The Global Joint Government didn't declare war with fanfare.
It did it over breakfast.
At 07:03 UTC, every screen on Earth—phones, billboards, kitchen tablets, school projectors—flickered once. Then a simple message appeared in 12,843 languages:
"We are at war. Not for territory. Not for resources. For meaning."
No sirens. No panic. Just silence, then the soft click of a billion people setting down their coffee cups.
Luna watched it from her old bedroom window—the one with the chipped blue paint and the view of the apple tree now half-buried under alien construction scaffolding. Below, neighbors gathered on porches, not running, just… talking. A kid rode past on a bike with a dented fender, waving like nothing had changed.
That was the point.
"You really think this'll work?" Kael asked, leaning against the doorframe. He held two paper bags—still warm—from the bakery down the street. "Telling seven billion people they're soldiers now?"
