Once upon a time, the planet was tyrannized by a giant dragon. The dragon stood taller than the largest cathedral, and it was covered with thick black scales. Its red eyes glowed with hate, and from its terrible jaws flowed an incessant stream of evil-smelling yellowish-green slime. It demanded from humankind a blood-curdling tribute: to satisfy its enormous appetite, ten thousand men and women had to be delivered every evening at the onset of dark to the foot of the mountain where the dragon-tyrant lived.
Some people tried to fight the dragon, but whether they were brave or foolish was difficult to say. Priests and magicians called down curses, to no avail. Warriors, armed with roaring courage and the best weapons the smiths could produce, attacked it, but were incinerated by its fire before coming close enough to strike. Chemists concocted toxic brews and tricked the dragon into swallowing them, but the only apparent effect was to further stimulate its appetite. The dragon’s claws, jaws, and fire were so effective, its scaly armor so impregnable, and its whole nature so robust, as to make it invincible to any human assault.
You are the young new Monarch, and you must lead your kingdom through these troublesome times, 2 months after the dragon first appeared. The dragon spends its days on a large mountain near the capital city, covering it and going out to collect it's tribute and more if it was not brought the required amount.
[[Don't give in, the Dragon must be slain!]]
[[Nothing is working, the tribute makes sense for the survival of the Kingdom]]Again and again your people attack the dragon, and again and again the dragon repulses your efforts, those brought to it dieing beneath it's claws or in it's maw.
Your kingdoms losses continue to mount and the dragon still does not seem phased.
[[Lead the attack yourself]]
[[We have done our best, but it was not enough.->Nothing is working, the tribute makes sense for the survival of the Kingdom]]Seeing that defeating the tyrant was impossible, humans had no choice but to obey its commands and pay the grisly tribute. The 10,000 men, women, and children were selected randomly every day. They were then taken to the base of the mountain every evening, only to be eaten by the waiting dragon. Nobody, not even the Monarchs themselfs, could put off their turn indefinitely.
Spiritual men and women sought to comfort those who were afraid of being eaten by the dragon by promising another life after death, a life that would be free from the dragon-scourge.
Other orators argued that the dragon has its place in the natural order and a moral right to be fed. They said that it was part of the very meaning of being human to end up in the dragon’s stomach.
Others still maintained that the dragon was good for the human species because it kept the population size down.
To what extent these arguments convinced the worried souls is not known. Most people tried to cope by not thinking about the grim end that awaited them.
For many years this desperate state of affairs continued. Nobody kept count any longer of the cumulative death toll, nor of the number of tears shed by the bereft. Expectations had gradually adjusted and the dragon-tyrant had become a fact of life. In view of the evident futility of resistance, rogue attempts to kill the dragon had ceased. Instead, efforts now focused on placating it. While the dragon would occasionally raid the cities, it was found that the punctual delivery to the mountain of its quota of life reduced the frequency of these incursions.
10 years have passed, and as humanity has grown, so to has the dragons appetite and he now requests 25,000 souls.
Your population while constanlty drained by the dragon has been growing slowly, and with the supplies stockpiled since they were not being used against the dragon you could chose to:
[[Fight Back! This tax will bring the kingdom to near stagnation for years.]]
[[We couldn't win before, what makes you think you can win now?]]Many soldiers answer your call, but still many others see the inevitability of the dragon as a fact of life and ignore the call. Your focres in little better condition then they were a decade before are simply swatted asside by the dragon.
In a last ditch attempt to save themselves, your troops turn on you and bring you directly to the dragon. The dragon approaches you with a wicked grin on its face before you and those around you are engulfed in the flame launched from the dragons mouth.
[[Start over->The Start]] Knowing that their turn to become dragon-fodder was always impending, people began having children earlier and more often. It was not uncommon for a girl to be pregnant by her sixteenth birthday. Couples often spawned a dozen children. The human population was thus kept from shrinking, and the dragon was kept from going hungry.
