Monday, April 22, 2013

'S' is for 'Sauropods.'



‘S’ is for ‘sauropods,’ the great beasts of burden in The Frontier. They were considered either extinct or purely mythological for much of pre-history, until that one apocalypse where millions of them returned from the dead. Where exactly they’d gone or how they’d returned is still a mystery, the very answers trampled beneath their titanic feet. And while they wiped out a few minor civilizations with their come-back, they’re generally easy to cohabitate with today.

‘Sauropod’ is a wildly misunderstood word that is often used to refer to all dinosaurs and anything dinosaur-like. Even dactyls, which have more in common with giant birds than anything, are referred to by the name.

"No, you tell her she's not a sauropod."

The most famous strain are deluxe-class sauropods. Convoys moving between city-states will often purchase brachiosaurs, using their sheer size to scare off raiders. Ankylosaurs, too, are favored by impish convoys, as their tails double as defensive weapons in skirmishes. And though not technically “sauropods,” would-be heroes have been trying to saddle tyrannosaurs for a thousand years. No one’s made it work, but the first one to succeed is going to be famous, and probably win their first war by intimidation alone.

Sauropods are generally misunderstood by those who don’t directly deal with them. Often theropods are lumped in with them, and because of the fame of brachiosaur and hadrosaur pods, they have a reputation for gigantism. In fact most sauropods and theropods are smaller than humans; compsognathus is so insignificant that, even though numerous, it is considered a common pest or food source in much of The Red Crescent. Most cultures are plentifully exposed to sauropods and ought to know they range wildly in size, but they simply don’t care. They only care when they’re being attacked by them, or betting on the hadrosaur races up north.

28 comments:

  1. Imagine an apocalypse that brings back an extinct species instead of wiping one out!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My thought exactly! I love it!

      Delete
    2. Eventually you wipe out enough species that one making a comeback really does the trick! It's handy.

      Delete
  2. I love the thought of an apocalypse which returns life forms. And am still thinking that through.
    Thanks John - your take on the A to Z has been a delight.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Haha, thank you! There's a scene in Last House in the Sky where a particular hero argues it's incomparably the best apocalypse ever.

      Delete
  3. Yes, there are SO many more dinosaurs than the limited range most people think of. And of course, only some of them are sauropods. (I have a child obsessed with dinosaurs, I know more about them than I ever knew there was to know!) Compsognathus are cute though. (So long as I never meet one in real life. I wonder if they taste like chicken?

    Rinelle Grey

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Fun fact: chickens are actually extinct in this world. Dinosaurs came back too late and missed the life spans of their evolutionary children. There are almost no birds left.

      Delete
  4. "... betting on the hadrosaur races up north."

    This line pays for all.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tinkering with making it the content of a Friday Flash...

      Delete
  5. "In The Frontier" implies that the Empire doesn't have them. In that case, I could see why the humans haven't done a whole lot of conquering across the divide. Some impish Hannibal could give them a ton of grief in the future.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They've been very handy to triclopic rebels! Not quite Hannibal-level, but as the novels go along... we'll see.

      Delete
  6. So if I'm following this and recent science news correctly, the sauropod apocalypse is going to start any time now. Makes sense.

    Also, I have "I Wanna Be a Flintstone" running through my head.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I've been trying to massage some Flintstones jokes in there...

      Delete
  7. Your world just gets better by the second.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you! I've been working on it for a while.

      Delete
  8. Awesome entry! and I love the picture too. I LOVED dinosaurs so much it was almost impossible for me to choose which museum to go to in NYC as a kid:
    The Museum of Natural History (with my beloved dinosaurs), or The Metropolitan Museum, which had the irresistable Egyptian Wing. Later I even tried to teach myself Heiroglphics when I got a little older.So you seem the Met usually won out. But ohhhhhhhhhh those dinosaurs.
    xox jean

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I always the Natural History guy. Human history was a boring second place compared to dinosaurs. I'd try to rearrange their bones in my head, to assemble what a dragon skeleton might look like.

      Delete
  9. We are a family of dinosaur lovers too:)thanks.
    #atozchallenge
    maggie at expat brazil

    ReplyDelete
  10. Okay, I want to be there when the first hero saddles a Tyrannosaurus. The sauropods sound cool (except if they eat my family)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Then may I recommend you start off with an herbivorous sauropod of lesser mass? Not that I could blame you for jumping directly onto the tyrannosaurus.

      Delete
  11. I am really enjoying these posts. I especially like the line "..until that one apocalypse where millions of them returned from the dead." Not sure I want to imagine such an apocalypse, I'd much prefer one that just wipes out everything instantly - unless I was capable of saddling up my own sauropod

    ReplyDelete
  12. I'm always wondering if and when we will come across creatures and a secret realm we don't know of yet.
    KaTy Did at: Life's Ride As I See It

    ReplyDelete
  13. I'm a dinosaur fan. This is a very idea to have them come back!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Love the idea of sauropods being used in your novel! I admit, I used horses...does it count that at least I made mine with lambs wool for hair with chameleon attributes? :)

    ReplyDelete
  15. Ankylosaurs are like tanks. I'd want several with me as well.

    ReplyDelete
  16. With the recent, giant strides being taken in animal husbandry, the domestication of T-Rex is not so far-fetched. A cavalry mounted atop tyrannosaurs charging across the Red Crescent will be a sight to behold.

    ReplyDelete

Counter est. March 2, 2008