An Officer and a Gentleman. (Temeraire crossover.)

ATP

Well-known member
I don't much about the polish serfs in the 19th century, you may well be right about that.
They could not be sold ,like in Russia,but when you buy land you buy serfs with it.And they could not go to town if you do not agree.They formally selfgoverm themselves,with their own judges - but it was to gentry to decide if agree to punishent,or not.
Althought if they decide that X must go,he still must go to other village.
 

ATP

Well-known member
Ahahahahhahahahhahhaha, no. By law you couldn't do it in either case. By tradition though Poland was worse as while Russia was usually limited to some unmarried servants (if wife and hence her family don't object), in Poland going to peasant house killing and/or raping everybody wasn't considered crime for Szlachta. As serfs were nothing more than talking animals. And since landowner was always a local judge too... The only time that changed was when Polish lands weren't Polish any more.


Yeah, no. IIRC right of the court was in landowners hands since 13-something... or was it 14-something? Landowner was judge and could judge how he liked. That changed IIRC only when Poland was completely divided to curb Szlachta influence.

EDIT: Since Pact of Koszyce in 1374 Szlachta got judical rights over peasants and were mostly undjudgable themselves unless against other member of the nobility. That when it started that Szlachtich can do whatever to peasants and they couldn't do anything against it. Said Pact also forbidden to non-Szlachta to even be judges.

1.Nope. russian gentry had harems and sometimes seld them,polish not.raping serf woman - they were no worst that prussian gentry .And russia had no law,only will of tsar.If he allowed something,it was allowed.

2.Nope, peasants judged temselves,gentry could mitigate it/for examply turn death penalty into exile/Gentry was seniot judge,but sentence was to peasant judges,not him.
Of course,for magnats who had their own armies it not worked - but they could do whatever they liked with polish gentry,too.
 

ATP

Well-known member
Uh-huh. No law. Exactly that why Grozny coudn't get rid of mestnichestvo even with Oprichnina... because he had all the law. Only not. No, there was law, there were lawbooks and I don't remember a single ruler that could rule completely ignoring laws, traditions and public opinion. Even Pyotr I couldn't.


And when things like harems happened in Russia it was Russian "magnates" that done it. So in no way different than harem of Martin Radziwill for example (well, it's Lithuanina part of Commonwealth, but it was long polonized then).

1.Ivan the coward tortured to death most of Novogrod the great population.Which certainly was not part of any law.
2.have Radziwiłł harems in times when PLC still existed as free state ? occupation by Russia after 1764 do not count.
 

ATP

Well-known member
1. "Most of Novgorod" being IIRC 2000-4000 (maximum possible IIRC 15000, but that's way out there) for a something that was considered rebellion. Though admittedly famine and plague that followed were result of that, but they weren't direct actions of Ivan IV.
2. That happened on at least pretext* of fighting secessionist conspiracy/rebellion, so by law and not "I want it".
* in that particular case it was bullshit, but Novgorod was secessionist and it's nobility had fingers in several conspiracies, so majority of powerplayers in Russia decided to ignore that it's bullshit

He was deposed by his son in 1748. So, yes, BEFORE occupation.

1.What rebellion ? Novogrod the Great was free state conqered by Moscov.Ivan coward had no any rights there.
And he tortured to death 1000 persons - mans,womans,children - per day.For 5 weeks.

2.Then Radziwił had its own private army which was better then king.And he was breaking law,but nobody could punish him.
Did moscov boyars have their own private armies ,which made tsar impossible to stop their atrocities ? no ? i thought so.
 
Stop this derail!

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The next person who post something unrelated to the story @LordsFire is writing is going to be infracted with my Fatman!

If the OP thinks this topic of discussion is okay for his story he is free to request me to ease this off.

You have been warned...

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ATP

Well-known member
So,back to topic.Becouse situation when bad european are bad,andEngland too, @LordsFire could either made England progressive,or made MC go to China,get cute manchu waifu and live happily there.
Or made MC more ruthless,and for example let french dragons die.
 

Bear Ribs

Well-known member
Eh... French Dragons are unlikely to die anyway. Remember Roland basically chided Lawrence for being an idiot about it and told him she'd already put plans in motion to save the dragons, just without drawing enormous attention to herself and making it obvious she was crossing the British Admiralty the way Lawrence did.

