Just an idea. Or is that what the AP film surmised? Haven't seen it.

You'd also have to explain why a dragon's upper digestive tract produces so much methane. Usually that kind of methane gas concentration isn't produced until the end of the process, in which case your dragon would have to shoot fire out of his...well...er...we won't go there.

[talk about hemmorhoids!]

Yea... I'd say you could have actually written the program... they said it was platinum that sparked hydrogen... but otherwise... it was the same explanation. And I thought that was kinda dumb... so... I need something better...

"You'd also have to explain why a dragon's upper digestive tract produces so much methane. Usually that kind of methane gas concentration isn't produced until the end of the process"

I already have an explanation for that part. Don't worry, the character that actually needs to state all this is very logical minded, so I basically have to make myself think of everything detail to make sure the logic isn't lost somewhere...

Then, the gas could be naturally present, and the dragon could ingite by biting down a particular way -- scraping the teeth until a spark occurred. ?

1) burn your behind than your mouth
2) get a bit of a boost during flight
3) use as a flame weapon on someone coming up behind you in a sneak attack in aerial combat
4) use to signal your presence to other dragons at night, "I ####, therefore I live!"

And what about mating season displays?

The possibilities are endless.

One thing we've never discussed here (that I know of) is risk-taking in writing. This is a great opportunity. Let's not lose it.

I don't know if this helps but I seem to recall there is a kind of ant that acts like a suicide bomber, exploding violently if overwhelmed in combat. Probably a similar process to that beetle.

I'm going back to sleep now.

Josh Leone

To your question about the methane... basically, I chose methane because that seems to be the most likely combustible chemical to come from a reptilian creature, and it seems to be the easiest to figure out a way for the dragon to have voluntary control over it… even if it's not 100% voluntary…

BTW, Terry Pratchett has flame farting firedrakes in Guards! Guards! Carrot (the main character) uses one as a kind of flamethrower to get out of a tight spot.

BTW2 did you read this bit from the consulting biologist on Animal Planet's Dragons?

quote:

---

Styx3: Did you have any other ideas on how dragons breathed fire besides the platinum theory?

Dr. Hogarth: It's the setting fire to the dragon that's the problem. I think our ideas were hydrogen and air mixing and exploding, and the only way we could think of it to work was the powdered platinum. We wondered if they could strike a spark against their teeth. Large dinosaurs did ingest stones to help digest their food, but the stones couldn't be large enough. There was the possibility of electricity. There are animals that create amounts of electricity — electric eels and electric rays — but they couldn't generate a spark, so the platinum theory seemed to be the best.

---

Edit: rant deleted...

This whole topic reminds me of the time my kids came home from their dad's and reported their stepbrother had used a lighter to light his... methane expulsions... and burned all the hair off his behind and left behind a ghastly smell that seared their nostrils and left them gagging for hours.

The dragons great size was due to their basically being blimps.

Of course if it's an ALIEN dragon it could just have undiscovered chemical that burns in the presence of oxygen.

hoptoad:
"Dragons are the fantasy world equivalent of faster-than-light travel. (Impossible at best. But we are willing to ignore that unless you try to explain it.)"

That's what separates fantasy from sci-fi... fantasy is just "magic", where as sci-fi is "science"... to say a creature that is not known to exist on this planet, especially an animal that is at least semi probable, is actually a falsie in logic... traveling faster that light is actually not *proven* impossible either, it's just presently impossible and mostly improbable... but for someone that can create a believable theory of it being possible, they can very easily make it possible in sci-fi.

To your "BTW2"
Actually the thing of the dragon blowing up from it is something that I've taken into consideration... also one of the reasons I've chosen methane over any of the other possible chemicals... granted, it's still possible for it to blow up his head, if it were possibly forced to close its mouth at the wrong time, but otherwise it would be harmless to the dragon... {Um… forget I said that... I might be able to make use of that idea...}

"Edit: rant deleted..."

Don't you rant at me, mister... go to your room!

JBSkaggs:
"Of course if it's an ALIEN dragon it could just have undiscovered chemical that burns in the presence of oxygen."

Actually... a lot of discovered chemicals happen to become highly combustible when mixed with air, so an undiscovered chemical would be unnecessary... like... methane (reference: Swamp Gas)... it only takes a slight spark to make it ignite enough to create a fire that can melt the flesh off a human (the flaw of doing research is having to actually see some of this stuff... fair to say, I have a clear image of what I'm working with now)... hence why I've chosen to go with a sort of flint in the dragon's mouth.

Survivor:
"My own preference is that dragons not breathe fire."

That would kill some key points in the story otherwise, the dragons and their evolution is significantly relevant (and you're not gonna get me to tell you any more).

"From a metabolic standpoint, it's simply far too wasteful."

I don't get why it's "wasteful"... it's about as wasteful as anybody's body already does... hence... it's natural... especially taking into consideration the extra size of the dragon, and its excessive eating, which creates larger amounts of methane (this occurs in real animals even).

"Dragons are smart."

That's a falsie of logic... you mean "Dragons could be smart," but they could just as easily be as stupid as the typical dinosaur (which, by the way, are theorized to have been pretty dumb).

"If there is magic in your milieu, then they can probably do fire magic pretty well."

If I have my character explain the breathing of fire or anything is "just magic", he'd have to pretty much kick his own ass (and I'm not going into anymore detail than that, so stop trying to make me).

