The Big Four believed that replacing swords with words would make war less destructive. What they did not anticipate was the opposite possibility, a possibility that war might become permanent. In the age of swords, wars ended when armies collapsed but in the age of words, conflict rarely reaches such clear conclusions. Arguments linger, interpretations evolve and narratives refuse to die.
Eurostate had successfully eliminated large-scale military catastrophe but it had replaced it with something else: A continuous civil conflict fought through language.
The Logomachy.
And because language never stops evolving, neither does the war. Clause One had done exactly what it promised. The sword had shrunk and the word had taken its place.
The world discovered that the word was sharper than anyone imagined.