Once again you surprise me with your deep threaded words.

I'm glad you enjoyed it ^.=.^

One of the best story I read here *-*

I'm flattered, thank you ^.=.^

Your stories have taken an interesting turn for the light and soft side.

Despite how it sometimes seems, Merinith is a fully fleshed dragon in my mind... due to the... slightly vore skewed nature of my showings of him, he has come across very harsh... So, I thought it was about time I showed a little bit of him while he's not hunting, show his softer side, because he is a gentle dragon at heart...

Great writing, but from everything I have read now on Merinith, he still doesn't seem as 'nice' as you would have us believe. In the previous story, we watched him and his son essentially wipe out a whole village (less a couple of kids) off the face of the earth. Is this the way a nice dragon handles the problem of human overpopulation? I think if he had bothered to ask the humans in his domain, everyone on "the island" would gladly agree to have only one kid, instead of being the unlucky village that was going to become dragon food that week. The problem is that Merinith really doesn't have to eat innocent unlucky people to survive. Everyone would be much happier to raise pigs to feed Merinith (or something similar in this world), but if he HAD to eat people, why not let the humans pick them? Let him eat the criminal scum of the island that deserve it, not unlucky people or whole villages as we saw in the last story.

Telling his human artist friend that he will probably eat his sister is downright cruel and completely unneccesary.. If he's starving, just eat some rich guy's horse instead, or barring that, some old guy already near the end of his life..

It least with Merinith's son, people know what to expect. With Merinith, we see him shedding 'crocodile tears' because he 'had' to eat a village, when there are far more humane ways to handle the situation if he REALLY doesn't like eating people. As Shakespeare would say, "The dragon doth protest too much, methinks." I think a psychiatrist would think Merinith some kind of split personality psychopath from what we know of hims so far -- gobbling up whole villages and then feeling bad that he 'had' to do it, when there are FAR more humane ways of handling both the overpopulation problems and his enormous dragon's appetite.

But an entertaining read, and thanks for sharing this.

Getting the impression you just dislike his work in general. Not once have I seen anything positive, insightful or encouraging stem from any of your comments relating to his additions.

Then you've got the audacity to complain/debate/argue that his works don't quite agree with your psychological frame of mind or stem of perspective. If you dislike what you read, why bother to read, he's not posting to amuse or entertain only you.

Not true. I have complimented him many times on the quality of the writing itself, but merely pointing out what I see as 'holes' in some of the stories. I believe I have made some valid points here as well. I read these stories because the writing itslef is good and the subject is 'dragons'. If someting doesn't make sense to me I say so. It is no help to the writer to simply say 'everything is perfect'.

Ever considered development? Growth? Personalities alter, develop.

I doubt you receive much of what Drake tries to get through to you when he does rise to explain or elaborate the reasons.

Merinith wanted to see his son feed/hunt, curious as to the development and spreading rumors of his son. Leon only cared for consuming, little of the villages or lives he would take, so Merinith had to place an exception to his rules, if only to sample what his son's habits flowed like. He is not a cruel dragon, compassionate persona about him, unpredictable yes. They took the entire village because he didn't want news to spread of the feast, lest his dinings became seen as feral deliberate attacks and people live in fear of his shadow instead of awe. Why else would he erase the female's memory of the incident, and spare the children?

As to this tale, I could sense Merinith being wracked with indecision, his hunt likely went poorly because his thoughts were more focused on the female and what she could bring about.

What defines a dragon in your eye, seeing as you've emphasized it in quotation marks?

Allow me to do this in list form to save time. The village was a one off, and Fallenpoet's perception of why it happened at all in his last comment is quite right, he was nervous about his son, so wished to see exactly how his son hunts.
Next, if you think humans would ever elect to cut their populations to one child per couple, you have not understood this world, or humans one bit. Humans have never accepted that sort of population control, this is not an era where any sort of birth control goes beyond pulling out... disease, as mentioned in this story, does much more damage than dragon hunting, people need to have several children to even have one, bottom line, people would never, not even if a dragon asked, do something like that. It didn't work in our society, a single individual with no access to homes, who can't have eyes everywhere at once is not going to be able to enforce it any more so than in our reality.
Therefore, he needs to be the population control humans never had in our reality, it's part of being a predator, and though I gather it's not your field, it's how ecosystems work, on this island, Merinith seeks to make humans an actual part of the ecosystem, not a plague, and that means they need barriers to their growth, hence no farming, hence hunting of them.
Next allow me to go through the way of sacrifices as you're suggesting... firstly, these are small communities... what criminals? On the rare case of such law breakers, they are exiled, and will be eaten but that isn't nearly enough. Sacrifices don't work in the way Merinith would prefer... sacrifices mean people lose friends and family regularly, and quite specifically, they know for sure which dragon did it, which allows resentment to breed, next, it comes to how the sacrifice is chosen? The less useful people in the settlement? That would cause anarchy, each person having to count till it was them who was bottom... random draws? Well, that's like hunting, but even worse, and it easily corruptible. I'm sorry, but you really haven't thought this through.

