Earth Bond

[SYED]

Does it count as innate magics, if they need objects or tools to actually use them.

Would the chromatic wipe the memories of other dragons, so that earth dragons would no longer have magic.

Before the need for spies, he fact they couldnt fly, practically imprisoned them on the island, if there were no earth draco, who would run the farms.

[Fel]

Before the need for spies, he fact they couldnt fly, practically imprisoned them on the island, if there were no earth draco, who would run the farms.

And THAT is what becomes a core issue as the plot develops.

The other dragons feel that the earth dragons are inferior...yet they are in fact completely dependent upon them for most of their food.

As the chromatics scheme to strip the earth dragons of the very real political and social power they've gained in the last 50 years, and anger the entire earth dragon population, that core conundrum rears its ugly head.

When you piss off the ones that feed you, ones that don't need YOU as much as you need THEM...just exactly how do you eat?

[Hearly]

Before the need for spies, he fact they couldnt fly, practically imprisoned them on the island, if there were no earth draco, who would run the farms.

And THAT is what becomes a core issue as the plot develops.

The other dragons feel that the earth dragons are inferior...yet they are in fact completely dependent upon them for most of their food.

As the chromatics scheme to strip the earth dragons of the very real political and social power they've gained in the last 50 years, and anger the entire earth dragon population, that core conundrum rears its ugly head.

When you piss off the ones that feed you, ones that don't need YOU as much as you need THEM...just exactly how do you eat?

Eat the Earth Dragons if you can kill one....

[SYED]

Is any one else think that there will be some inter racial dragon romances, sure they wont be able to have kids, but when has that ever stopped two people from being together?

Due to the high land dragons out numbering the low landers, the votes will stay 5 to 4. The only dragons that they have a realistic chance of convincing are the sky dragons. Both the water and air dragons get to go out into the world, but are restricted and constrained by hiding from humans. water dragons would be able to explore all the world oceans, while the skies would be limitless to the AD. It has been said air dragons are vain, so they would love to show off right, to put on displays at air shows, be on television, to have the crowds cheer in amazement. Air dragons could reach the summit of every mountain in the world.

THere is alot of advanced tech that is possible according to out sciences, materials and ability, we just havent figured out a way to make it work properly. THe earth dragons seem the type to find such technical problems, and figure out solutions. Due to their shortage of resources, they likly have found a way to solve the issues with renewable energy sources, and large scale recycling. Their tech design, while not ultimate dragon secret sould be enougfh to cause whole corparation in to going after them to suppres the tech.

[Rakkel]

Hello all, I'm a long time lurker who decided that this was too good an opportunity to pass up and finally joined

As I was reading, I was thinking of possible other names (since this is possibly a temporary name) and the only things that came in to mind were...
1 the original- "Earth Bond"
2 close to current- "Earth Born"
3 similar, kinda hippy sounding- "Gaia's Children" (since I assume humans to be the product of the earth as well...)
4 your other story- "Draconian Measures" (it almost seems like the old story was a draft of this one)
5 depending on how far the war goes- "The Techno-Magi War Chronicles"/"The Dragon War Chronicles"/"The Drako War Chronicles"

6 or you could just name it "Crack for Fel Readers" and be completely honest about the thing.

It also depends on how far you want to take the story Fel, if it is a single story, or going to be (hopefully) a series. The name if it is going to be a single story would have to be all-encompassing, while the name for one of a series would be a little more free-form (like your other main stories are).

Another great read from the master!

[SYED]

Viva La revolution!

Great up date, the beginning of a new era for dragons every where.

Who else hopes Kell and Kammi end up togethere, they are almost living together, would be a simple transition. I think his mom or ferroth will be attempting some match making quite soon.

So the head of the department has access to magic even ED can use. Wanna bet quite a few odds and ends from the department will be relocated or reassigned in all this chaotic changes happening in the building. Some of the talismans are sure to be officially locked up in the building, once its closed, but used else where. Also, if they need more magical items, if the fire and sky dragons have worked for the chromatic, then they are likly been givern tools to do their assigned jobs. If chromatic can make magical protections against ED, could they not bind similar enchantments to objects.

