Hello all,

Welcome back! Let’s dive right in.

So the next question I got was to dive a little bit more into the biology of the dragon race.

(OBLIGATORY SPOILER ALERT HERE:)

If you have not read past An Empire of Ashes, you may want to skip this piece.

So we have people asking how it is possible for humans and dragons to conceive a child. This is nothing new, half-dragon children have appeared in other fantasy stories, but I guess this question came up when I tried to explain how it could happen with two species that… admittedly, should be incompatible.

Well let’s remember that the entire basis for the series surrounded a half-dragon character named Raiya. Yes, she was a freak of nature that technically shouldn’t have been possible. However, because of the aggressive dragon immune system, drakaeic DNA did manage to impregnate a human woman.

Now, let’s address the elephant in the room first. Leaving out copulation, how can a dragon and a human even mate without the human becoming infected. The answer to that part is quite simple; evolution. The vaccine that Dr. Castillo created worked better than anyone ever expected… arguably too well. The vaccine used a weakened dragon DNA to create immunity in the human body. Because of the nature of the vaccine, it only required one dose to create complete immunity. After a few generations of vaccination, natural immunity took over and human DNA had been altered so that human cells were no longer susceptible to the dragon immune system. However, it had an unexpected result; the human genome was forever altered.

Let’s talk about the dragon side of things. Almost immediately, dragons were having trouble adjusting to our atmosphere. The nitrogen-oxygen in our air was slightly different from that on the Drakeas home-world. Not only that, but our yellow sun emitted different rays from the red giant that dragons were used to. The end result of this was immune-compromised dragons, stillborn children, among other issues.
Now, in most science fiction dealing with creatures on a world that is different from Earth, the colonies often fail because human biology is quite fragile. Either they quickly become ill and die from their biology being unable to adapt to the new environment, or contract some kind of disease that ravages the entire colony. (Think the Native Americans when diseases from Europe were introduced.)
This is not the case with dragons. Dragon biology is far more resistant as their evolution is far beyond that of humans being an extremely ancient race by comparison. As such, their biology is able to adapt and “evolve” over the generations to be able to handle our world. Qira is the first example of this. The first gen dragons look considerably different from others; hairy manes instead of bony spikes, reduced maturity size, and softer skin. What’s more, their internal biology started to change as well.

Finally, let’s talk about dragon mating rituals. It’s quite a bit different from humans. As mentioned in the books, when a dragon reaches maturity, and becomes enamored with a partner, intense emotions, coupled with physical contact, trigger what they refer to as ‘imprinting’. Essentially, a dragon’s biology becomes more in-tune with their mate. both dragons biology alter to make mating more likely to produce healthy offspring. In addition to that, dragons become more in tune with their partner on an emotionally level, able to sense their partner’s feelings. This comes with certain risks. If, after the imprinting is complete, the pair does not mate, the effects in the best of cases will be painful, lasting throughout the dragon’s life, or at worst, can be lethal. This becomes even more of a problem when a dragon imprints on a human. Because a human doesn’t go through the same process, a dragon’s internal biology changes far more radically. In most cases, for many generations, rendered the dragon infertile.

So the question was about conceiving a child. Well, take the alterations of the vaccine in humans, the environmentally-triggered evolution in dragons, as well as the changes which result from imprinting, and eventually,  thanks to all these factors, dragons and humans become biologically compatible. Now, we only see this going one way, human male, dragon female. Now, it is ASSUMED that it could work the other way, but I don’t really go into that. It’s not impossible though.

In any case, I sincerely hope that this helps answer some of the questions surrounding what’s going on with Joaquim and Nayeli.

Readers, if you liked the book, please take a moment and leave me a quick review or if you’re pressed for time, some simple stars will suffice!! I wouldn’t ask, but the more exposure my book gets, the more copies it sells. Word of mouth is everything in this business! Thanks so much, all! I greatly appreciate it!

https://a.co/d/fvwmK1H

Thanks, friends! I’ll catch you on the flipside!

-Jim

Readers,

Do you have a question about writing, publishing, my stories, etc? Please feel free to post a comment or email me.

jhwriting@proton.me

I’ll use those comments to select my next blog post.

I have been writing for several years, have 4 published works, experience with publishing and independent work, so I can hopefully be of assistance.

Please note, I only do one of these a day and will do my best to respond to everyone, but it may take some time.

Also, feel free to check out my works of Fantasy and Historical Fiction, Available on Amazon and where ever books are sold. See the link below:

http://www.amazon.com/James-Harrington/e/B00P7FBXTU

Note:
If you have read my books, PLEASE log into Amazon and post a review. I really love to hear everyone’s thoughts and constructive criticisms. Reviews help get my book attention and word of mouth is everything in this business!

Thanks friends!

Catch you on the flip side!

-Jim