I believe you are missing the point, entirely, to the point I'd consider asking you to stop interpreting my dragons because you frankly don't understand a word they say. Firstly... where is this rich guy swaggering between hunting villages... what on earth are you basing the presence of such people on? Secondly, in this era, how many death-bed bound old people do you think there realistically are? And if they are around, they're tucked up in villages... do you expect Merinith to fly down and start ripping off roofs looking for somebody's grandfather? But the truly bizarre suggestions you make are beside the point, Merinith told his friend because above all else, he's honest. As he explained, it's simply a matter that he cannot make wandering into his den common practice, and he cannot spare everyone related to somebody he likes, it isn't sustainable, as much as he'd like it to be. He likely decided it would be better to give his friend due warning, than to wait till he eventually went home to visit his sister, and found she never made it back. Think long term, it's not "downright cruel" and "completely unnecessary" he was giving warning, and, opening the floor to suggestions, and in the end he got one which spared them both

I mean, honestly, you have simply decided to not accept my perception of dragons. "split personality psychopath"? Do you hear yourself when you write these things? I'm sure I recall you protesting about dragons being one way, or the other, why do you refuse to accept that Merinith isn't shedding "crocodile tears" but actually cares, and has to face duty over what he wants. So, lets challenge this frankly insulting perception you have of this dragon, which goes against and twists every single word I've written about him. I have a honors degree in psychology, I like to think that puts me close enough to the field of psychiatry to tell you that you're evading reality, and that Merinith is not a "split personality psychopath" For a start, he's a dragon, not a human, eating people isn't psychopathic for a dragon, it's nature. If he's got a screw loose, it's in how he pauses in that and asks himself, should I eat... Honestly, that comment about "crocodile tears" is near about the last straw. Have you any respect for my writing? If so, you would try interpreting the words of the story as correct, then comment on that. I write that it saddens Merinith, and you say he's faking it.

There is no winning with you, when you've already decided you know the world I've written better than I do, and quite frankly it is insulting. You continue to take what I write, and twist the words till the perception you get is unrecognizable from the reality. Your entire argument here is based on falsehoods, the core evidence you use is flawed, what you perceive as alternatives are very easily shown to be incorrect, and quite blatantly incorrect. This is a fact, and one you have to this day refused to accept. You've thoroughly twisted that one off hunt, led by Leon, into the norm and used that as a keystone of your interpretation of Merinith's morality, and his general practices. In this, you are wrong. If you comment back to this, for the first time, you shall admit that you are wrong, or I am not commenting back. I've had enough of fatally flawed arguments, mixed with pride and an overinflated sense of worth in your opinion. If you cannot write a coherent piece of critique, based in fact, and with well thought out suggestions, than all you are doing is inflating your ego, and I've had enough of it on my pages. A little tip, people who are actually trying to give good advice, make sure they have their evidence right. You have never asked me a single question about my writing, you make a rough assessment, then bellow about a "hole" when the hole you're pointing out is one you're inventing based on a lack of clarity. Gain clarity, then critique. If you don't understand that, then you have no right "critiquing" the work of budding writers.

Sorry if I misunderstood, from my reading, it sounded like taking the village this was a fairly typical feeding session for Merinith, because the way you worded it he had "taken Leon along" on HIS hunt, indicating it was his decision to prey on a whole village. I would think the younger dragon would never take a village on his own without his father's permission since it was his territory.

I have to disagree that humans wouldn't obey a population control order from a dragon who could easily kill them all if they didn't comply. I see your point that life is hard in this world and children don't always survive, but Merinith could allow lost childeren to be replaced, and it still would keep the population in check. You really can't say this wouldn't work based on our own world, because there was never something as 'commanding' for humans to take orders from, than giant, people eating dragons.

It is perfectly okay to admit M. prefers to hunt his prey, for he thinks this is the fairest way, and he probalby prefers human prey over animals which could be provided in their place. But this does make him seem crueler than a dragon that would accept other food items than sapient humans, who can probably experience terror mor than a simple animal. In a way, one could say M. has virtually singled out those humans who hunt as his usual prey, but this might be natural to a typical dragon that may enjoy the challenge of the hunt, including a mild degree of danger, that a hunter might inflict before death.

I think its fair to think M. a bit cruel for him to say he, likes a person and assures their safely in his den, while all along planning to catch and eat them later. It seems to contradict the 'honestly' inherent in most of your dragons, (yet many of the ones in your stories always manage to break their word to humans, like both that you feature in the Diving stories.)

What I like most about this story though, is that you have finally acknowledged what I said all along about realistic dragon behaviour in a world where the dragons were there before the humans became advanced. M. has done what any intelligent dragon would do. He is keeping the humans at a hunter-gatherer subsistence level so they will never be a threat. The problem is that if these dragons always lived in the lands of the humans, the humans would have never advanced further than small hunting communities because the dragons would prevent them from any further development, just as M. is doing on his Island. This is precisely why I suggested from the very beginning, that in order for your 'world' to be realistic (with the high human tech and cities established that you describe), the dragons would have to be recent arrivals to the continent of your story, like migrating from another continent because of a catastrophe or dragon over-population in their homeland.

I am glad you are starting to see the light! You might want to revisit my early comments, for I did provide solutions for the rest of your world to be NOT like Merinith's island despite there being dragons there.

