12 KiB
[MK] Munchkin these dragons [Dragonsdale]
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Author: u/GaBeRockKing Horizon Breach: http://archiveofourown.org/works/6785857*
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/3lwb54/mk_munchkin_these_dragons_dragonsdale/
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Score: 8
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Created: 2015-09-22T04:13:06
Post:
For the uninitiated (that is, basically all of you, I suspect) Dragonsdale is a 2-book series aimed at pre-teen girls, that never the less manages to be deeply intriguing, at least for me, because of how it treats dragons. That is to say, they're smart, but non-sapient animals, and rather domesticated. Still dangerous, but treated effectively like flying horses, that need to be cared for by humans, and can be trained.
Book specifics aside, given that you're in a society with little access to metals, but with fairly enlightenment-era sensibilities and technology (think 1800) and few external threats, how do you use these dragons to increase the living standards of your relatively small island population?
For some specifics (spitballing here, it's been years since I read the book):
Dragons can carry maybe two full grown humans and accompanying tackle, but not much more.
Dragons flame pretty much only as a fear response in the novels (Although it's potentially trainable; I seem to recall dragons being specifically conditioned against flaming near humans)
Dragons can fly for several hours (I seem to recall a trip across the island taking only a single day by dragonback). let's say they're a bit faster than horses, and go ~30 miles per hour consistently, with up to 55 miles an hour in a sprint
Let's estimate the island to be about 5,000 sq miles (roughly 25% bigger than the biggest island in Hawaii), with a population of roughly 50,000. The latitude would be about the same as the southern half of the UK. The terrain would be similar as well.
Dragons require enough food to feed... say, 5 horses each. I don't remember if they're herbivorous or not, but just assume they need 165,000 calories daily if they are, and 125,000 if they're omnivorous and fed with enough protein. High exertion doubles those calorie counts. I'll put them at three tons for weight, and handwave any questions related to how they get in the air (something something hot air balloon something something electrolysis). 50-60ft wingspans. Lifespans are ~25-30 years, full maturity at 7 years of age.
And for an ancillary challenge, how would you equip and train an army to face a force of 5,000 1800's mint British soldiers attacking the island by boat? Which tactics would you use? What if it was 10,000 soldiers? Remember, metal is scarce.
If you need to make your own educated guesses, just do your best to extrapolate horses to dragon scale. (I realize exactly how ridiculous that sounds.)
And by the way, if you have recommendations for books prominently featuring dragon riders, please tell me. (I've already read temeraire/eragon/pern)
Comments:
u/Izeinwinter [+8] (2 hours later)
"Mail delivery". They are quite expensive riding animals, but the travel speed, and the fact they do not care about roads means they are a good choice to carry letters and small packages. So you run a mail service, and specialize your economy around that.
.. fight a war? You don't attack the mail. That's just not on. If they insist.. well, most everyone is employed in the mail, which implies a lot of dragons... so "We fly away, relocate headquarters in a state which can see off an army that size." Because there is no way to mobilize enough troops to fight an army of 5000 professional soldiers out of a population of only 50000.
u/GaBeRockKing [+3] Horizon Breach: http://archiveofourown.org/works/6785857 (9 hours later)
no way to mobilize enough troops to fight an army of 5000
Despite fighting from home turf, with an aerial and logistics advantage, when the other side needs to ship all their goods?
u/Izeinwinter [+2] (11 hours later)
Doesn't matter. You could potentially arm all the adults, but all that would mean is that they would die with their boots on. Pre-industrial societies just do not produce the surplus needed to train a large percentage of the population to a sensible standard of soldiering. Revolutionary era France raised armies of unprecedented size, but that still meant "1 or 2 in a hundred frenchmen under arms". Not one in ten! Using dragons for military, as opposed to economic, purposes would make that problem very much worse. When an army a tenth the size of your entire population shows up in this context, you can surrender, run or die. Fight just isn't on the table. Of course, this means that said army is a major expense for the empire to keep in the field. So, potentially, you could just fly away, wait for the empire to get bored marching troops around your island utterly unopposed, send their troops somewhere where there is actual fighting to be done, and just take it back after they leave.
u/GaBeRockKing [+2] Horizon Breach: http://archiveofourown.org/works/6785857 (11 hours later)
The dragonsdale setting isn't pre-industrial, they're just resource-poor. They're given warning (my wording was how would you prepare for, not respond to) an invasion, and posess what amounts to a staggering geographic advantage- and ocean between them and anyone who tries to attack them. It may be difficult, but there's likely some way to outfit citizen soldiers to fight a force with superior numbers.
u/Izeinwinter [+2] (11 hours later)
.. Not and still have a society at the end. You could train and arm the population, sure, but one for one, they are just not going to be a match for professionals. So casualty ratios would be against you. At which point you may literally run out of adults. So, the best strategy if given warning is "Leave. Burn everything of value you cant bring or bury". Really, 50000 people is just a ridiculously small polity. it's one of the canal isles. If for some reason, one of the empires of the world decides it wants it and is willing to devote this many troops to the matter, said empire is going to win.
u/Jules-LT [+5] (12 hours later)
If for some reason, one of the empires of the world decides it wants it and is willing to devote this many troops to the matter, said empire is going to win.
