An Officer and a Gentleman. (Temeraire crossover.)

[The Unicorn]

Whether they could carry enough cargo to be significant is another story

Hence why I specified spices. Even a few pounds of rare spices would make the trip worthwhile.

Humans have precious little way to harm even a small dragon without gunpowder weaponry, and even against the lightweights that means cannon, not rifles. Humans with spears are most certainly not going to be just better than that. Add in the possibility of fire breath, acid spitting, poison, water jets, and other special powers and a dragon's a horrifying threat to primitive man. On top of that they're immune to pursuit predation (and better at it than humans given they can go for days), and can avoid all the tricks early humans used to defeat things like rhinos and elephants, such as pit traps and tricking them into running off cliffs. Most dangerous though, even wild dragons are social animals that run in groups and are shown to leverage individual skills and their high intelligence to the max. This negates the sole advantage early humans have left at this point, as they can't be easily ganged up on by packs, distracted without a mate spotting the threat, etc.

Exactly.

 

[ShadowsOfParadox]

Literally every single trick early humans had to beat other predators is negated by one dragon ability or another.

Assuming this is true, that just means humans had an extra trick or two.

Fundamentally, that Humans Exist, that Humans Evolved, is, in and of itself, evidence that history went basically the same in at least broad strokes.

Given that Rome to Beijing is about 5000 miles, Temeraire would be able to make the flight in about 142 hours, assuming 1 day to rest and the rest flying straight he'll do it in under a week

And somehow he doesn't do that when they are leaving China.

Somehow in fact, nothing in the books at all makes sense if Dragons are that fast all the time.

And sure, we can say "Author's have no sense of scale", but the appropriate remedy is usually not "So we rip the setting down and say it can't possibly work", usually it's "So we work backwards from what we see happen and figure out what needs to be true for that to work".

I mean, if you want to rip it apart for that sure fine. I'd rather figure out how it can work than why it can't, why it can't is easy.

 

[Bear Ribs]

Assuming this is true, that just means humans had an extra trick or two.

Fundamentally, that Humans Exist, that Humans Evolved, is, in and of itself, evidence that history went basically the same in at least broad strokes.

The fact that packs of megafauna the size of elephants are still wandering around in areas where humans should have killed every other megafauna by then argues it didn't, for the part that matters in this specific discussion. We don't see any Aurochs or Cave Bears wandering around the world of Temeraire, it looks like those megafauna were killed by humans on schedule, but we do see wild dragons in multiple areas, even supposedly civilized ones like England have wild dragons living in their mountain ranges.

And somehow he doesn't do that when they are leaving China.

Somehow in fact, nothing in the books at all makes sense if Dragons are that fast all the time.

And sure, we can say "Author's have no sense of scale", but the appropriate remedy is usually not "So we rip the setting down and say it can't possibly work", usually it's "So we work backwards from what we see happen and figure out what needs to be true for that to work".

I mean, if you want to rip it apart for that sure fine. I'd rather figure out how it can work than why it can't, why it can't is easy.

Why would he want to? He'd be a single dragon alone going from one hostile nation to another instead of part of a group with a well-provisioned group. Temeraire has no support along the way, no friendly bases, no maps he can count on, and his allies like Iskierka aren't as fast as he is so he'd have to abandon her, the ship and its crew, all the provisions he can't carry on his back, etc.

We do see them do something similar in Tongues of Serpents, where the group is forced to travel across Australia at some pretty remarkable speed. This took them about two months. Eyeballing the route, I think it's a straight-line shot of about 2800 miles but the territory is unfamiliar sand they get lost easily, so they don't take a straight route but instead go from one major landmark that can be seen from the air to another in a zig-zag path. I'd estimate that's easily three or four times longer. Temeraire also has to hold himself back to the speed of the rather slower heavyweights he's traveling with, they're heavily laden with a baggage train, and they have to constantly fight bunyips along the way.

Just walking in a perfectly straight line and ignoring the bunyips eating them on toast, this would take a Roman army about six months, following the zigzag route, a year or more. This highlights how incredibly fast dragons can actually travel, even the slowest, most sluggish dragons in the book. Now consider how fast Volly could have done it with a reliable map and Roman resupply bases allowing him to fly in a near-straight line and not carry a baggage train on his back, and you can see how the original point stands up.

 

[ShadowsOfParadox]

Roman resupply bases

And this part destroys it.

To have those bases and KEEP them would require actual force that you can't transport on dragon back. The Chinese eventually have dragons big enough to, but the Romans wouldn't have. Also that ignores Volly being the result of an extra millenium or so of breeding compared to the max the Romans would have had.

The fact that packs of megafauna the size of elephants are still wandering around in areas where humans should have killed every other megafauna by then argues it didn't, for the part that matters in this specific discussion.

