Dragon Tales 02: Diaspora

What changed our world (other than our non-stop quest for knowledge and experimentation)? Well, what happened is some of our researchers searching the heavens, found a huge meteor headed our way.

Humans refer to it as the K-T event (the Cretaceous - Tertiary extinction event) that occurred roughly 65 million years ago. This meteor or comet was so large that when it hit, it literally changed the world. The explosion was greater than any atom bomb mankind has developed. It threw debris into the atmosphere that circled the globe for ages, causing climate change that makes thoughts of modern global warming or climate change pale in comparison. It resulted in massive die-offs as plant communities changed or disappeared, entire ecosystems collapsed, and existing food chains just ceased to be. As far as we could tell, about 75% of species on the earth disappeared.

Seeing it coming, making educated predictions of the effects of the impact, dragon-kind were terrified. We had a few months to prepare, and some did. Others just talked about it (again, dragons do enjoy philosophical discussions).

What we did was prepare to leave our world - not earth, but earth then. We looked to the future. In a serious mode that had never before occurred, we started traveling through time. We did not want to jump into a cold, grey world where debris blocked the sun and there would be little life and terrible hardships. Using projections of what we would encounter, and astrological predictions of how the stars would appear, we made jumps of several thousand years at a time.

Some of our explorers, like those in the past, did not return to report their findings. But many did - especially those who went forward only a few thousand years. What they reported was a climate, a world, that had changed beyond our expectations.

The debris did indeed change our climate. In fact, the meteor had changed the entire geography of the world as we had known it. Volcanic activity grew initially. Sea levels changed and tectonic plates moved. Ecosystems were rebuilding. Plant life was thriving in some areas. And new animal life was growing and spreading. Adaptations and evolution were going crazy.

With this knowledge and supposition of what the future held, most of our populations - those who were young enough and strong enough gathered a few belongings and left. A large part of the populations moved about 100,000 years into the future. Some headed out even further into the future. And some, unfortunately, who could not move or chose to stay with their loved ones were left to face their fate.

When we moved forward, we took some of our belongings with us. We had time to go back and bring forward much of our knowledge, but not our technology. Fortunately, dragon-kind had through their history used our minds more than technology. We had ingrained the ability to tap the ley lines. As a result, the transplanted community slowly began to thrive and expand, growing to enjoy their new home (and especially the lack of some of the larger predators). For many, life continued much the same.

However, for some, the move was just the start. Many of the young left the community and continued exploring. They did not just explore their new home, but further time lines. Over the years, those who left would occasionally reappear, but as the years passed, they returned less and less often.

For the larger community, life continued. Dragon culture grew and continued to evolve. Dragon skills that evolved over eons in the Triassic continued. One of the unexpected benefits of using the energy of the ley lines was dragon-kind found ourselves increasingly long-lived. Instead of lives that had evolved to become 50 years or so, lives became over 100, and even longer (especially those who supported and maintained meditative practices and used the ley lines on a regular basis).

With longer lives, dragons became more philosophical, and many turned inward, leaving the community and devoting themselves even more to their own concerns. Over time, the community devolved back to small family groups who interacted on occasion to find mates or for other reasons.

More and more of the younger dragons went out on their own to different areas and different time lines. Some of these younger dragons occasionally encountered an older dragon. In some cases, the younger ones would stay a while. In most cases, they interacted in passing, but the interactions were short-lived.

Taking ages, but summed in a few lines - dragons spread over the earth and through time. Many became solitary. Some encountered others of their kind. Some had young and made attempts to raise their young with the cumulative knowledge of the ages. So we have small enclaves living traditional dragon lives, but many more who were solitary and often forgot their heritage and history (or just did not care).