r/temeraire

Mild spoiler warning

Just finished League of Dragons and with it the whole series. >!I'm really upset with the conclusion given to Lien. We spent like 8 books in the dynamic between her and Temeraire, the hate, the vengeance, the mutual disdain and all that stuff - and in the conclussion we just know that she lost. Like, what?!<

>!What is she thinking? How is she feeling? No more dialogue from her, not even a tiny "fuck you" shouted to Temeraire. Nothing? Damn it all. I honestly feel that this has ruined the moment for me.!<

The dragons eat many different things but could they eat cheese? I am trying to remember in the books if they ever eat cheese or milk products and I can’t think of any off hand. Does anyone remember something I’m forgetting. Or have a reason why they could or couldn’t.

A bit self explanatory, but I wanted to do something a bit whimsical for this sub, so have over engineered a scenario for you all to enjoy!

But, to get you into it:

“There was it was, sitting solitary in a bed of yellow velvet, sheltered by wreckage of a half-splintered maple wood box. When you moved closer, anxiously picking it up, the fully hardened surface, thankfully appears unharmed, covered in a very shallow, faint pattern of dragon scales, faintly warm, a barely-there heartbeat pulsing deep under your fingers as you touched the globed surface. This egg was good and heavy, just slightly too large to fit in the crook of your arm.

It was beautiful, a shady, faintly glittering verdant shell, the colour of the darkest, blackest emerald, full of angles that caught the light over the patterned shell, drawing and trapping light within the dark sheen, like the gloss of a fine jewel. The keratin stuck up in elegant, almost curling, swirling hooks and curves of the darkest green, almost like ferns, intricately full of light. There were speckled, swirling patterns of lighter greens near the top, spatters of mossy-basil shades, dappled through with veins and splotches of a lighter, creamier pistachio colour, veined with greenish brown.

Just as your heart was starting to settle and you’d begun to contemplate who to call, the egg shook. You paused, only just processing what this meant, before the first opalescent chip struck free and fell to the ground. Evidently, it had decided now was the best time, of any, to make its entrance into the world. Making it, legally… Your responsibility, at least for now.”

Say there was a dragon egg that started to hatch right in front of you while on a walk or something. In your home country. It is the egg described above. No-one else is available and you have evidently been chosen to caretake it until it feels secure enough to make its own way in the world / find its parents.

Assuming it hasn’t decided to give itself a name yet,

a) what are you calling it?

b) first actions you’re taking?

c) what are you feeding it?

d) this is a shocking event, for anyone, even in the T universe. So, how are you taking it, champ?

So I’ve been marinating over this series for a while and I have some ideas I’d like opinions on, as well as a question:

1. Dragons would be bred to be smaller over time.

This is kinda self explanatory, but given that the majority of cities are already not suited to dragons, it would make sense if they were split up into much larger breeds to preform traditional dragon roles and much more intelligent, compact ones that aren’t massive, so can walk in human size streets, eat human good without bankrupting themselves, reduce the space requirements for a dragon and be less scary to the populace. Particularly if they become more omnivorous over time to better field a diet suited to urban environments.

This would allow dragon fashion to flourish. We’ve seen this a couple of times, mostly with jewellery or Lady (I forgot her name) in Japan, with her silks. Imagine dragons in furs to brave colder environments, or more wing ornamentation like ribbons or bodypaint (I could imagine bioluminescent stripes on dragons for night flying if dragon shipping expands. Both would not hurt their eyes and avoid crashes with non night seers). I imagine a panel of fabric with slits for wings that wraps left side then right side over the chest and is fastened with jewellery or decorative pins or something.

2. Lighter than air travel is invented as an assistive tool.

So I thought about this reading another post as well as comments an old one of mine. Someone already mentioned that because of dragons, the invention of flight would have been massively sped up. So what if lighter than air travel (blimps and zeppelins with or without advanced engines) was invented to facilitate the flight of larger dragons.

