Info dump: Interspecies communications and relations. Also airbases.
Can we speak Leviathan?
"Speak" and "understand" are not the same things, and in the case of leviathan, "speak" is perhaps not the correct concept in the first place. Some background may be in order.
Communication of one form or another is possible between nearly all creatures, limited typically only by biology and intelligence. And in most cases, communication occurs over multiple mediums. A human might claim that their 'speech' is purely verbal, but this is not so. Very much human communication occurs via body language, for example. Even an entirely silent human can communicate a great deal simply by the shape of their eyes and mouth, and the tone of their speech can entirely change the meaning of their words. "Speak" is only but one portion of communication.
Birds, for example, communicate primarily via song and body language. Their body language can be learned through observation, and you would surely recognize a mating dance or a 'get away' flap of the wings, but it's very unlikely that a bird would stick around very long if you attempted to duplicate those motions. As for their song, in most cases it is not capable of communicating complex ideas as is the speech of humans or dolphins. Instead, there are a number of general 'themes' that once known, can be communicated via freeform singing. Singing that yes, is easy for a dragon who knows the themes to reproduce. "Danger, stay away" "come fly with us" "I seek a mate" "this is mine, you can't have it" etc. are not each unique melodies, but rather, are general patterns that can be played with and reproduced in a variety of ways. Doing so is not particularly difficult. Even a human could probably learn to whistle the themes sufficiently well enough, if they could overcome their disbelief that such a thing was possible and find a bird willing to cooperate.
Willingness, however, is only one of the difficulties with interspecies communication. Very often there exist asymmetries. For example, it is very easy for a dragon to smell/read ant trails. The encoding is very basic, and most hatchlings pick up on it without even intending to. But for a dragon to communicate to an ant via scent is completely impractical due to relative sizes. Even a hatchling is many orders of magnitude too large to create a proper ant trail, and our scent glands are not well suited to depositing scents on surfaces, besides.
A somewhat unique example of asymmetrical capability would of course be the the case of communication with dolphins, for whom communication occurs on three levels. Body language, which is not impossible to understand, but terribly difficult for a dragon to reproduce for reasons of mismatched physiology. Simple clicks and whistles, which a dragon can both hear and duplicate. Though the clicks are somewhat more difficult than the whistles. And the third form, which is entirely intuitive once you understand it, but impractical for a dragon to reproduce, takes the form of a sort of visual/spatial representation of objects using sound as a shape medium. It relates to their echolocation, which while dragons also use, typically via clicking tongue or teeth, in the case of dolphins they are able to tonally reproduce the result of what an echolocation "ping" upon an object in the water would sound/appear like, and are thus able to send "pictures" to one another. Understanding of this form of communication is completely intuitive once you realize that it occurs, but we dragons lack the physiology to reproduce it. Dragons echolocate via tooth or tongue clicking, and while we can easily speak the songs of birds and whistles of dolphins, that method of sound generation is unable to produce the complex two-dimensional "image/shape" produced by a dolphin. In any case, it is a highly directional form of communication. A dolphin must be facing the listener to communicate in pictures, unlike their whistles which propagate in every direction through the water.
As for dragons, while there is some minimal body language communication, the majority of native dragon communication is equal parts sound and scent. While very few creatures have the glands necessary to create the required scents, it's very common for a wide variety of creatures to learn to understand it at least to some extent. Most birds and woodland creatures will tend to intuitively pick up the more basic scent signals. This has always made it easy to keep the area surrounding your lair free of vermin, for example. You simply command via scent, for them to stay away. They do. Though the full form of dragon scent communication is capable of more more complexity than any non-dragon you've ever known has been able to understand. As for the tonal element, dragon "speech" if you will, the sounds themselves are not particularly difficult to reproduce, with many creatures such as birds, dolphins, rats and others being physically capable of both hearing and reproducing them. But physiological capability is generally insufficient, and you've found it to be extremely rare for any creature to be all three of capable, intelligent enough, and
willing to attempt to communicate via the tongue of dragons. A few dolphins, the odd raven and on one occasion, a rat who shared your lair for a time were able to learn enough to communicate a least a few ideas via the auditory portion of dragon speech. Though in the case of ravens and the rat, intelligence was clearly a limiting factor. With dolphins, intelligence seems not be the limiting factor so much as their unwillingness to have anything to do with you. Humans, meanwhile, are inconvenienced by complete inability to hear and reproduce the required tones, as well as a severe difference in time sense. In the time it takes for a human to introduce himself, a dragon could deliver a sonnet, if they were of a mind to compose such.
Leviathan?
Levathian, like dolphins, are an unique case. Leviathan do not 'speak' in a vocal manner like humans or birds or dragons. Their song is mere byproduct of their native communication, which takes the form of a mutually shared awareness. It is possible for a dragon to share into this awareness, but lack of familiar bases of comparison have generally made understanding the experience difficult. Additionally, by nature of the format, for you to share into their awareness, they necessarily are aware of your presence in their experience, and typically react by becoming metaphorically silent. Your experience of attempting to communicate with leviathan in their native manner has typically been very much like looking into a mirror with your mind's eye, feeling a collective presence looking impassively back at you from all directions, with no great sense of thought or emotion. Rather, you would describe it as
watching and waiting patiently.
And so, to answer the original question:
Can we speak Leviathan?
