Once upon a time, the dragon tyrannized the kingdom covered with thick black scales its eyes glowed with hate and from its terrible jaws flowed evil smelling slime. Some tried to fight the dragon priests and magicians called down curses to no avail warriors armed with the best weapons attacked, only to be incinerated. The Dragon's claws, jaws and fire were so effective. It's the scale the armor so hard as to make it invincible. The dragon demanded from humankind, a tribute 10,000 men and women randomly chosen to be delivered every evening to the foot of the mountain to be eaten by the king and the kingdom. their weapons useless have no choice but to pay the grizzly tribute to suffer the misery to feed the insatiable hunger and humans ever adaptable came to accept the dragon tyrant as a fact of life. Knowing, even embracing that everyone's final moments would be in its Ma. How could the world beat Otherwise, the kingdom began to teach its children that the dragon had its place in the natural order and the very meaning of being human to end up in the dragon's stomach. They're shorter lives, motivating them to lead good lives, and the dragon was helping the kingdom by keeping the population from growing too fast. Learning this attacks on the dragons ceased, but the kingdom still grew slowly. And with it, so did the dragon becoming as big as the mountain on which it lived. Its appetite increasing. the logistics of collecting and transporting so many everyday to the mountain came to occupy the Kings mind more than the deaths and the dragon itself. The King had to hire registrar's to keep track of who would be sent. There were people collectors dispatched to fetch the designated victims. There were clerks who administered the pensions to be paid to decimated families. And there were comforters who would travel with the doomed on their way to the dragon, trying to ease the anguish. And there were Dragon ologists, who studied how these logistic processes could be made. More efficient steam engines were invented in a railway constructed leading to the dragons abode. Trains arrived at the mountain terminal crammed with people and returned empty. Some Dragon ologists also studied the dragons behavior and collected samples. It's shed scales the slime the excrement speckled with fragments of human bone. The more the beast was understood, the more its invincibility confirmed, but humanity is a curious species. Every once in a while someone gets a good idea. Others copy the idea, adding with their own improvements over time, many wonders, tools and systems are developed. Some of these tools make it easier to generate new ideas. Thus the great wheel of invention, which in the older ages turned imperceptibly slow, began to accelerate, and humans did what would have seemed magic before communicating instantly across great distance building machines that could fly, and many other astonishing things. A few Dragon ologists argued it might be time for a new attack, one had invented a material so sharp it could pierce a dragons scale, it would not be easy, but if a huge projectile could be made out of this material and launch with sufficient force and sufficient precision, it might penetrate the dragons armor. However, it would be difficult and expensive and time consuming to do. The Dragon ologists explained their proposal to me one who would listen, but the people were skeptical they had been taught the dragon tyrant was invincible and the sacrifices it demanded a fact of life. Yet when they learned about the new material and the idea for a projectile, many became intrigued. When the king read about the plans, he decided to hold an open hearing it took place on the last and darkest day of the year in the largest Hall of the Royal Castle, people packed into every last seat and crowded the aisles. The King's advisor spoke first telling the people it was best they accept the inevitability of the dragon, and the dragon administration department provided many jobs that would be lost or the dragon slaughtered. And in any case, the kingdom's coffers were empty after building the new railway. Next, the leading Dragon ologists explained how the proposed device would work how the requisite amount of new invented material could be manufactured. Given the requested amount of funding, it may be possible to complete the work in 15 to 20 years with greater funding, maybe 12. However, there could be no guarantee last to speak was the Kings advisor for morality. Let us grant, he said the project is technologically possible, though it hasn't been proven to me. Presumably you think you've got the right not to be chewed up? How willful how presumptuous? How vain. The shortness of human life is a blessing. Getting rid of the dragon which might seem such a convenient thing to do would undermine our dignity. This brief occupation with killing the dragon will deflect us from realizing more fully the aspirations to which our lives naturally point from living well, rather than merely staying alive. The nature of the dragon is to eat our own nature, my friends, is no belief fulfilled only by getting