As far as Chinese waifu Lawrence did decide to do that but inexplicably developed amnesia once they got to China, whose people were somehow unable to make the connection between a white guy with no memory washing up on shore and Temeraire and Iskierka demanding to know where the lost European dragon captain was. Then they all returned to Europe because... yeah it's hard to figure out how motivations work by that far into the books. If Lawrence doesn't lose his memory this time around there's every possibility he'll simply settle down in China as planned.

Alternately both Iskierka and Temeraire were deeply interested when they found out American dragons often own ships and form their own corporations, and both were in favor of immigrating to the US in order to get in on that action so it could go that way instead.
 
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ATP

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Eh... French Dragons are unlikely to die anyway. Remember Roland basically chided Lawrence for being an idiot about it and told him she'd already put plans in motion to save the dragons, just without drawing enormous attention to herself and making it obvious she was crossing the British Admiralty the way Lawrence did.

As far as Chinese waifu Lawrence did decide to do that but inexplicably developed amnesia once they got to China, whose people were somehow unable to make the connection between a white guy with no memory washing up on shore and Temeraire and Iskierka demanding to know where the lost European dragon captain was. Then they all returned to Europe because... yeah it's hard to figure out how motivations work by that far into the books. If Lawrence doesn't lose his memory this time around there's every possibility he'll simply settle down in China as planned.

Alternately both Iskierka and Temeraire were deeply interested when they found out American dragons often own ships and form their own corporations, and both were in favor of immigrating to the US in order to get in on that action so it could go that way instead.

North america - nice idea.I do not though about it.And Novak actually did good job there,becouse indian had dragons,which mean USA do not conqering as much as OTL.

So,MC could :
1.Be good brit and do not care about dragons.
2.Made England smarter and treat dragons better.
3.Be canonical MC,love dragons,and go to China and get manchu waifu
4.Be in Australia,help putch there,and live in independent country close to China.With Manchu waifu
5.Go to North America,as you suggested

BEST OPTION - change nothing to troll all of us.
 

ShadowsOfParadox

Well-known member
Actually, I don't think it's actually all that hard to say "History went basically the same"

Ok, so, every really big dragon is explicitly noted to have been bred to that weight by humans, and, well, that makes sense, given the food requirements we see for heavy and midweight dragons there is no way they could function in the wild. Additionally, it's explicit that in the Mediterranean Rome was the first to tame Dragons. So basically, everyone is dealing with dragons that are probably smaller than Courier Weight who do light raiding. Herding is a bit less profitable because Dragons but farming is basically unaffected, this might actually be part of why Agriculture starts up in the past, and part of explaining why people live in big ole cities. But eventually Dragons do like the megafauna of Africa did and figure out how to not die to humans(even firebreathers don't have enough range to stay out of projectile range and Elephants/Mammoths and what not got shot down in the primordial past, so would Dragons), and that's mostly "stay away". So, again, maybe some light raiding when the Dragons have bad years but it's not a big deal. Rome is the first to tame Dragons in the area, that means Persia didn't have Dragons first. So basically everything in European History goes basically as per normal. Even that thought of "Ottoman Dragons at the Siege of Vienna" just goes "So they were kept occupied by the Polish and allies dragons while the Winged Hussars won the ground". There's some more effort for ranged weaponry that can shoot up, but again, Dragons aren't actually all that dangerous in warfare yet, they are mostly recon, communication, some assassination and a bit of specialist roles for fire breathers or acid spitters or similar. Then Gunpowder happens(specifically bombs and the like) and suddenly big dragons mean more than winning scout fights and being more resistant to arrowfire so you can pull off cooler assassinations(though, human riders still), it means actual firepower.

Now, with this idea in mind it's a bit weird that Heavyweights are so big, but it's not that weird, Dogs didn't take all that long to get bred into wildly different new breeds, and it's worth noting that the way Dragons are discussed really does read more like breeds than species. Iskierka is such a big deal because they are hoping to breed firebreathing into British lines through her.

