Difference between revisions of "User talk:Solaris"

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Alternate history with dragons[edit]

Hi, I'm LordJinai and I would really like to read your story about dragons in the 20th century. Me and my friends from the german Temeraire Forum (https://forum.temeraire.net/de/forum-47.html I've still not finished summarizing^^) just thought about dragons in the past. Maybe you have ideas about how to link these thesis: - The Roman Empire had contact with the Chinese Empire, around year 0 were the first contacts, permanent contact was around the 4th century. The Chinese called the Romans the "other great China", a mythical conter-empire on the other side of the world pushed up by legends about the west. I think it could have been likely that the Chinese shared some of their breeding knowledge or their breeds with this partner Empire. This could explain why the Romans build up a great dragon culture within very few years without having any domesticated dragons nor help nor examples. The Ottoman Empire (East-Rome) had contacts to China too, so I suppose the knowledge of dragon breeding lived on there, in west-rome it vanished after its fall. During the dark middle-age nobody knew how to use dragons. The Normans reintroduced it into North France and then into Britain. But where did the Normans (they were originally Vikings) get their knowledge from? Did they imitate the Huns (who were Mongoles and the Mongoles ruled China or were very close neighbours)? Did they imitated the people from the Byzantine Empire? Did the wild tribes in north and middle Europe imitated the Romans and all preserved a bit of knowledge (like in North America where every indian tribe has its own dragons)? Or did the civilized dragons preserved the knowledge by their own and passed it to their children? Maybe the moorish people had some influence on it. I haven't found a suitable explanation for how the dragon-breeding came from the Romans to the Normans. Do you have an other theory or can you add something to my theories? What do you think about it? - What about native dragons in India? NN never talks about feral dragons in Inida but why should this country have no dragons? It is surrounded by dragons, it has been highly developped. - Did the other high developped cultures like the Persians, the Greek, the Egyptians or the cities like Ur, Uruk, Samarkand, Babylon... had dragon cultures too? What happened to them (same question like above: has the knowledge been preserved somehow or got it lost?)?

I hope I didn't frightened you with so much questions but I'm happy to meet somebody who thinks about the same themes. If you like, I'll present you my other theories, mainly about ancient China and its dragons :D.

While I formulate my response (which shouldn't take over-long, as I've at least began to contemplate many of the foreign dragons we don't see in the books while setting up the 1939-era world), I'd certainly like to hear some of your theories about the ancient Chinese and their dragons. Solaris (talk) 16:23, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

While the Romans developed the initial phases of their dragon-husbandry in isolation, they likely learned some of breeding from the Chinese sometime afterwards - if only indirectly, as knowledge has a tendency to radiate. I'm uncertain as to how likely the Chinese would have been to permit the export of Chinese eggs; I'll have to research a bit more into the Han dynasty to see how open they were to such thing. I know the Qing (the dynasty reigning at the time of the Napoleonic Wars) and possibly their predecessors are certainly not, but times and people change.

If the Chinese did send some eggs to the Romans (perhaps in trade for Roman eggs), that may explain why the Kaziliks are a bit more serpentine than the Western dragons as well as being able to interbreed with a Celestial (and why none of the other Ottoman dragons were mentioned as being serpentine) - perhaps they are a distant cousin of the Scarlet Flower, far removed for centuries after their transplantation by means fair or foul to the Roman Empire, bred to Roman preference (Big! Aggressive! Flaming death to the enemy!) to produce the dragon we know today. They naturally fell into the hands of the Ottomans as the Eastern Roman Empire fell. Of course, that's all conjecture based on tenuous evidence; Temeraire's difficulty breeding with a Yellow Reaper may have more to do with his immaturity, and dragons aren't a terribly fecund lot to begin with.

The fact that Marcus Antonius's taming of Vici was a novel concept suggests that the Western world (by which I mean the Mediterranean civilizations and Europe proper) knew practically nothing about dragons other than "Big, scaly, kills lots of people, and some of them breathe fire." The Greeks, like as not, did not have dragons tamed in Antiquity, save for the odd exceptional case of taming a hatchling - somewhat alike taming wolf cubs preceeding the domestication of the dog. Indeed, I doubt very much that Eurasian dragons were domesticated outside of China until the Romans. I just as strongly believe that there were isolated instances of dragon-taming preceeding the Roman Empire that amounted to no lasting significance in any dragon-breeds.

