If Dragons were real...

[kitsune9]

I think if dragons were intelligent, then they likely would be god-kings. Our current religions would probably fall to the wayside toward more pragmatic cults of worshipping the dragons, particularly if they are large, flying, very long-lived, and intelligent. At least until it can be proven that a god can be killed.

Now if dragons were less intelligent and more cunning killing machines, then our sense of defense would be radically altered. We probably would build our castles in the sides of mountains or underground. Our weaponry to deal with such flying creatures would probably lead to more interesting weapons to take them down.

Humans would probably be more united in dealing with dragons that can destroy large swaths of us until they've been eradicated.

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

I envision the mythological western dragons as pretty bestial creatures, little more than animals, whereas the eastern ones are much more intelligent, and even spiritual. That distinction makes me wonder how the dragons would relate to each other....

I can see the civilized eastern dragons hobnobbing over their hookahs, speaking wise things on topics of art and philosophy and inter-species relations. On the other hand, their western brethren are marauding the countryside torching villages (because "fire is AWESOME!") and seeking those tasty little metal-clad meatballs (what the bald monkeys call "knights"). The eastern dragons would regard their western cousins as barbaric brutes, and the westerns would view their oriental relatives as elitist snobs.

Perhaps the two types of dragon even waged war upon each other, for dominance, or pride, or some other inscrutable draconic reason. Indeed, maybe it was these wars (largely fought far from the prying eyes of human civilization, of course) that kept the dragons' numbers down, allowing Man to replicate like rabbits and eventually take over the world.

 

[El Mahdi]

...At least one has been known to have a vocabulary of 950 words (when over 70% of communication in English is carried out using only 7000 words), and able to greet Jane Goodall with the question, "Got a chimp?" based on seeing pictures of her with a chimp.

Wow! That is smart. That's not just mimicking words or sounds, that's understanding the concept represented by the words, understanding the basic structure and concept of a sentence and inquiry, and putting it together to ask a question. That's impressive!

I kind of like the concept of a Dragon intelligence being related, evolutionary wise, to the way some birds have developed.

First you'd have to define "intelligence", and trying to do that is apt to start an argument.

I hear you.

How about this then. For sake of the thought experiment, we make the following assumptions:

1. Some species of Dragon (or maybe just one) have evolved an intelligence comparable to humans (at least in self-awareness, cognition, and communication), but yet different from humans.

2. Although Dragons don't seem to have a mouth structure for effectively using a human-like language, based on myths they have been able to communicate with both each-other and with humans. So, communication with Humans is done much like a bird emulating Human speech (though with significantly more tonal range), but is quite different when communicating with other Dragons (maybe like the way velociraptors possibly communicated, but more complex and expansive).

3. Dragon senses are different from Humans. Enhanced sight (for spotting prey while flying). Comparable hearing and smell (though either could be greater or less than humans). An almost insignificant sense of touch, or at least significantly less than humans (hide is just too thick or scaly for comparable tactile sensing, except for sensing hot and cold).

4. No need to build structures for shelter or tools for hunting.


So, trying to avoid putting Human motivations or values onto Dragons (or at least as much as possible), and avoiding using Magic or Psychic abilities to explain things, maybe:

Dragons mate for life, and Dragons protect their eggs and raise/teach their offspring. (as based on some Dinosaur fossil evidence)

Dragons do not reproduce as quickly as humans. A significant factor in their eventual demise.

Dragons have developed an aesthetic sense, especially as to appreciating the beauty of nature (rather than just seeing nature as an environment to be dealt with), but since they don't use tools, they have no art of their own. Maybe this is why they appreciate, and possibly crave, treasure and human ruins.

Dragons could possibly indulge in musical singing (in a Dragon language, of course).

Probably a strong oral tradition, as Dragons do not write (no tool use) or read. They probably have only a spoken language. (Although if they have developed a written medium, it's most likely carving symbols into stone using their claws. Carved symbols would probably be relatively large due to the medium and the lack of a precision writing instrument, and could be either course or relatively intricate, but most likely some kind of pictogram or ideogram rather than an alphabet.)

Although Dragon Intelligence could have developed while Humans were still living in trees, their level of sentience and intelligence has not progressed any farther than the above. Human Intelligence, and what Humans have accomplished with it, has far surpassed Dragons from the bronze age onward.

