
Like the novel, the series is based heavily on Haldemann’s experiences in, and thoughts about, the Vietnam War
, which are mirrored in the conduct of the military
actions and propaganda operations of Earth's military government, especially in its treatment of enemies and the casualties
/ veteran
s on its own side. Like its protagonists, the series shows more resignation than outright cynicism
at what are depicted as very human failings unchanged throughout history. Haldemann has noted that Marvano managed to include much more of the novel's "first-person ruminations" by Mandella in the graphic novel than the author had originally thought practical.
that stays enigmatic throughout the series. Due to time dilation, the two main characters experience the whole of the war, biologically appearing to be in their early thirties at the end of the hostilities.
is used to form humans into fighting machines, and in how typical the results end up being.
The story starts on Earth in the early 21st century, where Mandella and about a hundred other young men and women of especially promising physical and mental capabilities have been drafted into a special force designed to combat the extraterrestrial threat. All soldiers are of genius
-level IQ, and most have degrees in advanced subjects, such as Mandella, who was studying to become a Doctor
of Physics
. The Taurans are at this stage almost fully unknown to humanity, except for the apparently unprovoked destruction of some of the first Earth colonization ships
sent to another star system
- an act witnessed only by an automated drone
probe
.
Sent out both to gather information and as a show of force
to reassure a vengeful
Earth population, the force first goes through an extremely grueling training period on Earth and on the planet Charon (a fictitious planet beyond Pluto
, not the satellite of Pluto
which had not been discovered at the time the original novel was written). The exercises involve military and technical training under extreme circumstances and with live weapons
, including the use of nuclear weapon
s and various other advanced armaments. They are designed to make Mandella and his compatriots into the most powerful infantry
forces ever, to combat a foe whose physiology
is still totally unknown. During a lecture to the soldiers, it is noted that they now know many different ways to kill humans - such as with a shovel blow to the kidney
s - but are not even aware if Taurans possess kidneys.
After the training period, during which almost 1 out of 10 is killed in accidents and simulated attacks that are fully accepted by the military as part of a realistic training environment, the already quite chastened military force sets off on their journey to the nearest known Tauran base. Their spaceship journeys via a collapsar-jump, a portal through a black hole
-like collapsed star - with the crew knowing that due to relativity time dilation, their journey may feel like it takes several months only, yet decades will go by on Earth before their return.
Eventually arriving at the collapsar 'portal planet' Aleph, many light years away, the force lands near a Tauran planetary base, which remains unaware of their presence. With their small force, the soldiers advance over the foreign planet to eventually reach the base. Activating psychological conditioning that had been implanted earlier, their officers command them to attack the base. Suddenly turned into frenzied, hateful attackers - far different from their much less aggressive and more contemplative normal personalities – the soldiers raze the base and kill all but one Tauran, who successfully escapes the planet.
It later turns out that the Taurans (now for the first time shown as a roughly humanoid species, somewhat in-between a quadrupedal and bipedal species) on the base had been totally unarmed, and that all of the casualties sustained during the firefight were caused by frenzied friendly fire
. The realisation that humans had in the recent past done worse things to their own fellow humans - and without psychological conditioning - leads Mandella to a resignatory
conclusion about human nature.
On board of the combat vessel Anniversary, heading out to another collapsar-mission, Mandella and his compatriots, including Marygay Potter, a woman he has become romantically involved with, are attacked by a Tauran cruiser "from the future" – while on a mission involving collapsar jumps, so many decades or even centuries may go by in the rest of the universe that ships from different time periods may end up meeting each other. The consequences are disastrous for Mandella's ship, with a large part of the vessel being destroyed and many of his fellow soldiers dying during the engagement, which is fully fought under computer control as the ship tries to escape new missiles accelerating at several hundred gravities
.
Returning to Earth after their combat with the Taurans, the veterans slowly realise how much Earth has changed in the decades since they set out. Friends have grown old beyond their age, parents have died, younger brothers are now much older than they are. Earth's society has also changed strongly, and is now under the control of a militaristic world government leading the fight against the Taurans.
Though feted as heroes, being the first ever soldiers to fight Taurans, Mandella and his compatriots find their sceptical views on the war and on their own military mission edited by all-present censorship - their own complaints during talk shows are digitally replaced by positive, propaganda
-inspired comments. Later, when his mother lies dying, Mandella finds that medical services are unavailable for 'Code Zero' people. In the same vein, homosexuality is officially encouraged to also combat overpopulation (it should be noted however that some elements of a 'decaying society', such as all-pervasive lawlessness and roving bands of criminals in the countryside - present in the novel - are not depicted in the graphic novels, where the Earth's military government reigns over a more or less subtly oppressed, but apparently quite prosperous society).