No, my own problem with the Temeraire series is this. How the everloving fuck did the slave trade as we saw it even happen? If every African Tribe has a Dragon Ancestor how the everloving fuck did anyone ever get sold to begin with? And if the Europeans went and kidnapped people(which they didn't IRL for reasons that still very much apply only moreso) then how did it take so long for the Dragons to find out and react as Dragons do when their people get taken? Remember, Dragons live a bloody long time, war between tribes probably ends with prisoner exchanges unless one tribe is totally annihilated. So there's not the argument of "unrelated Dragons selling prisoners of war" because they want their own back. If every slave had to come from annihilated tribes that's just not sustainable, that very much doesn't lead to the status quo we saw IRL.

Still, I do like Laurence and Temeraire and most of the characters close to them... even if the plot/setting is damn stupid sometimes.
 

The Unicorn

Well-known member
Actually, I don't think it's actually all that hard to say "History went basically the same"
It's not hard, it simply makes absolutely no sense.
You have a sapient, armored, airborne predator that can grab a full grown man and fly away with them, or probably even a cow or horse.
That means human development will diverge from ours going back to the Pleolithic since in any region where dragons exist, humans are not the Apex predator, you can't rely on walls to protect you, there are no safe roads, etc...

Then humans became more symbiotic with dragons and warfare would change, for that matter the Roman empire was limitad to the size it was by the speed at which it could communicate from one end to the other, having dragons would change that limit, but more importantly, would greatly reduce the military need for roads, while shifting the political power away from the legions, etc...
 

ShadowsOfParadox

Well-known member
You have a sapient, armored, airborne predator that can grab a full grown man and fly away with them, or probably even a cow or horse.
Are they though? As noted in story, Courier Weight dragons are fairly dumb. Were Wild Dragons that were Courier Weight or below smarter or dumber? And Dragons aren't that armored. They're not more armored than say, Elephants or Rhinos and those got hunted enough to develop evasion behaviors to not die, never mind the non-African Megafauna that mostly just died.

That means human development will diverge from ours going back to the Pleolithic since in any region where dragons exist, humans are not the Apex predator, you can't rely on walls to protect you, there are no safe roads, etc...
Dragons don't have long ranged weaponry so, no, Humans still become the Apex Predator anywhere they go once projectiles become the favored method of hunting. Same reason Neanderthals got outcompeted. Roads are pretty much as safe as they were IRL for the same reason as IRL, humans destroy the competition that won't stay away.

the Roman empire was limitad to the size it was by the speed at which it could communicate from one end to the other, having dragons would change that limit, but more importantly, would greatly reduce the military need for roads, while shifting the political power away from the legions, etc...
The communication thing sure, except not really because guess what, Dragons can't hold territory and newly tamed Dragons are, once again, too small and lacking ways to deal with ranged threats to be more effective than say, Cavalry, but Cavalry doesn't have to worry about big ass wings. Dragons would be PART of the Legions/Auxillaries, but the ones doing the bulk of the fighting would still be the Legions.

Specifics might change, but the overall events can easily go the same way because Dragons are A Factor, but Geography is still the same and the vast majority of pressures are still the same.
 

Bear Ribs

Well-known member
Are they though? As noted in story, Courier Weight dragons are fairly dumb. Were Wild Dragons that were Courier Weight or below smarter or dumber? And Dragons aren't that armored. They're not more armored than say, Elephants or Rhinos and those got hunted enough to develop evasion behaviors to not die, never mind the non-African Megafauna that mostly just died.
The wild dragons Laurence encountered seemed to be quite intelligent. Wild dragons also have their own language groups humans are unable to speak (Duzagh). Arkady was noted as a great storyteller and cunning leader. The problem with the wild dragons wasn't intelligence, it was that they weren't loyal to England and once Laurence convinced them to join the war, they still only followed orders if they could see some profit in it for themselves. Often, they faffed off to follow Iskierka since she also had a loot focus and they could capture prize ships and get more money that way than doing boring patrols.
 

ShadowsOfParadox

Well-known member
The wild dragons Laurence encountered seemed to be quite intelligent. Wild dragons also have their own language groups humans are unable to speak (Duzagh). Arkady was noted as a great storyteller and cunning leader. The problem with the wild dragons wasn't intelligence, it was that they weren't loyal to England and once Laurence convinced them to join the war, they still only followed orders if they could see some profit in it for themselves. Often, they faffed off to follow Iskierka since she also had a loot focus and they could capture prize ships and get more money that way than doing boring patrols.
Ah, but are those Wild Dragons actually Wild?