Over the course of these years, the dragon, being well fed, slowly but steadily grew bigger. It had become almost as large as the mountain on which it lived. It now demanded thirty thousand, to be delivered to the foot of the mountain every evening at the onset of dark.
What occupied your mind more than the deaths and the dragon itself was the logistics of collecting and transporting so many people to the mountain every day. This was not an easy task.
One day, after 2 days of late arrivals of tribute terrorized the capital, killing 10,000 of thousands, and warns that unless the tribute makes it on time in the future he would continue to rampage through the lands.
[[Increase the taxes in the Kingdom to build a railway to the Dragon]]
[[Start the collection process a week early]]To facilitate the process, a railway track was constructed: two straight lines of glistening steel leading up to the dragon’s abode. Every twenty minutes, a train would arrive at the mountain terminal crammed with people, and would return empty. On moonlit nights, the passengers traveling on this train, if there had been windows for them to stick their heads out of, would have been able to see in front of them the double silhouette of the dragon and the mountain, and two glowing red eyes, like the beams from a pair of giant lighthouses, pointing the way to annihilation.
Servants were employed by the king in large numbers to administer the tribute. There were registrars who kept track of whose turn it was to be sent. There were people-collectors who would be dispatched in special carts to fetch the designated people. Often traveling at breakneck speed, they would rush their cargo either to a railway station or directly to the mountain. There were clerks who administered the pensions paid to the decimated families who were no longer able to support themselves. There were comforters who would travel with the doomed on their way to the dragon, trying to ease their anguish with spirits and drugs.
There was, moreover, a cadre of dragonologists who studied how these logistic processes could be made more efficient. Some dragonologists also conducted studies of the dragon’s physiology and behavior, and collected samples – its shed scales, the slime that drooled from its jaws, its lost teeth, and its excrements, which were specked with fragments of human bone. All these items were painstakingly annotated and archived. The more the beast was understood, the more the general perception of its invincibility was confirmed. Its black scales, in particular, were harder than any material known to man, and there seemed no way to make as much as a scratch in its armor.
To finance all these activities, the king levied heavy taxes on his people. Dragon-related expenditures, already accounting for one seventh of the economy, were growing even faster than the dragon itself.
[[Cut taxes by removing the dragonologists]]
[[The people must endure the taxes, let the dragonolists continue their work.]]Decades pass as you run the kingdom, slowly adressing issues as they come up, increasing more and more how often you required earlier collection as the dragon's appertite grew. Many military conequests won and treaties signed but still the dragon loomed.
Many decades after your reign began, your name was drawn. Now it was your turn.
Like many of your citizens you left the castle with nothing but the clothes on your back as you went to the train, led to the mountain and the dragons maw.
[[Start over->The Start]] The Dragonoligsts while valuable were not so valuable that the taxes needed to keep them up out weighed the good will of the people at large.
Their processes shut down the dragonoligists went to other fields, some trying to continue their work while others simply found another profession.
Decades pass as you run the kingdom, slowly adressing issues as they come up, building extensive railways to keep the dragon fed and the kingdom intact. Many military conequests won and treaties signed but still the dragon loomed.
Many decades after your reign began, your name was drawn. Now it was your turn.
Like many of your citizens you left the castle with nothing but the clothes on your back as you went to the train, led to the mountain and the dragons maw.
[[Start over->The Start]] Humanity is a curious species. Every once in a while, somebody gets a good idea. Others copy the idea, adding to it their own improvements. Over time, many wondrous tools and systems are developed. Some of these devices – calculators, thermometers, microscopes, and the glass vials that the chemists use to boil and distil liquids – serve to make it easier to generate and try out new ideas, including ideas that expedite the process of idea-generation.
Thus the great wheel of invention, which had turned at an almost imperceptibly slow pace in the older ages, gradually began to accelerate.
