The Forever War Sparknotes

The Forever War, written by Joe Haldeman, is a fiction book about a 1,143 year long war between humans and Taurans that takes place in space. Protagonist William Mandella is in the world’s top percentile in terms of intelligence and physical fitness, so he is conscripted into the United Nations Exploratory Force in order to fight the Tauran aliens in 1997. Despite this war having lasted as long as it did, William had experienced the entirety of it due to relativity and the time differential caused by traveling through constantly evolving worm holes. Everytime William would go into space to battle, only a few years would pass by in his perspective. The harsh reality of how much time has actually passed is shown to him when he returns to earth for the first time in 2023 only to find his mother has aged immensely and will be killed due to a new system adopted by the world; people are given a rating of their importance to society and killed or spared according to how high they have rated on a ten point scale. The world is now a daker, overly
He is promoted to lieutenant, but is immediately put out of commission due to severe injury in battle. The year is now 2189; medicine has advanced to the point where William is able to get a new arm within a few days and is fully recovered. He is promoted to commander and is shocked to learn that his subordinates are almost two millennials younger than him and are all homosexuals (The world is now predominantly homosexual for reasons such as overpopulation; heterosexuality is uncommon and found strange.). After years trying to hang onto his sense of self, the war is now over. The year is 3138, and William returns to a peaceful world he cannot recognize. The earth is now made up of clones with a single consciousness but returning soldiers are told they are free to live as they wish until they meet their end