Drakes - some thoughts on Drake society, biologie and origin

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ninjalj
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Re: Drakes - some thoughts on Drake society, biologie and origin

Post by ninjalj »

Or, since Drake individuals apparently have
a tendency [...] to spend long periods in a cataleptic state
we could just assume that female Drakes are in a perpetual state of semi-catalepsy. (Maybe it's a social development, maybe it's natural, but us (Wesnothians) will never know for sure until we find a female Drake in a sentient non-cataleptic state. Maybe some poblations of Drakes in far parts of Irdya actually have sentient females, and this would not contradict what we know about those Drakes that live near Wesnoth).
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tuahaa
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Re: Drakes - some thoughts on Drake society, biologie and origin

Post by tuahaa »

thespaceinvader wrote:Why does sophistication have to include sentience in one gender? Just because we feel that that is sophistication, does not mean it is the ONLY form of sophistication.
What I meant is that they should be social beings. But then again, reptiles have limited emotions relative to birds and mammals.
Personally, I don't care if the female is sentient or not, but I feel it would make more sense if they are
Another topic: what is the role of saurians in drake society other than as allies in war? And also relating to the female sentience topic- saurian females are sentient, and saurians are meant to have a relationship with drakes
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Re: Drakes - some thoughts on Drake society, biologie and origin

Post by thespaceinvader »

Pretty much no role at all - they are convenient allies for balanced multiplayer, and thus far, nothign at all else.

Why would it make any more sense for the female to be sentient? We don't know how or why they develop the way they do. It only makes more sense because that's what we're used to. Which is an expectation we're specifically trying to break, and makes for an interesting social dynamic.
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uzytkownik
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Re: Drakes - some thoughts on Drake society, biologie and origin

Post by uzytkownik »

thespaceinvader wrote:Why does sophistication have to include sentience in one gender? Just because we feel that that is sophistication, does not mean it is the ONLY form of sophistication.
For the exact reasons that being single parent is much harder - it would put them at the large disadvantage. I'd go even to the extend that unsetient female put species at much larger disadvantage that unsetient male - for more details see economics studies of effects of female education [especially primary] on child mortality etc. (although it might be attributed as well to law of diminishing returns).

Of course if:
- With Drakes there was ID not evolution (mages etc.) it is more likely and we can ignore evolution... but why would (s)he/they create unsetient female?
- Underdeveloped dragon theory - unsetient child would put the species into disadvantage but much less. Possibly they didn't grow up sufficient to fully grown inteligence and missing element is needed earlier for female/dynamic of inteligence is different between genders (as in humans). Still I'd think it would be before age when it is biologically possible to reproduce.
tuahaa wrote:or we could have a single female queen who pumps out babies like ants

but I like the idea of sentient females better; drakes should be sophisticated beings
Hmm. I don't thing setience is compatible with mass production of childs. Setience is strongly connected with non-genetic transfer of information which is very much time-consuming.

Please however note that:
- In ant colony most ants are female keept AFAIR from being queen by queen's milk (sorry if it is called by other name in English).
- It is possible to have a single female (possibly ruler) which reproduce but I belive it would be limited by number of 'teachers' in colony.
tsr
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Re: Drakes - some thoughts on Drake society, biologie and origin

Post by tsr »

thespaceinvader wrote:Why would it make any more sense for the female to be sentient? We don't know how or why they develop the way they do. It only makes more sense because that's what we're used to. Which is an expectation we're specifically trying to break, and makes for an interesting social dynamic.
Well, if 'we' really want to break expectations then make the males non-sentient and the females sentient...

That women are not to be counted on except for childcare is a quite common expectation afaik.

[edit]
Ok, I've been thinking a bit more on this and here is what I've come up with for the genders and reproduction of drakes (warning crude version):
- drakes are powered in part of a magic fire, mostly for their flight but also as defining their essence.
- drakes reproduce by ovulating and feeding that egg from their inner fire until it is time to lay it.
- all drakes ovulate but not all drakes have a strong enough inner fire so they can't reproduce.
- eggs can be shared and are often forcefully taken from other individuals to keep mixing it up
- drakes that actually can reproduce are the 'females' drakes that can't are the 'males'
- this would lead to 3 female lines (Burner, Fighter, Glider) and one male (Clasher).

Note: nothing in this version of the reproduction contradicts the other parts of their social structure - highly competetive, fighting over sparse resources, etc.

ps. it seems I was wrong: I had the inner-fire-thingy about the clasher-line wrong (I thought they had none but it seems they just decided to not use it), but I don't think that is such a big problem. (We can just turn it around: since they have a weaker inner fire they are trained to fight and defend solely on the ground - explains armor since they can't fly and can explain long spear as they are given the right to defend from airborne attacks)
[/edit]

/tsr
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tuahaa
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Re: Drakes - some thoughts on Drake society, biologie and origin

Post by tuahaa »

I like your idea, tsr. I reckon some lines should be males, and some should be female, but both are sentient. Most bigger animals are social. Which gender hunts or does the common work varies- for example lionesses hunt while their male counterpart is a breeding machine (which also protects the other females)
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Fog
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Re: Drakes - some thoughts on Drake society, biologie and origin

Post by Fog »

What would happen in the development of a female drake that would prevent it from being sentient? I assume that there are sentient female dragons.