Though having left the military, Mandella and many other veterans, including Marygay Potter, by that time his partner, eventually decide to return. Soldier
’s life is now the only life they know, and contains the only people from their own time. Earth has changed so much that few things hold them there. They take up offered positions training new recruits on the Moon. However, the military almost immediately breaks its promises - both new lieutenant
s are transferred to combat roles. During an attack mission on another Tauran base they come under heavy fire while approaching in their shuttles, and are shot down. Both Mandella and Marygay end up having wounded limbs amputated
by automatic 'guillotine
' systems in their space suit
s, and only recover in a hospital, shaken and traumatized.
Allowed to recover on Paradise, a hidden colony planet used for the recovery of war veterans, they spend a few brief months of tense bliss while their bodies are regrown. Chronologically over 200 years old, unsure what to do with their future and their growing love for each other, they eventually find that the military has not forgotten them - and is still uncaring about their feelings. Instead of both being assigned to the same force, Marygay is assigned on another collapsar mission, and Mandella to a training battalion, to also eventually lead a different mission. The different locations of their goals - Mandella's mission is to be the greatest series of sequential collapsar jumps ever made - make an eventual reunion almost impossible. On their return they will have aged so differently, that it is unlikely both will be alive - even if they both survive the combat.
Mandella protests about the cold-hearted split the military forces on them, arguing that the recruits he is to train and lead will not be born for a century. He is told that nonetheless, they will be ready for him, and both are sent on their missions. Mandella contemplates committing suicide by jumping from the cliff from where he watches Marygay's spaceship lift off. In the end he decides that he has given the military his life, and will not give them his death as well.
(Mandella) being the officer for a group of soldiers totally estranged from his version of humanity - still human, but genetically engineered and both created and born in vitro
. Involving more combat (especially in space) than the other volumes, it also resolves the end of the Terran-Tauran war.
Heading out on the Masaryk (a large Terran cruiser named after the Czech
politicians Masaryk of the 20th century), Mandella has now reached a level of command he feels unsuited for due to his remaining pacifist leanings. Also, his troops – genetically engineered individuals born many hundreds of years after his own 21st century – are distrustful of him and his heterosexual nature (Earth having long since made homosexuality
the norm, originally for population control
), which they perceive as barbaric.
After over 350 years of absolute travel time, the ship arrives near the portal planet Sade 138. The infantry force that Mandella commands builds a military base on the surface and settles in. However, boredom soon starts, and tensions come to a head when one of the soldiers attacks Mandella with a knife during a court martial hearing. Mandella survives by virtue of quick reflexes and long training - but is now faced with the difficulty of making a command decision: Should he execute the soldier for attacking his officer, or can he show leniency without losing the remaining respect of his charges? He is saved from the hard decision by an 'accident' during medical treatment of the soldier (it is implied that his Diana Alsever, the medical officer, took the decision into her own hand) and then by a Tauran attack on the solar system.
The Taurans are soon engaged in a running battle with the Terran space forces, while the infantry watches helplessy from their planetary bunkers. With the deadly ballet of space combat
unfolding, the grim realities of war are exemplified by a computer screen shown calculating the Terran survival chances, underlined by the note:
One of the two Tauran cruisers is overwhelmed later in the fight, while troopships drop Tauran soldiers to engage the human forces on the ground. The second Tauran cruiser eventually manages to overwhelm the Masaryks defenses with missiles. Knowing they are doomed, the commander of the Terran cruiser decides on a kamikaze
mission by having her ship detonate close to the remaining Tauran cruiser. This in turn leads to the Tauran ship impacting on the tiny planet, causing extreme earthquake
shocks, above 9 on the Richter magnitude scale
.
Mandella and some of his troops survive only by taking refuge in a stasis
field device which slows down all movement to a crawl, including that of all energy – and thus makes them immune to all modern weapons and most outside forces. However, the Taurans have encountered the device before, and enter the stasis bubble with melee
weapons, leading to a short fight with the similarly armed humans - a reduction to archaic fighting methods unseen for millennia.
Eventually, the humans remove one of their nuclear weapons from the shuttle and detonate it just outside their field, destroying the remaining aliens outside. A few days later, they shut off the stasis field - in the middle of a giant thermonuclear crater, they are the only living beings left in the whole solar system. Yet thankfully, an emergency shuttle left behind by the Masaryk before her demise, enables them to return home.
