What about dragons?

Thanks again to Juniverse0 for this subject. His ‘Ahead of the Scenes’ story involves dragons in an unusual and unique manner.

The plot goes like this: A scientist driven mad by his rivalry between another company declares war, threatening to use his army of genetic engineered, mind-controlled dragons to destroy the rival facility with fire. A test subject believed to be a spy is sent into the future to be killed by a dragon, but instead disables its mind control device. The two go on to disable the entire army by disabling life support.

Check it out, and while you’re at it check out his other great stories: Subject 342, The New Face of Humanity, Ruined, The Science Wars and Suburban Dragon.

Dragons are mythical reptilian flying creatures that seem to have been incorporated into many diverse cultures, which would suggest a common origin; however, experts separate European and Asian mythology connected with dragons.

Dragons exist in the folklore of European, Russian and Romanian cultures. Russian dragons often have three heads. Most of us are familiar with Saint George and the Dragon. Most dragons are placed in a medieval fantasy setting in which male heroes are called upon to slay them. Many of you are familiar with Tolkien’s Silmarillion and his Hobit. Of course Rowling included them in her Harry Potter novels. Then there’s McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern. There are many more dragon plots in recent literature.

Once referred to as reptile, dragons are now considered a lizard. One thing you can say about dragons is that they have been and still are very popular in art, literature and motion pictures. They go back to antiquity. The ancient Greek Iliad mentions them and the Romans refer to them in several manuscripts. The books of Job and Isaiah refer to Rahab, a sea monster, and a similar dragon is also equated to the Devil in the Book of Revelation.

When it comes to dragons, nobody beats the Chinese for dragon mythology. Their dragons are typically snake-like with four legs and they don’t usually have wings, but they can still fly. The Chinese dragon is often a mix of several animals--the face of an ox, the teeth of Tiger, a beard of a goat, the legs of a horse, the crest of a rooster, and, of course, the body of a snake.

It is, however, the European version that we westerners are more familiar with. The mythological dragon has lizard scales, horns, and pterodactyl or bat-like wings. It has four powerful legs with vicious claws, a long prehensile tail and it breaths fire. And, these dragons are huge!

In most media--novels, movies, TV and cartoons, dragons are depicted as dangerous to humans, but in many cases the dragons are named. For example Vermithrax Pejorative, the 400 year old dragon in the 1981 movie Dragonslayer, or Saphira, a female dragon in the British-American film Eragon.

The question to ask is: why do all of these cultures have mythological dragons? The answer is that there are animals that may have inspired people to fantasize these creatures. Crocodiles are a good example of this. Skeletons of dinosaurs would definitely prompt the finder to imagine a lizard-like creature. Another possibility is large snakes or even giant lizards like the Komodo Dragons, the Anaconda Snake, and the Leatherback Turtle. The fire breathing aspect comes from legends of fire breathing dragons kidnapping beautiful maidens. It’s difficult to imagine how people came up with these legends, but the fact that almost every culture had them is amazing.

Despite all of this mythology, a dragon could be created by means of genetic engineering. There is a creature that’s called the flying dragon, which is a lizard species (Draco volans) that lives in Southeast Asia. They are around 20 cm (about 8 in) long with wings about three fourths of its length. This lizard glides instead of flying. This species could be induced by genetic manipulation to create a real dragon, but it wouldn’t be easy. Then, there is Juniverse0’s method.

Thanks for reading.