Again, are they though? Were Dragons pre Human intervention that big? Every Dragon we see in series(or hear about AFAIR) is post Human Intervention. Now, wild Dragons were probably pretty big before humans, but Elephant sized? As Carnivores? Exceedingly unlikely. Bear sized I'd buy, but you'd need outright magic to justify a carnivore that big before humans start breeding literally perfect prey in massive numbers. And again, if wild Dragons are a serious problem they get dealt with one way or another.

And before you go "but they only need to eat every now and then", that's Courier Weight Dragons and Volly specifically is clearly drawing from Albatross flight strategies, as in, Volly spends most of his air time in a low energy glide, I can buy that, but a brain like Temeraire's is going to demand to be fed often.(honestly even Volly is too smart to actually be low energy)

Maybe one of the books I haven't read goes and breaks biology even harder than Dragons do just by existing(I read the first four before I stopped trying to keep up), but at that point you might as well just go "Magic is Real so everything is justified just fine!".

Oh, and before you go "But there's no way they could have a starting point that small", go check out the wild ancestors of Corn or Wheat, honestly, I'd buy that Dragons pre human intervention were wolf sized, we've had crazier results of breeding programs than that.

 

[Bear Ribs]

And this part destroys it.

To have those bases and KEEP them would require actual force that you can't transport on dragon back. The Chinese eventually have dragons big enough to, but the Romans wouldn't have. Also that ignores Volly being the result of an extra millenium or so of breeding compared to the max the Romans would have had.

Why would this destroy it? Do you believe that the Romans just somehow forgot what horses, oxen, wagons, and boats were because they had dragons?

And even a particularly small wild dragon is shown to be able to easily carry 20 soldiers in full kit. Even assuming they're puny humans we can reasonably guess these guys were a bare minimum of 200 pounds for man, gun, sword, reloads, and supplies. That means said unusually small wild dragon is hauling around a couple of tons, probably closer to 3 tons if we presume the humans were more human-sized rather than weighing in at the size of adolescents. It would not be particularly difficult for 50 of them transporting 100 tons at a time to make daily flights and get a base supplied in short order, along with transporting 20 guys per dragon to throw a thousand legionnaires at the base in a day. Now have a few more moving between bases half a day apart and you've soon got a fantastic logistics network, especially since this set of options are not exclusive with the network the Romans built in real life, but are just an additional one on top of Roman logistics. Of course, this assumes that mediumweights didn't exist before the breeding programs began, not a certainty given we know there's wild Yellow Reapers and wild Bunyips at least are in the heavyweight category. And for bases near the ocean, ships might transport many thousands of tons to bases near the sea allowing dragons to do fast transport and resupply from there.

Nor is Volly is not the result of an extra millennium of breeding, he's the result of breeding a wild Grey Widowmaker and a domesticated Winchester. He's one generation removed from completely wild dragons.

Again, are they though? Were Dragons pre Human intervention that big? Every Dragon we see in series(or hear about AFAIR) is post Human Intervention. Now, wild Dragons were probably pretty big before humans, but Elephant sized? As Carnivores? Exceedingly unlikely. Bear sized I'd buy, but you'd need outright magic to justify a carnivore that big before humans start breeding literally perfect prey in massive numbers. And again, if wild Dragons are a serious problem they get dealt with one way or another.

And before you go "but they only need to eat every now and then", that's Courier Weight Dragons and Volly specifically is clearly drawing from Albatross flight strategies, as in, Volly spends most of his air time in a low energy glide, I can buy that, but a brain like Temeraire's is going to demand to be fed often.(honestly even Volly is too smart to actually be low energy)

You keep needing these vague claims that humans will just "deal with" Dragons, but there's nothing backing it up. Humans will be better at targeting sick and weak dragons? Not likely, with their fly speed the dragon can readily nest a hundred miles from the nearest human encampment, across three rivers and on a mountaintop, and the primitive human tribe will have no idea where they even nest, much less be able to somehow travel for weeks to reach it when the dragon can do make the trip in a couple of hours. Humans have no weapon capable of reliably harming them, nor any trap that can reliably work against a creature with near-human intelligence, flight, and a pack social structure. That's on top of some dragons breathing fire or acid, spitting poison or water, and having other weird powers to boot. Humans aren't going to "just deal" with that.

As far as food needs. dragons eat a heck of a lot. But their high fly speed also explains how that works for wild dragons, a dragon can reliably travel faster than any ground-based carnivore can possibly walk and things like rivers, dense forests, and swamps are no barrier to them. The territory of a dragon pack would be absolutely enormous, a tiger might claim a territory of 20x20 miles for its hunting and take days to cover it, but for a wild dragon that's a few minutes gliding, they could claim thousands, even tens of thousands of square miles for a single pack's hunting grounds.

