Possible evolution of dragons on earth.
Crafting dragon fire and it's purpose.
Continuing off of intro, starting parameters, and first steps. This one is going to be particularly talking about the steps I took to create dragon fire. Something that could have gone alongside first steps but I wanted to make its own post.
In first steps it mostly talks about how we got to a six limbed vertebrate that could become a dragon. But the parts to create dragon fire or technically present during that evolution also. But due to the complexity of dragon fire it is often easier to explain it backwards than forwards. Plus an explanation on how it would work in the first place is usually better too. So I'm going to start first with problems I conquered and then how I engineered the system from there.
Major problems with dragon fire.
The biggest problem with fire isn't so much its legitimacy as a biological product. But the reason for it to exist in the first place. If you have claws why use fire? If you have teeth why use fire? If burning your prey just causes them to run away and die later. Or perhaps live if they're lucky. Why wouldn't you just use your claws and your teeth and any other weapon to secure the kill more efficiently. Even venom has a better rate of working than setting something on fire. It doesn't have much of a use unless you really have no weaponry like humans.
So the first question is what sort of use would it have? Well it can cook meat with it right? Right, if you don't have an immunity to the generic stuff contained in raw meat that most animals on Earth do. So that doesn't quite work. What does? Defense. Most creatures that propel something at another creature are usually doing it for defense. Whether it's a rock or a spray of venom it's usually defensive. The only exception is the Archer fish which uses it to get prey it can't get. So dragon fire has to be a defensive action. Something closer to a skunk spraying to get a predator to leave them alone except it's on fire.
And while the pity of it being a defensive ability does sting. Luckily once the product has been made it can be used for other things. It's just that it has to start out as defensive. Later on it could become a display or a weapon if the dragon chooses to. Display again one of the easiest ways to keep dragon fire around without it being a redundant trait. Mostly because again a projectile is usually used for defense unless you're a human.
Now that we have found its purpose as an evolutionary thing. Now we have to get to the big thing. Crafting fire. Now like I said creating fire isn't necessarily a problem. There is actually quite a bit of ways. Anyone who has watched or consumed any sort of dragon media can list a couple off their fingers. And in fact that was the first thing I did. List off all the ways I knew and go through the list deciding which one was most or least ridiculous.
First we start with the two parts that make fire. Fuel and ignition. Starting with fuel, You have the basic gas and liquid. Simply observing the two. Liquid is a much more controllable substance. With gas always having the possibility of exploding inside of you much like the red deaths surprise. But of course what liquid. That of course depends on your ignition, but! The body is full of oils. And you can certainly condense that into a flammable liquid if not methane itself.
But then we look at ignition. Which is where all the fun is. The most common ignition is one based off of the bombardier beetle. Chemical reaction. Mixing two things together that ignite. Other than my problem with the bombardier beetle basically spraying people with hot vapor and being nothing like fire. When you actually look at things you could combine together to create fire. You come up spectacularly empty. Or at least you do unless you want to do something I did not want to do.
Lots of scientific dragons usually get their fiery chemical or source externally. Whether it's literally huffing in a gas or eating a rock. Unless you decide to have a magical mystery of liquid or chemical. Usually it has to be external which is something I wanted to avoid. As it unfortunately falls into the problem of. Why do I need to go through this process of eating a rock, when I could just use my claws. Which again leads with chemical reaction being thrown out the door.
So we can't use a gas. We can't use a chemical reaction. So Flint and stone right? Metallic teeth, a rock in the throat, some sort of clacking of surfaces. I'm sorry but that doesn't work either. Dragon fire most uniquely comes from the mouth. A purposely wet and slimy thing to keep everything in there working well. And even if these flint teeth are external. You fall into the problem of praying that your little spark actually hits your fuel. If you spit out your fiery liquid and then have to spend the next while snapping your face at it. You may as well just bite the thing.
So what's the solution then? For most people at this point I have gone through every single depiction of scientific dragon fire, fantasy or not. There's nothing else. Well they're actually is. Something I found in a old movie called flight of dragons. Something I haven't seen replicated. Electricity. If a creature could create an electrical current and put it on a liquid fuel not only does it not really have to worry about igniting it again. But it also doesn't have to worry about luck just as much.
Ergo we get the recipe. Are dragon fire is created by having some sort of oily spit that is projected through an electrical current. Looking at little things though. This mechanism should probably be located near the front of the mouth. No need to get a flammable oily substance all over your tongue. And my personal little touch is that it's a inflatable pouch that you can notice. Leading to the hot red inflation look before breathing a stream of fire that dragons usually have.
Now that we have how to make fire how do we evolve such a thing. We know it needs oily spit and electrical currents. Electricity while some people might think it's hard, it's not. Simply making sure that in the fish and amphibian stage that was a useful trait. In my opinion having the electricity be an easy stun to make a fish be instantly meek when caught works.
The bigger thing is the oily spit. We already have one possibly defensive mechanism being the electricity. Even if we say it's usually based in the jaw it still is a pretty good deterrent. So in order to make the spit compete this has to be the major thing they do out of the water. Starting out as mostly just water that is mixed with their saliva and oils to create an irritant. It later on gets more sophisticated and just becomes a irritant oil.
But even if we have these ingredients. We still fall into the little problem of, why? If I can spit an irritant oil or a shock something why would I create fire. And to put it simply it just has to be a mistake. A fluke that makes it through. Because of this most of the dragons that I have that are a scientifically accurate. Don't breathe fire. Only a couple lucky lines got the ability. Because for many others they simply just didn't get the luck.
But for those that did. This is the life they had to live. They would spit at predators getting in their way. And is that predator decided to come close enough even after this bit they would bite. The electrical discharge they usually did in the water just being instinct. Resulting in a somewhat fiery explosion terrifying both predator and prey. But mostly damaging the predator.
This of course for most would be terrifying and unusual due to the somewhat pain they pray has to go through. But for some lucky dragon lines this started to get more sophisticated. They realized that triggering the electricity while they spit made it so it was less likely that they would have to be on fire themselves. The spit becomes a thicker more flammable oil and the electricity becomes more centralized and powerful. This spit also coming out of a much smaller and controllable orifice.
Just soon becomes a very well-made defense mechanism. Anyone who would dare harm any of these fire breathing dragons would be hard pressed to do it again. As I stated in the beginning this could possibly become a hunting technique but it's simply just not efficient most of the time. But it could become a very flashy display. A competition to spit your fire the farthest or be the brightest. A ridiculous trait boistered by the pickiness of a female.
But that is how I crafted fire. And also where my family name comes for the dragons. The oil spitters. As well be electricity to spark said fire is lost in most terrestrial species. They're oily irritant spit stays. Whether it evolves to be something akin more to venom, or stays as the defensive spit doesn't matter. Almost every species in this dragon family spit an oil to some degree. Becoming the major defining trait of all dragons. Therefore the entire family is called-
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