Temeraire worldbuilding

[luzula]

So, I have reread His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik (2006), as preparation for possibly writing a Temeraire fusion with Flight of the Heron. I thought, as I did the first time I read it, that it is great page-turny entertainment! Since it's the first book, it has that fun element of the reader discovering aspects of the worldbuilding along with the main character. Which the other books do have as well, by turning it into map exploration, but it's especially good here. I also like Laurence making social blunders among the aviators based on his previous expectations, but doing his best to repair them. I had forgotten that Granby disliked him at first! Aww, and the development of the bond between Laurence and Temeraire is great.

I had forgotten the essay-style worldbuilding at the end! The air sacs are of course made of pure handwavium, but that's fine--it's the suspension of disbelief needed to make the the whole premise work. I do appreciate that they stress the effect of breeding and food supply on size, and that wild dragons were much smaller! That makes a lot of sense to me.

I do wonder about how brooding worked in the wild? Dragon eggs can take years to hatch, which means that they would need to be kept warm through the winter. I can't imagine a single dragon could do that (because it also needs to hunt food) so brooding would almost require strong pair bonds when dragons mate. But I don't recall there being any such pair bonds in canon? Remind me if I've got it wrong. That or breeding has also prolonged time in the egg...but that's not the sort of thing that breeding often does, is it? I mean, dogs have changed a lot from wolves in various ways, but not the time of pregnancy.

Er, that was a tangent and not actually relevant for what I need. Since I want to write something set in the 1740's, I'm interested in dragons as they relate to the past of the Temeraire books. It seems the Romans conquered Scotland in this universe, since the covert at Loch Laggan (pretty far north in the Highlands) has Roman remains! I guess that could make sense, since the Romans are said to be the first (in Europe at least) to use dragons in warfare. We also hear of the use of dragons to defeat the Spanish Armada and that this is when the Longwings first got female captains, and of the various British breeding efforts. And that's pretty much it. Nothing about the role of dragons in the various civil wars, nothing about any potential cultural differences in the role of dragons in England and Scotland, nothing about dragons in the Highlands. I mean, in actual history, if you go back 100-150 years before the Napoleonic setting, the central government did not have full control of the Highlands. So would the dragons mean that the central government had an easier job of subduing the clans? Or did the clans have dragons of their own (probably territorial ones!) which made things more complicated? Obviously I prefer the latter option. But in that case the government covert at Loch Laggan might be a fairly recent thing.

Anyway, it seems like I can make things up pretty much as I like... : )

Comments

[sanguinity]

There might be more 18th century-and-earlier worldbuilding in the beginning of the book where Temeraire is incarcerated at the breeding grounds without Laurence. (Book 5, Victory of Eagles, if memory serves.) As I recall, there are some older retired dragons there who fought in earlier wars, and you might be able to pick up some hints from there.

[luzula]

Ah, thanks, that's a good tip! That's one of the best books in the series anyway, I think.

[regshoe]

This all sounds like good fun :D I enjoyed your speculations about the selection pressures on dragon mating habits. No, eggs that require multiple years of brooding do not sound very practical... (Perhaps they had some other way to keep the eggs warm? Like how some real reptiles bury their eggs in warm earth or sand, instead of sitting on them like birds do).

Hmm, I thought my library didn't have this book, but looking it up I see that the title is different (Temeraire in the UK) and it is in fact in one of the other libraries a little way away. Perhaps I should read it in preparation for reading your AU :D

[luzula]

The humans do have a permanent hot bath in the book, where they also keep the eggs, but I'm not sure Scotland has any hot springs...I suppose the author made them up.

I think you'd enjoy the book! It's a fun Age of Sail adventure with added dragons. : )

[hyarrowen]

It's been ages since I read Temeraire, but this might be of interest if you haven't already found it: https://www.nms.ac.uk/explore-our-collections/stories/scottish-history-and-archaeology/the-romans-in-scotland/ I've come across Roman marching forts in various corners of the UK, where they had a look, went "Nope" and went on their way. I think they even sent an expedition to Ireland once. I had a vague idea that they marched round the north coast of Scotland, but can't find the reference now and the OS map which would record any forts is buried in a box somewhere. But you can have the Ninth Legion do all sorts of stuff, I guess?

