The Curious Tale of the Kingdom that Ate Itself
What could happen to the UX/UI industry if we don’t start to provide opportunities to our Junior colleagues now?
“Long ago, a storm was heading toward the city of Quin’lat. The people sought protection within the walls. All except one man who remained outside. I went to him and asked what he was doing. I am not afraid, he said. I will not hide my face behind stone and mortar. I will stand before the wind and make it respect me. I honoured his choice and went inside. The next day, the storm came and the man was killed. The wind does not respect a fool. Do not stand before the wind, Gowron.”
“Rightful Heir”, Star Trek.
Once upon a time, there lay a kingdom in a lush and disputed stretch in a faraway land, its name was Guxyiu (goo-she-you).
Guxyiu rose stoically pushing out the native tribes surrounding their territory thanks to the grit and ingenuity of its warring people.
They were not from that land, but from distant shores beyond the horizon and if nothing is known about this kingdom today it is because the dynasties that engulfed it, either out of merciful respect for the warriors they once were or vicarious embarrassment for the fools they became, decided to give them their final rest and dignity by leaving them out of their records to be forgotten forever.
The first King of Guxyiu, Jörmungandr (your-mun-gunder), was wise and brought in his ships thousands of young men and women to build and populate villages strategically positioned as a ring around the borders of the Kingdom, fencing out the displaced native tribes of that land: the Hua (hoo-ah) and the Xia (she-ah).
Each village was meticulously planned. 50 young men and their wives, which of those: 20 men competently trained to defend their village, 10 to protect the roads to the capital; 10 to tend to the land and livestock; 9 for several crafts; 1 to intercede with the Gods; each woman fully trained and operational in their husband’s craft.
King Jörmungandr’s system worked well. Even amidst constant skirmishes and bloody battles, Guxyiu grew and prospered: soon the original couples had children, and these children grew to have more children, each one inheriting from their elders the skills of the family trade, this way keeping a steady and balanced growth and renewal of all crafts and offices serving the kingdom.
When King Jörmungandr’s days came to an end, his son Nirak (nih-rack) ascended to the throne.
His generation had grown in a time of relative peace. Not having ever felt the searing heat of battle, they enjoyed the legacy of his father’s fragile peace and trade treaties with the Hua and Xia tribes, by now more concerned to fight each other than their unwanted foreign guests.
As it sometimes happens with new kings, Nirak’s inexperience soon grew into a blind preoccupation to outshine the feats of his father. His ambition was to expand the kingdom to “10 times the size of Old Jörmungandr’s Kingdom” — as he commanded his father’s war generals to assemble an army to start the expansion immediately.
Word of Nirak’s plans spread around the surrounding tribes and, putting aside their differences in order to defend themselves against a common threat, they united to become one single front standing in the way of Guxyiu’s ambitions. The Hua and Xia tribes became the Huaxia.
The first battles ensued and great were the losses of Guxyiu. At each defeat, the generals were summoned to re-explain to a furious Nirak that whilst at Jörmungandr’s time, the soldiers disembarked with some years of basic training and experience gained from a few battles at home to then fight scattered tribes already at each other’s throats; this time, inexperienced Guxyiu soldiers had had no time to train properly and were left to learn in battle how to fight a now much more strategically organised and united enemy.
Nirak, defending his bruised pride and to establish authority, ordered the generals to enlist and train all men and women of all crafts between the ages of 20 and 35 in preparation for a bigger offensive, to be launched in 6 months. It was his belief that soldiers who were “too young” or “too old” were getting in the way of those in the “right age” to be quickly trained for mastery in battle. Without posing opposition or pleading, each general collected their bag of gold and left the King’s presence in silence.
At daybreak, the generals sent recruiting scouts to the villages to conscript those in the age chosen by the King, but at every village, they were met with protest from the veteran warriors:
— Give us time to train the young ones… Take us to battle, we were in both the Old King’s war and in His cub’s last battles…
They pleaded with the scouts to take their case to the King, but the scouts scoffed back:
— Who are we to request the King’s time?
They pleaded to take their case to the generals and the scouts despaired:
— Who are we to change the generals’ minds??? We are here just to select those who are fit for battle.
As soon as the conscripted left, secretly, the veterans started building barracks and training camps in caves and deep in the woods to train those left behind, hoping that the day would come they would be called to serve the Kingdom.
At night, out of sight, entire villages staged battles with each other using wooden weapons and under the guidance of the veterans, they learned the new and old strategies of their enemy, progressively becoming competent warriors although away from the front.
More battles followed and, amassing more losses, it finally came the day Nirak got fed up with “his generals’” serial failures and pointed the finger to the soldiers’ low level of experience and achievement in previous battles as the reason behind the defeats. And so he ordered that only those who had ever killed at least 5 enemies were to be sent to the front.