Namely having four massive blimps cabled to the quadrants of a massive dragon’s harness to give them extra lift to enable long distance movement. Particularly stupid big dragons (in a new class I wanna call ultraheavyweight) that are bred to have special abilities like the Sui Rui but may struggle with flying, could now be more easily weaponised. So long as they could breathe, they’d be fine, right, so you could use blimps to get them into the air as air fortresses. Other dragons could land on them for a break in the fighting, you could have lightweights defending the blimps and ferrying food to the dragon mid flight.

Or just having blimps for dragons to pull to ferry larger amounts of men across longer distances / to give them breaks while flying. Imagine super specialised Shen Lungs with blimp lifts. Might be able to speed up global connectivity.

You could do a similar thing with submarines / ironclads and a really large sea serpent / dragon. Opens up a lot of interesting modern warfare possilities. (The future of the T universe and steampunk mesh stupidly well). Maybe even some water-breathing middleweights being self-sustaining mobile sea bases if you find a way to bolt something a little larger than a submarine to them.

This could open up more questions about dragons being excellent nuke handlers / droppers, particularly if radiation resistant ones were bred, if you want to go that far in the timeline.

Also dragon airlines.

3. In the aftermath universe WW2 / a really destructive conflict, Europe becomes more dragon friendly.

So similar to the marshall plan to restore a destroyed Europe, if something was to happen to one of the places in the T universe to be similarly destroyed. The money could be used (from the Tswana or China or something) to be rebuilt marshal-plan-style into a more dragon friendly place, with wider streets, better water access, etc.

4. More specialised dragon abilities get bred.

As shown, with the Chinese trying to modernise, they may end up in the T universe replacing Japan’s role with our current world. (A brief severe outbreak of the ultra-conservative faction during a time of intense global conflict, followed by greater cultural, trade and political ties around the world, becoming known for their culture and strong economic hub). And I think this may shed some of the distain they had for dragon abilities.

And with so much new material to work with, like the Tswana, Inca or some of the interesting dragons I’m sure are hiding in the pacific / Indian Ocean islands and North America, I’m sure new generations of interesting things could be bred.

Honestly, I could make a whole post about dragon specialities / adaptations I’ve thought of, but that would make this one too long, so I’ll leave it.

My two questions:

Do dragon mummies exist? - Did ancient Egyptian dragons get mummified alongside their Pharaoh companions / get mummified for being very renowned. Following that trend, when the Egyptian craze hits Victorian Europe, do the dragons there also develop a version of the mummia trend? (Where rich people would import mummies for consumption, either as snuff (snorting), tea or as an additive to improve vitality.) I feel like there’s a story here, given that it seems dragons with certain captains may adopt their captain’s biases, so may see other dragons differently than themselves and therefore find it acceptable.

Would the T universe’s Napoleonic wars be considered their ‘first world war’? - Mostly off how many continents were involved on equal pairing compared to ours, the death toll, stakes and the ideologies driving both sides.

Hello! I have recently finished reading the Temeraire series and the beginning scene from the 9th book stood out to me. I wondered what the French captain and his dragon could have felt, in the last moments of their lives, as they were stranded alone, cold, and hungry, in a foreign land. So, I wrote a little story based on them. Thanks for reading! Any constructive criticism is greatly appreciated.

The title refers to the Russian winter, which helped the country withstand several invasions across its history. It's called "General Winter" / "General Frost" (or "Le Général Hiver" in French).

---

His joints creaked in protest with his every move. And yet, he couldn't just lie down. Not while she was still breathing. He rose up, brushed the snow off his tattered garments, and moved in heavy strides around her. “A wretched sight”, he thought. What was the last time they had both eaten? But no, he couldn't linger on that matter. He pushed his thoughts aside. He walked up to her head and spoke, with what little courage he had left.

"You fought valiantly, my dear," he whispered. His blackened fingers drew thin, trembling lines across her jaw. He wondered whether her scales felt it, at all; but then her eye opened to him, faintly. "Pray don't lose hope", he added, watching her with warmth; as much warmth and hope as he could still muster.