Please, for both of our sakes, stop trying to think I agree with you. I still believe you are wrong in nearly everything you say, and some of your comments are poorly thought out to the point of being offensive, and many of your suggested solutions are frankly childish.
For example, I have reiterated the honesty of my dragons, and why they have not broken their word. You use the divers as an example, I explained that to you, and once again you are here, ignoring every explanation I have ever given you. That is what I find most offensive.

To be completely clear, I have not agreed with what you have said all along, because your reasoning for this dragon behavior is a prediction of their technological advancement, and that has nothing to do with Merinith's reasoning. It's like if I drop a pebble, and say it's dropping due to gravity, but you're saying a ghost is tugging it around... same effect, different reasoning. I have always pointed out through all your comments, that the presence of dragons keeps humans to small hunting communities, the only exception are small towns that bloom as people begin to spread. I do not believe that hunting communities squashes all further advancement, but it certainly slows it down considerably. I believe that given time larger communities are possible. Notice, all the larger communities I build rely on fishing, bulk fishing as a source of food, they advance, but without the easy road of impossible farming... honestly, you're contradicting some of your earlier comments just to try and convince yourself that I might be following any of your so-called advice. If you ever make a point I think is valid, believe me, I'll let you know, but don't fool yourself.

As to population control, a single dragon, as I pointed out, cannot enforce such a thing on a whole island. It doesn't take much thinking to realize it is impossible. First, he is easy to see coming, and cannot easily search homes. Second, for all the power in his hands, he only has power where he is. All reasonable attempts at population control have required constant eyes. Third, these are not people who have any means of preventing conception reliably, even if Merinith was mad enough to attempt such a thing, he simply does not have the power to control it. To survey the people at the required amount, he'd have to abandon his other duties and spend all his time flying past, watching to make see if the people are hiding their extra brood in homes... and then what? a massacre if this disobey? He's not the type, he keeps people in line through respect, not fear, and he's too soft-hearted to ever want to rule with fear. He's a dragon, not a monster...

And yes, the young dragon you lauded as being a fine replacement for an island ruler is exactly like that. Foolhardy, disrespectful, disobedient and borderline sadistic. It is for the reasons you mentioned, problems of hunting whole villages in single strokes, that had Merinith worried in the first place. I thought that had been reasonably clear in how unsavory he found the hunt, and how enthusiastic Leon was.

If you want to convince yourself that I'm doing what I'm doing from your advice, go right ahead if it means you'll stop repeating the same rejected ideas over and over. Because I've learnt the hard way you will never take no for an answer when it comes to browbeating writers to try and convince them to write what you want.

I have never contradicted myself. The problem is that you simply do not understand how 'modern' humans evolved from tribes of hunter gatherers to city builders. Metal would have never been discovered if humans did not develop agriculture and domesticated animals, and begin building cites, where the best and brightest of the population could experiment with new ideas. Everything I have ever told you had been sensible, intelligent information to make your stories seem more sensible, only you are too proud of your writing ability to see the genuine faults in your worldview, which any scientist would say could have never occurred in a world cohabited by giant, intelligent, predatory dragons.

There is ample scientific proof to prove what I say. In places where the ground is too poor for agriculture, like islands, if the humans are isolated there, they will remain a stone-age, hunter gatherer society, never developing the technologies which the humans have in your 'world'. That's just the way it is.



You really don't get it. I am suffering all of this abuse, because I am trying to help you. You have enough promise to make the childish abuse tolerable.

Mind that this world exists in a different Era and Stage than our development.

Also, if you're suffering so much, quit while you're ahead. You're just wasting your time.

I don't think you understand, I understand perfectly well how modern humans evolved. I find it laughable you think my disagreement is due to pride, I'm not a proud person, I have questioned every step I make in my stories. It really is as simple as the fact that I don't agree with your logic. In our reality, as you say, if the ground is poor, no agriculture happens... but where the ground is good, it does. Bountiful land is the best for agriculture, it also has the greatest proportion of natural resources. Is there really any precedent for the scenario I have? Is there really any example in our world you can quote? You are too proud to accept, I don't agree with you about what my worlds should be. I will grant, in some regards such as development, the situation is possibly improbable, but then the worlds I set them on are novel, for example, Merinith's island has a different animal and plant make-up, including plenty of creatures we never had around, frankly, I believe that throws doubt into expectations of how they will develop.

What I don't think you're willing to consider, is that just because things went one way in our reality, doesn't mean it will go that way in this one. What if you gave humans enough time of hunter gatherer communities? What if they had sufficient pressure to adapt, such as the presence of dragons. What if a mind akin to the greats of our past was born to see new paths. In this world, hunting is reasonably plentiful, large beasts relatively common, in a reasonably favorable climate. All the odds are in the favor of the humans. You clearly disagree, but I feel that gives the option for an alternative path of development. If you still disagree, then quite frankly, you're just going to have to accept that I consider the scenario, the state of mind in the world, and hence the actual storytelling more important than impressing a single historian

