I've just been thinking the past few days about the dragons of Dragon Booster. I'm sure the creators have not given it as much thought as most of us have, but still I read into things and ponder about the world filled with dragons.

One thing is the dragons are more mammalian than reptilian. They are warm-blooded, intelligent (to a point, I'll get to that later), have neither scales or fur, but something in between (my own theory. Shark-like skin would be painful to the human, soft scaling wouldn't protect, but hard scales would make it difficult for them to move. Hence the conclusion that they aren't truly scaled, but have skin that is something similar...), have vision like that of a hawk or falcon (the sideways eyes means that they can see about 260 degrees or so around them, but they focus best in front, and that's where their best vision is. Like a horse as well), and so on.

First I want to ponder the aging of the dragons. So far, besides Pax and Abandonn, we have seen no truly adult dragons. Or so I figure. Sort of. See, in my mind the dragons have two or three stages to their life. Kinda like a butterfly. The first it kithood, the second is adolesence, then adulthood. At adulthood (at the age of around 10-20) they become full adults and their bodies change and they become larger. Much larger.

Problem is if that people were to let the dragons age to maturity, they'd have a bunch of big stompy dragons going around, so they have been bred kind of like dogs. They never fully mature. Dogs live in a perpetual state of puppyhood, while wolves mature to full adult mentality when they reach the appropriate age. With the use of genetics and time, the humans of DB have bred the average dragon to stop growing at about seven years of age. At that age they are large enough to be useful, but not large enough (or smart enough) to be a problem. Connor/Dragon Priests, and Word obviously have dragons that have not been through this breeding process, and so have become full grown.

The problem is, is what dragons were they originally, if they aren't their own species all together. It could be led that Pax is a Magma-class, Star-class, or Prophet-class (?) dragon or maybe a mix. Abandonn could be said to be a Psi-class or...something.

To be honest, I think they are their own species. Ones kept back and held in...reserve...so to speak. Or in the case of Abandonn, maybe a mutation. My theory falls apart for them because they are not like any other dragon class in the show.

Still, my theory can still hold. I figure that from ages from birth to about three years old they are kits. Four to ten are adolescent. Dragon age more like horses then humans. Childhood is short lived (Fracshun would probably be three-four years old) while adolescense lasts longer. For most this is where aging stops. Beau is probably different, and so is Decepshun now most likely. I figure Beau and Decepshun to be around five to seven years old. About the same ages and mentality as their riders. This goes for Cyrano as well, and probably Wyldfyr, but he acts more mature than the others.

So if Beau is able to grow to full adulthood, what would he look like? I know that the little history clips show Beau being small...but at other times they show him being large. So which is he? The original DB was probably younger as well, Beau being the same.

I have a feeling the change is more profound in size, and not so much in shape. The growth would be quick, and probably somewhat painful for the dragon. Over the course of weeks the dragon would grow about three times his adolescent size, but in the end be far stronger and far more mature of mind.

Another question is how long do dragons live? I'm guessing anywhere from around fifty to eighty years. The bonding between dragon and human is a life-long one (to a point) and it would make sense that dragons would have the same average lifespan of a human.

Yep.

Okay, now for intelligence, which should be a much shorter ramble.

Dragons have been bred down from their original glory. Most are now little more than glorified horses. And for most of them their intelligence matches this scenario. Humans would not want dragons with the same amount of intelligence as them unless specifically bred for it. That's why Psi-class dragons are so hard to control. They can think, to a point. Kind of like a mustang or an independent cat or dog. They want to do what they want to do, not what you want them to do. So hence they are 'hard to control'.

But dragons do exist, and did exist, that have human intelligence, if not the ability to speak the human language. It's been proven that dragons have their own language, one probably known instinctively by the lower-bred dragons. The general gist of it would be, "Me like food. Give food." Beau on the other hand would speak in sentences such as, "I am hungry, please can I have some food?" Intelligence is one of the qualities that makes Beau a (or the) Dragon of Legend.

Because let's face it, most of the dragons are dumb as rocks. Yes, they are loyal, yes they care, but so does a dog. The intelligence of a dragon can be compared to a dogs actually. Beau is a like a wolf, far smarter, bigger brained, and does what it wants because he wants to. Cyrano is like a dog, loyal, faithful, but doesn't have the brains that the wolf possess'.