Given the Romans, however, I don't doubt that they became very excellent dragon-breeders - but unlike the Chinese, they didn't integrate dragons into their culture, nor did they breed for intelligence and grace. Instead, the Romans likely bred for size, strength, scaly armor, and other traits which are more useful in combat. Through comparing the British with the French and what little we know of the Spanish, I think we get something of an idea of the Roman dragon-lines. British dragons naturally tend towards a smaller size (an understandable consequence of living on an island) and don't have many dragons who are large or fire-breathers; the British Isles also felt the yoke of Roman domination much less than mainland Europe. Likewise, through both ferals we see ourselves and Laurence's mentions of the Crusades, there's indication that the natural state of dragons is significantly smaller than the heavyweight and middleweight fighting beasts we see in the Napoleonic Wars. France and Spain, on the other hand, both have fire-breathing dragons and France is flush with large dragon breeds (we have little information on the size of Spanish breeds, but they range between the 'little' Flecha-del-Fuego and the middleweight to heavyweight Cauchador Real). While it's entirely possible that pyrogenesis arose multiple times, it may well be that there is an ancestral fire-breather native to Rome (or at least the Mediterranean basin) and exported outward with the Roman conquest after domestication, along with other dragon breeds that were bred for size, strength, and scaly armor. That the Prussians lacked fire-breathers in the early 1800s supports this notion, as Germania long resisted Rome and the Romans would have had a vested interest in keeping their fire-breathers out of German hands.

Parenthetically, I'd like a good look at a Flecha-del-Fuego in the books. I think that could provide us some useful information, too, as to the origins of pyrogenesis (that is to say, whether Flecha-del-Fuegos are descended from Kaziliks, are a cousin with the same ancestor, or are descended from the same line as the French Flamme-de-Gloire).

When Rome fell, I'm fairly certain that dragon-handling was lost with much of Rome's other technology - though not completely. Thus did Rome's breeds radiate out into the myriad of breeds present today, both by speciation (that is to say, isolated populations diverging from one another) or by introgression of European ferals into the former Roman lines. When civilization began to recover from the collapse of the Empire in the later Middle Ages, Europeans also began taming and then domesticating dragons once again. Because of the sheer number of European breeds as compared to the Chinese dragons, I suspect that there numerous re-domestication events in Europe. The Mongol invasion of Europe quite probably had something to do with that, with both the Mongols under Genghis Khan re-domesticating European dragons and their targets doing it in self-defense. After all, while there was that break in the less-civilized parts of Europe after Rome's fall, there's no reason to believe the Asians suffered any such troubles.

When I said dragon domestication began with Rome in the West, I deliberately did not include India. I believe that they have dragon breeds that at least share a common ancestor with Chinese dragons, and likely have as long a history of working with dragons as the Chinese do. Judging by how elephants are handled in India, however, I suspect that dragons there were not truly domesticated but rather were tamed individually and left to breed as they wished. Because of this, most of their native dragons are like as not the same as their ancestral wild stock - which could explain why India remains under British dominion in this timeline. Of course, considering the Mughal Empire originated from Mongol invaders, I suspect that 'wild stock' would be of fairly good substance.

I believe Egypt likely had no native extant dragons until they were conquered by Rome. The deity Apep (sometimes known as Apophis) strikes me as being rather similar to a fire-breathing dragon (perhaps like the Kazilik), which bodes ill for the wellbeing of dragons in Kemet. Solaris (talk) 21:42, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Mixed Theories[edit]

Thank you for your response. Many interesting new ideas. Here are some of my other thoughts:

-A theory (I'm very proud of it) about the Divine Wind. We all know that the Celestials weren't originally from China. Kublai Khan invaded Japan with chinese and korean forces in 1274 (funny: he landed in the Hakata-Bay where Lord Jinai lives now). He destroyed the Hakozaki-Temple (that really exists) and stole the Celestial's last eggs. He failed to conquer Japan because half of his fleet and a third of the korean fleet was destroyed by a taifun. Later the Japanese called this storm the Divine Wind because a deity send the storm to help the Japanese. What if this wasn't a storm but a dragon? A Celestial who blew the ships away with his destructive breath? (Possible but not as matching: it was a Sui-Riu with his water waves). Temeraire's favourite story is about Raiden who fought against Kublai Khan and liberatet Japan. What if Raiden was a Celestial and one of the dragon(s) who destroyed the Armada? There are two possibilities, either NN was inspired by this taifun for the naming of her special ability or the people in her alternate history were inspired by this event or both. When the Khan tried a second invasion some years later (which failed in reality because of better organization of the Japanese) he killed nearly all living Celestials. Lord Jinai says that he saw Celestials before 400 years but it isn't said if they were chinese or japanese. There are no japanese Imperials so the japanese Celestails must have been able to breed among themselves or with an other japanese breed. The chinese Imperials had Celestial mutations so both countries were equal in breeding. If Jinai's Celestials were japanese he/she must have been the last of his/her breed (what supports that they were able to breed among themselves) as he/she hasn't reproduced.

-Jinai says that Celestials just travel together with the Emperor's family. We know about 8 chinese Celestials (Xian,Qian,Chu,Ming,Zhi,Lien,Chuan,Temeraire), even if just the Emperor had a Celestial there are too few Celestials to have accompanied all chinese Emperors since Kublai Khan. (P.e.: Chu-Jiaqing,Zhi-Qianlong,Ming-Yongzhen,Qian-Kangxi,Xian-Shunzhi. Shunzhi became Emperor in 1644 but Xian is much older than 200 years (these were all Emperors of the Qing dynasty, Shunzhi was the first). I have never heard of a dead Celestial except for Chuan. If no Celestail has ever died and the breed began with Xian (and all Emperors received their dragons when they were still hatchlings) there are over 350 years between the stolen eggs and the living Celestials. Somehow impossible, isn't it? Otherwise there were many Emperors who hadn't any Celestial as their companion. Maybe the dragons lived as part of the Emperor's family in the palace but were not related to a specific person or dynasty. Or some dragons had further companions but this should be difficult (even if Xian was 300 years old, there are still 2 centuries missing). Maybe the Mongols took their conquered Celestials home to Mongolia after they had to leave the chinese throne at the end of the 14th century. Then I could understand why the Chinese haven't remembered the Celestials' names. The Mongols conquered a chinese people during the 12/13th century and the Qing-Dynasty was of this mongol-chines people. Naturally they would take their own breed to new China, the Celestials too. But this would require a second population of Celestials, one mutated deriving from Xian and the mongolian population. But it doesn't exist. It's difficult to fill these logical gaps, unfortunately.

-The Yellow Emperor (sometimes categorized as a dragon in the wikia) was one of 3 mythical Emperors who were supposed to have brought culture to the humen around 3500 bc. An other dragon was supposed to have teached humen to write in 5000 bc although the real China's history isn't very clear there. When the dragons brought the culture to the humen, the relationship between dragons and humen must have been different, like in Pusantinsuyo where the humen depend on dragons too. In reality the chinese plains were settled and agricultured since 11,000 bc. If dragons needed human agriculture to nurrish and startet a "symbiosis" why didn't it happen in other parts of the world too (Europe?)? It's likely that dragons were highly developped earlier than mammals and humen but why don't the african or feral dragons have a highly developped culture (yes, it is and was the same thing in the human's world)?

-When the Mongols could conquer China, the country of dragons, couldn't it be that the other riding peoples like the Huns, the Tatars, the Hungarians were dragon-riding peoples too? The Cossacks (historically known to be a horse-riding people) are a dragon-riding people in NN's universe.

-There are other chinese legends about mythical Emperors. The scientists doesn't believe them but with dragons it could be possible. The mythical Emperors with a historical personalitiy behind them reigned estimated over 100 years (because there are far too less information to find out details). For a human impossible but not for a dragon. Since 45,000bc Emperors reigned (after these legends) but their reign was for many hundreds or thousands of years, this is too long for a dragon too. But what if a dragon passed the reign to one of his children and so on? We know that Churki and Curicuillor look very similar so why shouldn't it be with other breeds too? Maybe it lasted centuries before the humen discovered that it isn't any longer the same dragon that reigns but one of his children? During a dragons reign many human generations pass and it is nearly impossible for a human to remind a changing when he has never seen or known the old Emperor because he doesn't live as long as a dragon.