At the end of the day, you say you are "trying to help me". Don't talk rubbish. You have not helped me, even a single bit, you have done nothing but repeat the same things, with the same arguments, and hardly ever actually pay attention to my arguments. I have told you, countless times, how you could adapt your approach to actually be of help to me, but you have ignored that each and every time. Therefore, since you continue an approach I have multiple times declared unhelpful, and have ignored every attempt on my part to guide you towards approaches to stating your case that would make you a welcome critic, I can only assume that you have and have never had any intention of helping me. And before you start the griping, going... oh, you just can't take criticism... Allow me to refresh your memory of my suggestions. They do not require you to agree with me. If you want to help, actually wanted to help like you claim, the first key point, is to ask questions. Any critic whose intent was to engage and help would already know that, asking questions engages a writer, makes them think carefully about their structure and tends to breed positive emotions towards you, so long as those questions are tactful. Then, based upon their answers, you have better clarity to start poking, asking follow up questions, now relating towards concerns you have in the text. This makes it less likely you'll put a writer on the defensive, because you're basing it solely upon their words... for example, in relation to the issue to Merinith and Leon, you could have asked how often Merinith did this, or any number of questions to gain context before going into a rant about how horrible he is, and how much better his son would be in his place... your approach immediately offends, which is going to close off a writer to agreeing with you. If you are actually trying to help, then the blame for our troubles lands squarely in your approach, and your apparent inability to accept that I see the evidence differently from you.

Still waiting on your response to my earlier question, Sir Rush. Or are you planning on avoiding it, hnm?

My definition of dragon? A large, usually reptilian creature somewhat lizard-like in appearance, and often equipped with wings and has the ability to fly. Usually a sapient creature often imbued with magical abilities and the ability to speak in human languages. Nearly always carnivorous and often regard humans as acceptable prey. Often regarded as gods in actual human cultures all over the world. Evidence in the Bible suggests that Yahweh too was origially conceived as a weather controlling dragon god, described with great wings, fiery breath, smoking nostril, taloned paws, love of hoarding gold, and an appetite for calves, lamb and Midiannite virgins.

Explains why you always disagree with Drake's works.

Usually reptilian would imply they are cold blooded, which would suggest that they are active only during the day and at rest at night; Not in Drake's realm from what I've read.
Drake's dragons are part of the human culture, in his world, however, they are a part of their lives and struggles. Not as overlords to be praised and fed as the dragons would desire. That would lead to the starvation of the land and eventually bring which-ever village/town/city the dragon claimed to ruin.
You speak of nearly always carnivorous, which indicates that eating meat would be a choice, and with 'often regarding humans as acceptable prey' leading the impression that eating humans would be a choice.

Correct?

Um, nooo....... Most dinosaurs are covered in scales and are classified as reptiles. Most scientists believe that are warm blooded due to the fact some lived in the arctic circle. Alligators are MUCH more closely related to birds than they are lizards, even though they look more like lizards. Alligators, birds and dinosaurs are all an 'advanced' type of reptile classified as "archosaurs" . If they were on our world, dragons would also be a type of archosaur (except for the more fantatstic furry ones I suppose -- though the fur on some dragons could be hair like feathers, just like some dinosaurs have.

MANY cold blooded reptiles are active at night, Geckos, crocodilians and many species of snakes, not to mention all of the cold blooded amphibians also active mostly at night (like toads, tree frogs and most salamanders.

If you have read all of my comments to Drake, then you would know that I was in fact, saying it would be more realistic if his dragons were much MORE a part of human culture, but he strives to keep the species seperated. As I explained many times, the whole premise of his 'world' doesn't make sense because the humans have become incredibly sophisticated (metalurgy, cities, dragon-killing catapults, etc.) while living in the proximity of huge, intelligent , people eating dragons. This is scientifically implausible, though Drake isn't the only one to adopt this impossible situation. He in fact, proves this on 'Merinith Island'. Here humans live in small hunting communities because of a dragon culling them, just like stone age humans. If dragons always lived in the lands of humans, one of two things would happen. The dragons would simply eat the humans into extinction, as theropod dinosaurs wold have. or if the humans amused the dragons as they do Merinith (and probably other dragons too), they would have let them continue to live as hunters and gatherers, culling their population thorugh predation, but in this hunter-gatherer state, they would have never invented metal, created cities, or dragon-killing catapults.

The problem with Drake's world view, is that he somehow believes humans would have evolved into advanced beings with dangerous weapons and powerful cities in a land occupied by dragons who would have never allowed this to happend, just as we with on Merineith's Island.

Drake is an excellent writer and makes his dragons convincingly 'diferent in their mindset from humans, but the bigger worlds that he creates are entirely unbelievable because of his lack of knowledge of anthropology, ancient history, etc. The ONLY way his world would work, is if the dragons arrived after the humans alreaady developed to an iron age culture without any dragon presence, or the dragons just sat back and stupidly let the humans develop into dangerous opponents and competitors that WILL eventually exterminate these dangeous man eating beasts as they cotinue to develop more dangerous weapons (like gunpowerder and cannons).

This is why, since Drake has already imbued his humans with deadly dragon-killing technology, Leon is the more intelligent dragon with his agressiveness because the only way for dragons to survive in the larger world, is for dragons to either exterminate the humans or send them back to the near-stone age existence as on Merinith Island. The only other possibility is for dragons to integrate into the more modern 'city humans' and become a wanted part of the society, instead of being the people-eating predators which ultimately ALL dragons are in Drake's mindset. For some reason he is completely against my suggestion that dragons integrate themselves in all human activities, and from this position diplomatically prevent the building of dragon killing machines, etc.. Since he is adamant that 'his' dragons would never do this, then LEON and dragons like him are the only hope for dragon survival, for there is still time to subjucate the humans to the idyllic dragon-safe, hunter-gatherer existence on Merinith Island, which sadly occurs nowhere else.