When the scouts arrived in the villages, the veterans rejoiced, boasting about their long list of kills in innumerable battles. They hugged the recruits they had been secretly training for years now and promised:
— There are just as many battles left in us now, cubs. We will go ahead and open the field for you to join us and then replace us soon! For the Kingdom!
And the tide of the war finally changed. The veterans, although by now much older, joined a relatively younger army that had managed to survive so far thanks to natural military talent and brawn, sharpened in the fire of war. This younger army was finally becoming veterans themselves by fighting side by side with Jörmungandr’s original warriors.
Years passed by and the scouts continued visiting the villages to conscript the ones with a proven track of experience and achievements in order to replenish the troops in the battlefront. Nevertheless, less and less of those left behind managed to fulfil the minimum 5-kill requirement although they still kept training and battling each other with their wooden swords, spears and axes.
Those who achieved the minimum quota outside battle did it either by luck, coming across inexperienced enemy spies who had fallen into traps or by going rogue into enemy territory to make opportunistic kills: Huaxia children playing alone, farmers in their fields, housewives occupied with their laundry...
Many veterans didn’t come back to their villages, preferring a glorious death in the battlefield than a quiet life as instructors and storytellers by the wood fire. Those who did return were now at an age too advanced to command a group of well-trained recruits back to the frontline, although even the ones willing and relatively fit to lead a group of rogues wouldn’t find anyone disposed to turn a blind eye and let them pass.
Those left behind were not young anymore, they also aged in their wait, for time itself doesn’t wait.
And yet their yearning for a mere opportunity in the battlefield was unwavering — some ventured into hidden footpaths to sneak into the battlefield and others gathered their few possessions to bribe soldiers at checkpoints. No matter what they tried, it always ended up with them being escorted back to their villages, scorned by the soldiers of the next checkpoint:
— Careful with that wooden sword, soldier. You might go well beyond that 5-kill quota and end up enraging the rabbits into declaring war on us!
In the front, the once young soldiers who survived Nirak’s first disastrous campaigns had become proficient warriors themselves, more experienced than any of Jörmungandr’s original soldiers ever were, nevertheless older and busier without as many new hands and heads to continue the advancing wave.
They themselves were nearing the time to go back home, but most preferred to gulp the ultimate berserker mead and catapult themselves straight into the enemy’s arms for the final battle, mano-a-mano, to the boundless glory of Valhalla.
In Guxyiu, a frail Nirak is lifted into his throne by the generals that took over the now long-dead original generals: five, still baby-faced recruits, who never went to battle, but managed to prove their experience and achievement by finishing off an old Caspian tiger that fell into a ravine.
By then the proof of experience and achievement had lowered several times, given that fewer and fewer of those that stayed behind still waited for their opportunity in the front. As a result, the younger ones, seeing their elder siblings wait in growing desperation for an opportunity that never materialised, saw no future in being a soldier anymore and didn’t even bother to take military training as the generations before them.
As he battles to keep himself awake, a time-worn and blind Nirak stares off into the distance, barely fixating on the scouts entering the room to report the numbers of the latest conscription campaign: all of those able to prove their military experience and achievement in killing at least 5 macaques or similar-sized animals.
One of the scouts approaches and kneels:
— Your Majesty and Honourable Generals of the Kingdom, we are bearers of grave news…
Across Guxyiu, the first waves of Huaxia soldiers start to move in, carefully inspecting the perimeter around the aligned tree trunks that make up the circular walls fortifying the villages, hidden from the line of sight of possible Guxyiu watchmen at the top.
A soldier peeks through a gap between two misaligned poles and, after a long moment, boldly walks into the path leading to the gates, unconcerned about being in full sight of the enemy. He swiftly enters the village through the unguarded entrance and several minutes later emerges, signalling the all-clear to the units in standby.
The Huaxia storm the village just to be greeted by the same Dantesque sight they will find everywhere: abandoned in the derelict longhouses, a handful of semi-naked elderly Guxyiu veterans, all missing one or more limbs, passively gaze off into the distance as if the Huaxia were not even there.
At the centre of a square, they find a makeshift wood smoker protected from the elements by ragged pelts which, in a previous life, served as the clothes of those destitute men. They pull the skins away from the wood frame and are shocked to discover that hanging above the smoker’s low fire, cured by the fumes, lies a half-eaten human leg.
— Ha-ha! These fools have been devouring themselves for months now! Is this what those suicidal Yi dotards in the front have been fighting for, whilst the carcass of their king rots in his throne? — Gloatfully shouts the Huaxia general, followed by the bursts of laughter of his troops.
Those who were still fit, tired of the lack of prospects, had long taken the old boats that brought Jörmungandr and left — some found their way back to their ancestral home; some settled in other lands; a few aimlessly sailed into the horizon just to be swallowed by the ocean and its mythical creatures.
However, those who waited lived to the last day of their lives lost in delirious thoughts of what could have been if they were given that one battle to prove their ability and mettle.
