The Counter Ticks Down

[Ryan Carter]

There is a number in the top corner of the Galactic War map that I have never seen before.

It is not liberation percentage. It is not enemy resistance. It is not the accumulated weight of medals or requisition slips or Super Credits waiting to be spent. It is a count of Helldivers. Two hundred million, initially. Then one hundred fifty. Then ninety-four. Then lower, always lower, ticking downward with every mission failure, every poorly placed 500kg, every Vox Engine that locks onto a retreating squad and does not let go.

The keyword *Cyberstan* was, for two years, a myth. It sat on the edge of Automaton space, visible but inaccessible, a planet that the first Helldivers had conquered and enslaved and then, somehow, lost. The bots built cities there. They built factories. They built statues of war criminals and propaganda towers that broadcast socialist doctrine across the smog-choked industrial flats. We knew Cyberstan existed. We did not know if we would ever be allowed to touch it.

Then the Automatons stole the blueprints for the Star of Peace. Then the Cyborgs returned. Then the Machinery of Oppression update dropped, and the myth became a front line .

The other keyword, *Reinforcements*, is the currency of this front line. Two hundred million lives. That is what High Command allocated for the liberation of Cyberstan. Two hundred million Helldivers, each with a name we will never know, a voice line we will never hear, a death counted in the galactic counter and subtracted from the total . We burned through half of them in the first few hours. We are still burning. The counter does not pause for breath.

I have watched the Helldivers 2 Accounts community accomplish impossible things. We liberated Malevelon Creek. We extracted enough E-710 to fuel the Star of Peace. We voted to destroy planets and watched the mushroom clouds bloom across the hologlobe. We are, collectively, the most effective military force in the history of simulated warfare.

We are also, collectively, dying at an unsustainable rate.

The Cyborgs are not the Automatons. They are not the Terminids. They are not the Illuminate, waiting in the wings with their mind-control and their looming invasion . The Cyborgs are something older, something that remembers the first war. Agitators command squads and adjust tactics in real time. Radicals close distance with cybernetic speed and heavy shotguns. Vox Engines roll across the factory floor broadcasting propaganda and high-explosive rockets in equal measure .

And we run at them. We call down our Quasar Cannons and our 500kg bombs and our Jump Packs. We die. We respawn. We die again. The counter ticks down.

I think about the counter when I read the major orders. Seven hundred million Automatons slain in one day. Two active Megafactories requiring coordinated assault by the majority of the player base . Sub objectives that must be completed for maximum XP, maximum liberation, maximum efficiency . The math is relentless. The math does not care that we are tired.

I think about the counter when I drop into a Cyberstan industrial complex. The sky is the color of smog and despair. The statues loom. The Vox Engine's propaganda drowns out my squad's voice chat. I plant the Hellbomb. I run. The bomb detonates. The statue falls. The counter ticks.

I do not know if we will win. Arrowhead does not know if we will win. They have said this explicitly. The outcome is not predetermined. If the reinforcement counter reaches zero, we lose. Cyberstan remains in Cyborg hands. The Automatons continue their dark work. The Star of Peace remains uncompromised .

This is not a story written in advance. This is a tabletop role-playing campaign with seven million participants, each carrying a limited supply of lives and a bottomless supply of democratic fervor. The Game Master is watching, sweating slightly, waiting to see what we do when faced with a homeworld and a deadline and the accumulated weight of two years of narrative investment.

I do not know what we will do. I know what I will do. I will drop into Cyberstan. I will bring my Shield Generator Relay and my Quasar Cannon and my stubborn, irrational hope that the counter will hold. I will complete the sub objectives. I will destroy the Megafactories. I will stim my squadmates and carry their samples to extraction and apologize when my poorly aimed Eagle wipes the entire operation.

I will die. The counter will tick. I will respawn. I will drop again.

This is not heroism. This is not strategy. This is not the endgame the Galactic War map promises and the Major Orders demand.

This is simply the arithmetic of liberation. Two hundred million lives. One planet. Seven million Helldivers.

We do not fight because victory is guaranteed. We fight because the alternative is letting the counter reach zero without resistance.

The counter ticks down. It is below ninety million now. It will continue to tick. It will tick through the night, through the weekend, through the desperate coordinated pushes organized in Discord servers and Reddit threads and the quiet, private determination of solo divers who just want to do their part.

I will be among them. I am always among them. The hellpod doors open. The planet rotates below. The mission timer begins.

For Super Earth. For Democracy. For the two hundred million Helldivers who volunteered their lives and are watching, now, as those lives are spent.

The counter ticks. We drop. The factories burn.

This is enough. It has to be enough.