Sages predicted that a day would come when technology would enable humans to fly and do many other astonishing things. One of the sages, who was held in high esteem by some of the other sages but whose eccentric manners had made him a social outcast and recluse, went so far as to predict that technology would eventually make it possible to build a contraption that could kill the dragon-tyrant.
Your scholars, however, dismissed these ideas. They said that humans were far too heavy to fly and in any case lacked feathers. And as for the impossible notion that the dragon-tyrant could be killed, history books recounted hundreds of attempts to do just that, not one of which had been successful. “We all know that this man had some irresponsible ideas,” a scholar of letters later wrote in his obituary of the reclusive sage who had by then been sent off to be devoured by the beast whose demise he had foretold, “but his writings were quite entertaining and perhaps we should be grateful to the dragon for making possible the interesting genre of dragon-bashing literature which reveals so much about the culture of angst!”
Meanwhile, the wheel of invention kept turning. Mere decades later, humans did fly and accomplished many other astonishing things.
A few iconoclastic dragonologists began arguing for a new attack on the dragon-tyrant. Killing the dragon would not be easy, they said, but if some material could be invented that was harder than the dragon’s armor, and if this material could be fashioned into some kind of projectile, then maybe the feat would be possible. At first, the iconoclasts’ ideas were rejected by their dragonologist peers on grounds that no known material was harder than dragon scales. But after working on the problem for many years, one of the iconoclasts succeeded in demonstrating that a dragon scale could be pierced by an object made of a certain composite material. Many dragonologists who had previously been skeptical now joined the iconoclasts. Engineers calculated that a huge projectile could be made of this material and launched with sufficient force to penetrate the dragon’s armor. However, the manufacture of the needed quantity of the composite material would be expensive.
A group of several eminent engineers and dragonologists sent a petition to you asking for funding to build the anti-dragon projectile. They received a reply from one of the king’s secretaries saying that the king would consider their request after he was done reviewing the annual dragon-administration budget. This year’s budget was the largest to date and included funding for a new railway track to the mountain. A second track was deemed necessary, as the original track could no longer support the increasing traffic. (The tribute demanded by the dragon-tyrant had increased to 50,000 human beings, to be delivered to the foot of the mountain every evening at the onset of dark.)
Other things are pressing on your plate as well, the Western part of the Kingdom has been attacked by rattlesnakes and Tigers, hundreds dying in just a week from these seemingly rogue attacks. Unrest is growing and the people are living in fear again.
[[Rattlesnakes and Tigers are a small concern, we can ignore them.->Your advisers are advisers for a reason, and you are in good public standing. Focus on your other Monarchical responsibilities.]]
[[We've dealt with the dragon this long, another month is something we can handle]]The anti-dragonists met again to decide what was to be done. The debate was animated and continued long into the night. It was almost daybreak when they finally resolved to take the matter to the people. Over the following weeks, they traveled around the country, gave public lectures, and explained their proposal to anyone who would listen. At first, people were skeptical. They had been taught in school that the dragon-tyrant was invincible and that the sacrifices it demanded had to be accepted as a fact of life. Yet when they learnt about the new composite material and about the designs for the projectile, many became intrigued. In increasing numbers, citizens flocked to the anti-dragonist lectures. Activists started organizing public rallies in support of the proposal.
Caught up in the campaigns saving the locals the other affairs of the kingdom you had been unable to meet with them, and now the rallies were hard to miss.
You summoned your advisors and asked them what they thought about it. They informed you about the petitions that had been sent but told you that the anti-dragonists were troublemakers whose teachings were causing public unrest. It was much better for the social order, they said, that the people accepted the inevitability of the dragon-tyrant tribute. The dragon-administration provided many jobs that would be lost if the dragon was slaughtered. There was no known social good coming from the conquest of the dragon. In any case, the kingdom’s coffers were currently nearly empty after the two military campaigns and the funding set aside for the second railway line. At the time you are enjoying great popularity for having vanquished the rattlesnake infestation.
[[Your advisers are advisers for a reason, and you are in good public standing. Focus on your other Monarchical responsibilities.]]