I also think tsr's idea is good, although the boundaries of male and female are confusing. So if a drake is capable of reproducing it is female?
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Re: Drakes - some thoughts on Drake society, biologie and origin

Post by thespaceinvader »

A handwave could be: sentience takes a lot of energy.

Drake females must do very little apart from incubate the egg/s, and this needs no intelligence - and the eggs have huge valie, because they grow slowly, and over a long time. The females who bred more successfully were those who did not require the extra sustenance to keep their brains working in high gear. The sentient females, if they ever existed, died out.

It's a handwave, but it works on a basic level.

Playing with the male/female distinction would be fun, however, particularly given that lizards IRL have some weird gender dynamics, in that a number of them have gender determined by temperature of egg incubation, for instance.

Hey, that could work - maybe, in order for an egg to be born female, it must be incubated at a much higher temperature, but this temperature inhibits the correct formation of the brain. That's quite a cool explanation.
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Re: Drakes - some thoughts on Drake society, biologie and origin

Post by esr »

tsi: Your first explanation is similar to the one I had in mind when I wrote up Drake biology.

But your second explanation is niftier. I may adopt it.

Your style of thinking about this sort of thing is good; like an SF writer's.
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Re: Drakes - some thoughts on Drake society, biologie and origin

Post by thespaceinvader »

In case you're wondering, by the way, that one comes from crocodiles =) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperatur ... ermination
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tsr
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Re: Drakes - some thoughts on Drake society, biologie and origin

Post by tsr »

esr wrote:tsi: Your first explanation is similar to the one I had in mind when I wrote up Drake biology.

But your second explanation is niftier. I may adopt it.

Your style of thinking about this sort of thing is good; like an SF writer's.
Nice to see you write here too esr. Could you please comment on the necessity to make one sex non-sentient and the following decision to chose the females for that role?

I also like the temperature thingy, btw, very complete as a form of explanation, but I still question what it leads to.

/tsr
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Daxion
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Re: Drakes - some thoughts on Drake society, biologie and origin

Post by Daxion »

Coming from the point that drakes evolved "down" from Dragons, this sounds possible.
Almost dragons, that from a society (well Drago Nobilis, is mostly a loner, isn't he?), have enough organisation to protect their females. Thus negating the strikt necessety for them being able to defend themselfs. However I would assume that for a mating ritual, and egglaying, they a addressable and to some degree sentinet.
(Female selection is usually a strong factor in evolution)

on a lighter note:
this somehow reminds me of Loom
Boobin: "So you can't breath fire?"
Dragon: "Won't honey, won't. It doesn't fit my style"
catwhowalksbyhimself
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Re: Drakes - some thoughts on Drake society, biologie and origin

Post by catwhowalksbyhimself »

Assuming that Drakes did come from dragons, we can assume that they lost tolerance for heat that dragons had, but the temperature requirement for hatching females remained the same. Thus a female dragon could still be sentient because the dragon eggs have a higher heat tolerance that was lost when they became drakes. Males are unaffected, since they aren't exposed to high amount of heat as eggs anyway.
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Captain_Wrathbow
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Re: Drakes - some thoughts on Drake society, biologie and origin

Post by Captain_Wrathbow »

It's almost funny to see everyone discussing and debating so seriously an imaginary creature.

But really, this is quite an interesting thread. Lots of good ideas and such are appearing.
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Re: Drakes - some thoughts on Drake society, biologie and origin

Post by uzytkownik »

Captain_Wrathbow wrote:It's almost funny to see everyone discussing and debating so seriously an imaginary creature.

But really, this is quite an interesting thread. Lots of good ideas and such are appearing.
Image

The problem is that drakes are the less familiar (read have the biggest number of new words). Also there are people which want to apply science where (in)appropiate - and there are several problems with drakes (flight <-> size, setience of female and importance of female inteligence in taking care about further generations etc.)
catwhowalksbyhimself wrote:Assuming that Drakes did come from dragons, we can assume that they lost tolerance for heat that dragons had, but the temperature requirement for hatching females remained the same. Thus a female dragon could still be sentient because the dragon eggs have a higher heat tolerance that was lost when they became drakes. Males are unaffected, since they aren't exposed to high amount of heat as eggs anyway.
Sorry - I'm afraid that at least one person (to be more specific - I) does not understend.
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