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Originally Posted by Hektore
Does the series take place on earth? Perhaps the air is denser where they are.
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It very much takes place on earth. In the early 1800's, during the Napoleonic wars, to be specific.
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Originally Posted by Lasereth
Dragons are fake, so maybe the gas that keeps them in the air is something that doesn't exist in our world? It could be explained by anything since the books are fiction. If the author named the gas then it would be sorta annoying but since they just left it as a light gas it wouldn't bother me at all.
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There is NO GAS that can be lighter than a vacuum, as that's how buoyancy works, which is why I worked it out with vacuum. The fact that her dragons don't 'work' when they are full of NOTHING makes it impossible for them to work when they are full of anything, regardless of how 'light' it was.
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Are you one of those people that point out continuity errors in TV shows and movies and have the experienced ruined by them? Just curious.
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Nope, generally not. I am, however, an engineer with an aerospace background. I would have
gladly conceded the usual suspension of disbelief (re:dragons) for the purpose of the narrative, (that an extremely large dense creature could have the strength to fly with wing flapping, despite completely ridiculous mass to wing area ratio), and in fact did concede it, early in the book. It wasn't until she tried to get faux-scientific with the lifting gas that it grated on me.
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Originally Posted by Baraka_Guru
I don't know anything about the Temeraire series, or the work of Naomi Novik in general, but there are a few questions that arise out of this exercise. First, I should note that I found this quite amusing when we apply the science to the parameters given. However, I'm wondering about the characteristics of Novik's storytelling: Is the information about dragons given in the narrative? Is the narrator reliable? Is the narrator omniscient (which is rather old-fashioned now)?
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The series is set in an alternate history in which dragons exist, and constitute a kind of air force, during the Napoleonic wars. There are no other major changes, and definitely no 'magic'--Dragons are presented as natural and corporeal.
All of the exposition is presented as dialog between the protagonist, a reluctant new recruit airman who doesn't know anything about dragons, and his more experienced comrades--in particular, a large chunk of dragony exposition happens during a lengthy "flight training school" section of the first book. The characters presenting the information have no motivation to be unreliable, and, as experienced aviators, they are in a position to know what they are talking about.
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Either a) there are interpretations of text that can explain why the earthly science doesn't seem to work, or b) the author has made grievous errors, for which we can blame both the author and her editor(s).
Either way, this is all rather fascinating.
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I believe it is the latter, however, I will pull up some quotes and passages when I get a chance, to give more context to the information I'm basing this off of, and you can decide for yourself!