Merinith then, is really the enemy to all other dragons who do not have the luxury of their own Island to keep safe primitive humans for food and amusement. The others will all eventually be killed as humans continue to develop more dangerous weapons, and eventually they will come to Merintih Island too, to kill the man-eating monster and welcome the trapped, primitive hunters into the dragon-free 'modern world'.

Unless Leon and other true dragons stop human progress while they still can, or embrace human society and become part of it, the dragons are doomed. If Merinith loved his own dragon race, more than his human pets, he too, would leave his comfy island and join the holy crusade to save his own race.

Until Drake comprehends these scientific realities, his dragon stories will never seem plausible to intelligent adults well versed in history, science etc. It is a shame too, because he really does have a great writing talent, and a love of dragons, which is why I have endured his continuing temper tantrums, insults and name calling in the hope he will finally understand.

Hnm, has it ever occurred to you that Drake doesn't want to use our advancements as a corner stone, that his world has its own unique culture, threads? That people on his realm has accepted dragons as their predator and adapted to that particular key. This isn't our world, our history he's lining his stories on. Who's to say that humans evolved under the watchful eyes of dragons, or landed on the isle after their development to the age you specify? Dragons and humans at this time are not competing, they are a way of life for one another.

Your expressions here conflict, it's like you want to pull Drake into writing something to suit your specific taste.

On M.s island yes,there is a kind of understanding, but not the rest of the world where humand are more advanced and dangeorus. Humans to not want to be eaten. When they have the means to STOP it, hey will.... unless the dragons are tought to be gods, and you go to heaven or something like that if you're eaten buy your dragon god.

No species wants to be eaten, with the possible exceptions of humans is their culture was very biased against their instinct. I rarely write of humans who want to be eaten, I write of humans who are... wiser than our brand of humans, and appreciate it is a risk of life, like for any species. Humans with a degree of foresight might be unrealistic if it is our breed of humans. But these are not. As I may have mentioned, my field of interest is the evolution of the mind, and our minds are the product of our history. Throw something like dragons into our historic past, and the final mindset of the new humans could be vastly different from our own. In all honesty, considering the history of these humans is likely as vast as our own, and I could have many more changes in it than simply adding dragons, the final mindset need not resemble the mindset of our humans at all. If I'd slapped a tail, or set of funny ears or such to them, called them something else but basically had humans, then I doubt you'd bat an eyelid at their behaviour differences. If it makes things clearer, comparing these humans to us will not match perfectly, and that is intentional. I have never liked our reality's humans, so I write of people with a very different history and culture to us. Which is really quite common in fictional literature. At this point, many of the people on Merinith's isle do, in some ways, see Merinith as a god, not omnipotent or anything, but worthy of respect as a force of nature. The humans do not like that sometimes people get eaten, but they accept it, and try to teach their children how best to avoid his jaws. The humans do not like disease killing their friends and family, but they accept that it happens, and try to teach their children good habits to avoid it, and ply their still crude remidies. The humans do not like that age will eventually take their lives if nothing else does, but they accept that it is inevitable, and try to do all they need in life before it comes. I'll agree, it would be unrealistic for humans of our breed to be this rational, but unlike our breed, these humans have had an unconquerable predator for as long as they've had history. Dragons are accepted as grudgingly as is age and illness. Their methods are for avoidance, not removal. That is, give or take, true for most groups of humans on the world set around Merinith's island. Debate with me over why I make my humans this way if you wish, but please finally accept that these humans are not our breed, and as such your frustration at these dragons not seeing them for something they're not is misplaced.

I'm back. No, if you gave the 'humans' tails and funny ears, there would still be the inconsistencies because what I am talking about is technology, not physical appearance or 'mindset'. If the humans (or anthro wolf-people) on Merinith's island were a stone age people, they would be believable. It takes a culture that can build cities because of agriculture and animal domestication to have the excess time and environment to discover things like metalurgy. Cultures 'trapped' in a hunting existence by the environment they live in will remain primitive if isolated, even if the rest of the world has 20th century technology as the discovery of remote jungle tribes reveal. The only exception is if they have some CONTACT with a more advanced world to give them the weapons and tools they cannot make themselves. The only question is if there would ever be a more advanced civilization in other lands if dragons were always around, especially if most were more like 'Leon'. It is possible for your humans to still have a sophisticated world, much as you describe, without steel weapons, just as we see in pre Columbus America. You do not seem to grasp the ramifications of a world with giant intelligent, predators would have on the development of an intelligent 'prey' species. It doesn't matter if they look like humans or anthro wolves. A good example were the stone age, feline-like creatures in Cameron's Avatar, which also had a greatly feared 'dragon' that they accepted as their predator. Now that they have received advanced technology from the humans that arrived, they may very well use it to protect themselves againts the larger predator which they were previously powerless against with their own primitive technology.