Arriving centuries later at Stargate, a large asteroid used as the main human staging base for the war, the veterans find it almost deserted. It turns out that in their absence, the war has ended, and the two species are now living in mutual, total peace. The war ended only once human soldiers had been evolved into clones - first allowing meaningful contacts with the Taurans, who turned out to be a natural group consciousness
clone species (an idea further explored in the sequel trilogy).
The whole war turns out to have been a mistake and a misunderstanding. Mandella is deeply shocked by the developments, and also by the change in his own species - which has evolved into a joined group consciousness with the Taurans, lacking true individualism. While Mandella has never developed any real hate for the Taurans, this is depicted as an at least faintly sad ending to his, and humanity’s, journey. He is finally, totally, an outcast
.
Robbed of his last purpose, war, he however finds out that Marygay has also survived the fighting, having returned hundreds of years before, as predicted. However, instead of dying in the meantime, she has used the funds accumulated during centuries of duty to purchase an old spaceship to use as a 'time capsule' to wait for him, via continual time dilation travel. Mandella is finally reunited with her and several other veterans and relocates to Index, a sort of biological sanctuary or nature reserve
- the only planet in the universe where humans are still allowed to live the type of life they did before the war, as individuals, conceiving and raising children in the old-fashioned way.
, and the novella A Separate War, describing the time of separation between the two main characters from Marygay's perspective.
It is also heavier on metaphysical
themes and features combat only rarely except in the first volume, during Marygay's last combat mission in the war.
(La Guerre Eternelle) by Dupuis
, German
(Der Ewige Krieg), Polish
(Wieczna wojna), Spanish
(La Guerra Interminable) and English (The Forever War) by NBM Publishing
.
Dupuis has also collected the three books into one 165-page volume
(2002, ISBN 2-8001-2640-X).
The sequel trilogy (Een Nieuw Begin - A New Beginning), was translated into French (Libre à Jamais) and Polish (Wieczna wolność).
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
graphic novel
Graphic novel
A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...
trilogy drawn by Marvano and closely based on the award-winning The Forever War
The Forever War
The Forever War is a science fiction novel by American author Joe Haldeman, telling the contemplative story of soldiers fighting an interstellar war between humanity and the enigmatic Tauran species...
novel by Joe Haldeman
Joe Haldeman
Joe William Haldeman is an American science fiction author.-Life :Haldeman was born June 9, 1943 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. His family traveled and he lived in Puerto Rico, New Orleans, Washington, D.C., Bethesda, Maryland and Anchorage, Alaska as a child. Haldeman married Mary Gay Potter, known...
, who has noted that he "supplied all of the dialogue and scripted [the comic] like a movie".
Drawn in the ligne claire
Ligne claire
Ligne claire is a style of drawing pioneered by Hergé, the Belgian creator of The Adventures of Tintin. It uses clear strong lines of uniform importance. Artists working in it do not use hatching, while contrast is downplayed as well...
style and originally published in Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
as De Eeuwige Oorlog, it tells the story of William Mandella, an elite
Elite
Elite refers to an exceptional or privileged group that wields considerable power within its sphere of influence...
soldier fighting for Earth in a centuries-long interstellar war
Interstellar war
In fiction, an interstellar war is a war between combatants whose respective headquarters lie in different planetary systems. It is a popular plot device in science fiction, especially in the space opera subgenre. An intergalactic war refers to war between combatants of different galaxies...
against the 'Taurans'. The series focuses mainly on the dehumanising effects of war and its attendant bureaucracy
Bureaucracy
A bureaucracy is an organization of non-elected officials of a governmental or organization who implement the rules, laws, and functions of their institution, and are occasionally characterized by officialism and red tape.-Weberian bureaucracy:...
.
Themes
Staying very faithful to the novel in describing the life of the soldiers and their involvement in various military actions, the graphic novel touches upon themeTheme (literature)
A theme is a broad, message, or moral of a story. The message may be about life, society, or human nature. Themes often explore timeless and universal ideas and are almost always implied rather than stated explicitly. Along with plot, character,...
s such as the inhumanity
Inhumanity
Inhumanity is the debut album of Finnish melodic death metal band Mors Principium Est. It was first released in 2003 and later reissued in 2006 with new artwork and three bonus tracks.-Original 2003 release:-2006 re-release bonus tracks:-Musicians:...
of war
War
War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...
