Gather round children and let me tell you a story of long ago and far away. There was a time that two kingdoms fought each other in a protracted and diffuse war, mostly through proxies and spies. Now each kingdom also had genies in bottles, but these genies didn't grant wishes. These genies were firestorms of destruction. And each kingdom tried to gather as many of these genie bottles as they could in case the other kingdom released their genies on the other kingdom.
Now in each kingdom they had their own fairy tale. And the fairy tale went something like this (in each kingdom): they would win this war they fought and when they did their own lives would be a glorious suburbia of sunshine, baseball, and family where diamonds would rain from the sky, food would always be delicious, and everyone would bask in that sunshine and know their place in the world was correct, good and undisturbed. The other kingdom would be a destroyed and crumbling ruin of a hell-scape, constantly overcast where the rain would scare the flesh of the scattered remains of their humans, who would eat not much more than grass and bark soup, die young and painfully. And there would be only one kingdom that survived, because that kingdom was right and just.
The kingdoms split the world between themselves and fought at the edges using other peoples' children. They sniped at each other and both feared and revered their own genies. Steely-eyed warriors on both side thumped their chests and told lies to their own troops about how superior they were.
Both sides believed so much in their own fairy tale, neither could foresee what would actually happen. That both kingdoms needed each other to survive. They would hate their genies and wonder how they needed so many, but not know how to get rid of them. That one kingdom would fake out the other and steal enough of their gold to cause that kingdom to call it quits. One kingdom would claim victory, only to watch it's own standard of living decrease for the average citizen. While the other kingdom, after a period of adjustment, would see their citizens have better lives than before.
Now, there was a jealous prince in that kingdom who played what few card he had been felt well and amassed power and fortune. Eventually he would become the king of the "losing" kingdom. And as he sat in the rebuilt castle he plotted and planned to turn the tables on the other kingdom. He would take what looked like defeat and make it a victory, or at least deny that victory to the other kingdom.
So he planned for the long run, gathered his allies and waited for the other kingdom to grow complacent. Because even though he had seen how the fairy tale was a lie, he believed in it with his whole heart. And he was determined to make the other kingdom the desolate and broken place he always believed it should be.
Of course this is only fairy tale, because no one would be stupid enough to believe there could only be one kingdom that could be prosperous, peaceful, and continue to increase their citizens' quality of life and everywhere else would be a blasted hell-scape.
Through all of this the genies slept in their bottles and dreamed of the world they would inherit.
2 comments:
Hmm, Gamer spam bot? I would assume tagged your title because of some type of game reference.
Hey tranngoc123, no spam or link farming.
Probably, Anonymous. The link farmers used to hit my blog hard about 7 or so years ago (one of the reasons I block comments on older posts). They've been sniffing around for the past year (it's a little hard to tease out their traffic from the Russians).
Post a Comment