Then lets look at technology. If I understand your perception, you hold that technology is linear, certain technologies cannot be discovered until certain others have been mastered, specifically, that culture cannot go beyond stone age without farming, because that is where farming was developed, and therefore nothing else can develop beyond that. You need to stop comparing this world to our own, because the only examples of non-farming are as you describe... one might bring up the question of why they haven't begun farming, and compare that reason with dragons. I don't think there are many examples of peoples living in lands ideal enough that farming would be possible, which haven't developed it, therefore it is hard to say how far they could advance, in that environment, if you subtract farming.

Consider, for the sake of reality, that this world is not our own, the resources are fundamentally different, the path they have developed along is fundamentally different, sufficiently so that I do not believe your examples from our reality are relevant. I have not hidden the fact that the island is especially lush in resources, nor that there are decidedly large creatures present to be hunted. Most of the cultures you mention struggle to maintain enough food, and it is that constant struggle that makes humans farm in the first place, for reliability. I, however, have set on this island the condition that food is sufficiently easy to procure that not all members of a human community need seek it, some, can find other uses to their community, therefore allowing the development farming would normally allow them. If you want to discuss and debate the levels of food availability, that would be more relevant, but at the moment, it is set that there is enough, to replace farming. My perception here, is that a predator, such as a dragon, robs humans of the wild population growth and self destructive levels of world harvesting that prevents them finding a balanced place in the ecosystem, balanced enough they can develop. That, is the only point where farming could slow their development, food availability, and the level of resources on a community level required to gather enough food, I have it that they can get enough in this environment, which is different from any on our reality, that they can develop without farming. So if you must try to poke holes, poke in the right place, not at their development level, but on the structure of the world's ecosystem

Also, I saw Avatar, enough to know your use of it in this example is bizarre and ridiculous. The reasons for their state of life is utterly incomparable to anything on my world, or our reality. The example is entirely irrelevant. If you cannot see that, I'll use up time explaining all the places where it doesn't match, but it would seem exceedingly obvious to me. Though to use just one point of error between the two, their concept of unity between all things is not figurative, it is literal, and therefore is not going to be prone to an attitude change just by the introduction of technology, which quite frankly, judging by the film you quote, they do not need to be capable of defeating such a creature.

Those really aren't my perceptions, but what the sciences of archaeology and anthropology have proven in every corner of the world. I do understand this is a 'different' world, though I see nothing that should change that time-tested model. Yes, other writers as well, love to make their dragon-inhabited worlds set in medieval times with steel swords and dragon killing catapults, yet none of them ever try to explain how that advanced technology was acheived in a world dominated by giant,intelligent, man-eating dragons. This is what I referred to in previous posts as 'Draonslayer Never-Neverland' equating such scientificlly unsupportable 'worlds' as just so much fairytale nonsense.

I do actually like the scenario on Merinith's Island, because if you left out anachronisms like metal weapons, it is a plausible world, and could literally remain unchanged for thousands of years, just like the isolated stone age cultures discoveed in the 20th century. It was never clear to me if M. really could shape change into any creature, or that this was just a story told to the young wolf boy. If the former, then by all accounts M. would be considered a God to them, and if other dragons could master this kind of magic humans would never be a threat to them, and the world would remain at a 'dragon-safe' stoneage technology.

Virtually all of human technology in our real world past simple hunting was brought about by the presures of overpopulation and warfare, and in the idyllic world you paint of M's island, with its bountiful food supply, stone age technology is wonderfully efficient and would likely never be improved upon. Consider how efficient stone age hunters were at wiping out the Mammalian megafauna, though they would have been helpless against giant intelligent dragons, and at their complete mercy, just as in your world.

Actually the pre-human planet of Avatar is very much like the world of M.s island. People are hunters and kept in check by a dragon-like flying predator on top of the food chain and seeminingly worshipped by the humanoids. The only difference is that there is also a species of 'lesser dragon' wich the humanoids have managed to domesticate, much as how early man domesticated the wolf. The big dragon thing might have even been intelligent enough to talk, and actually spared the Sully character because it knew they needed to be allies to overcome the high-tech invaders. The film really leaves this part a mystery. I am sure Cameron had scientists as advisors, who probably told him to keep the humanoids at a stone age tech because it made sense with their hunting-gathering lifestyle.

I get that you really believe your way is the only logical way, I however do not believe that. I have given you the reasoning, the logic. I do not believe that humans would remain at "stone age" level of development. Keep in mind, you are really overfocussing on combat. Perhaps your fixation on weaponry, killing and threats blinds you to the other developmental paths that are present. For example, stone age tools might be sufficient in terms of combat, and I do not try to have too great a presence of metal weaponry, perhaps I ought to emphasize the other weaponry they hold more, that much I will consider, but gaining metal goes far beyond being able to make "steel swords and dragon killing catapults" which, I feel the need to remind you, in my writing, do not exist. The one exception is the world I set around Serac, which was a standalone piece, specifically targeted at such fairytale stories, but, to see the dragon-slaying from the dragon's point of view for once. To that end, potentially unrealistic as that world may have been, I believe I hit my target.
Have you considered the development of metal for things not as combat designed, for as you note, such things would be due to overpopulation and warfare. Metals are used for other tools of trade beyond those that kill, and, I have to raise my eyebrow at the notion that stone age technology is "wonderfully efficient" for while, once crafted, it can be, the crafting process is less reliable than working something malleable into a tool.