This may be partly because the dragons are bred to stay small, unable to mature, making them more stupid. In the past humans were equal to dragons, which means dragons had the same degree of intelligence. But the dragon/human war gave humans the ability dominate the dragons and change them, over time, into beasts of burden. Few have the intelligence to understand what is going on around them, much less act on it, unless led by another dragon. They understand the human language to a point, probably getting keywords, like a dog.

So...modern dragon in DB, equals a dog. Arf arf.

Uhm...to be honest I do have more to ramble on about...such as human and dragon bones, dragon coloring/class, dragon color/gear, and so on. But....honestly I'm tired of typing. Maybe another time...

Actually, in The Choosing Part 1, Connor directly says that Beau is sixteen, the same chronological age as Artha. And I think that the war dragons like T. Pax and Abandonn were the ones specifically bred.

I think the issue of dragon intelligence is probably more of an oversight on the part of the shows writers, but they may yet have legitimate reasons for the dragons to act the way they do.

I agree that, with the exception of Beau and recently Decepshun, most of the dragons seem to have dog-like intelligence and loyalty. It would also make sense for humans to breed them this way thus to control them. However it does state in the shows mythology that dragons were decieved by humans and thus bred away from the originalgold star form. This might explain why the dragons seem "dumbed down."

This might then suggest that the gold star dragons=intelligent dragons, and that breeding the dragons into different colors might somehow have had the effect of decreasing a dragon's intelligence. Of course some other dragons in the show seem to disprove this somewhat.

As for dragon maturity, I think they do live as long or possibly longer than humans. I'm not so sure that large dragons like Abandon, Trannis Pax, and the large prophets are neccesarily adult dragons. They seem to be more of a more ancient and larger form of the modern dragons that everyone seems to have. I could be wrong of course. ;)

So yeah, a few of my thoughts on the subject. :D

Well, don't forget that Rivett ((Yes, I quote him alot :wub: )) said something along the lines of "And Libris would not be there to stop them again", Ago, Libris is over 3,000 years old!
:blink: That just makes him all the cooler. :D

I can't help but wonder HOW Beau can be sixteen. He'd never be able to keep it a secret that long that...he...

Eh...never mind.

Still, dragons having the same aging rate as humans, while interesting, isn't...possible...almost. I mean, then almost all the dragons we see are young. Well we knew that anyway....but...

Gah....the world of DB makes no sense to my world-creating mind!! *cry*

As for Libris....I have a feeling that grey dragons are totally different than any other species of dragon. I mean, they have an exo-skeleton of sorts....

And that's why they're cool!!! :lol:

But yeah. It would be kinda hard for Beau to stay secret for 16 years unless he was soooooooooooo sheltered that..... woah. :blink:

1. Libris isn't a typical Grey dragon. he'd been, as Rivett put it, altered using black draconium.

2. Chromoshifters can work wonders. It would seem that any dragon can get any paintjob with a skilled enough 'dragon artist'. Thus, they probably painted Beau a different scheme for most of his life.

I would argue against the third growing period. Or rather, qualify it.

Dragons are sentient and loyal, they are social animals. If you have a bunch of giants stomping around it's hard to be social, hell it would hard to be in groups, period.

Dragons are omnivores, and probably primarily carnivores (predetors are smarter than prey animals). Add in over large size, how are you going to feed one let alone several of them? They already have to move around alot to feed themselves (young dragons seem to be fully mobile after hatching, dragons run at over a 100 miles per hour, orginal gold dragons are equally adept in the air as on the ground and presumably in water--for what other reason than they have a huge and varried migratory pattern?)

What's more likely the growth can be triggered later in life by eating something (high in draconium and gorging on it so the body knows the growth will be supported instead of killing the body), or done consiously.

And, I have a disturbing reasoning for dragons to be stupid. One they probably learn only from their parents, two, it is cannon there are ways to speed up dragon aging proccess.

The latter is disturbing, why? Because you concivably have a bunch of three year olds in 17 year old bodies out on the tracks. No wonder why they don't show personality and Beau wins, of course he out smarts them.

And of course, they might actually be breeding these children-in-adult bodies, which is just plain squicky. 4 year olds teaching a nestling how to talk and reason...no, just no...

*shakes head* I don't believe chromoshifters could do diddly squat to Beau. Not because it couldn't change his color, but because Beau is a unique dragon, different in shape compared to every single type of dragon we've seen.

Ignoring the fact that no one seems to notice in the show, we aren't stupid enough to 'fall for it', hence that reasoning just doesn't work.