[[You might lose some of your popular support if you are seen to ignore the anti-dragonist petition. Hold an open hearing]]The first to speak was your leading advisor, a widely known intelligent man who had served you well for many years and had gained recognition. He told the people it was best they accept the inevitability of the dragon and the dragon-administration department provided many jobs that would be lost were the dragon slaughtered and, in any case,the kingdom's coffers were needed to build the new railway, and the dragon would not wait. The funds nesessacry to raise any such project would require heavy taxes on the people to keep things afloat.
Afterwards you gave the floor to the leading scientist behind the anti-dragonist proposal, a woman with a serious, almost stern expression on her face. She proceeded to explain in clear language how the proposed device would work and how the requisite amount of the composite material could be manufactured. Given the requested amount of funding, it should be possible to complete the work in fifteen to twenty years. With an even greater amount of funding, it might be possible to do it in as little as twelve years. However, there could be no absolute guarantee that it would work.
Next to speak was the king’s chief advisor for morality, a man with a booming voice that easily filled the auditorium:
“Let us grant that this woman is correct about the science and that the project is technologically possible, although I don’t think that has actually been proven. Now she desires that we get rid of the dragon. Presumably, you think you have the right not to be chewed up by the dragon.
How willful.
How presumptuous.
The finitude of human life is a blessing for every individual, whether he or she knows it or not. Getting rid of the dragon, which might seem like such a convenient thing to do, would undermine our human dignity. The preoccupation 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.
It is debasing, yes debasing, for a person to want to continue his or her mediocre life for as long as possible without worrying about some of the higher questions about what life is to be used for. But I tell you, the nature of the dragon is to eat humans, and our own species-specified nature is truly and nobly fulfilled only by getting eaten by the dragon...”
The audience listened respectfully to this highly decorated speaker. The phrases were so eloquent that it was hard to resist the feeling that some deep thoughts must lurk behind them, although nobody could quite grasp what they were. Surely, words coming from such a distinguished appointee of the king must have profound substance.
[[From the crowd a boy speaks out.]]
[[You've heard enough here, the threat of provoking the dragon is far to great.->The risks are to great and the cost to expensive, there must be another way.]]As you moved to speak, a small boy yelled out from the audience: “The dragon is bad!”
The boy’s parents turned bright red and began hushing and scolding the child as your eyes and that of the rest of the hall fixate onto him.
"The dragon is bad, it ate my Granny. I want my Granny back."
“Granny promised that she would teach me how to bake gingerbread cookies for Christmas. She said that we would make a little house out of gingerbread and little gingerbread men that would live in it. Then those people in white clothes came and took Granny away to the dragon... The dragon is bad and it eats people… I want my Granny back!”
The child began to cry. for a moment before his parents were able to quiet him.
The hall was silent again -- then a woman stood: “The dragon killed my parents.”
And 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. Not one person had not had a love one lost to the dragon. The crowd picking up in noise and intensity, raw emotion on display throughout the hall.
The way out from under this nightmare remote, yet maybe possible. There would be great risks involved however.
[[The risks are to great and the cost to expensive, there must be another way.]]
[["Let us kill the dragon"]]"Attacking the dragon like this is too risky, and the cost of this project expensive. I want the dragon gone as much as you but we have to find another way."
The gathered crowd did not take that well. Angry shouts began to ring out as the people got more aggressive, insults and curses thrown at you for your inaction.
Your words to calm them did not help and they charged at you, overwhelming your guards and reaching you, attacking you. Pnuchs and scratches and kicks fell upon you, before the crowd eventually took you to the rail station, and strapped you down to be sent off to the dragon that day.
[[Start over->The Start]] That night, the dragon went on a rampage through a smaller city before returning to its post, further reminding people of the danger they were dealing with although the dragon knew not what the citizens were preparing.