"What... for?..." she asked, her eye searching his with a tired, quiet desperation. "We're dead… we're lost... we're frozen... what... for?…"

He could barely hold her gaze; her garbled voice wrenched his heart with every sound, a ghostly hand with long, bony fingers. It took him a moment to answer, and even greater strength to keep his tears at bay. And yet they betrayed him, and gathered in thin, freezing beads, at the corners of his eyes.

"Remember... Remember when we first met?" He asked, finally. That seemed to brighten her, it always did.

"Yes... I loathed drafting. I chewed on the harness... threw things around... I was quite stubborn. Who could have stopped me, anyway? And yet, we two got along, and splendidly so, I could say.” She took long moment to breathe, her weakened sides swelling faintly. “I still... share the old sentiment, however,” she resumed. “Look where it brought us…"

"I share it too, my dear, you know it all too well... and yet, we served our duty, through so many hardships that we both lost count of them."

"They're not on your coat anymore", she remarked.

"And yet, they happened. The proof is less important now", he said, his voice a little more lively. "What matters is that our duty called us, and we answered, against ourselves. And it changed us, it made us braver, stronger, more united. Think of how many lives we saved! How many our deeds will yet save! This is true -"

"Heroism, yes, yes... I know the story. You’ve told it many times. And yet, it's hard to believe it now, you know."

"Even so, my dear", he answered, his caress growing warmer on her jaw. "We did what

we could. We served our people, our Emperor, and our conscience. It is enough, it has to be. We go to rest now, so that others can rise behind us."

"Vive... la France?" She tried, one faint attempt at rekindling their hope.

"Vive la France!" He shouted with all his might, and they both laughed, in their own way.

"But, please, if you can... don't fall asleep before I do." Her voice did not give way to weaknesses, this time; it seemed, in fact, quite peaceful. He knew what she implied, however.

He closed his eyes abruptly, then pressed his forehead against her. His tears would not wait any longer. They fell in tiny, sizzling rivulets upon her battered scales. And he knew that she felt them. He stood besides her, with slow caresses and gentle words, until at last she closed her eyes; until her breath slowed down, enough for him to think she couldn't hear him anymore.

His face, at last, was gloomy. He limped, and limped, and rested against her flank. It wasn't any warmer there. The narrow path stretched and winded ahead of him, flanked by sturdy, gloomy trees. The foreign snow was covering it, layer upon layer. It didn't care about what or whom it buried.

It was a fair punishment, he reckoned. What business did they have in that remote corner of the world? He couldn't have admitted it to her face, but he shared Renée's feelings, at that moment. He'd left behind a wife and children. He'd left behind his friends, his estate, all his connections to the civilized world... He'd left behind Renée's peace and safety, her friends, her crew. He couldn't save them, as much as he tried. And so, they would all meet their end in foreign soil, for a cause they didn't quite believe in. "A wretched loss," he thought. "But... such is the fare of war. There's no great feat which wasn't soaked in blood. It is a honor, yes, a honor. So many soldiers and their beasts shared it. Why would we, at all, be different? Why run away from it?"

And yet, it hurt so much, when one felt it directly. He watched the narrow path ahead of him, unblinking; he realized, after a while, his frozen eyelids wouldn't close. Renée's side was still swelling as she breathed, with greater and greater efforts. He couldn't bear to look at her. She was so hungry, he knew it; it must have been so hard for her.

"A wretched thing," he muttered. "Wretched, wretched…”

He wished the snow did its job faster. And privately, he hoped, he still hoped, that someone would, somehow, come to their rescue.

***

Time trickled slower, so much slower. The bitter cold was winning. Unlike its victims, it had all time in the world. His members were resigning their post, one at a time. He reached a stiffened arm inside his coat, black fingers fishing for the trusty bottle. He opened it with some difficulty and emptied its meagre contents in one strained gulp. He felt guilty for it afterwards, as the impossible heat engulfed him. Renée could not enjoy such luxuries. His body mustered its strength for one last stand, his desperate heart filling his veins with liquid, blazing fire.

And then, the rhythm diminished... slower, slower... until it stopped beating at all.