To try and clarify the state of Merinith, so you'll stop making the same point of worship and gods. To an extent he IS worshiped, but not in the same way as modern religion. After all, I don't believe they'd have the time or resources for anything so... committed. Their religious beliefs are linked to him, with respect, honor, they see him as the dominant creature, lord of all, but they're not going to pray to him. You might disagree on this, but I don't believe a physical god can ever stand the test of time. Religion survives reason because it cannot be tested, challenged or seen. Don't get me wrong, if Merinith landed before a village and bellowed that they all bow or something, they'd do it, but apart from a few exceptions to the rule, because there are always exceptions to the rule, the majority of the people do not "Worship" him in the way I think you mean. Their spiritual beliefs towards him, are as I've described before, that those he eats, their spirits get caught up in his, it's like a classic afterlife system. But, if any of them even tried to form more deep sorts of worship, the character of Merinith would stop them. That is the crux of the matter, the actions of this dragon, prevent the world becoming as you want it, perhaps that's why you seen to hate him so much. He doesn't want to be worshiped, he finds it unsettling, it has happened, he put an end to it when it quickly grew old. He respects life, and worship means people throwing their lives before him, he finds it disturbing. I'm not sure he's enough of a megalomaniac to enjoy such a thing. But yes, though since writing I have tried to alter the public view of Merinith by... downplaying his abilities, he can change, yes.

Lastly, stop trying to defend Avatar as an example, it's a really, really bad one. It has little to nothing in common with Merinith's island. The people have not "domesticated" the animals as far as I can see in the same way as we did wolves, largely because in the context of that movie, they literally seem to join their neural tissue together, share senses, ideas. That is hardly any way related to our domestication. Secondly, it really feels like you're trying to twist the reality of that film pretty far through the blanks... you're going down the route of thinking Sully convinced the huge dragon-like thing with words... instead of simply doing what the others did to the smaller breed, the whole instant-domestication technique. No, I have never seen somebody try to twist something to agreeing with them as much as you have that movie. If your mind works in such a way that you think that last paragraph of yours is valid, rational, reasonable, or based in reality, then somehow you have found a way to further lower my opinion of your skill for logic reasoning.

Here's my perception, as far as I can tell, in your arguments, you seem to take flimsy supposition of how our world worked, make it into rigid fact, and use it as an infallible framework for what humans are, and can ever be capable of. You seem to think that with dragons around, humans can never advance beyond the stone age, I disagree. What I agree on, is that they will likely never reach our level of development, and it does not require dragons to come down with wrath. The scenario of dragons, as far as I'm concerned, automatically limits the scale of human endeavor, simply because with a predator, humans have other priorities. Why you seem to consider it realistic for dragons to openly impede human development is beyond me, since there is no rational, logical explanation for the sort of foresight dragons would need to even be able to comprehend sciences humans cannot even dream of at the current level. Human development has always been about time, resources, development, and the managing of all these things. So much of our history is mired in war and combat, a predator cuts that out of history, simply because the reasons for war don't get to arise to anything like the same degree. The humans I write, develop their medicine, their culture, their understanding of how the world around them works, what they can make use of, what they cannot. They do not spend all their time glowering at the skies, thinking of how they can weaponize their environment against the dragon who has been around longer than their generations can remember. Why worship the dragon? Why not instead worship the sun, or the moon, they're bigger, more powerful, and don't eat you as often. A dragon is a mortal thing, even though the long life makes it seem divine. For that reason, I never have true worship. Reverence and respect, yes. Spiritual beliefs revolving around the dragon, yes. True worship, No. A dragon is just too physical to be divine, and, Merinith is in no place long enough. Besides, as I feel I mentioned, he's not the only dragon on the island, there are many, but much smaller. He is what the locals call Heirkin, a breed of dragon that grows very large. He's not seen as a divine, just a really big dragon.

To be clear, Merinith's island has large towns at most and no "dragon killing catapults"

I am offended you consider the fact your perceptions of my dragons offensive, and hence anger at your unthought out comments as temper tantrums, I have been for more mature in this matter than you have been, when it comes to insults and name calling, you take the cake.

And, to once again clarify, Merinith's process has integrated himself into human culture, as something unknowable, untouchable, that has to be accepted. He has not put himself in the position of causing real heavy strife, but due to the fact he needs to prey on them to maintain their numbers, he feels uncomfortable about trying to integrate himself literally into their streets. It's something he longs to do, but he has emotional levels below the surface, believe it or not, and hence regardless of rationality, he feels too guilty to simply approach. He's sentient, and he's shy. Why you think it's realistic for him to break every character factor that has been built into him is beyond me...

