Inside the weird synergies that launched the videogaming industry—and made the Pentagon fantasies in Call of Duty its stock in trade. Ever since Donald Trump established the US Space Force in 2019, it’s been hard to work out just what its mission is, beyond showcasing the Pentagon’s cosmic ambitions. Yet the Space Force has distinguished itself in one key field: competitive video gaming. In 2020, a team of Space Force gamers narrowly defeated a group from the British Royal Air Force in that year’s Call of Duty Endowment (C.O.D.E.) Bowl, the first such tournament pitting military branches from around the world against one another. The Space Force repeated the feat a year later—and it celebrated its victory by launching its trophy into space. In another contest this August, the Space Force team prevailed on a larger stage, when a group of its soldiers stationed in Colorado claimed the CONUS Esports championship belt in a nationwide Call of Duty showdown hosted at the Eglin Air Force Base Gaming Complex.