You are reasonably confidant that you could communicate
to the leviathan. In fact, previous experience suggests that communication would occur through simple proximity whether or not you intended it. Much like a rat
knows that is being stalked by a cat whether or not the cat deliberately intends the rat to understand that intent, so too do leviathan seem to
know your intent despite no intention on your part to communicate it. Your impression is that through whatever medium this communication occurs, reasonably more complex ideas than "I'm going to eat you" could also be communicated, though they have never cooperated in your attempts to test that.
Similarly, never have your experience with them given you any indication that even if you could "speak" to them, that they both could and would choose to "speak" back to you.
Do we know of any Half-Dragons before?
Not personally, no. But during your youth, back when you remained in contact with other dragons there were...not "tales" exactly. Dragons don't tell stories. But there was an understanding shared of the
idea of half-dragons. The idea was that there had once been a dragon who found the daughters of men pleasing and desirable. He sought to possess them for himself and convinced a large portion of all of dragonkind to join him in their possession. The offspring were generally somewhat human-like, but considerably larger. Those offspring as well as their fathers and mothers alike met with a watery doom.
You've never pondered very deeply into the mechanics such a thing might require.
maybe we should just ask Sophie about human governance and response to dragons
:
"SOPHIE."
:
"Yes?":
"YOUR QUEEN, AND THOSE OF OTHERS. HOW WILL THEY WHO LEAD YOUR PEOPLE REACT, ONCE THEY COME TO KNOW THAT I AM?":
"Ha!" she laughs.
"Probably half will be racing to put you on the tellie, and the other half will either be worshiping you or trying to kill you.":
"TELLIE.":
"Television. It's like my phone but with video too. Here, let me show you."She paws and taps at her phone, then waits, and taps it some more.
:
"Just give it a moment. Ok, here we go."She points the phone to you. It depicts a scene in motion. There is a metal-looking contraption that resembles the helicopter, but with flashing blue lights and the words 'London Ambulance' and 'NHS' on it. To the right are several humans walking towards you. Then, a woman you do not see in the scene begins speaking.
:
"What begins as a 'Merry' Christmas for some can turn into one they'd rather forget. Here in the party capitol of London, paramedics are dealing with their busiest time of year."You watch as people discuss and demonstrate the handling of incapacitated humans, and a 'bus' that ferries them around on land, much as the helicopter ferries them through the air. It concludes with more commentary from the female speaker:
:
"On this final weekend before Christmas, all emergency service staff are out in force, to give a helping hand to those who may have had one too many. Liz Lane, Sky news."The 1:18 news clipSophie sighs.
:
"Wish that was me right now all pissed up. Half worried it is, and you're just just me sleeping it off somewhere."She shakes her head.and smiles. Then hugs herself with both arms and cries.
:
"THE EVENT THAT WE JUST WITNESSED. WHAT WAS IT?":
"Just a news broadcast about people having a good time on the holidays. Some get carried away.":
"WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH YOUR CELEBRATION OF THE DEATH OF THE CHRIST?":
"What?" she laughs.
"What are you even talking about?:
"THE WOMEN SPEAKER IN THE VIDEO SPOKE OF CHRIST'S MASS BEING ONE SOME WOULD RATHER FORGET.":
"Christmas. It's a holiday, love, remember? Doesn't have much to do with the whole religion thing anymore. More about presents under the tree now. Crackers at the table and stockings on your bed.":
"AND SOME REGRET THIS HOLY DAY?":
"Just too much drinking is all. Or not enough, I suppose.":
"THESE THINGS OF WHICH YOU SPEAK WERE NOT SHOWN ON YOUR PHONE. WHY WOULD IT SHOW US THIS?"She sighs.
:
"It was a news broadcast. A public service announcement reminding people not to make twits of themselves.":
"WHAT IS REQUIRED TO SHOW THINGS AS THEY DID IN THIS BROADCAST?":
"To make a video? Nothing much," she shrugs, then points the phone at you.
"Here you go. Watch the birdie!"There is no bird anywhere nearby, but you gather that she means for you to look at her phone. After a brief moment, she turns it around and shows you...you. It is not a still image. The phone depicts you looking at it, the motions of your eyes and the sound of the air around you. Some of them anyway. It seems to have copied only a very small portion of the cacophony of noise around you.
:
"AND YOU ARE ABLE TO SEND THIS VIDEO TO ANYONE, ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD AS EASILY AS SPEECH?":
"More or less," she shrugs.
The human from the news broadcast was reminding people to not drink to excess. Clearly it was a message intended for the masses, not only a select few. Your pet just now took a video of you. Every indication is that these devices are abundant and common. It is possible that every human has one, and therefore has the ability to send video of you to any or perhaps every other human in the world. It is extremely likely that all humans, everywhere, will soon know about you. Assuming they don't already.
There will be no long delays while village elders attempt to convince their lord that a village was burned, no long marching of armies to your lair, no flying over the heads of soldiers to raze their homes without their knowledge. Communication and response will be swift.
Humans have changed. And with them, the world.
Tracking the "jets" back to their base
+1 to tracking jets
Sophie have that thing in her glowing box that shows map of anywhere on the world, right? So why can't we have her show us if there's any of those Jet's Nests nearby?
:
"THE JETS. IS YOUR DEVICE ABLE TO TELL ME FROM WHENCE THEY CAME?":
"Probably." She pushes at her phone.
"Nearest RAF base is St. Mawgen in Cornwall. 'bout 135 kilometers south of here. Next closest is Risington, near home.":
"SHOW ME.":
"St. Mawgen? here you go."
You know that distance. You've flown it before. Communication and response was swift.
What do you do?
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Topic: You are a dragon awakening from slumber, the suggestion game, Update #18 Huzzah! (Read 21891 times)