I have a friend who's writing a quintet of timeslip novels set partly in Roman Britain, so can ask her if you have specific questions.

As for eggs, you could have them in a geothermal area, I suppose, a la Pern, or have an arrangement like birds of prey where they don't begin to develop until all the eggs in a clutch are laid and the parents start to brood. I've watched peregrines strut around their nest on a cathedral tower in a cold stiff breeze, leaving their eggs totally uncovered, which gave me the heebie-jeebies; but the mother hadn't finished laying so the eggs were still in suspended animation and it didn't matter at all.

Temeraire worldbuilding doesn't really hold up but it's a fun concept, for sure!

[luzula]

In this case the Romans had built a hot bath, which doesn't seem like a "just marching through" sort of thing. The Roman period is not actually relevant for what I want to do, but thanks for the offer!

Marching round the north coast of Scotland would be an awfully long way, what with all the ins and outs of the sea lochs etc, although I suppose one could take boats across those. Wikipedia says they sailed around Britain, which seems much more practical.

And hmm, that's an idea with the eggs being tolerant of cold until they start development! (Except that the books do seem to show them needing heat all the time, as far as I can tell.)

[hyarrowen]

The loch in question was Loch Hope - I don't remember too many more sea-lochs on that coast but it was a very long time ago. We didn't pay much attention to archaeology because the weather was so wonderful (and such days are none too plentiful in the north of Scotland) that we climbed Ben Hope instead. I think they did sail the coast as well - maybe a combined operation? I shudder to think how they navigated Grotti, the sea-witch with her whirlpool between Orkney and John o'Groats. The Romans weren't great seafarers.

/tangent

[chestnut_pod]

It (Scottland's dragons) is free real estate, sounds like!

That first book really is such good-hearted fun.

[luzula]

Seems like it! : )

And yes, sometimes you just want some good-hearted fun.

[feroxargentea]

I love the idea of clan-imprinted dragons!

Thinking about the heat needed for incubation, some reptiles lay their eggs in sun-warmed sand or volcanic warmth or hot springs, and if they don't have any of those locally (which Britain doesn't) then a big ol' heap of rotting vegetation works too (a really big heap, though!) Or, evolve in a warm climate and then persuade humans elsewhere to tend your eggs, but then you can't really go feral -- like the released ex-pet terrapins here, adults that survive but don't breed.

I know you said none of this is relevant, it's just interesting :)

[luzula]

a big ol' heap of rotting vegetation works too
Hee. Producing lots of composted soil as a byproduct. : D

Or, evolve in a warm climate and then persuade humans elsewhere to tend your eggs, but then you can't really go feral -- like the released ex-pet terrapins here, adults that survive but don't breed.
Oh cool, I didn't know about those. But it does definitely seem that there are (or were) wild dragon species in Britain in the books. Perhaps human breeding producing longer time of incubation is actually the simplest solution to the problem...

[garonne]

I am curious about the character interaction dynamics in the fic you have in mind. I mean, Temeraire is mostly centred on the human/dragon bond, as far as I remember (I only read the first book). So do you have dragon OCs? Or one of the canon characters is a dragon?

What's the political situation of the dragons in Temeraire? Do they have much political self-determination? I seem to remember that they are more or less enslaved? What happens when there's a political disagreement between a dragon and the human they imprinted on, e.g. when a civil war or rising breaks out and it's not obvious which side each individual person would pick?

On a lighter note, hypothetically if I were to pick one character to turn into a dragon without changing the canon plot at all, I guess it would be Lachlan! If Lachlan were Ewen's dragon instead of his foster brother, I think the rest of the plot could stay pretty much the same.

[luzula]

Okay, so: in my fic, no characters would be turned into dragons, so the dragons are OC:s. Keith would have a dragon, one of the small courier-type dragons. His dragon is wounded and he is captured as in canon (but his dragon doesn't die as his horse did!)

Ewen has no dragon, but there's a dragon belonging to the clan (or vice versa), who has lived since the early 1600's. The fic would (among other things) contrast Keith's view of dragons with that of the clan dragons who are not (yet) incorporated into the Aerial Corps.