(both during combat and in the administration of it) and the change of a society faced with centuries of war footing against an almost totally unseen enemy. Most importantly, it portrays personal experiences of a soldier who, due to pure luck and the Einsteinian time dilation
Time dilation
In the theory of relativity, time dilation is an observed difference of elapsed time between two events as measured by observers either moving relative to each other or differently situated from gravitational masses. An accurate clock at rest with respect to one observer may be measured to tick at...
of interstellar travel
Interstellar travel
Interstellar space travel is manned or unmanned travel between stars. The concept of interstellar travel in starships is a staple of science fiction. Interstellar travel is much more difficult than interplanetary travel. Intergalactic travel, or travel between different galaxies, is even more...
, fights in and survives the whole length of the war, to end up in a world he does not recognize anymore.
Like the novel, the series is based heavily on Haldemann’s experiences in, and thoughts about, the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
, which are mirrored in the conduct of the military
Military
A military is an organization authorized by its greater society to use lethal force, usually including use of weapons, in defending its country by combating actual or perceived threats. The military may have additional functions of use to its greater society, such as advancing a political agenda e.g...
actions and propaganda operations of Earth's military government, especially in its treatment of enemies and the casualties
Casualty (person)
A casualty is a person who is the victim of an accident, injury, or trauma. The word casualties is most often used by the news media to describe deaths and injuries resulting from wars or disasters...
/ veteran
Veteran
A veteran is a person who has had long service or experience in a particular occupation or field; " A veteran of ..."...
s on its own side. Like its protagonists, the series shows more resignation than outright cynicism
Cynicism
Cynicism , in its original form, refers to the beliefs of an ancient school of Greek philosophers known as the Cynics . Their philosophy was that the purpose of life was to live a life of Virtue in agreement with Nature. This meant rejecting all conventional desires for wealth, power, health, and...
at what are depicted as very human failings unchanged throughout history. Haldemann has noted that Marvano managed to include much more of the novel's "first-person ruminations" by Mandella in the graphic novel than the author had originally thought practical.
Plot synopsis
The three volumes of the series span the whole of almost one millennia of war between humanity and the Taurans, an extraterrestrial speciesSpecies
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...
that stays enigmatic throughout the series. Due to time dilation, the two main characters experience the whole of the war, biologically appearing to be in their early thirties at the end of the hostilities.
Volume 1: Private Mandella
The first volume mainly describes the training of the Earth elite force, and their first combat with Taurans, focusing on how military ideologyIdeology
An ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to...
is used to form humans into fighting machines, and in how typical the results end up being.
The story starts on Earth in the early 21st century, where Mandella and about a hundred other young men and women of especially promising physical and mental capabilities have been drafted into a special force designed to combat the extraterrestrial threat. All soldiers are of genius
Genius
Genius is something or someone embodying exceptional intellectual ability, creativity, or originality, typically to a degree that is associated with the achievement of unprecedented insight....
-level IQ, and most have degrees in advanced subjects, such as Mandella, who was studying to become a Doctor
Doctorate
A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder to teach in a specific field, A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder...
of Physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
. The Taurans are at this stage almost fully unknown to humanity, except for the apparently unprovoked destruction of some of the first Earth colonization ships
Space colonization
Space colonization is the concept of permanent human habitation outside of Earth. Although hypothetical at the present time, there are many proposals and speculations about the first space colony...
sent to another star system
Star system
A star system or stellar system is a small number of stars which orbit each other, bound by gravitational attraction. A large number of stars bound by gravitation is generally called a star cluster or galaxy, although, broadly speaking, they are also star systems.-Binary star systems:A stellar...
- an act witnessed only by an automated drone
Unmanned aerial vehicle
An unmanned aerial vehicle , also known as a unmanned aircraft system , remotely piloted aircraft or unmanned aircraft, is a machine which functions either by the remote control of a navigator or pilot or autonomously, that is, as a self-directing entity...
probe
Space probe
A robotic spacecraft is a spacecraft with no humans on board, that is usually under telerobotic control. A robotic spacecraft designed to make scientific research measurements is often called a space probe. Many space missions are more suited to telerobotic rather than crewed operation, due to...
.
Sent out both to gather information and as a show of force
Show of force
Show of force is a military term for an operation intended to warn or intimidate an opponent and to showcase one's own capability or will to act if provoked...
to reassure a vengeful
Revenge
Revenge is a harmful action against a person or group in response to a grievance, be it real or perceived. It is also called payback, retribution, retaliation or vengeance; it may be characterized, justly or unjustly, as a form of justice.-Function in society:Some societies believe that the...