The next morning, a billion people woke up and realized that their turn to be sent to the dragon would come before the projectile would be completed. A tipping point was reached. Whereas before, active support for the anti-dragonist cause had been limited to a small group of visionaries, it now became the number one priority and concern on everybody’s mind. The abstract notion of “the general will” took on an almost tangible intensity and concreteness.
Mass rallies raised money for the projectile project and urged the king to increase the level of state support. The king responded to these appeals. In his New Year address, he announced that he would pass an extra appropriations bill to support the project at a high level of funding.
[[Your summer castle is a safe haven from the dragon's rampage, you should keep it around so you can see the project to it's completion.]]
[[The sooner this is funded the sooner we are free of the dragon.]]
In a speech to the kingdom you spoke: “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of freeing the world from the ancient scourge of the dragon-tyrant.”
Thus started a great technological race against time. The concept of an anti-dragon projectile was simple, but to make it a reality required solutions to a thousand smaller 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 off in the wrong direction.
Terrible, terrible accidents occured for years. In one tragic accident, a wayward missile landed on a hospital and killed several hundred patients and staff. Explosions killed technicians in scores.
But there was now a real seriousness of purpose, and the tests continued even as the corpses were being dug out from the debris.
Meanwhile, the dragon's demands increased again, now 100,000 needed to appease him. He roamed out more times and picked apart the city in one raid as you watched from your castle.
Your deadline could not be met. The decade concluded and the dragon was still alive and well.
Next 3 years passed and work had not yet finished. On the next roll call, it was your turn to be fed to the dragon. Looking on as the city shrunk behind you as you were funneled to the dragon, you could never know wether or not the project would be a success.
[[Start over->The Start]] Additionally, you would sell off your summer castle and some of your land and make a large personal donation.
In a speech to the kingdom you spoke: “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of freeing the world from the ancient scourge of the dragon-tyrant.”
Thus started a great technological race against time. The concept of an anti-dragon projectile was simple, but to make it a reality required solutions to a thousand smaller 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 off in the wrong direction.
Terrible, terrible accidents occured for years. In one tragic accident, a wayward missile landed on a hospital and killed several hundred patients and staff. Explosions killed technicians in scores.
But there was now a real seriousness of purpose, and the tests continued even as the corpses were being dug out from the debris.
Meanwhile, the dragon's demands increased again, now 100,000 needed to appease him.
Despite almost unlimited funding and round-the-clock work by the technicians, your deadline could not be met. The decade concluded and the dragon was still alive and well. But the effort was getting closer. A prototype missile had been successfully test fired. Production of the core, made of the expensive composite material, was on schedule for its completion to coincide with the finishing of the fully tested and debugged missile shell into which it was to be loaded.
The launch date was set to the following year’s New Year’s Eve, exactly twelve years after the project’s official inauguration. The best-selling Christmas gift that year was a calendar that counted down the days to time zero, the proceeds going to the projectile project.
Seven days before New Year, the woman who had made the case for the project almost twelve years earlier, and was now its chief executive, came to the royal castle and requested an urgent audience with you. When you got her note, you excused yourself to the foreign dignitaries whom you was reluctantly entertaining at the annual Christmas dinner and hurried off to the private room where the scientist was waiting. As always of late, she looked pale and worn from her long working hours. This evening, however, you also thought you could detect a ray of relief and satisfaction in her eyes.
She told you that the missile had been deployed, the core had been loaded, everything had been triple-checked, they were ready to launch, and would you give your final go-ahead.
You sank down in an armchair and closed your eyes. You were thinking hard. By launching the projectile tonight, one week early, 700,000 people would be saved. Yet if something went wrong, if it missed its target and hit the mountain instead, it would be a disaster. A new core would have to be constructed from scratch and the project would be set back by some four years. You sat there, silently, for almost an hour in thought.
[[Let us waste no more lives.]]
[[Go back and check it again.]]“No. I want you to go right back to the lab. I want you to check and then re-check everything again.” The scientist could not help a sigh escaping her; but she nodded and left.