Or, like the "Wild Horses" of the American West, are they descended from Dragons bred by humans?

I'd need to go try to find the books again to check but I'm pretty sure several of them were noted to be domestic breeds that weren't eating enough to reach full growth.
 

Bear Ribs

Well-known member
Ah, but are those Wild Dragons actually Wild?

Or, like the "Wild Horses" of the American West, are they descended from Dragons bred by humans?

I'd need to go try to find the books again to check but I'm pretty sure several of them were noted to be domestic breeds that weren't eating enough to reach full growth.
Of the named Ferals, Arkady has no breed given but feral and is described as grey with brown markings and a red patch on his face.
Winge is his mate, no breed given, and is all grey.
Gherni, no breed given, very small, colored blue and white, sometimes lets Tharkay ride her.
Molnar, no breed and no color scheme, we basically only have his name.
Hertaz, no breed given, dusty brown with yellowish-green stripes, has the ability to flatten his body to a dramatic degree and hide in tall grass.
Lester, no breed given, yellow orange and pink in a riot of contrasting colors, seems to like humans and was more diligent in caring for his crew than the others.

The only pure ferals I'm aware of that have their breed given are the Grey Widowmakers in Scotland and the Cuchador Reals (which are also domesticated sometimes) in Spain. There are also feral Malachite Reapers because the two species that interbreed to create them (Yellow Reaper and Lindorm) sometimes meet in the wild which would obviously suggest that Yellow Reapers and Lindorms are feral breeds that are sometimes domesticated.
 

The Unicorn

Well-known member
Are they though? As noted in story, Courier Weight dragons are fairly dumb.
They are dumb relative to humans, they are still able to talk and actually form sentences, they are definitely sapient and that makes them MUCH smarter than any predator humans have dealt with.
And Dragons aren't that armored. They're not more armored than say, Elephants or Rhinos and those got hunted enough to develop evasion behaviors to not die, never mind the non-African Megafauna that mostly just died.
1)They are armored, except for some vulnerable spots.
2)Conceding for the sake of argument, Elephents and rhinos were hunted using pit traps because humans did not have any weapon that could reliably kill them. Other methods of killing them relied on poor senses and using fire to herd them into a suitable killing ground. Needless to say these methods will not work on Dragons.
3)Even if we assume that a prepared group of hunters would be able to kill a dragon, the point is that dragons can fly - they won't be attacking the prepared group of hunters, they'll be attacking the camp, and mon't be leaving tracks for the hunters to follow.
4)Dragons can fly hundreds of km. If the dragon's lair is 20 km from the

Dragons don't have long ranged weaponry so
THey have better long range weapons than the humans do in the time period we're discussing. They are more than capable of throwing, or simply dropping things on people.
Roads are pretty much as safe as they were IRL for the same reason as IRL, humans destroy the competition that won't stay away.
THe difference is, humans were able to outrun any animal they needed to worry out, and track down their lair.
The communication thing sure, except not really because guess what, Dragons can't hold territory and newly tamed Dragons are, once again, too small and lacking ways to deal with ranged threats to be more effective than say, Cavalry, but Cavalry doesn't have to worry about big ass wings. Dragons would be PART of the Legions/Auxillaries, but the ones doing the bulk of the fighting would still be the Legions.
Dragons aren't needed to hold territory, but they can be used to launch punative missions against anyone who doesn't follow orders.
Geography is still the same and the vast majority of pressures are still the same.
No, even the geography is not going to be the same, you have dragons which are valuable, that means the roads will go different places, the information people have when setting out to make roads will be different, and of course, weapons technology will be radically different.

Heck, once dragons are domesticated you'd get spices delivered from China to Rome in a couple of days by riders who actually visited there, that's going to have a huge effect on society.
 

