The Hydra

A Lesson in Human Nature
(for and) by Barbra

Facebook has a few fun appliances (“games”), such as Castle Age (“CA”), where you can summon beasts like dragons or hydras among others. The tricky thing about hydras is that you need to launch 5 different siege weapons that are crucial to slaying that snake. You have 7 days to slay a hydra. The reward for killing a hydra (“loot”) is awesome - but it takes a lot to get there.

For each siege weapon you need to ask for assistance from others. They click on the link you provide - and you’re one step closer to launching that thing. The Catapult requires 10 people to help you, the Ballista 20, the Cannons 40, the Blizzard 80, the Firestorm 150 and the Last Stand requires 300 people to help you. When all those weapons are deployed you still need 130 people to actually attack that monster in order to finish it off. Each click requires one point of your character’s stamina, an attack costs 1 stamina, a power attack 5 stamina.

To sum up, this is what it’s about: finding people to help before standing as one and finishing the monster off together, aka: working as a team.

Lesson #1: With a few exceptions to the rule, it is human nature to do nothing selflessly.

When you ask people to come help you launch those weapons, you have to return the favor (“rtf”) of every click received. Or you don’t return them - but what does that say about you? Of course you couldn’t care less if you’re the not-returning-the-favor-type, but those among us who still believe in team effort and fighting together couldn’t live with it.
Naturally, you need to seek out places where others ask for help for their hydras as well. When you help them, they’re supposed to help you, but basically you spend twice as much stamina on getting people to help you, because - surprise, surprise - for whatever reason not everybody will return the favor.

I set out to finding people willing to assist me regardless. My army has grown ever since and I’m glad a handful of those 90 people in my verra small army are reliable and actually helped me!

Lesson #2: With a few exceptions to the rule, it is human nature to let others do one’s work whenever you find someone (who is naïve enough or who clings to the old-fashioned and nowadays quite asinine concept of honor, following through, sacrificing themselves for the greater good - pick one!) to do so.

You can fill the slots for actually fighting that hydra off before all the weapons are deployed. So there were quite a few “one-timers” there - people who only clicked once to attack the monster and then just sat back and waited for the loot to come their way. Oh and have I mentioned that a hydra is extremely hard to kill? Well, the few of us - we few, we happy few! - who really fought that snake with everything (read: every point of stamina) we could spare were left outside alone.

Lesson #3: With a few exceptions to the rule, it is human nature to exploit goodwill and kindness.

This hydra I’ve tried to put out of its misery wasn’t even mine. Ever idealistic, I believed the more I give, the more kindhearted I am, the more I will get in return. There are enough examples in history to prove this thought to be utterly idealistic bordering on delusional.

A rl-friend (isn’t it fascinating how one has to distinguish between fb-friends and rl-friends these days?) gave me an invaluable piece of advice some time ago. She said:

You must learn to forgive people for not being what you hoped them to be or what you wished they could be. It’s not their fault. No matter how much you want somebody to be nice, truthful and reliable; if it’s not in their nature, they’ll never be - no matter how hard you try, no matter how much you give.

To be honest, I never completely understood until I met that hydra - suddenly everything connected and made sense.

I can see clearly now... the rain is gone... *lol*

Was about time too. Hey, at this rate I'm turning into a wise old woman in no time. Nah, just kidding.