Earth population, the force first goes through an extremely grueling training period on Earth and on the planet Charon (a fictitious planet beyond Pluto
Pluto
Pluto, formal designation 134340 Pluto, is the second-most-massive known dwarf planet in the Solar System and the tenth-most-massive body observed directly orbiting the Sun...
, not the satellite of Pluto
Charon (moon)
Charon is the largest satellite of the dwarf planet Pluto. It was discovered in 1978 at the United States Naval Observatory Flagstaff Station. Following the 2005 discovery of two other natural satellites of Pluto , Charon may also be referred to as Pluto I...
which had not been discovered at the time the original novel was written). The exercises involve military and technical training under extreme circumstances and with live weapons
Live fire exercise
A live fire exercise or LFX is any exercise in which a realistic scenario for the use of specific equipment is simulated. In the popular lexicon this is applied primarily to tests of weapons or weapon systems that are associated with the various branches of a nation's armed forces, although the...
, including the use of nuclear weapon
Nuclear weapon
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first fission bomb test released the same amount...
s and various other advanced armaments. They are designed to make Mandella and his compatriots into the most powerful infantry
Infantry
Infantrymen are soldiers who are specifically trained for the role of fighting on foot to engage the enemy face to face and have historically borne the brunt of the casualties of combat in wars. As the oldest branch of combat arms, they are the backbone of armies...
forces ever, to combat a foe whose physiology
Physiology
Physiology is the science of the function of living systems. This includes how organisms, organ systems, organs, cells, and bio-molecules carry out the chemical or physical functions that exist in a living system. The highest honor awarded in physiology is the Nobel Prize in Physiology or...
is still totally unknown. During a lecture to the soldiers, it is noted that they now know many different ways to kill humans - such as with a shovel blow to the kidney
Kidney
The kidneys, organs with several functions, serve essential regulatory roles in most animals, including vertebrates and some invertebrates. They are essential in the urinary system and also serve homeostatic functions such as the regulation of electrolytes, maintenance of acid–base balance, and...
s - but are not even aware if Taurans possess kidneys.
After the training period, during which almost 1 out of 10 is killed in accidents and simulated attacks that are fully accepted by the military as part of a realistic training environment, the already quite chastened military force sets off on their journey to the nearest known Tauran base. Their spaceship journeys via a collapsar-jump, a portal through a black hole
Black hole
A black hole is a region of spacetime from which nothing, not even light, can escape. The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will deform spacetime to form a black hole. Around a black hole there is a mathematically defined surface called an event horizon that...
-like collapsed star - with the crew knowing that due to relativity time dilation, their journey may feel like it takes several months only, yet decades will go by on Earth before their return.
Eventually arriving at the collapsar 'portal planet' Aleph, many light years away, the force lands near a Tauran planetary base, which remains unaware of their presence. With their small force, the soldiers advance over the foreign planet to eventually reach the base. Activating psychological conditioning that had been implanted earlier, their officers command them to attack the base. Suddenly turned into frenzied, hateful attackers - far different from their much less aggressive and more contemplative normal personalities – the soldiers raze the base and kill all but one Tauran, who successfully escapes the planet.
It later turns out that the Taurans (now for the first time shown as a roughly humanoid species, somewhat in-between a quadrupedal and bipedal species) on the base had been totally unarmed, and that all of the casualties sustained during the firefight were caused by frenzied friendly fire
Friendly fire
Friendly fire is inadvertent firing towards one's own or otherwise friendly forces while attempting to engage enemy forces, particularly where this results in injury or death. A death resulting from a negligent discharge is not considered friendly fire...
. The realisation that humans had in the recent past done worse things to their own fellow humans - and without psychological conditioning - leads Mandella to a resignatory
Resignation
A resignation is the formal act of giving up or quitting one's office or position. It can also refer to the act of admitting defeat in a game like chess, indicated by the resigning player declaring "I resign", turning his king on its side, extending his hand, or stopping the chess clock...
conclusion about human nature.
Volume 2: Lieutenant Mandella
The second volume deals with the effects of time dilation on the veterans and on human society involved in the war, as well as with the cold-hearted way in which the military bureaucracy ignores human feelings.On board of the combat vessel Anniversary, heading out to another collapsar-mission, Mandella and his compatriots, including Marygay Potter, a woman he has become romantically involved with, are attacked by a Tauran cruiser "from the future" – while on a mission involving collapsar jumps, so many decades or even centuries may go by in the rest of the universe that ships from different time periods may end up meeting each other. The consequences are disastrous for Mandella's ship, with a large part of the vessel being destroyed and many of his fellow soldiers dying during the engagement, which is fully fought under computer control as the ship tries to escape new missiles accelerating at several hundred gravities
Standard gravity
Standard gravity, or standard acceleration due to free fall, usually denoted by g0 or gn, is the nominal acceleration of an object in a vacuum near the surface of the Earth. It is defined as precisely , or about...