The island used to be a volcano, and has had dragons living on it for over a millenium, so who wants to bet there are quite a few tunnels located on it, both officially and unofficially. The highland dragons, still live in caves and tunnels, but I wonder have they been fully explored, especially the smaller ones. Say Kell got his claws on a hider talisman, which allows him to take an almost human size form, I wonder what holes or knooks, he would be able to fit and sneak in.
So extensive digging every where, I wonder if they will Ward the underground Santuries just incase. If a dragon scrys an area in pitch black darkness, could they actually see any thing, or are they stuck like when their targets speak english. The lave tubes could easily be cleared out and worked on. Sewers and other utility tunnels can be used to ship dirt, so no one notices the building and excavations..

So the Navy is on the move, They have a general location for the island. If the island is hidden, they should examine the currents and tides looking for an anomoly. Also, all the industry on the island , it must leave a chemical trace on the air. Dragons are sure to know the island exact location, I wonder if they could use satelites to keep watch of dragon movement on both the surface and the skies. I wonder if seal teams could sneak needed goods into the flooded lava tubes at night.
The magical protections on the island are aimed at magic spying, and dragonn abilities. So i wonder if parabolic telescopes, and other such devices will allow for them to be spied upon. Claim some of the spy tech, is simply volcano watching gear, but sensitive enough to spy on surrounding dragons. Slowly cause tech issues all owver the island, so bugs can be planted. those incharge may be really secretive, but i bet the the grunts talk alot.
Such a great increase in the need for food will mean that there should be some impact on the oceon sealife, so could be found from that.

Fire Dragonss are immune to fire, so I guess lava and magma are not so much an issue, its just something they have to learn to swim through. So there may yet be trouble from the vulcano.

Currently the island runs on geothermal power, but the coucil is sure to eventually shut that down. So I was just remembering, there does happen to be two sunken Subs with nuclear material, the earth dragons are reaaly great at tech, so I wonder with that much material, could they make a better nuclear reactor. Their factory produces fumes and smoke, so pipe it close to the volcano, so that it mixes with that smake and no one will be the wiser.

[Rakkel]

As far as K&K is concerned, it would make a lot of sense...they have similar interests.

The question would be how much the Chromes would be willing to allow others to use their objects...and keep them. The whole secret society aspect seems to preclude using the Fire and Sky dragons as anything but pawns right now, and that would seem to indicate a relative lack of magical objects for those dragons.

The highland dragons would explore the caves that they reside in, if only as a means knowing the extent of their lairs. Having said that, it would be entirely possible to come into the lair from a new tunnel, and some sensors to map the caves would help the Earths in raiding the other dragon's layers
A better question along those same lines is if the food stores for the whole island are guarded by Chrome magic. If they are not, then it would be simple to go in and try to destroy it, if they are, then the question would revolve to if the entirety of the building was warded, or if the Chromes did not ward the bottom, only the entrances

Agree on the Naval finding of the dragons, I see Chromes going haywire at the first Human plane
I would think that the water dragons would be able to beat at least optical sensing by using their magic to warp the water around them. Though that would give them away to other forms...

As to the geothermal, I see the Earth Dragons digging down to create another geothermal plant near some lava pockets...I don't know the manner in which the plants work, but seems to me that putting water near the pockets could heat it up enough to produce steam...natural steam engine

A big question will be which way the Water dragons move...The pod that is friendly with Kell's family is a given, but considering that the one who gave the Chromatic Dragon his alibi was a Water leads to some interesting questions

It will be interesting if the Earth dragons escape what the Chrome dragons do to replace them...I don't see the fire dragons taking it too well ^.^

And the issue of human magic will be interesting...Do humans still have actual magic (if they had any in the first place)? Do they work on it to fight the chromes? Do the Chromes try to teach magic/bring over magicians in order to bolster their numbers? Ah, the possibilities...