And so Guxyiu’s time came to pass in a whirl of entropy and lost opportunities, eating its own limbs to survive just long enough before oblivion.
— 结束 (jiéshù).
Appendix 1:
Archaeological Artifact — Jörmungandr’s Soldier Job Ad
Junior Soldiers — International placement — Training provided
Our client is a start-up that plans to make great strides in what will be called the “Asian market” in a few thousand years. Their disruptive enterprise has one objective: to build the very first Viking outpost on the far side of Midgard and in the following 5 midsummers, expand it to become the very first Viking kingdom in a faraway land with actual sun (forget raids under the English/Irish rain and fog, like those dummies in the next village. You are guaranteed to get a tan, no matter how many layers of dried foreign blood covering your skin!).
We are looking for Junior Soldiers willing to be trained to become warriors in the heat of many battles abroad, in exchange we offer military male settlers an accompanying female counterpart selected by our priest-powered rune divination matching system and almost all the land they need to build their longhouse, vegetable patch and latrine as soon as they “relocate” the natives out of the land and help establish our outpost.
For our Junior Soldier position we require from you:
- To be between 15–20 years of age in two midsummers.
- To have basic level sword/axe/polearm/spear/bow training or equivalent experience in one or more of those weapons.
- A willingness to take in the role of berserker when battle requires.
- Patience to endure your future wife’s constant unhappiness, nagging and resentment for being matched with you instead of that dummy Åsvald from the next village.
- Extreme patience (and care) to endure your future wife’s probable homicidal urges when we break to her that we haven’t landed in Brighton for a weekend trip but in a place called “Chi-i-nah” and she will never see her family again and you knew it all along.
- A warrior attitude and determination to face native hostility almost as intense as your wife’s.
- To beget babies. May Odin help you with that.
- Ability to sleep with your eyes open in the first years of your married life is a bonus, but not required if you’re ok about waking up in Valhalla.
We offer:
- Battle training until departure in two midsummers.
- Then training on the job.
- All the land you can grab from the natives up to 4sqm (that is 1sqm better than the dummies in the next village are getting in England).
- Latest-model weapon of your choice.
- Communal bear skins for berserkers provided.
- Mead on tap on Freyadays. And Moondays, Tyerdays, Odindays, Thordays, Laugardagurs and Sundays.
- Benefits: A sunny workspace, work-while-maimed scheme and the opportunity of an amazing and probably slow agonising death that will be the talk in Valhalla.
Don’t miss the opportunity to work in a fast-paced modern start-up with a very flat hierarchy (it is basically you standing a little bit better up than a slave, below a commander and the King), expect to be promoted very quickly. Our client’s spies have already conducted ethnographic and market research and they are ready to sail in two midsummers!
Soldier selection starts on the next Moonday and military training starts in three moons after that. We will teach you all you need to know about battles in practical real-life raids on the next village. Let’s make history, cubs!
We are an equal opportunities employer: Christian converts are welcome to join our enterprise as slaves. Dummies from the next village need not apply, we flipping hate you.
La Bamba Vikingos is acting as an Employment Agency in relation to this vacancy. Earn yourself a rabbit pelt as a referral bonus if you refer somebody else who fills the role! See our other vacancies in the surrounding stones.
Contact: Manuel Gonzalez
Disclaimer:
All events are fictitious and do not represent true cultural or historical events of any people be it today or in the past. In fact, Vikings did not even exist for at least 2,000 years from the rise of the Xia dynasty, China’s first.
Guxyiu is not a real name, but the alliteration of the words UX, UI and the Mandarin word “yi”, meaning “foreigner” or “barbarian”; because in this technical IT world, UX and UI are a bit of foreign.
I use the real “Huaxia” term (see Easter eggs below) because it also has all the letters for UX, UI and IA. So perhaps, in my tale, the Huaxia and the Guxyiu are two opposing approaches to UX/UI.
Erm, as to my dear Nordic readers, in no way I am comparing your superb ancient forefathers with the illustrious Chinese forefathers, but I understand that in this story they, kind of, don’t look too great. Please be assured that the Vikings I wrote about are not the ones that came from your country. No, no, no, absolutely not, the Vikings in my story are from, you know where 🤫, the other stuck-up neighbouring Nordic country that thinks that they are better than you, although you know very well you are better than them in every aspect.
Easter eggs 😉
Jörmungandr
— https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouroboros
Nirak
— Read: https://www.quotes.net/mquote/728759,
— Watch: https://youtu.be/uW7FVikuCko
Huaxia, Yi
— https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hua%E2%80%93Yi_distinction
Tarot cards meaning
— https://www.tarot.com/tarot/cards
Epilogue
(Editor note: Goddamit, is this guy still going on?)
My further discussions about the demise of the UX/UI industry in plain non-metaphorical language:
