Targaryen Dragon Infrastructure

[DominusNovus]

I approach matters of rule from a relatively unexciting perspective.  I would probably prefer to read a saga of Bran the Builder over Aegon the Conqueror.  So, that colors my perspective on one matter: The Targaryens, even when the had a fair number of dragons, never seemed to use them as anything other than war mounts.  The only exception to this is when Balerion was used to forge the Iron Throne.  This strikes me as odd.

 

Were I a Targaryen king, I would much rather use my dragons for other purposes.  A gigantic beast that, when fully grown, can produce heat high enough to melt stone (as evidenced by the destruction of Harrenhall) is certainly capable of more mundane tasks than burning enemy armies.  Clear forests through a combination of brute strength and dragon fire.  Uprooting trees would be trivial to an animal of that size, and just burning them down is a perfectly viable agricultural strategy in many cases (not necessarily viable long term, of course).  Fire forges with dragon flame.  Try to make some modern imitation of the Valyrian roads.  Probably would work to pile gravel along a route and then fly the dragon over it and melt it down into pavement.  Not to mention all the use a fire-breathing beast would be when you're dealing with winters that last years.  Basically, think of them as bigger elephants that can fly and produce ungodly temperatures.

 

Yes, you don't want to risk the cornerstone of your rule.  But the nice thing about using your dragon to kill trees instead of men is that trees don't fight back. Plus, if you spend your time actually improving the 7K, then you're going to have more support among the people (noble and common) who appreciate the farmland your clearing, the roads you're building, the tools you're forging, etc. etc.

 

So, yeah.  Thoughts?

[IMNHAAO]

I approach matters of rule from a relatively unexciting perspective.  I would probably prefer to read a saga of Bran the Builder over Aegon the Conqueror.  So, that colors my perspective on one matter: The Targaryens, even when the had a fair number of dragons, never seemed to use them as anything other than war mounts.  The only exception to this is when Balerion was used to forge the Iron Throne.  This strikes me as odd.

 

Were I a Targaryen king, I would much rather use my dragons for other purposes.  A gigantic beast that, when fully grown, can produce heat high enough to melt stone (as evidenced by the destruction of Harrenhall) is certainly capable of more mundane tasks than burning enemy armies.  Clear forests through a combination of brute strength and dragon fire.  Uprooting trees would be trivial to an animal of that size, and just burning them down is a perfectly viable agricultural strategy in many cases (not necessarily viable long term, of course).  Fire forges with dragon flame.  Try to make some modern imitation of the Valyrian roads.  Probably would work to pile gravel along a route and then fly the dragon over it and melt it down into pavement.  Not to mention all the use a fire-breathing beast would be when you're dealing with winters that last years.  Basically, think of them as bigger elephants that can fly and produce ungodly temperatures.

 

Yes, you don't want to risk the cornerstone of your rule.  But the nice thing about using your dragon to kill trees instead of men is that trees don't fight back. Plus, if you spend your time actually improving the 7K, then you're going to have more support among the people (noble and common) who appreciate the farmland your clearing, the roads you're building, the tools you're forging, etc. etc.

 

So, yeah.  Thoughts?

I understand what you mean and even though the suggestion reminds me a bit too much of the Flintstones, it is not an idea without merits. Only... Well, I have always liked dragons, they are fascinating beasts, but honestly I cannot see them being really tamed and I cannot see them used as oversized blowtorches.

Dragons, in this story at least, have been only agents of destruction and in a society there can be only so much controlled destruction.

 

I hope that GRRM will use his talent in creating Others that have depth and just as much shading as the humans, and I cannot help hoping the same for the dragons. It is a bit depressing that the embodiments two forces of nature as ice and fire have been portrayed, as of now, only as killing machines.

 

Nature is uninterested in us, sometimes her cycles give us benefits, sometimes destruction, but nothing happens with a special superior purpose and surely that wouldn't be just to kill humans and furthermore I cannot recall of any living entity whose only purpose/interest would be to destroy, so I truly believe that even in a fantasy setting, ice and fire should be taken a bit more seriously.

[Kaibaman]

Well Jon did point out how useful a dragon would be for recon. I suppose one way the Targs could have put their dragons to good use would be perhaps sending one or more of their surplus heirs to the Wall and donating a couple of dragons to their cause. That is assuming of course the dragons can tolerate such a cold climate up north.

[Hodor the Articulate]

I think this is less "Dragons are only good for war", and more "Dragons building roads is really boring".

 

Also, think of the dragons, not as tools, but as a part of a dragonrider. That is their literary purpose.

[ConfusedCounselor]

I approach matters of rule from a relatively unexciting perspective.  I would probably prefer to read a saga of Bran the Builder over Aegon the Conqueror.  So, that colors my perspective on one matter: The Targaryens, even when the had a fair number of dragons, never seemed to use them as anything other than war mounts.  The only exception to this is when Balerion was used to forge the Iron Throne.  This strikes me as odd.

 

Were I a Targaryen king, I would much rather use my dragons for other purposes.  A gigantic beast that, when fully grown, can produce heat high enough to melt stone (as evidenced by the destruction of Harrenhall) is certainly capable of more mundane tasks than burning enemy armies.  Clear forests through a combination of brute strength and dragon fire.  Uprooting trees would be trivial to an animal of that size, and just burning them down is a perfectly viable agricultural strategy in many cases (not necessarily viable long term, of course).  Fire forges with dragon flame.  Try to make some modern imitation of the Valyrian roads.  Probably would work to pile gravel along a route and then fly the dragon over it and melt it down into pavement.  Not to mention all the use a fire-breathing beast would be when you're dealing with winters that last years.  Basically, think of them as bigger elephants that can fly and produce ungodly temperatures.

 

Yes, you don't want to risk the cornerstone of your rule.  But the nice thing about using your dragon to kill trees instead of men is that trees don't fight back. Plus, if you spend your time actually improving the 7K, then you're going to have more support among the people (noble and common) who appreciate the farmland your clearing, the roads you're building, the tools you're forging, etc. etc.

 

So, yeah.  Thoughts?

 

Minor nitpick, dragons are not necessary for any of this. Humans have been using slash and burn agriculture since loooong before we invented napalm or flamethrowers. 

 

Anyway,on to the topic, 3 points:

1. Prestige. Being a dragon rider is close to being a half-god. Who wants to be a construction worker when you can be a half god. 

2. Also, from a ruling perspective, the whole point of society is to create a surplus for you. You use said surplus to maintain a lavish lifestyle and to raise armies to get more land and get more surplus. People toil in the fields and pay taxes for you, you do not work to make their toil easier. 

Now, you might argue that using the dragons could spare a lot of people a lot of work, giving them more time to create more surplus, but really, at this point, what would that be? They already rule Westeros, they already have an overwhelming military advantage in the dragons and how much more lavish can it get?

3. It is a dragon. A dangerous, vicious beast that might be somewhat tamable and be useful in battle. They might not like menial work, or be very suited for it. It appears they might have been used in the original creation of the roads, but who knows how much trouble that might have been or how many slaves got 'accidentally roasted.'  

 

I do applaud your will to find productive peaceful uses for these WMD's though.  :laugh:

[Varamyr6skins]

I  feel compelled to respond an reference an older thread I started

 

Aemon Targaryen

"Fire consumes but cold preserves,..The Wall..I should never have left the Wall..Jon could not have known but I should have known, I should have remembered"

 

In AFFC during Aemon's voyage with Sam and Gilly to Oldtown. Aemon's helth begins to fade and Sam even thinks to himself that Aemon has always been strong minded and never seemed his actual age.....until he left the Wall.

 

Mel even states that the Wall is one of the hinges of the world and that there is great magic and power at the Wall.

 

A sharp minded individual can conclude that the Wall (Ice Magic) can be used for something other than of a destructive nature. It preserves, life, death, food, etc....

 

I believe that The Starks and The Targaryens - to a certain degree have something in their blood that sets them apart from the rest of Westeros. Maybe not all the Starks and all the Targaryens but some if not most.

 

Example that we have to go by -

 

Out of all the families, we only know of 2, the Targs and Starks who possess beyond normal abilities.

 

Stark children are wargs....Bran is the last Greensee(er) (Ice)

 

Dany is immune to Fire, and has hatched 3 dragons out of stone. (Fire)

 

Thus maybe having some sort of magic in their blood....or their blood being sensitive to magic.

 

As to your point of Dragons and your example of leaving a dragon at the wall would have been the ultimate help to the nights watch....

 

Samwell Tarly does at one point think back on how Queen Alysanne visited the wall and perhaps her Dragon Silverwing may have left a clutch of eggs behind.

[Varyslostloveball]

Burning down large swaths of land is great.......in enemy territory where you don't have to worry about farming the ashes, or putting the fire out, not so great in your own back yard.

 

Also, the logistics of actually implementing this are beyond me.

[Lord_Pepsi_Cupps]

 

1. Prestige. Being a dragon rider is close to being a half-god. Who wants to be a construction worker when you can be a half god. 

This. It's the whole "appearance of power" thing. You probably don't want your dragons to be associated with anything other than mind numbing fear, in your subjects' minds.

But I like the direction of the OP, questioning how the Targs used their dragons and other Valyrian goodies, or not used.

For dragonflame buildings specifically, it's hinted there's magic involved as well, which might be what was missing. We know Visenya was "rumoured" to have been a sorceress, but on the whole, the family's connection to magic (if it was ever strong) seems to only pop up occasionally. Whereas it was a big deal in Valyria.

After the Doom, not only is there less need to use spells against their enemies, but the Targs go generation after generation with only a couple of kids. Maybe they just went out of practice with magic, or even lacked enough Targs to have both dedicated dragonriders and dedicated sorcerers?

As they used their "sorcery" less and less, they also probably lost some of the ability to use dragonflame in more inventive ways.

[Rhaegar Estellion]

Dragons are a matter of prestige. For Targs they were the proof of being better humans, half-gods who can tame the most powerful beast known. Using them for hard labour would be as crazy as a Targ working the fields.

However, they Were used for something else that war. Transportation. Dragonriders can travel the land effortlessly and faster than anyone else. Every lord had to expect a Targ dragonrider appearing any moment. Building a rebellion is far more difficult this way.

[aryagonnakill#2]

Creating Valyrian roads would be a logical move to secure their own rule, the fact that they did not to me suggests they did not know how.  It is also possible that the Valyrian roads required massive amounts of blood sacrifices.

[VeryLittleGravitasIndeed]

 

 

 

Anyway,on to the topic, 3 points:

 

3. It is a dragon. A dangerous, vicious beast that might be somewhat tamable and be useful in battle. They might not like menial work, or be very suited for it. It appears they might have been used in the original creation of the roads, but who knows how much trouble that might have been or how many slaves got 'accidentally roasted.'  

 

I do applaud your will to find productive peaceful uses for these WMD's though.  :laugh:

 

Nitpicking a bit but dragons don't seem to be that vicious. They defend themselves but besides Rhaegal being nippy and Cannibal being utterly bonkers the dragons seem way more live and let live than you'd expect in any predator.

 

 

Creating Valyrian roads would be a logical move to secure their own rule, the fact that they did not to me suggests they did not know how.  It is also possible that the Valyrian roads required massive amounts of blood sacrifices.

 

Well the Targaryens didn't have that much time and that many dragons. Jaehaerys was the only king to build large scale infrastructure- so presumably they were all too busy to build roads.

[mediterraneo]

Also, the gravel roads part still include the need to bring in and lay the gravel, possibly on some kind of prepared foundation - a modern road is much more than the asphalt on its top, as well as a roman road was more than the pave on its top.

That would be already more work than the local work needed to mantain the King's Road, that the Targaryen were able to build, connecting the local transportation systems. It is not paved on most of the way.

Actually, more than dragons, sheeps would be a good way to build roads.
In Spanish 12th to 14th century, sheepowners of a society well within Westeros technology created a networks of roads starting from their actual pathways that came to occupy 2% of the whole terrritory. The nine or ten "Cañadas reales", the biggest "highways" there, were to be 90 meters accross, and were hundreds of kilometers long, and there was a very developed and institutionalized system of ranks of the smaller ways.
Why paving a road, if horses are the only way of pulling goods, and you will not move in winter anyways?
Expecially in Westeros, where when it is summer, it is summer for five years.

[Jaak]

A better use for a dragonrider is reconnaissance... and mapping. Maesters walking the ground can do it, but they have to laboriously check that they don´t wind up with significant objects missed. Whereas a dragonrider can scan the ground from above... a mile high for general maps.

 

Building roads? Actual building should be done by smallfolk on ground. But again, the dragonrider can get an idea as to where best to make shortcuts.

[DominusNovus]

It seems that they did use them for recon, even in Valyria. I don't recall Westeros ever having any serious problem with maps, though.

As to the roads, my point is simply that they could likely produce heat hot enough to simulate the construction of Valyrian roads.