Instead he'd had have to kept Beau down in the Dragon Priest Temple, which was most likely.

I still don't think dragons age at the same rate as humans though...it just isn't logical...

Well most living creatures follow a common growth pattern. They mature fast in youth and then slow after physical maturity. Comepare a one year old to a two year old and a nineteen and twenty year old

I'm more under the impression that dragons grow more slowly. I guess they'd have to grow quickly when they're younger, as Beau is sixteen or whatever. But to get to such a huge size (like T. Pax or Abanndon) I think that would take longer. As they get bigger they're going to need more food to sustain themselves and an even greater amount to grow larger. So, I suppose I'd say that when dragons reach the size we normally see, they're growth slows right down. For all we know T. Pax and Abanndon took hundreds of years to get so big.

But anyway, yes, huge dragons stomping around would be a bit of a problem for humans, so just to raise a few questions:

1)What do humans do when they're dragon gets to big?
2)Do dragons even get the chance to get so big? Or perhaps do they just have such a crappy diet that they don't get enough stuff to let them grow any larger? Or is it just plain crappy and they die before they're supposed to?
3)If your dragon gets too big, or starts stomping way too much, what do you do with it? Do they put down dragons that start getting to be a nuisence?

Intelligence wise, I think most of they're percieved stupidity is just from lack of time/care to write them other than pretty horses. Personally, I'd like to go with something that, yeah, dragons are still at least more intelligent than a smart doggy (although perhaps not as smart as before, not sure about that), perhaps it's more that dragons have been bred as well, human transport/racing whatever (although they do seem rather well looked after transport) and being bred/raised like that, they don't question it. That, in itself, would also make a nice platform for another dragon/human war. It'd be no good if one side was just dumb and cranky. B)

Anyway, that's my brain dump...

My take has been that dragons grow and mature at a similar rate to humans. And as has been mentioned above, in episode 1 they tell us that Beau 16, and the fact that they made him the same age as Artha I think points out a similar life span.

And like people, I think the implication is that dragons stop growing in their late teenage years. Giant dragons are very rare, so that means the typical dragon never gets that big. Dragon City is only set up to handle the size dragons we typically see (as far as the size of the drag-ways and such), so I have to assume that the dragons we normally see running around are the typical adult size.

The unknown question is how old are the giant dragons. From what I've read, paleontologists believe that the really big dinosaurs had life spans of between 50 and 100 years. If they're right about that, then that means it easily possible for a creature to become a giant within a human life span. So our friend T. Pax along with Abandonn and the two giant orange dragons we saw in the Prophets crew could be just a little older than Connor and Word. Or they could be ancient. I haven't seen anything to tell us yet.

Libris could be different if Rivett is telling us the truth. If Libris was really around for the first war 3000 years ago, then gray dragons may just normally have really long life spans. It's kind of implied that gray draconium is pretty powerful, and perhaps it extends the life of those dragons as well. So I don't think it's necessarily the case that all giant dragons are ancient. And if Rivett is lying, then maybe none are.

On dragon intelligence, according to the "Ultimate Scrapbook", dragons are as intelligent as people, though most of them certainly don't seem that way in the show. I think they are supposed to be equally intelligent even though many of the scripts are written to downplay the dragons in favor of the human characters. After all, if dragons only have dog or horse level intelligence, then there could never be a dragon-human war.

And of course, the prime example of dragon intelligence is Propheci. He clearly thinks and reasons (and plots) the same way a human would, and he has no trouble expressing himself coherently through his rider. Propheci can't be a one-of-a-kind dragon because the Prophets crew could never have gotten started unless just about all the orange dragons were that intelligent. There was also that other orange dragon in "Prophet's Motive" that defected from Propheci and joined the other side. Something like that could never happen if dragons only had limited ability to think and reason.

Of course, the thing that doesn't fit is that despite their presumed intelligence, the dragons don't seem to make much effort to communicate with humans, nor even with each other. My guess is that the creators of the show probably thought talking dragons would look corny (which it can) and/or it wasn't necessary for the story they wanted to tell. But in reality, I think any sentient creature would want to communicate. Judging from human history, written language appears to be optional since the Hawaiians, for example, never had a written language until the missionaries showed up and created one, but verbal language is universal. So you would expect dragons to want to communicate in some way. Propheci certainly has a lot to say and you'd expect other dragons would as well. :)