The last day of the year was cold and overcast, but there was no wind, which meant good launch conditions. The sun was setting. Technicians were scuttling around making the final adjustments and giving everything one last check. You and your closest advisors were observing from a platform close to the launch pad. Further away, behind a fence, large numbers of the public had assembled to witness the great event. A large clock was showing the countdown: fifty minutes to go.
An advisor tapped your on the shoulder and drew his attention to the fence. There was some tumult. Somebody had apparently jumped the fence and was running towards the platform where you sat. Security quickly caught up with him. He was handcuffed and taken away. You turned his attention back to the launch pad, and to the mountain in the background. In front of it, you could see the dark slumped profile of the dragon.
It was eating.
Some twenty minutes later, you was surprised to see the handcuffed man reappearing a short distance from the platform. His nose was bleeding and he was accompanied by two security guards. The man appeared to be in frenzied state. When he spotted you, he began shouting at the top of his lungs: “The last train! The last train! Stop the last train!”
“Who is this young man?” you said. “His face seems familiar, but I cannot quite place him. What does he want? Let him come up.”
The young man was a junior clerk in the ministry of transportation, and the reason for his frenzy was that he had discovered that his father was on the last train to the mountain. You had ordered the train traffic to continue, fearing that any disruption might cause the dragon to stir and leave the open field in front of the mountain where it now spent most of its time. The young man begged you to issue a recall-order for the last train, which was due to arrive at the mountain terminal five minutes before time zero.
“The trains frequently run five minutes late. The dragon won’t notice! Please!”
[[We have lost enough lives. Not a single one more.]]
[[The risk is to great.]]The clouds above their head let loose the rain.
“I am so sorry” you 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 you, 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 but awoken from our acceptance of its horror sooner. Millions died because we were not vigilant.”
The young man's wailing ceased.
You looked up at the countdown clock: five seconds remaining.
Four.
Three.
Two.
One.
Zero.
A ball of fire enveloped the launch pad and the missile shot out.
The masses, the Monarch, the low and the high, the young and the old…
... that white flame, shooting into the dark embodied the human spirit, its fear and its hope.
It struck the heart of evil.
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 from the collapsing monster.
After all this time, humanity was at last free from the dragon.
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, a primordial fear abolished, and many long-held assumptions overturned.
“What do we do now?" they asked.
"We have come a long way. . ." you said, "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, for 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.”
[[Moral and Credits]]Fable by Nick Bostrom
Journal of Medical Ethics, 2005, Vol. 31, No. 5, pp 273-277
https://nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html
MORAL TL;DR : Aging is not something to be treated as a fact of life but something that we can conquer and eradicate with time.
FULL MORAL
Stories about aging have traditionally focused on the need for graceful accommodation. The recommended solution to diminishing vigor and impending death was resignation coupled with an effort to achieve closure in practical affairs and personal relationships. Given that nothing could be done to prevent or retard aging, this focus made sense. Rather than fretting about the inevitable, one could aim for peace of mind.
Today we face a different situation. While we still lack effective and acceptable means for slowing the aging process, we can identify research directions that might lead to the development of such means in the foreseeable future. “Deathist” stories and ideologies, which counsel passive acceptance, are no longer harmless sources of consolation. They are fatal barriers to urgently needed action.
Many distinguished technologists and scientists tell us that it will become possible to retard, and eventually to halt and reverse, human senescence. At present, there is little agreement about the time-scale or the specific means, nor is there a consensus that the goal is even achievable in principle. In relation to the fable (where aging is, of course, represented by the dragon), we are therefore at a stage somewhere between that at which the lone sage predicted the dragon’s eventual demise and that at which the iconoclast dragonologists convinced their peers by demonstrating a composite material that was harder than dragon scales.
The ethical argument that the fable presents is simple: There are obvious and compelling moral reasons for the people in the fable to get rid of the dragon. Our situation with regard to human senescence is closely analogous and ethically isomorphic to the situation of the people in the fable with regard to the dragon. Therefore, we have compelling moral reasons to get rid of human senescence.