.
Returning to Earth after their combat with the Taurans, the veterans slowly realise how much Earth has changed in the decades since they set out. Friends have grown old beyond their age, parents have died, younger brothers are now much older than they are. Earth's society has also changed strongly, and is now under the control of a militaristic world government leading the fight against the Taurans.
Though feted as heroes, being the first ever soldiers to fight Taurans, Mandella and his compatriots find their sceptical views on the war and on their own military mission edited by all-present censorship - their own complaints during talk shows are digitally replaced by positive, propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
-inspired comments. Later, when his mother lies dying, Mandella finds that medical services are unavailable for 'Code Zero' people. In the same vein, homosexuality is officially encouraged to also combat overpopulation (it should be noted however that some elements of a 'decaying society', such as all-pervasive lawlessness and roving bands of criminals in the countryside - present in the novel - are not depicted in the graphic novels, where the Earth's military government reigns over a more or less subtly oppressed, but apparently quite prosperous society).
Though having left the military, Mandella and many other veterans, including Marygay Potter, by that time his partner, eventually decide to return. Soldier
Soldier
A soldier is a member of the land component of national armed forces; whereas a soldier hired for service in a foreign army would be termed a mercenary...
’s life is now the only life they know, and contains the only people from their own time. Earth has changed so much that few things hold them there. They take up offered positions training new recruits on the Moon. However, the military almost immediately breaks its promises - both new lieutenant
Lieutenant
A lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer in many nations' armed forces. Typically, the rank of lieutenant in naval usage, while still a junior officer rank, is senior to the army rank...
s are transferred to combat roles. During an attack mission on another Tauran base they come under heavy fire while approaching in their shuttles, and are shot down. Both Mandella and Marygay end up having wounded limbs amputated
Amputation
Amputation is the removal of a body extremity by trauma, prolonged constriction, or surgery. As a surgical measure, it is used to control pain or a disease process in the affected limb, such as malignancy or gangrene. In some cases, it is carried out on individuals as a preventative surgery for...
by automatic 'guillotine
Guillotine
The guillotine is a device used for carrying out :executions by decapitation. It consists of a tall upright frame from which an angled blade is suspended. This blade is raised with a rope and then allowed to drop, severing the head from the body...
' systems in their space suit
Space suit
A space suit is a garment worn to keep an astronaut alive in the harsh environment of outer space. Space suits are often worn inside spacecraft as a safety precaution in case of loss of cabin pressure, and are necessary for extra-vehicular activity , work done outside spacecraft...
s, and only recover in a hospital, shaken and traumatized.
Allowed to recover on Paradise, a hidden colony planet used for the recovery of war veterans, they spend a few brief months of tense bliss while their bodies are regrown. Chronologically over 200 years old, unsure what to do with their future and their growing love for each other, they eventually find that the military has not forgotten them - and is still uncaring about their feelings. Instead of both being assigned to the same force, Marygay is assigned on another collapsar mission, and Mandella to a training battalion, to also eventually lead a different mission. The different locations of their goals - Mandella's mission is to be the greatest series of sequential collapsar jumps ever made - make an eventual reunion almost impossible. On their return they will have aged so differently, that it is unlikely both will be alive - even if they both survive the combat.
Mandella protests about the cold-hearted split the military forces on them, arguing that the recruits he is to train and lead will not be born for a century. He is told that nonetheless, they will be ready for him, and both are sent on their missions. Mandella contemplates committing suicide by jumping from the cliff from where he watches Marygay's spaceship lift off. In the end he decides that he has given the military his life, and will not give them his death as well.
Volume 3: Major Mandella
The third volume concerns itself mainly with the difficulties of a reluctant leaderLeadership
Leadership has been described as the “process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task". Other in-depth definitions of leadership have also emerged.-Theories:...
(Mandella) being the officer for a group of soldiers totally estranged from his version of humanity - still human, but genetically engineered and both created and born in vitro
In vitro
In vitro refers to studies in experimental biology that are conducted using components of an organism that have been isolated from their usual biological context in order to permit a more detailed or more convenient analysis than can be done with whole organisms. Colloquially, these experiments...
