The negotiations took place in a room that had previously hosted diplomatic disasters. Long polished tables. Tall windows. Maps covering the walls like anatomical diagrams of a dying patient. Europe looked fragile on those maps. Borders appeared less like lines and more like stitches attempting to hold a wounded continent together.
The four men who gathered there were supposed to represent victory. Their nations had survived the war. Their armies stood on the right side of history, if such a thing existed. But none of them looked victorious. They looked like men who had glimpsed something irreversible. The First World War had revealed a terrifying equation: Industrial civilization multiplied the lethality of human conflict faster than human morality could evolve. In other words, humanity had become too good at killing. In conclusion, if another war of the same scale erupted, there was no guarantee that Europe—or perhaps civilization itself—would survive the next iteration.
The sword had become too efficient and something had to be done about it.