Become a protectorate of another empire.
Your supply of unrivalled scouts and couriers should help.
u/blazinghand [+3] Chaos Undivided (14 hours later)
This might be the best way to go, if you can't just float around on dragons with a couple hundred of knight archers and kill the invaders without fear of retribution.
Offer some kind of negotiated surrender where your dragons work for the empire and your island nation gets to rule itself as a vassal principality in return for dragonknight levies to help the King fight his wars.
u/buckykat [+1] (21 hours later)
you've got an entire army arriving on wooden boats held together with tar and flying creatures that shoot flames (you can also drop normal incendiaries from much higher for safety). you're the only ones who can see past the ground level horizon, allowing early detection of enemy forces.
you will not win at fighting. you may win at logistics. the enemy is going to need to ship a truly colossal amount of food and supplies in to support their army, and they're going to need to do it on more wooden ships held together by tar. continue harassing enemy shipping while burning anything you have to retreat from.
if you have time to build such things, make dragon carriers. get a barge, put dragons and related supplies on it, fly combat air patrols, never let a conventionally-armed enemy ship get within visual range of you. make cannon-armed galleons obsolete exactly the same way aircraft carriers made battleships obsolete.
meanwhile, send envoys to the king's rivals, both in his court and his neighbors. explain how useful dragons are.
hell, sneak some dragons to the mainland, fly to the king's castle, and eat/firebomb him. castles are meaningless if you can fly.
u/qznc [+2] Chaos Legion (13 hours later)
So, we are talking about 500 dragon riders vs 5000 pro-soldiers with rifles. Both have additional (civilian) help for logistics. The empire has no airborne troops.
Against a larger army, you always resort to guerilla tactics. Use mobility and air superiority for tactical strikes against support, stocks, ships. Sabotage as much as possible before the ships even leave the harbor.
Can dragons land and start on water? That would help with sinking ships. Maybe you can train them accordingly.
Once the ships approach your island, drop stuff on them. Rocks are ok. Napalm or Molotov cocktails are better. Civilians should evacuate to some mountains, where bottlenecks for the larger army can be defended and dragon can provide support.
If it comes to a siege. Dragons should provide food support and intercept enemy support. If the empire troops starve the will leave at some point.
u/Izeinwinter [+4] (15 hours later)
The dragons eat. A lot. Their caloric requirements make them utterly useless for guerrilla warfare tactics. You march in, seize the town - and by extension, the granaries. Then you wait for the riders to surrender before their mounts all starve to death. For maximum efficiency of this tactic, run the invasion during the winter. There is nothing you can do to stop this, because stopping it would require you to give battle, and then you die. Seriously, this is not a military problem that can be solved unless the imperial commander is secretly a traitor working for you, and even then, that most likely ends with said commander getting executed and replaced. There are diplomatic angles that can be played - A single dragon can provide absurdly valuable military assistance to a conventional army in the form of mapping and recon, a cadre allows extremely rapid and hard-to-intercept communication. You can probably parley this into protection from someone. But no, they will not let a micro-nation take on an empire.
u/Charlie___ [+2] (39 minutes later)
Oh man, I have a fun dragon book recommendation, but it was something I loved as a kid, so take my kid-self's recommendation with a grain of salt: Jane Yolen's Pit Dragon trilogy starting with Dragon's Blood.
But I guess dragon riding is pretty tangential. It's more like being a pokemon trainer, in a world where there are only charizards.
Anyhow, as for fighting off redcoats, the best part about having dragons is probably the excellent information about troop movements. For direct offensive application, maybe try dropping molotov cocktails on ships, supply stores, etc - though to overwhelm even basic firefighting, this would have to be pretty coordinated.
u/DCarrier [+2] (18 hours later)
I'd fight off the soldiers by dropping Molotov cocktails from beyond their range. Or maybe cannonballs, but it won't be able to carry as many.
u/E-o_o-3 [+1] (a day later)
Assuming the dragons are wild and need not be bred into domestics, then this civilization would likely be nomadic hunter gatherers from the start. If the Brits attack we just relocate.
Also, we can't be the only civilization with dragons. The first dragon riding humans would have diaspora'd everywhere.
u/GaBeRockKing [+1] Horizon Breach: http://archiveofourown.org/works/6785857 (a day later)
In dragonsdale, the outside world is a complete non-factor and dragons have already been domesticated.