ShadowsOfParadox

Well-known member
Heck, once dragons are domesticated you'd get spices delivered from China to Rome in a couple of days by riders who actually visited there, that's going to have a huge effect on society.
...Dragons are flat out, not that fast. Even the fastest Dragons by the time of the series are not that fast. From Months to Weeks maybe... assuming you can get enough food en route.
THe difference is, humans were able to outrun any animal they needed to worry out, and track down their lair.
...You don't "Outrun" a tiger, or a wolf pack, or a lion pride.
THey have better long range weapons than the humans do in the time period we're discussing. They are more than capable of throwing, or simply dropping things on people.
Throwing? Dragons? THROWING? The biomechanics are entirely wrong for that. And while they could probably figure out droppings things to break the dropped thing, precise aerial bombardment with dumb projectiles is actually quite difficult and, frankly, not the sort of thing we saw Wild Dragons doing in series.
They are dumb relative to humans, they are still able to talk and actually form sentences, they are definitely sapient and that makes them MUCH smarter than any predator humans have dealt with.
In a relevant way? Or in a way that makes them faster to start avoiding humans?
 

The Unicorn

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...Dragons are flat out, not that fast. Even the fastest Dragons by the time of the series are not that fast. From Months to Weeks maybe... assuming you can get enough food en route.
The ones in the series are, if you want to argue that ancient ones were slower I'll grant the argument, but the point remains. The simple fact of having one person travel that distance safely and bring news of events would change things.
...You don't "Outrun" a tiger, or a wolf pack, or a lion pride.
Yes, you do. Not in a sprint, but humans are persistence hunters unlike tigers or lions. Wolves might manage to out run humans over long distance, not sure about that.

In a relevant way? Or in a way that makes them faster to start avoiding humans?
In a way to make them much more dangerous and able to attack vulneruble humans and their animals while avoiding any group of prepared hunters if those proved dangerous (which I find unlikely).
 

ShadowsOfParadox

Well-known member
The ones in the series are, if you want to argue that ancient ones were slower I'll grant the argument, but the point remains. The simple fact of having one person travel that distance safely and bring news of events would change things.
No, even the modern ones are not "Cover several thousand miles in a few days", unless your definition of "few days" is "about two weeks".
Yes, you do. Not in a sprint, but humans are persistence hunters unlike tigers or lions. Wolves might manage to out run humans over long distance, not sure about that.
Neither Tigers nor Lions hunt in a manner where a human could make use of that. Wolves absolutely could.
In a way to make them much more dangerous and able to attack vulneruble humans and their animals while avoiding any group of prepared hunters if those proved dangerous (which I find unlikely).
And then they face the same thing every predator that doesn't learn to avoid humans fast enough does. Humans are just better at that.
 

Bear Ribs

Well-known member
No, even the modern ones are not "Cover several thousand miles in a few days", unless your definition of "few days" is "about two weeks".
Temeraire is noted to travel about 35mph in the books, and is unusually fast for a heavyweight, but the lightweights and courierweights are vastly faster than any heavyweight. Dragons are also noted to be able to fly for several days straight before having to land to rest and eat.

Given that Rome to Beijing is about 5000 miles, Temeraire would be able to make the flight in about 142 hours, assuming 1 day to rest and the rest flying straight he'll do it in under a week. Volly's several times faster than Temeraire and said to be able to fly the entire length of England with only one wingflap, though that could just be idle boasting. But presuming Volly's merely double Temeraire's speed such a dragon would make it from Rome to Beijing in perhaps three days, and wild dragons are notably closer to Volly (who's one generation removed from a wild Grey Widowmaker) than Temeraire. It's not that unreasonable.

Whether they could carry enough cargo to be significant is another story but even messages would be huge.

And then they face the same thing every predator that doesn't learn to avoid humans fast enough does. Humans are just better at that.
Humans have precious little way to harm even a small dragon without gunpowder weaponry, and even against the lightweights that means cannon, not rifles. Humans with spears are most certainly not going to be just better than that. Add in the possibility of fire breath, acid spitting, poison, water jets, and other special powers and a dragon's a horrifying threat to primitive man. On top of that they're immune to pursuit predation (and better at it than humans given they can go for days), and can avoid all the tricks early humans used to defeat things like rhinos and elephants, such as pit traps and tricking them into running off cliffs. Most dangerous though, even wild dragons are social animals that run in groups and are shown to leverage individual skills and their high intelligence to the max. This negates the sole advantage early humans have left at this point, as they can't be easily ganged up on by packs, distracted without a mate spotting the threat, etc.

Literally every single trick early humans had to beat other predators is negated by one dragon ability or another.
 

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