-What if Marco Polo's and Sindbad's Bird Roc wasn't a giant bird but a big dragon? I think it's more possible to have a dragon stealing elephants and attacking ships than a giant bird. We don't know anything about nearer eastern dragon culture and the Africans started to breed dragon in the 17th century (Sipho reports) but it's a nice idea.

-Francis Drake's nickname was in nearly each language "the dragon". What if he was the first to have dragons and the Navy fight together? Maybe he got the idea to build dragon transporters. Ships aren't supposed to fire in the sky so why not attacking them from above? (The same time the Lonwings were domesticated).

-Marcus Antonius later committed suicide with Cleopatra. A dragon rider committing suicide is nearly not possible, at least not in the modern world. What about Vici then? Did she became crazy and killed all of Octavian's troops? Or did she die before on a battle-field (or was executed) what could have been an other reason for Antonius' suicide. But Vici is as known as Antonius to the future generations because Shakespeare made a scene with her in "Julius Caesar" which Laurence wants to tell to Lady Kiyomizu.

-What if Turner's picture "Fighting Temeraire" wouldn't show the ship Temeraire and a steam ship but the ship and our dragon temeraire instead of the steam ship? Namesakes together.

-Joseph Pachacuti Yupanqui (Napoleon's and Anahuarque's son) is in reality Napoleon's son with the princess of Austria, Joseph. He is definitely the greatest discrepancy from real history. Do you think Anahuarque could die and Napoleon marries the princess of Austria and legalize his child so that NN gets back to real history again?

-How could Pizarro conquer the Incans? He couldn't transport many dragons (maximum 3 small ones, one on each ship) and so many dragons as the Incans had couldn't just been killed by a musket shot. In NN's history the Incans survived and chased him out of South America but the beginning was the same. Even if he had 3 Flechas-del-Fuego they couldn't win against the hundreds of dragons the Incans have.

-I think NN was ispired by Napoleon's ideas to build up a Montgolfière-fleet or a submarine-fleet and combined these two ideas (which failed in reality because of money and missing technology) for the battle of Dover and the invasion in Victory of Eagles. Maybe she was inspired a bit by the aerial warfare in Britain during the 2nd World War even an invasion never happened.

-(Not a historical theory now, more a biological one): Western dragons hide most of their egg possibilities. Or they can influence their fertility. (eg: Obversaria had 1 egg all 10 years, Wringe has 1 egg all 4 years, Iskierka could have had 1 egg all 1,5 years). Understandable that they don't want to be abused as egg-laying-machines although they are proud and admired by others for many eggs. Feral dragons need to have many eggs to save their population.

I think, I've written everything I thought about and I hope you have some fun to think about it too. Where will you publish your FanFiction? Did you change the history? NN wrote at Goodreads.com that dragons would certainly hate airplanes and that the technical developpment would certainly not have passed like this in her dragon universe. I asked some of my questions to NN but she hasn't answered the importent ones. Good luck in writing! LordJinai (talk) 11:11, 23 June 2015 (CET)

While I ponder on those ideas, I can at least offer this for the fan-fiction you'd asked to read. I can't say much for the plot, as it's one of those things I'm writing just to write, but I rather liked some of the moments where I managed to work in looking at the setting. I'm rather pleased to see NN wrote that dragons hate airplanes; that's another reason the world would likely lack advanced aircraft. Another is that the existence of dragons themselves would forestall the development of airplanes, in much the same way as fossil fuels have forestalled the development of alternative energy sources: There's already a cheaper, readily available alternative. Solaris (talk) 19:45, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

• Solaris, this is damn good stuff. Really really good. A bit similar to NN's style of writing but not too much. If you publish a book in future times, please inform me. How will your story go on? LordJinai 18:47, 26 June 2015 (CET)
  • Heh, thanks. That kinda made my day.

I plan on making something of a travelogue out of it, and thus I'm writing down bits and pieces in between research on the locales. They're going to go to Nepal, and from there make their way across Eurasia down to Egypt and then up near Germany to wind up in Poland right about the same time the Nazis invade, which is where the egg's been stashed after a long succession of thefts and counter-thefts (and that's not just so I can have an excuse to write about WWII-era warfare with dragons, honest). Solaris (talk) 03:31, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

Re: Divine Wind in Japan I think you're right about it being a Japanese Celestial, considering what Lien did to the British fleet at Shoeburyness. I do believe that the reason the Celestials don't interbreed has more to do with their all being closely related than with a more literal inability. The fact that Kublai Khan was able to kill them all off, however, indicates that they were never terribly fecund. I suspect that, hundreds of years ago, there was a breed of dragon very much like Celestials in Japan (perhaps more like the Sui-Riu than the Imperial, though).