Maybe one of the books I haven't read goes and breaks biology even harder than Dragons do just by existing(I read the first four before I stopped trying to keep up), but at that point you might as well just go "Magic is Real so everything is justified just fine!".

Oh, and before you go "But there's no way they could have a starting point that small", go check out the wild ancestors of Corn or Wheat, honestly, I'd buy that Dragons pre human intervention were wolf sized, we've had crazier results of breeding programs than that.

We see wild dragons in the form of Arkady's crew, and also heavyweight wild Bunyips that can't possibly be the result of human breeding, and are big enough to threaten Temeraire.

Nor would breeding explain things in the timeframe we're talking about. Dragons were bred to their current sizes since domestication during the Roman Empire, which means we've got around 2,000-3,000 years to go from wild dragons to Temeraire. Corn, meanwhile, has been domesticated for at least 9,000 years, perhaps far more than that. Further, a generation of corn is a year while for dragons, significantly longer. Dogs meanwhile have been domesticated for 25-40,000 years and yet we certainly didn't manage to breed them from wolf-sized to monsters bigger than a house, much less in a mere 2000 years, and dogs also have generations of a year or less.

A wolf averages about 80-90 pounds, a Regal Copper hits 100,000 pounds max but averages 60,000, an increase of 665,66.7% over the wolf. Assuming 5 year generations of breeding (feels around the right area) and giving them an extremely generous 3000 years of breeding program, you've got 600 generations. You'd need each dragon to be over 22% bigger than its parents for 600 generations straight, without a single miss to hit that kind of goal. You need far more "magic" to imagine that such a short-timeframe breeding project managed to create modern dragons from something the size of a wolf.

On top of that, we see heavyweight dragons native to Africa and South America, (probably North America but exactly how big Thunderbirds are isn't specified) so this breeding program would somehow have to have succeeded this way multiple times independently. Or... dragons in the wild aren't that tiny.

We see explicitly wild dragons in the form of Arkady and his crew, as well as similar-sized (but heavily armored and spiked) Russian ferals in Siberia later. The assumption that they're somehow really domestic dragons is pure conjecture and flies in the face of statements in the books that these (as well as Grey Widowmakers and a few others) are wild dragons.

 

[The Unicorn]

Assuming this is true, that just means humans had an extra trick or two.

Fundamentally, that Humans Exist, that Humans Evolved, is, in and of itself, evidence that history went basically the same in at least broad strokes.

No. You can argue that Pre-history up to say ~20,000 years ago was essentially the same, but the point is even if by some magic that happened, you'd have things diverge rapidly (i.e within a generation) from that point on, and be completely unrecognizable not long afterwards

And somehow he doesn't do that when they are leaving China.

Somehow in fact, nothing in the books at all makes sense if Dragons are that fast all the time.

Yes, the fact the setting is incredibly inconsistent is one of the issues we've mentioned repeatedly.
However for being able to attack primitive humans by surprise, while being functionally immune to human hunters even a flight speed of ~30kph for a few hours would be enough.

 

[ATP]

No. You can argue that Pre-history up to say ~20,000 years ago was essentially the same, but the point is even if by some magic that happened, you'd have things diverge rapidly (i.e within a generation) from that point on, and be completely unrecognizable not long afterwards


Yes, the fact the setting is incredibly inconsistent is one of the issues we've mentioned repeatedly.
However for being able to attack primitive humans by surprise, while being functionally immune to human hunters even a flight speed of ~30kph for a few hours would be enough.

True for most of humanity.But oldest longbows had at least 5000 years,and i read about indian tribe in Mexico which used longbows with obsidian arrowheads capable of killing soidier in mail or even plate.
So,smaller dragons would be hunted by them.

Result - tribes without good bows would never achieve anything.Which lead to another history,and first states using mostly ranged units.
Once they start fighting mainly other humans,that change.

 

[The Unicorn]

True for most of humanity.But oldest longbows had at least 5000 years,and i read about indian tribe in Mexico which used longbows with obsidian arrowheads capable of killing soidier in mail or even plate.
So,smaller dragons would be hunted by them.

Since English longbows with steel arrowheads were incapable of killing a man in plate armor that is very obvious nonsense.

 

[ATP]

Since English longbows with steel arrowheads were incapable of killing a man in plate armor that is very obvious nonsense.