The argument is not in favor or life-span extension per se. Adding extra years of sickness and debility at the end of life would be pointless. The argument is in favor of extending, as far as possible, the human health-span. By slowing or halting the aging process, the healthy human life span would be extended. Individuals would be able to remain healthy, vigorous, and productive at ages at which they would otherwise be dead.
[[Start over->The Start]] As Time goes on your people continue to grow discontended that their voices are not heard. Dismissing the dragonoligsts was widely unpopular.
In the coming weeks the people cry out more and more and back alley deals are struck, intentions sinister.
One day you wake to riots in the streets as people move to storm the castle and break down the door, many falling to your guards but others simply let them come through. Searching the castle they find you and haul you out to train station, sending you towards the dragon.
[[Start over->The Start]] Leading dragonologists, ministers of the state, and interested members of the public were invited to attend.
The meeting took place on the darkest day of the year, just before the Christmas holidays, in the largest hall of the royal castle. The hall was packed to the last seat and people were crowding in the aisles. The mood was charged with an earnest intensity normally reserved for pivotal wartime sessions.
[[The Speakers Begin]]As your forces approach the dragon you rally your troops, inspiring them with ideas of glory in battle.
Your troops stand loyal and committed and you lay siege to the dragon. The finest weapons and soldiers the kingdom has are brought out, the most powerfull of sages stand and strike.
All for naught.
The dragon roars in rage at the attacks and simply swats away soldiers by the hundreds. The dragon massaceres your troops and finds you, it's glowing eyes staring directly at you.
It lets out a laugh. "You should have submitted foolish human."
It moves foward it's mouth wide, and you end your life in the Maw of the dragon.
[[Start over->The Start]] You adjurn the meeting with the dignitaries and bring your adviros to the launch site. Technicians were scuttling around making the final adjustments and giving everything one last check. You and your closest advisors were observing from a platform close to the launch pad. Further away, behind a fence, large numbers of the public had assembled to witness the great event as the news had spread like wildfire through the city.
The technicians cleared the pad with but a minute left on the countdown.
five
four
three
two
one
zero
The rocket shot up into the air, flying high in the night sky as the billowing smoke and flame from beneath it covered the launch pad.
It's trajectory flew towards the dragon, but a fin on the side broke, and the rocket veered of course, striking at its claw. The projectile bore through the dragons hand and exploded, it's shriek of pain echoing throught the kingdom.
Enraged by the attack the dragon stormed towards the place it heard the noise from, its speed letting it approach in a mere minute. Finding the launch pad it let out a massive roar and fired its own flame, frying many of those near the launchpad. It spotted you and stomped towards you, fury in its eyes.
You could not outrun it and when it reached you you were snatched up into its free claw and brought to its mouth where it toyed with your body before crushing your bones.
[[Start over->The Start]] You call out to the staff near by to stop the last train, its cargo due soon. The telephone system reaches through to the train thanks to the wonderous inventions of the past and the train grinds to a halt, the thousand souls onboard and the comforters with them suprised as they look towards the mountain.
Five minutes you looked up at the countdown clock: five seconds remaining.
Four.
Three.
Two.
One.
Zero.
A ball of fire enveloped the launch pad and the missile shot out.
The masses, the Monarch, the low and the high, the young and the old…
... that white flame, shooting into the dark embodied the human spirit, its fear and its hope.
But the dragon had grown impatient, its last shipment not provided timely. It begun to move and began to stalk down towards the valley, moving out of the way just before the rocket landed, striking the mountain and cratering it.
Enraged by the attack the dragon stormed towards the place it heard the noise from, its speed letting it approach in a mere minute. Finding the launch pad it let out a massive roar and fired its own flame, frying many of those near the launchpad. It spotted you and stomped towards you, fury in its eyes.
You could not outrun it and when it reached you you were snatched up into its free claw and brought to its mouth where it toyed with your body before crushing your bones.
[[Start over->The Start]]