As an aside, I think the Sui-Riu's water-spouting may have evolved from pyrogenesis crossbred with the divine wind; it involves heating up water (greater temperatures than the dragon's internals, that is, and the fire-breathing coming from inside the dragon's throat indicates that it might well involve the dragon's air sacs as fuel) and expelling it in a manner like a cruder version of the divine wind. To my mind, that lends support to your theory that the divine wind was involved with Kublai Khan's first defeat, as I believe it was suggested the Sui-Riu was the one responsible for the feat. Blood of Tyrants is next on my to-read list, once I finish up with Crucible of Gold (which ought to be either today or tomorrow morning), so I'll be able to offer a bit more a recently-informed opinion then, as the last time I read it was a bit of time ago. Solaris (talk) 03:31, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

Re: Ancient Chinese Dragons You know, that thought's occurred to me, too. I suspect the reason China embraced dragons so well and the Europeans did not was due to the draconic cultures more than the human cultures. In China, we see a great number of dragons with a more placid and peaceable temperament and a greater intelligence, whereas the European dragons aren't very bright in the main. I think Chinese dragons domesticated humans much earlier, while the European dragons mostly warred with humans until the Europeans enslaved them. Solaris (talk) 03:31, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

Re: Mongols and Other Horse-Riders I think the setting practically demands such historically horse-mounted people be instead associated with dragons. The Akhal-Teke being a breed of dragon supports this theory, and I don't doubt there's a Bedouin dragon lineage as well. Solaris (talk) 03:33, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

Re: Roc/Simurgh/Garuda That's what I'm going with; the various legends about giant birds (some of which involve fire) are based off of big dragons, maybe even fire-breathers of a type similar to the Kazilik. They're remarkable to Marco Polo because they grew to such immense size even before modern breeding generated heavyweights in Europe. (One of the two Indian breeds I've written up was based loosely off of the Garuda, though in truth it bears little resemblance beyond being a big flying thing and is enemies with the native Naga dragons. I plan on doing a Persian Simurgh and perhaps a Mongolian Rukh, as well.) Solaris (talk) 03:31, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

Re: Sir Francis Drake Mayhaps at that (and good catch on the time-frame), although the notion that he was a brilliant dragon using a human as a mouthpiece appeals to me as well. Solaris (talk) 03:31, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

Re: Pizarro and the Inca You know, that one's a bit of an eyebrow-raiser to me, too. The best answer I think I can come up with is that throughout the series we've seen a marked tendency in domesticated dragons to dislike attacking humans directly. I caught the sense in reading CoG that the Incan dragons could have attacked at any point, but held back for fear of harming the prisoners Pizarro and his men were taking. Once Pizarro demonstrated he couldn't be trusted with the prisoners, natural selection took its course. Solaris (talk) 03:31, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

Re: Eggs I suspect you're right about dragons being able to breed much more frequently than they necessarily let their humans know. It may not even be about worries of being abused as egg-laying machines so much as they don't want to deal with the bother, and there's definitely an instinctive precaution against overpopulation necessary to the evolution of such a large predator. That's a nice bit of insight, and I think it shows us a hint of the dragons' personalities. After all, Iskierka is always eager to show off, so why wouldn't she seek that bit of extra glory that comes with having a remarkable egg? Solaris (talk) 03:31, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

• I've read the next part of your "Zephyr&Hollins" story. Good, but it doesn't carry on the story of thefts and action you told me. Does this part happen after the both have dropped off their passenger in Hongkong and fly back to America? Did you invented this pyrogenic lizard to support your theory of how dragons/fire-breathing could have developed in nature? What will you use instead of the two atomic bombs over Japan at the end of WWII (maybe a destructive army of fire-breathers and acid-spitters?)? Bellophon is a Celestial and I suppose Temeraire is still living, so why is your story called "The last Celestial"? Couldn't these both dragons breed with other Imperials (I don't think the Chinese have eliminated them all)?LordJinai 21:26 11 July 2015 (ECT)