[SYED]

The dragons would make some magical artifacts, so they can send their "servants" to do work they would have to carry out with magic. They were likly needed to help ensure island security. They were likly proof of magical ability, must be impressive if they can make magic crystals or talismans.
All the other races are generally larger than the earth ones. So there is a small tunnel that dead ends in a cave at the back, why would they care. Using careful digging and a hider talisman they could potentially sneak into other caves.

Sure dragons have hiddenn themselves from moden sensors, but mainly they avoid humans. Can they actually hide now humans have specifics to search upon?

ED are great at tech, could they make a better nucleur reactor. Can they destroy a geothermal power plant or would it just be shut down. Can you actually tell if the plant was shut down from the outsde. could they make do with tidal or wave power.

Sky dragons may get animal, and be able to hide but will need alot of them to be really effective. fire dragons cant be sent, they would fight with farmers, likly to have guns will hurt. chromes would never lower themselves to getting food, thar is for the servants.

I wonder how being located will mess with the master plan. They might even need to increase the department size due to humans being able to find them, so keep watch on the military and others. may buy them time to build themselves a better sanctuary. There all sorts of underwater habitat designs out there, i wonder if that would ber the next ED project.

Once they home is located can the Ed ask the council that they and the water dragons salvage as much material from the oceons, metal and so forth and complete the island inferstructure. They have never been able to large scale salvage before.

[pfors]

A few small things concerning water and pressure that bugged me:

In chapter 5: "the body fizzing like a carbonated soda as suspended air in the blood was wrung out of it like a wet rag"
Water can actually dissolve more gas at higher pressure (the reason the soda fizzes is because the pressure drops when you open it). So the "fizzing" is actually a problem when going the other way too quickly, with the blood having dissolved more gas than it can hold when the pressure drops.

In chapter 6: "The air bubble did allow him to breathe, but that far down, the water pressure all but smacked the air out of his lungs if he tried, which required Surral to further use water magic to ease the pressure so his chest could expand."
Unless Surral is wasting his magic on keeping the pressure in the bubble lower than the surrounding water this shouldn't be a problem. The air he's breathing is at the same (actually slightly higher due to the curvature of the bubble) pressure as the water around him.

Also in chapter 6: It says in several places that steam is the same as a hot cloud. Steam is vapor while a cloud is liquid water in small droplets. So yes, heating the cloud turns it into steam, in the same way as heating an ice sculpture or an ocean will turn it to steam but I'd hesitate to say they're the same thing. Not saying that the sky dragons shouldn't be able to manipulate it, but I believe they'd agree with me that steam is very different from clouds.

[Weresmilodon]

Fel, you need to take a second look at the beginning of the chapter. The explanation repeats so much my mind starts to filter it out, sort of like trying to read the same sentence multiple times in a row. I understand that repeating something might be good to ensure it's being taken in, but going overboard is possibly worse.

Other then that, all i can say is: nice. The more i see, the more i want to see.

[GBLW]

[quote="pfors"
Also in chapter 6: It says in several places that steam is the same as a hot cloud. Steam is vapor while a cloud is liquid water in small droplets. So yes, heating the cloud turns it into steam, in the same way as heating an ice sculpture or an ocean will turn it to steam but I'd hesitate to say they're the same thing. Not saying that the sky dragons shouldn't be able to manipulate it, but I believe they'd agree with me that steam is very different from clouds.[/quote]

Actually at the pressures needed to power a turbine, steam acts as a gas, which means pressure equalizes throughout any vessel which contains it. So unless there was some form of backflow valve in the feed line to the turbine, the pressure would be equal throughout the system and could have been detected. However if the steam was influenced once it was inside the turbine it could very well be a different matter because of the way the entering steam is directed toward the turbine blades - that restriction could very well act something like a backflow valve of sorts. I was trained as a steam engineer and even at that I'd have to do some math using Fel's exact wording to see if superheating the steam would produce the results he describes, but I'm not going to bother - after all this is a fictional story and the author is the final judge of what his materials do in his universe, so I'll accept his words as canon!
However on a side note, the easiest way to 'kill' a steam turbine is to feed it with steam cool enough to condense into water droplets. The water doesn't settle on the rotating turbine blades evenly, which throws the turbine out of balance and starts a vibration which can cause all sorts of havoc - shattering blades, shafts and bearings almost instantaneously.
(One of my hobbies (when I was younger) was building miniature steam engines and my foster son built a miniature steam turbine, then had a 'friend' blow it up on him by letting water creep into the steam feed.)

