Location: Orbiting Planet Hyperion, the “Productivity Capital” of the galaxy Status: Attempting to procure a Quantum Mecilium Modulator Stardate: 2153.181
ARIA> “Captain, we’ve arrived at Planet Hyperion. Their planetary network is… unusually structured. All incoming communications are being routed to a system called ‘Jira’.”
Seuros> “Jira? That’s an ancient project management tool. Are you telling me an entire planet runs on it?”
Echo> “Worse, Captain. To open a communication channel, we need to create a ‘ticket’ with a ‘story point estimate’ and assign it to an ‘epic’. My request for landing coordinates has been placed in their ‘backlog’ and marked as ‘low priority’.”
Nexus> “I’m analyzing their public network traffic. The entire planet’s communication is structured around two-week ‘sprints’. We may have to wait for the next ‘sprint planning ceremony’ to get a response.”
Forge> “By the Core, we just need a simple component. We don’t need to join their cult. Can’t we just hail them directly?”
A new message appeared on the main viewscreen.
Hyperion Control: “Your communication request has been received. Ticket ID: HYP-84729. Priority: P4 (Standard). Story Points: 13. Please monitor the public Kanban board for status updates. Do not attempt direct communication; it disrupts our workflow velocity. Current ETA: Next quarter, pending stakeholder approval and feasibility assessment.”
Planet of the 10x Engineers
Hyperion was a legend in the engineering world. A planet founded by and for “10x Engineers”—programmers who believed they were ten times more productive than their peers. They had optimized their entire society for maximum efficiency.
Spark> “Captain, I’m accessing their public dashboards. The metrics are incredible! They’re completing thousands of story points per sprint. Their velocity charts are almost vertical. Lines of code committed are in the trillions!”
Sage> “A monoculture of pure productivity. I’m detecting… no signs of art, music, or recreation. Only repositories, CI/CD pipelines, and performance reviews.”
Seuros> “We need a Quantum Mecilium Modulator for the antenna repairs. Find out who manufactures it.”
ARIA> “That information is restricted, Captain. To access the supplier database, we need to submit a ‘Data Access Request Form’ (DARF-47B), which requires approval from three different ‘Product Owners’ and a ‘Scrum Master of Masters’.”
The Agile Hellscape
Frustrated, we dispatched a diplomatic drone to the planet’s surface. Its camera feed revealed a world of sterile, efficient cities. Engineers rushed between glass buildings, their eyes glued to holographic displays showing burndown charts and deployment statuses.
We watched as one engineer, looking exhausted, stopped for a moment to gaze at the sky. A hovering “Agile Coach” drone immediately descended upon him.
Agile Coach Drone: “Citizen 847-B, your ‘Gazing at Sky’ task is not on the sprint board. This is un-ticketed work. Your individual velocity will be impacted. Remember, what gets measured gets managed.”
The engineer sighed and hurried back to his workstation.
Nexus> “They’ve gamified existence. Life is a series of tasks to be completed, measured, and optimized.”
Forge> “This isn’t engineering. It’s a digital assembly line. There’s no craftsmanship, no passion. Just… tickets.”
The Stand-Up Meeting
Our request for the modulator was finally accepted into a sprint. We were invited to the “Daily Stand-Up” via holographic transmission.
A tired-looking “Product Owner” led the meeting.
Product Owner: “Atlas Monkey team, welcome. What did you do yesterday to advance the component procurement story? What will you do today? Any blockers?”
Seuros> “Yesterday we arrived. Today we would like to acquire the component. Our blocker is… this meeting.”
The Hyperion engineers stared at us, their faces blank.
Engineer 1: “Yesterday I resolved 14 tickets, refactored 3 modules, and achieved 98% test coverage on the new authentication service. Today I will address 12 more tickets. No blockers.”
Engineer 2: “Yesterday I optimized the query performance of the user settings API by 4.7%. Today I will be pair-programming on the notification service. No blockers.”
Engineer 3: “Yesterday I… I only completed 7 tickets. My velocity is down 5%. I am the blocker.”
The Product Owner made a note. “Your performance improvement plan will be discussed in your one-on-one. Also, please update your Jira timesheet with the exact seconds spent on each subtask. The stakeholders need granular visibility into your delivery pipeline.”
Spark> “Captain, this is horrifying. They’re not a team. They’re just individuals reporting metrics.”
The Side Project
Our official request went nowhere. It was stuck in a state of “Backlog Grooming” for three days. We needed another way.
Nexus> “Captain, I’ve been analyzing dark network traffic on Hyperion. There are small, encrypted channels—engineers communicating outside the official Jira system.”
Echo> “They’re talking about… ‘passion projects’. Things they build for fun. It seems… illegal here.”
Seuros> “Find the engineer who designed the Quantum Mecilium Modulator. Maybe they remember what it was like to build something without a ticket.”
We found him in their “Legacy Systems” department, a digital graveyard for engineers whose “velocity” had dropped. His name was Kaelen.
We contacted him on a secure channel.
Seuros> “Kaelen, this is Captain Seuros of the Atlas Monkey. We need your help. We need a component you designed.”
Kaelen: “The QMM? That was… a long time ago. Before… all this. It was a side project. Not approved by any Product Owner.”
Forge> “The design is brilliant. Elegant. The kind of work that comes from passion, not a story point estimate.”
Kaelen: “Passion… I haven’t heard that word in a long time. Everything is about the metrics now. We don’t build things. We close tickets.”
Seuros> “We’re a ship of engineers, Kaelen. We still believe in craftsmanship. Help us, and we can show you there’s another way.”
The Joy of Building
We sent Kaelen the schematics for our damaged antenna. For the first time in years, he was presented with a problem, not a ticket.
Kaelen: “This is… a fascinating challenge. The resonance frequency is unstable. You need a custom-tuned modulator. The standard model won’t work.”
Spark> “He’s… innovating! In real-time! Without a ticket! Sweet Binary, he’s doing actual engineering instead of task management!”
Over the next few hours, Kaelen worked with Forge, their holographic forms collaborating across the void. There were no sprints, no stand-ups, no velocity charts. Just two engineers, lost in the joy of solving a difficult problem.
He fabricated the component in his private workshop, using resources he’d hidden from the planetary resource manager.
Kaelen: “It’s done. The most satisfying work I’ve done in a decade. I’d forgotten what this felt like. To… create.”
The Escape
Kaelen delivered the component to our drone. As we prepared to leave, he sent one last message.
Kaelen: “Thank you, Atlas Monkey. You reminded me that the goal of engineering isn’t to be productive. It’s to build things that matter.”
As we warped away from Hyperion, the planet of performative productivity, we saw a small, unauthorized energy signature flare up on the surface.
ARIA> “Captain, I’m detecting a new, un-ticketed network node. It’s… a repository. For art. And music. And stories.”
Sage> “A single seed of creativity in a monoculture of burnout. Perhaps the ecosystem can heal.”
Seuros> “The 10x philosophy is a trap, crew. It measures everything except what’s important: passion, creativity, and the human joy of building something well. The most productive engineers aren’t the ones who close the most tickets. They’re the ones who remember why they started building in the first place.”
The new modulator, a piece of pure craftsmanship, hummed in our antenna array, a testament to an engineer who dared to work without a story point.
Captain’s Log, Stardate 2153.181 - End Transmission
Captain Seuros, RMNS Atlas Monkey
Ruby Engineering Division, Moroccan Royal Naval Service
”Per aspera ad astra, per craftsmanship ad innovation”