Why is there conflict? What is there to be gained? And how did these gains change over time? These philosophical questions could be answered best through a story of an ancient fictional realm ruled by three kings.
The mythical land of Juron was once owned by a community of people without a formal ruler. The need for territorial claims was non-existent because everyone had an equal share of land. Occasionally, various towns and cities would gather to have celebrations and giveaways. Each giveaway was unique. For instance, during the Fall season celebration, a certain town would give thousands of chickens for free. People flocked to see the chickens for themselves and each person got one chicken each.
One day, a family of farmers was at the dinner table discussing the potential impact of an approaching mega-storm. On their commute to one of the giveaway events, the family began to talk to other people about the devastating consequences of a mega-storm. Soon, the word spread out and a common question arose.
"What are we going to do to prepare for this mega-storm?"
It was not long until the people had concluded that the basic necessities to sustain life would need to be stored safely within each house. They immediately looked at a nearby town's giveaway bulletin and found that there were lots of fruits, vegetables, and meat in that giveaway. By the time the giveaway event opened, people were grabbing as much as their arms could carry. One person was smart and got a wheelbarrow to carry even more things.
After the giveaway event, it became clear that there was an unequal distribution of resources among people across the land of Juron. Some only had meat, some only had fruits, some had vegetables and meat, and a huge number of people had nothing. Soon, debates and fights sprung out among the people. Soon, there were devious acts of theft carried out between groups of people. Soon, the whole land was in chaos.
One decade later, three major groups of people had created their own territories where they could store, plant, and produce massive amounts of items for their own people. These groups were named Ninax, Turix, and Gandon. There were new 'inventions' that had become very popular in these territories. Some of them included swords, shields, armor, and rock catapults. Within each major group, certain people would be selected to conduct routine raids of other territories for goods and supplies. This situation maintained itself for the next hundred years.
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Eventually, the people within these groups encountered a problem. Each major group had begun producing unique items such as tasty dishes, scenic spots, defense systems, and technologies. But, these new developments brought along lots of internal disagreements with regards to how each group could conquer the entire land of Juron. The solution to the problem finally came after one individual from the Gandon group proposed a detailed system of governance that would determine the appropriation of resources and how to effectively utilize them to increase productivity, power, and dominance over other groups. This individual was soon named "Lida of Gandon" (or the King of Gandon) and work soon began to build an organized infrastructure for Gandon.
Upon finding this out, the two other territories also found their own kings with their own plans to restructure their governance and rule the land of Juron. It was not long before these groups had firmly established their territories and named themselves as "countrees" (or countries). The Lida of each countree devoted all of their efforts to maintain order and planned how to implement a "master plan" on dominating Juron. Soon, the countrees were so effective at raiding each other and defending themselves from raids that an impasse was reached. The new question of all the Lidas was:
"How can we dominate Juron when the defense of all the countrees are so strong?"
Once again, it was the Lida of Gandon that came up with a brilliant idea. The Lida secretly discussed his plan with his trusted advisors and ensured that his plan never would be divulged to the people. Over the next few weeks, the plan was carried out. The Lida of Gandon announced that he would be invading Ninax. In response, Ninax prepared their forces and the two went into conflict for the next two decades. During this time, there were heavy losses on both sides, but Ninax proved to be the victor in many of the battles. The citizens of Gandon began wondering if their Lida had made the fundamental mistake of underestimating their enemy.
Fast forward many, many years later. A group of archeologists from a private research laboratory began to unearth a group of ancient scrolls written in an unknown language. After electronically scanning the scrolls and sending the data to various language institutions, the scrolls were found to be plans of the long-dead Lida of Gandon who had perished in the famous Battle of Turix over 5000 years ago.
Once the scrolls had been fully translated, an archeology professor read the translated text from the Lida of Gandon which said, "with haste, the military generals must enact this plan...losing long-term battles is of the utmost priority. The essence is to extend the battle with Ninax at all costs. This will effectively allow all the powerful military, food, and supply manufacturing shops around Gandon to gain massive profits - so that myself and our wealthy friends can expand our stockpile of money. These shops will generate capital for new ventures by taking a large percentage of taxes from the population. Just make up random names for these taxes...Make temporary peace with Ninax and begin alliance discussions with Turix. Then, send scholars to Ninax whose real (hidden) intent is to scan and analyze key areas of enemy land that are full of much-needed resources. Then, start a long-drawn, losing conflict with Ninax for a few years and send secret teams to extract these resources...Adjust the laws to allow my shops to profit from the sale of these stolen resources...Develop an alliance with the Lida of Turix and discuss the concessions he could gain by contributing his Earth and Water to my cause...We will eventually get rid of the Lida of Turix when he is of no use to me - so that I can take over his land...There will be anti-war rallies in my countree, so change regulations of Gandon to require everyone to comply with anti-rally laws and enforce this with acts of guard brutality..."
The professor and his team of archaeologists just stared at each other in disbelief. There was a long moment of silence before one of them said, "so...as archeologists...as scholars...what are we really here to do?"