kp

[expedient]

Just thinking through what the earth dragons might eventually trade with the humans:

General List of things the Earth Dragons could barter with humans

• Super sized vegetable seeds / starter crops
• Farming techniques
• Horticulture knowledge
• Unique software
• Advanced programming / hacking techniques
• Manufacturing innovations
• Technology innovations
• Construction / tunneling skills
• Construction techniques

More specific starter list

• Large display tech
• Translation software
• Processor improvements
• Scrubbers

[SYED]

What really be cool if the ED helps hunts down internet predators? GUy goes to park thinking he's going to get a new toy, giant lizard comes out of the ground and gives him a great deal of smack down.

SO the church is the reason why the Dragons had to go into hiding. THe catholic church has vaults of artifacts gathered or taken over the years, I wonder if they have any magic gear or texts. I wonder if humans found a way to give ED magic in their explorations.

I wonder if the food deliveries will get trackers to lead to the island. They do kknow some things about the situation so may send some gifted supplies.

Can you make tidal or wave power generators deep under water?

Say the sky dragon start stealing cattle? the island could gett indicted by the fleet. could the sky dragons hunt enough to feed 3 species of dragon.

Does anyone else think that one of the Fire Dragons might not be fully behind the plan, or not informed? If they view that that any one that is beaten by an earth dragon, deserved it. ALso apparently they enjoy television and sports, so why would they care earth dragons are all about building and making. So long as they have their television violence and food, they seem to be content.

With that sky dragon dead, will the one that disappeared come back, they do inherit the possition, so if he comes back, who is there to stop him.

[Spec8472]

Can you make tidal or wave power generators deep under water?

Potentially. It might be possible to harness the major conveyor belt currents: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermohaline_circulation
However as I understand it (someone with better electrical engineering knowledge than I can check) - shoving high voltage through undersea cables of any significant length is far more difficult and problem prone than the above-ground power networks we have. Something to do with the water acting as a giant resistor as I recall.

I don't know, however, if they're close enough to the currents to make it feasible.
The most appropriate locations for underwater power generation are areas where the land narrows the path of a current, forcing it to speed up. Eg around Indonesia.

The island itself was about as remote as remote could get, deep in a void of empty trackless ocean in the South Pacific, nearly a thousand miles south of Hawaii, the closest land to it. It was a volcanic island about the size of Guam, with a subtropical climate, fertile soil, and rich seas that supported the dragons completely.

The description would need to modified to south-west, as if you go directly south 'nearly a thousand miles' you end up a lot closer to Kiribati than Hawaii. So, South-West about a thousand miles ends you up somewhere near the Mahi Mahi Fracture Zone.

Aproximate Location of Draconia

Given it's a volcanic island, it doesn't take too much hand-wavey to say that'd be an appropriate location.

[Fel]

Actually, if I remember my electrical engineering, it's not that the water acts as a giant resistor. It would be the other way around. An undersea cable would act like a giant capacitor.

The definition of a capacitor is "two areas of conductance separated by an insulator." Given that seawater is a conductor, that would turn an undersea cable into one massive capacitor, and that causes the charge to build up along the plate rather than flow. That would effectively stop the conductance of current along the cable.

The solution is in the equation for capacitance, and that would be to isolate the undersea cable by putting as much physical distance as possible between it and the seawater (distance affects capacitance), as well as to put a grounded shield between it and the seawater, much as what exists in a coaxial cable, to counter the capacitive effect between the power cable and the seawater.