"If you're doing dumb dragons, then I can't (or perhaps would rather not) help you."

Um... ok... taking dragons a wee personal on a somewhat creepy level now... but... ok...

Robyn_Hood:
"Okay, this idea was inspired by the flame-thrower bugs in the Starship Troopers movie. Those bugs sprayed a liquid that was ignited by a static charge (not sure where the charge came from exactly, but it looked cool)."

plant material.

If dragons are really plant eaters like cows and termites, then ok. But that doesn't make much of a plot.

The only answer to the problem is that meat eating dragons must produce hydrogen gas, perhaps by a simple evolutionary modification of the proton pump cellular process by which we humans produce hydrogen chloride in our stomachs. The dragon would just have to have a way of releasing its hydrogen before it is caught by a chloride ion, perhaps by the use of excess sodium in the process at the cell membrane level. Perhaps this would explain the yellow color of their flame. Perhaps it is the result of contamination by sodium chloride?

This leads to some interesting possible plot twists, such as a method of capturing dragons by leaving out bait which contains a proton pump inhibitor such as Nexium.

If they were omnivores they would still have to produce hydrochloric acid lest they risk having the meat portion of their food putrify. The acidity produced might disrupt the methane fermentation process, producing more CO2.

I do seem to recall someone, I believe it was Tolkein, who suggested that dragons were omnivores and ate grain when they coudln't get humans or sheep. This leads to another possibility. What would happen if a dragon developed a taste for grain and his internal plumbing went haywire and produced CO2 and alcohol instead of methane?

The proton pump is a natural modification of the sodium/potassium cell membrane pump which operates by recycling adenosine triphosphate, a complex energy producing chemical we all have abundance of. The ATP acts as a shuttle for hydrogen ions.

I think that one point here is that if the process were something intrinsic to the dragon such as the proton pump process it would be more robust but if it were fermentation to make methane it would be dependent upon some sort of unicellular critter which might be very finicky about its own environment. Both alcohol and methane fermentation need a relative poverty of available of oxygen for instance.

The trouble with meat if I recall is that it contains a lot of nitrogen, which is easily diverted by other bacteria to produce putrification.

I recently saw an episode of Mythbusters (my new favourite show ), that involved looking at the methane production of human waste. I can't remember exactly, but they mentioned something along the lines of only 40 (or was it 60?) percent of humans actually produce methane.

So if humans, which are omnivors, can produce methane as a bio bi-product, why couldn't dragons?

As for the teeth, bears have sharp pointy teeth, but they are omnivors.

Regarding the self-producing alcoholic dragon idea -- that could make for an interesting story. And if the alcohol was potent enough, it would also be flamable.

It gives me a headache thinking about the possibilities, as things get complex pretty fast. (My 30 year old microbiology, cell physiology and biochemistry textbooks contain a collective 3000 pages and these sciences were very primitive 30 years ago compared to our present knowledge.)

Contamination of fermentation process is a risk with any natural environment and could be catastrophic. For instance what would happen if dragons produced ammonia byproduct and the processs got contaminated and produced poisonous hydrazine? Sure his flames would still burn, but he'd poison the environment as well.

All the variabiliies and possibilities in fermentation (like what do the humans produce who don't make methane?) is one of the things which led me to try to identify a theoretically possible purely intrinsic process which would not rely on microbes.

Well, this conversation has been fascinating but overall it tends to confirm my own opinion that dumb dragons are...well, dumb.

P.S. Okay, so I must have skipped like half the thread.

Maybe a dragon has to be old enough to eat things it doesn't like in order to make the flame. Like termite infested wood.

To generate a sense of dread. Just like any other force of nature.

That said, I prefer them intelligent as well, as long as they're benevolent, that is.

http://www.uk.imdb.com/title/tt0083951/

The Flight of Dragons. In this film, the dragons ate limestone which they reacted with acid in their stomach to produce hydrogen; this was then stored in an internal organ, which somehow presumably compressed the hydrogen. They then used this organ somewhat like a fish's swimbladder to control their flight, and expelled the hydrogen across a bioelectric organ in the roof of their mouths to ignite it. Oh, and they had to be careful not to touch it with their tongues, otherwise they got a shock...

Actually, I thought that was supposed to be rhetorical... it seems more bizarre otherwise... but, ok.

That all depends on the level of "intelligence" in which you're referring… I personally don't care for the level of intelligence in a dragon where they're completely in everyway equal or greater than the intelligence of humans (at least not for this particular story), that works for stories such as "Dragon Heart", but not so much for mine... or quite a few other stories.
But then there are actually different levels of intelligence in animals where they actually can figure things out, even comprehend certain levels of speech (like dogs recognizing commands, an ape using sign-language, etc).

"What the heck is the point of doing a dragon that is too dumb to figure out how to breathe fire the way God intended?"

Basically, I took that question as not only completely rhetorical, but not even close to being serious because... um... it's just crazy. As if there's a fixed manner in which "God" intended for a mythical creature to conduct a mythical activity... not even to get religious about it, it's just silly. Does any creature just "figure out" how they do any defensive/offensive activity "the way God intended"? No… everything has a process... and the acknowledgement of that process is significant to my story for many reasons.
It'd be like Superman's heat-vision being explained as being "just magic"... but as any comic book geek can tell you, there's a scientific explanation to not only his heat-vision, but to every power and weakness he possesses (this is actually the case in pretty much all comic book characters).