Becouse they were no obsidian.And it is fact - when spaniards conqered Florida,obsidian arrowheads fired from longbows used by Creek,Choctaws or Chickaws penetrated breastplates which could stop musket balls./Longbow,A social and military history by Robert Hardy,page 168/

 

[The Unicorn]

Becouse they were no obsidian.And it is fact - when spaniards conqered Florida,obsidian arrowheads fired from longbows used by Creek,Choctaws or Chickaws penetrated breastplates which could stop musket balls./Longbow,A social and military history by Robert Hardy,page 168/

LOL! Sure, if the bows were 1000lb pull , then maybe.
There are lot of fictional accounts about what bows can do, but whenever someone actually examines what is possible they are proven far less capable than the myths.

 

[ATP]

LOL! Sure, if the bows were 1000lb pull , then maybe.
There are lot of fictional accounts about what bows can do, but whenever someone actually examines what is possible they are proven far less capable than the myths.

Not myths,reports of spaniards.Apparently obsidian arrowheads,althought destroyed in process,was still hard enough to go through steel.

 

[The Unicorn]

Not myths,reports of spaniards.Apparently obsidian arrowheads,althought destroyed in process,was still hard enough to go through steel.

Right, this is why the Spanish started using such bows themselves, and why stone age obsidian arrow heads are considered superior to steel.
The spanish were not stupid, if such superior magic bows actually existed they'd have used them.
Even your own cite refers to the unsubstantiated stories of the time, not any verified or tested reports.

 

[ATP]

Right, this is why the Spanish started using such bows themselves, and why stone age obsidian arrow heads are considered superior to steel.
The spanish were not stupid, if such superior magic bows actually existed they'd have used them.
Even your own cite refers to the unsubstantiated stories of the time, not any verified or tested reports.

Why should they ? from 18th century almost nobody used armour.
And England abadonned archers,althought they were well aware of fact that their archers would massacre any infrantry with muskets and without armour.
Why? becouse you need 5 years to train average archer.Musket - one month of training and you could send people on battlefield.

 

[ShadowsOfParadox]

...Longbows absolutely could kill a man in plate. Just not by punching through the plate, at least not where the metal was really good. It's worth remembering though, medieval techniques did not get perfectly even steel the way we do today. On top of which, plate armor wasn't solid all the way around. Sure, purposely aiming at those weakspots at battlefield ranges was and is impossible, but that's why you had lots and lots of archers lol.

 

[The Unicorn]

Why should they ? from 18th century almost nobody used armour.

Yes, because they didn't work they way your cite claimed. However your cite if claiming magical bows able to punch through shot-proofed breastplate and kill the man wearing it were found in the 16th century and ignored, this despite the fact that much less effective bows were used in war as late as the mid-17th century.

...Longbows absolutely could kill a man in plate. Just not by punching through the plate, at least not where the metal was really good.

True, but the claim was that Obsidian arrows punched through heavy chest plate that could stop musket rounds.

 

[ATP]

Yes, because they didn't work they way your cite claimed. However your cite if claiming magical bows able to punch through shot-proofed breastplate and kill the man wearing it were found in the 16th century and ignored, this despite the fact that much less effective bows were used in war as late as the mid-17th century.


True, but the claim was that Obsidian arrows punched through heavy chest plate that could stop musket rounds.

Not magical bows - kind of longbows.Magical was arrowheads made from obsidian,becouse it go through steel.

 

[Bear Ribs]

I can buy an obsidian arrow going through a breastplate, once, for some bizarre circumstance like the hand-forged plate having a defect where it's only foil-thick around a huge wad of slag inside the plate, and the arrow just happened to hit that one weak spot. However any arrow would do the same, as the penetration wouldn't be due to the sharpness of obsidian. Any steel, bone, or flint arrowhead would do just as well (Flint significantly better as it's much harder than obsidian and tougher to boot).

It wouldn't be a regular thing and obsidian arrowheads certainly won't do so normally. It's just a bit of glass, and no better at cutting through steel than a fragment of a broken coke bottle would be.

 

[ATP]

I can buy an obsidian arrow going through a breastplate, once, for some bizarre circumstance like the hand-forged plate having a defect where it's only foil-thick around a huge wad of slag inside the plate, and the arrow just happened to hit that one weak spot. However any arrow would do the same, as the penetration wouldn't be due to the sharpness of obsidian. Any steel, bone, or flint arrowhead would do just as well (Flint significantly better as it's much harder than obsidian and tougher to boot).

It wouldn't be a regular thing and obsidian arrowheads certainly won't do so normally. It's just a bit of glass, and no better at cutting through steel than a fragment of a broken coke bottle would be.

It was not regular thing - regular was going through mail.Plate happened or not.

 

[The Unicorn]

Not magical bows - kind of longbows.Magical was arrowheads made from obsidian,becouse it go through steel.

Obsidian will not go through steel.

 

[ATP]

Obsidian will not go through steel.

According to spaniards which go to Florida,it did so.