. Involving more combat (especially in space) than the other volumes, it also resolves the end of the Terran-Tauran war.
Heading out on the Masaryk (a large Terran cruiser named after the Czech
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
politicians Masaryk of the 20th century), Mandella has now reached a level of command he feels unsuited for due to his remaining pacifist leanings. Also, his troops – genetically engineered individuals born many hundreds of years after his own 21st century – are distrustful of him and his heterosexual nature (Earth having long since made homosexuality
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
the norm, originally for population control
Population control
Human population control is the practice of artificially altering the rate of growth of a human population.Historically, human population control has been implemented by limiting the population's birth rate, usually by government mandate, and has been undertaken as a response to factors including...
), which they perceive as barbaric.
After over 350 years of absolute travel time, the ship arrives near the portal planet Sade 138. The infantry force that Mandella commands builds a military base on the surface and settles in. However, boredom soon starts, and tensions come to a head when one of the soldiers attacks Mandella with a knife during a court martial hearing. Mandella survives by virtue of quick reflexes and long training - but is now faced with the difficulty of making a command decision: Should he execute the soldier for attacking his officer, or can he show leniency without losing the remaining respect of his charges? He is saved from the hard decision by an 'accident' during medical treatment of the soldier (it is implied that his Diana Alsever, the medical officer, took the decision into her own hand) and then by a Tauran attack on the solar system.
The Taurans are soon engaged in a running battle with the Terran space forces, while the infantry watches helplessy from their planetary bunkers. With the deadly ballet of space combat
Space warfare
Space warfare is combat that takes place in outer space, i.e. outside the atmosphere. Space warfare therefore includes ground-to-space warfare, such as attacking satellites from the Earth, as well as space-to-space warfare, such as satellites attacking satellites.It does not include the use of...
unfolding, the grim realities of war are exemplified by a computer screen shown calculating the Terran survival chances, underlined by the note:
- "These figures assume that you are willing to sacrifice all your fighters." The fighters are manned.
One of the two Tauran cruisers is overwhelmed later in the fight, while troopships drop Tauran soldiers to engage the human forces on the ground. The second Tauran cruiser eventually manages to overwhelm the Masaryks defenses with missiles. Knowing they are doomed, the commander of the Terran cruiser decides on a kamikaze
Kamikaze
The were suicide attacks by military aviators from the Empire of Japan against Allied naval vessels in the closing stages of the Pacific campaign of World War II, designed to destroy as many warships as possible....
mission by having her ship detonate close to the remaining Tauran cruiser. This in turn leads to the Tauran ship impacting on the tiny planet, causing extreme earthquake
Earthquake
An earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. The seismicity, seismism or seismic activity of an area refers to the frequency, type and size of earthquakes experienced over a period of time...
shocks, above 9 on the Richter magnitude scale
Richter magnitude scale
The expression Richter magnitude scale refers to a number of ways to assign a single number to quantify the energy contained in an earthquake....
.
Mandella and some of his troops survive only by taking refuge in a stasis
Stasis (fiction)
Stasis , or hypersleep, is a science fiction concept akin to suspended animation. Whereas suspended animation usually refers to a greatly reduced state of life processes, stasis implies a complete cessation of these processes, which can be easily restarted or restart spontaneously when stasis is...
field device which slows down all movement to a crawl, including that of all energy – and thus makes them immune to all modern weapons and most outside forces. However, the Taurans have encountered the device before, and enter the stasis bubble with melee
Mêlée
Melee , generally refers to disorganized close combat involving a group of fighters. A melee ensues when groups become locked together in combat with no regard to group tactics or fighting as an organized unit; each participant fights as an individual....
weapons, leading to a short fight with the similarly armed humans - a reduction to archaic fighting methods unseen for millennia.
Eventually, the humans remove one of their nuclear weapons from the shuttle and detonate it just outside their field, destroying the remaining aliens outside. A few days later, they shut off the stasis field - in the middle of a giant thermonuclear crater, they are the only living beings left in the whole solar system. Yet thankfully, an emergency shuttle left behind by the Masaryk before her demise, enables them to return home.
Arriving centuries later at Stargate, a large asteroid used as the main human staging base for the war, the veterans find it almost deserted. It turns out that in their absence, the war has ended, and the two species are now living in mutual, total peace. The war ended only once human soldiers had been evolved into clones - first allowing meaningful contacts with the Taurans, who turned out to be a natural group consciousness
Group mind (science fiction)
A group mind, hive mind or group ego in science fiction is a single consciousness occupying many bodies. Its use in literature goes back at least as far as Olaf Stapledon's science fiction novel Last and First Men ....
clone species (an idea further explored in the sequel trilogy).