As concerns religion, Dragons could have some type of spirit or ancestor worship. Possibly highly formalized and structured. Could possibly have seasonal and astronomical aspects.

Dragon morality would be based around Dragon survival and instincts. Killing or even eating a Human would not seem wrong to a Dragon. Though some Dragons may have developed a sense of balance with their environment, purposely not overusing resources and maybe even cultivating some resources, and may have a compunction about killing/devouring sentient creatures. They may see Humans as a growing scourge at the same time they see them as part of the natural world (a contradiction they/some struggle with).

 

[Wik]

Since we're talking "if they existed in real life", we cannot assume magical abilities. Or shape-changing. Or things that are attributed to D&D dragons that are impossible by our laws of physics.

This is one of the reasons I figured real dragons would be no larger than a horse - they need to able to fly, and super-large creatures simply cannot.

On the subject of intelligence, it's a really tough subject. There are a lot of animals out there that can beat humans in certain IQ tests (there's a puzzle test that about 90% of all dolphins get, but only about 50% of all humans can solve). Does that mean dolphins are smarter? No, of course not.

Culture, the ability for a group of individuals to make non-physiological behavioural adaptations to better react to their environment, is an adaptation that is incredibly useful - intelligent creatures don't need culture, but cultural creatures need intelligence. This is why when we see animals that have what is called "pseudo culture" (and human beings are the only surviving species that has true culture, though chimps come close), we realize they are often surprisingly intelligent.

Now, onto the subject at hand. Are dragons going to be cultural? Almost definitely not - they are large carnivores, and most large carnivores are solitary hunters. Even lions hunt in small prides. Whether dragons would be able to significantly change their behaviour to adapt to a new environment is questionable; I can't offhand think of any non-cultural species capable of doing it in a single generation.

Are dragons going to be intelligent? Probably - as hunting carnivores, they will have a certain sense of animal cunning. They might even set up traps, ambushes, and "kill zones" for their hunts - many predatory animals in the wild kingdom do this consciously. But dragons as creatures of human intelligence, manipulating humans and hoarding treasure? Pretty much impossible.

Realize that human beings have made HUGE sacrifices physiologically in return for their large brain. This large brain means that humans have much difficulty in child birth, and need assistance in the process. And this large brain means that humans must raise their young a lot longer than any other species - and their young are less able to contribute to the survival of the species. A baby horse can walk within a few minutes of birth. Baby bears stay with the mother for only two years or so. Human children take anywhere from twelve to sixteen years before they start contributing to the social group meaningfully (even longer if they happen to be Justin Bieber fans....)

In essence, dragons would be hatched as juveniles, but juveniles able to at least partially fend for themselves. There is really no way I can think of that any creature hatched from an egg would ever be able to develop a human-equivalent intelligence, unless that egg was being incubated for a long period of time or the hatchling was able to receive a very long period of youth to allow its body to develop. And for that to happen, dragons would need to be cultural creatures - which I believe would be impossible in a real world sense.

 

[El Mahdi]

I think if dragons were intelligent, then they likely would be god-kings...

Well, if we assume that the myths have some truth to them, then for a time and in certian places, this was likely true. But something must have happened to bring about their demise. Myths such as Marduk defeating Tiamat may be describing the fall of these Gods and the ascendance of Man.

Remember, we're dealing with the assumption that Dragons were real and lived on our world, that the myths at least have a kernel of truth, and that they have since met their demise (probably sometime during the Middle Ages). Or if they still exist, it's in very small numbers and they've become very good at hiding.

I envision the mythological western dragons as pretty bestial creatures, little more than animals, whereas the eastern ones are much more intelligent, and even spiritual. That distinction makes me wonder how the dragons would relate to each other...

...Perhaps the two types of dragon even waged war upon each other, for dominance, or pride, or some other inscrutable draconic reason. Indeed, maybe it was these wars (largely fought far from the prying eyes of human civilization, of course) that kept the dragons' numbers down, allowing Man to replicate like rabbits and eventually take over the world.

I like it! Good Stuff!

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

Dragon morality would be based around Dragon survival and instincts. Killing or even eating a Human would not seem wrong to a Dragon. Though some Dragons may have developed a sense of balance with their environment, purposely not overusing resources and maybe even cultivating some resources, and may have a compunction about killing/devouring sentient creatures. They may see Humans as a growing scourge at the same time they see them as part of the natural world (a contradiction they/some struggle with).