eaten. The dragon is necessary. The dragon is good. The Great Hall was silent. Then a small child yelled out from the audience. The dragon is bad. The child's parents turned red and hushed, but the child said again, the dragon is bad. It kills people. It ate my granny. I want my granny back. The whole was silent again. Then a woman stood, the dragon killed my parents. A man followed and stood. The dragon killed my wife and my daughter. More and more people stood the simple fact that the dragon killed everyone. The loss of it, the weight of it crashing over the hall, the way out from under remote, yet maybe possible. The King looking at the first child to speak announced let us kill the dragon. The next morning a billion people woke to realize they are those they loved might be sent to the dragon before the projectile launched. Whereas before active support for the anti dragon cause had been limited, it now became the number one priority and concern on everyone's mind. Mass rallies raised money for the projectile project and urge the king to increase support, which he did, passing extra appropriations bills and selling his summer castle announcing. I believe that this kingdom should commit itself to achieving the goal before the decade is out of freeing the world from the ancient scourge of the dragon. Thus started a great technological race against time to make the dragon killing weapon required solutions to 1000 technical problems, each of which required dozens of time consuming steps and missteps. Test missiles were fired but fell dead to the ground or flew Often the wrong direction. Terrible accidents happened. But there was now a seriousness of purpose and the work continued. But despite almost unlimited funding and round the clock work by technicians, the king's deadline could not be met. The task was hard. The decade concluded and the dragon still lived still eight, but the effort was getting closer. The year later, the first prototype missiles successfully launched the construction of the final projectile eventually set to complete and launch a new year's eve 12 years after the project's inauguration. The last day of the year was cold and overcast, but still unclear, good launch conditions, as the sunset technicians scuttled around making the final adjustments and checks the king and his advisors observe from a platform close to the launch pad, further away behind a fence. The public assembled to witness the great event, a large clock counted down 10 minutes to go. The dark slumped profile of the dragon beyond eating. From the crowd. Someone jumped the fence and ran to the platform where the king SAT. He arrived accompanied by security in a frenzied state, his nose bleeding, he shouted the last train stop the last train. The young man was a junior clerk in the Ministry of Transportation, he had discovered that his father was on the last train to the mountain. The King had ordered the trains to continue to the very end, fearing any disruption might cause the dragon to stir and the missile to miss. The young man begs the king to issue a recall order for the last train due to arrive at the mountain terminal five minutes before times zero. I cannot do it, said the King. I cannot take the risk it will alert the dragon the clouds above their head Let loose the rain. I am so sorry. The King continued, had we started but one day earlier, your father would not have to die. Looking at the crowd, thinking of all the losses that they and he had endured. This project should have been started years earlier than we did so many need not have been killed by the dragon. Had we been awoken from our acceptance of its horror sooner, the young man's whaling ceased, the king looked up at the countdown clock, five seconds remaining 43210 the ball of fire envelop the launch pad and the missile shot out the masses the king, the low and the high, the young and the old, that white flame shooting into the dark and body of the human spirit. It's fear and it's potent. It struck the hearts of people. The silhouette on the horizon tumbled and fell. Thousands of voices of joy rose from the masses joined seconds later by a deafening, drawn out thud, collapsing the monster. After all this time humanity was last free from the dragon. The joy cry resolved into jubilating champs Long live the king. Long live us all. The Royal entourage huddling in the downpour accumulated around their monarch so much had changed in the last hour. The right to an open future had been regained in primordial fear abolished and many long held assumptions overturned. What do we do now? they asked. We have come a long way, said the King. Yet now we are like children again. The future lies open before us. We shall go and try to do better than we have done in the past four we have time now, time to get things right time to grow up. Time to learn from our mistakes. Let all the bells in the kingdom ring until midnight in remembrance of our dead. Then after we will celebrate and begin the process of building a better world. For we have time now.
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Nice color