The whole war turns out to have been a mistake and a misunderstanding. Mandella is deeply shocked by the developments, and also by the change in his own species - which has evolved into a joined group consciousness with the Taurans, lacking true individualism. While Mandella has never developed any real hate for the Taurans, this is depicted as an at least faintly sad ending to his, and humanity’s, journey. He is finally, totally, an outcast
Social stigma
Social stigma is the severe disapproval of or discontent with a person on the grounds of characteristics that distinguish them from other members of a society.Almost all stigma is based on a person differing from social or cultural norms...
.
Robbed of his last purpose, war, he however finds out that Marygay has also survived the fighting, having returned hundreds of years before, as predicted. However, instead of dying in the meantime, she has used the funds accumulated during centuries of duty to purchase an old spaceship to use as a 'time capsule' to wait for him, via continual time dilation travel. Mandella is finally reunited with her and several other veterans and relocates to Index, a sort of biological sanctuary or nature reserve
Nature reserve
A nature reserve is a protected area of importance for wildlife, flora, fauna or features of geological or other special interest, which is reserved and managed for conservation and to provide special opportunities for study or research...
- the only planet in the universe where humans are still allowed to live the type of life they did before the war, as individuals, conceiving and raising children in the old-fashioned way.
Sequels
The comic series was well received, and has spawned a follow-up trilogy series ('A New Beginning') set in the same universe, mainly after the war has finished. It is told primarily from the viewpoint of Marygay Potter, one of the main characters of the original comic trilogy. Unlike the first trilogy, this series is not directly based on the original novel (taking place mainly several decades after the end of the Forever War and the arrival of the veterans on Index), though it is strongly connected to the follow-up novel Forever FreeForever Free (novel)
Forever Free is a science fiction novel by American author Joe Haldeman, the sequel to The Forever War. It was published in 1999.-Plot summary:...
, and the novella A Separate War, describing the time of separation between the two main characters from Marygay's perspective.
It is also heavier on metaphysical
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
themes and features combat only rarely except in the first volume, during Marygay's last combat mission in the war.
Translations
The series has been translated into FrenchFrench language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
(La Guerre Eternelle) by Dupuis
Dupuis
Éditions Dupuis S.A. is a Belgian publisher of comic books and magazines.Based in Marcinelle near Charleroi, Dupuis was founded in 1922 by Jean Dupuis, and is mostly famous for its comic albums and magazines. It is originally a French language publisher, but publishes many editions both in French...
, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
(Der Ewige Krieg), Polish
Polish language
Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
(Wieczna wojna), Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
(La Guerra Interminable) and English (The Forever War) by NBM Publishing
NBM Publishing
NBM Publishing is an American publisher of graphic novels. The company specializes in non-superhero comic genres and has translated and published over 150 graphic novels from Europe and Canada, as well as several works by Americans...
.
- Volume 1 (46 pages, French, DupuisDupuisÉditions Dupuis S.A. is a Belgian publisher of comic books and magazines.Based in Marcinelle near Charleroi, Dupuis was founded in 1922 by Jean Dupuis, and is mostly famous for its comic albums and magazines. It is originally a French language publisher, but publishes many editions both in French...
, 2001, ISBN 2-8001-1629-3; English, NBM PublishingNBM PublishingNBM Publishing is an American publisher of graphic novels. The company specializes in non-superhero comic genres and has translated and published over 150 graphic novels from Europe and Canada, as well as several works by Americans...
, 1990, ISBN 0918348951, 1991, ISBN 1561630047) - Volume 2 (52 pages, French, Dupuis, 2001, ISBN 2-8001-1664-1; English, NBM Publishing, 1994, ISBN 156163025X)
- Volume 3 (44 pages, French, Dupuis, 2001, ISBN 2-8001-2640-X; English, NBM Publishing, 1994, ISBN 1561630454)
Dupuis has also collected the three books into one 165-page volume
Trade paperback (comics)
In comics, a trade paperback is a collection of stories originally published in comic books, reprinted in book format, usually capturing one story arc from a single title or a series of stories with a connected story arc or common theme from one or more titles...
(2002, ISBN 2-8001-2640-X).
The sequel trilogy (Een Nieuw Begin - A New Beginning), was translated into French (Libre à Jamais) and Polish (Wieczna wolność).
External links
- The Forever War at Bedetheque