Hehe... what if the Dragons originally cultivated the humans? One day little Smauggy left the hutch door open... and the rest, as they say, is history! Human history, to be precise.

 

[Saeviomagy]

The earliest pictures of western dragons I know of are 11th century artworks of st george fighting the dragon.

In those, the dragon is roughly the size of a large dog.

After that, the dragons size grows and grows.

That said, the illustrations don't really match the legend, which calls for the beast to be satiated by 2 sheep a day or one child, have a neck that is sufficient for it to wear a child's belt as a collar, and have it's corpse carried out of a city on 4 wagons, which sounds a bit much for a large dog.

So possibly something between dog and horse sized. Not all that tough either - it took only a single lance strike to greivously wound, and was thereafter beheaded by a longsword.

 

[Umbran]

Wow! That is smart. That's not just mimicking words or sounds, that's understanding the concept represented by the words, understanding the basic structure and concept of a sentence and inquiry, and putting it together to ask a question. That's impressive!

And, don't forget, it recognizes her as a unique individual, from a picture. It gets that the image represents the person. That's nothing to sneeze at either.

How about this then. For sake of the thought experiment, we make the following assumptions:

1. Some species of Dragon (or maybe just one) have evolved an intelligence comparable to humans (at least in self-awareness, cognition, and communication), but yet different from humans.

Well, given our acceptance of the vague "intelligence", I think we may be in danger of conflating intelligence with personality/culture/behavior. I balk at this "different intelligence" stuff, largely because even among humans, you can have two individuals, or cultures, with the same basic intelligence but entirely different behaviors and significantly different moral and ethical values.

I find myself needing to address it more as - given equivalent intelligence, how would this creature with different needs and lifestyle behave differently than a human. The dragon and I can both do math - what would the dragon choose to do with math that humans don't?

So, trying to avoid putting Human motivations or values onto Dragons (or at least as much as possible), and avoiding using Magic or Psychic abilities to explain things, maybe:

Dragons mate for life, and Dragons protect their eggs and raise/teach their offspring. (as based on some Dinosaur fossil evidence)

Protecting the eggs and raising the young for some time is reasonable. Mating for life seems less reasonable, as this is not typical behavior for other large predators we see today.

 

[Haltherrion]

Edit: checking up on Giraffes and flying dinosaurs there's a ~10x difference between their weights. I'm rather sceptical as to how an animal that big could glide, let alone fly.

I agree; I don’t think you could have dragons on earth without waiving a lot of known physics. You could do that as part of your necessary suspension of disbelief but it’s a stretch. I don't thnk they really know how much quetzalcoatlus weighed but it was around 200 pounds. Maybe vaguely dragon-ish in looks but not in size.

On a related topic, I took a look at what it would take for a griffin to carry a rider in a blog sometime ago and came to the conclusion that for the equivalent for a 800 pound griffin plus 200 pounds of rider and gear, you couldn’t really get there with just some higher density atmosphere and/or somewhat lower gravity; same analysis applies to dragons. You could do it with moon-like gravity but who has their PCs bouncing all over the place like astronauts on the moon? If you add scale to the mix (say, humans are half earth height), you could make it work with modestly lower gravity and somewhat thicker air and that has the virtue of making apparent flight speed higher, giants no more than “normal” sized humans, etc.

It reminds me of Avatar which waived its hands at a lower gravity moon and thicker air but also had the aliens much larger than humans. I’m fine with ignoring the physics for a movie but I don’t think their flying creatures would work. I suppose from the way the aliens were bouncing around their tree and such, you could say gravity was much lower in which case things might work but humans were on Pandora and weren’t bouncing around enough for much lower gravity. Maybe the humans were wearing "heavy boots"

(Extended aside:
Ask someone if an astronaut on the moon dropped a pen, would it float beside him, float away or drop to the ground. If they answer either of the first two, ask, "Why doesn't the astronaut float away?" They will usually answer "Because they were wearing heavy boots."

Seemed preposterous to me but I've tried it. My engineer friends all got the right answer but various women in my family have all gone down the heavy boot path. )

 

[Saeviomagy]

Seemed preposterous to me but I've tried it. My engineer friends all got the right answer but various women in my family have all gone down the heavy boot path. )

Actually I think that if you're on a small enough, fastly-rotating enough surface, you could be held on by heavy boots while the pen flies away...

But not the moon.