In all honesty "holy crusade"? I didn't think my opinion could sink any lower. Why cannot you understand that dragons are not psychic? Any who look at humans and instantly predict the full potential of their dangerousness, into sciences that at this time in history do not exist even in dreams would truly be exceptional, and unrealistic dragons. The sooner you accept that the better... and for what it's worth, if you run Merinith's island forward in time a few hundred years, it would likely settle into a united culture over a war torn crater, so try seeing Merinith as the first step towards that, but hesitating before a truly momentous choice, instead of praising the blood-thirsty child who for some unknowable reason you seem to think has a higher plan than "eating humans is fun"

Love to carry on this discussion, but leaving now for a conference in D.C. for a week. If I have internet in the Govt. quarters, I'll respond earlier than next week. Just one thing to think on. Surely M. has contact with other dragns on the mainland, where accoridng to some of your stories there are catapults designed to (try) to kill dragons. And what is the life span of your typical dragon. I thought hundreds of years. Thing how much the human race progressed in only 60 years. From horse carts to men on the moon. If the cities on the mainland aren't seriously hampered by dragons, the invention of gunpowder could be only months away. Let hope Leon eats the guy before he invents it!

Who's to say they'll even invent gunpowder, and if so, who's to say it will be for centuries. They likely won't follow the same line of invention as in our reality, simply because the progress of such things isn't necessarily linear. Also, so what if they do? I have long held that the presence of dragons suppresses war between humans, because they have much less reasons to fight, and without that sort of aggressive pressure, I doubt they'd have the same level of weaponisation that our reality had. But, as I said, the progress of invention happens by many series of accidents, and revolutionary thinkers. The occurrence of which, this being an alternate reality and disconnected from our line of history, is entirely at my, the writer's disposal. If I decided on my world it took humans another thousand years or more to discover gunpowder, then so be it. I do not think there is any specific evidence you can give me to say it must be otherwise, beyond the fact it happened so in our reality, which, as I said, is due to very malleable circumstances.

Though to clarify, Merinith's island, and the surrounding world, is distinct from my other worlds. I like to start afresh occassionally, to firstly adapt to what I've learnt, change the build of a world, but also to offer new scenarios to write around. If an idea doesn't fit a world I have, I build a new world to accomodate it. Though I doubt I'll write stories about the mainland he speaks of, the short story is that the many individual dragons there have tried their own methods of dealing with humans, this much Merinith has seen, and quite fortunately for him, his humans are cut off from that. His story is one of a dragon who is testing, probing, trying to overcome the barriers between humans and dragons. He wants to live alongside them, but without predation, their numbers go wild, as most creatures would if their primary predator ceased to hunt, not to mention, he has to maintain balance between species so he can hunt for generations to come. The world of his island is on the edge of change, Like many writers I write about the individuals who are to change things, about a world which has issues, and is to have them resolved. The world Merinith hopes to create, is possibly one you'd agree is positive, but the getting to that point is the story I'm telling.

Loved this story. Sorry I don't have much more than that to say...

I'm very grateful you took the time to comment all the same ^^ It's nice to get a feeling I have an audience beyond a handful, heh. I'm glad you enjoyed it

I wonder how Merinith would react to knowing an interesting tidbit about human nature that he has never had a chance to experience, nor likely ever will; our population levels out pretty much completely if you can do two things:

1) Give (with high probability) assurance our children will reach adulthood.
2) Provide some means for humans to have sex without it creating kids.

Do that and the human population smacks right into a ceiling after one and a half to two generations where people get used to the idea. (This is effectively what we've pulled off in much of the world today. Defeated the worst diseases [on that note, can we get a dragon to sit still for a minute... we would really love to see how they don't get cancer with that lifespan of theirs], kicked famine to the point it is a logistical problem rather than a production one. etc.)

Because as he noted his predation is needed to keep the population balanced... but due to human nature his predation would be causing more births than the number of lives he takes. Humans are weird like that. (In an evolutionary sense our species is unusual. High-tier intelligent predators who for whatever reason have the rabbit defense as our first fallback to the perceived risk of loss.) Basically, his current method can't win without going to extremes he would not be willing to contemplate.

Which, I suppose, is why in most of your worlds dragons are rare and humans are ever expanding. Dragons are approaching the situation from their instinctive solution with no way of knowing that solution is... flawed, with respect to humans. Other species, after all, will reproduce as much as they can in all situations. Human behavior on the matter changes with circumstances, even though humans are usually unaware they are doing this. (Strong evolutionary imperative to have children survive to have their own children coupled with intelligence leads to changes in the optimal reproductive strategy. Aka humans change how much effort they put into individual kids depending how likely those kids are to survive. Which directly effects how many children humans will have, given a choice.) It is somewhat sadly ironic that dragons have the same reproductive strategy as humans who expect their children to survive.

Erm... I'd have to disagree that the, two points have solved the human population problem... saying from the standpoint of the population levelling out at around the worldwide plague numbers, and still rising. And diseases... we... really aren't doing that well. People still die of infected wounds, never mind actual diseases, and since most viruses are zoonotic and we've gone out of our way to increase our proximity to both each other and other species... we're one bout of bad luck from a new plague.

And... near as I can tell the... defence humans take to predation you mention, is the defence every species ever has taken to every threat ever, except pandas. The threat of terrible food and no predators meant growing numbers would literally obliterate them... humans being oh so ingenious omnivores balloon in numbers till they hit a similar wall... and even then, many humans refuse to percieve walls, obstacles and problems... meaning even a wall and the brutal common sense mathematics of nature cannot save these people from their assumption they know better.