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One of the great advantages of dragon-mounted warfare is the freedom of movement it grants. Control of the air grants incredible supremacy over those below; a simple rock dropped from above becomes a deadly weapon, and the armory available to a dragon-rider is vaster than mere sticks and stones. But the weapons alone are only part of that supremacy. Ground-level enemy forces cannot stand in your way unless you choose to fight them. Enemy leaders become targets or traps, huddled under half of their army for fear of being plucked like ripe fruit.

For all of the peaceful uses of dragons and their abilities, in war, they make it so that the only thing that can fight or defend against a dragon-armed force on anything resembling equal footing is another dragon-armed force. And while exceptions abounded in those early years—at the First Battle of the Seine River, for example, or the New Year Fire-Rout—part of that was due to a lack of understanding in how to properly use dragons on the battlefield. But it swiftly became apparent to everyone in those early days that there were two options: Either one has dragons, or one is beholden to one who has dragons.

There was, and is, really no middle ground.

—The Wing And The Ax, Queen Marshal Astrid Haddock I, undated draft, Waterford University Archives

Chapter 77: All Roads Lead To Rome

Another—typically overlooked—area that was tremendously impacted by the integration of dragons was city planning and design. Human cities prior to the adoption of dragons were universally two-dimensional (with noted exceptions such as Shibam and Derinkuyu), originating from a smaller settlement, typically next to a river or water source, and sprawling extensively across the landscape with greater or lesser degrees of urban planning, guidance, and support infrastructure. Buildings were typically only a few stories tall and close together, with narrow, twisting streets. The reasons for this, of course, are obvious: digging underground without the aid of Boulder-class dragons is time-consuming and labor-intensive, as is constructing high-rise buildings without the use of structural steel, even discounting the additional labor involved in climbing up and down such structures.

Modern cities, by contrast, sometimes seem almost as deep and tall as they are wide, with terraurban spaces extending far below the surface, and high-rises extending far above. Streets are multi-level and broad, with gentle curves to allow for ease of aerial traffic, and elevators and draconic flight connect the various levels together. Balconies and bridges are typical building features to allow for ease of transit and landing, while buildings themselves typically have high ceilings and wide corridors to allow for draconic foot traffic. Additionally, the small infrastructure access tunnels are typically designed with the sizes and capabilities of the small dragons employed as maintenance workers in mind. Some cities are even formed out of hollowed-out mountains and carved into the sides of valley walls; while to our modern eyes these emplacements seem natural, to our ancestors they would have seemed miraculous, something out of fantastical tales.

The transition, of course, was not smooth, and remnants of the transition are easily found and well-documented, despite the loss of some of the key transitional elements to time and demolition. But still, while they are humble in comparison with their descendants, those first 20-story steel-framed towers constructed in the 1200s cast long shadows through human history…

—The Dragon Millennium, Manna-hata University Press, Ltd.

Chapter 76: A Grand Tour

The early Dragon Mail stations were an earnest and generally successful effort in standardization; Haddock and Ingerman explicitly acknowledged the degree to which their designs were inspired by the Imperial Roman Castrum system of standardized layouts. Having experimented with the design in the earliest mail stations in the Alban Isles and Norway, Haddock and his initial construction expedition were able to build the mainland continental stations extremely quickly, typically completing each within a matter of days. Once the physical stations were built, the local merchant partnerships would take over with maintenance, staffing, and other logistical needs.

These early stations, while they had their problems, were generally well-designed, featuring a landing platform on the roof, housing for the staff, temporary quarters for dragons and riders, resting and feeding stations for the dragons, and mail intake and output offices. Due to space requirements, they were initially built outside of the local city walls or municipal limits, but quickly accrued settlement in their immediate vicinity, as additional shops and services found the traffic going to and from the mail station to be a natural draw.

—Corpus Historiae Berkiae, 1396

Chapter 75: ...You Never Get To See

The roots of the foundational Imperial welfare institutions that provide food, shelter, education and medical care to all Imperial citizens predate the beginnings of the Dragon Era by nearly eighty years, dating back to the the middle reign of Stoick's grandfather, Chief Hiccup II. Despite a tumultuous early reign, Hiccup II's grip on power stabilized during the AD 960s, and with the aid of his friend and confidant, the scribe Dror ben Ezra, he began a period of systematic cultural change; the ad hoc literacy classes that Dror had been holding were formalized and made mandatory for all children, a yearly census was instituted that also functioned as a minor form of taxation, and the formerly orally transmitted laws were scribed and codified. As part of that codification, the Hooligans took the earlier basic necessities that they had provided to temporarily homeless or destitute members of the tribe and made them universal, with Dror drawing on his Judaic background and training for direction in how to implement them...

[…] These educational and welfare systems became one of the core pillars of the Imperial social contract between the State and its citizens; there is no question that, without the economic pump-priming and social cohesion that they created, the young North Sea Empire would have never survived its initial challenges…

—Origins of the Grand Thing, Edinburgh Press, 1631

Chapter 74: It's Planting Seeds In A Garden…

He said to himself: Is there really a person who can sleep and dream for seventy years? How is it possible to compare the seventy-year exile in Babylonia to a dream? One day, he was walking along the road when he saw a certain man planting a carob tree. Honi said to him: This tree, after how many years will it bear fruit? The man said to him: It will not produce fruit until seventy years have passed. Honi said to him: Is it apparent to you that you will live seventy years, that you expect to benefit from this tree? He said to him: I found a world full of carob trees. Just as my ancestors planted for me, I too am planting for my descendants. Honi sat and ate bread. Sleep overcame him and he slept. A cliff formed around him, and he disappeared from sight and slept for seventy years. When he awoke, he saw a certain man gathering carobs from that tree. Honi said to him: Are you the one who planted this tree? The man said to him: I am his son's son.

-The Parable of Honi and the Carob Tree, The Talmud, Taanit 23a

Chapter 73: Harthacnut Is Better Than None

Harthacnut (Danish: Hardeknud), occasionally named as Canute III, was King of Denmark from AD 1035 to AD 1042, and King of England from AD 1040 to AD 1042. The son of King Canute the Great and Emma of Normandy, he was born, in July 1017, in England, shortly after their marriage. As part of the negotiations of surrender in the aftermath of King Canute's conquest of England, Harthacnut took precedence in inheritance over his older half-brothers from his parents' first marriages. When their father died in AD 1035, Harthacnut was left ruling Denmark, while his half-brother Svein (son of Ælfgifu of Northampton) was faced with a revolt in Norway, and Harold Harefoot (also son of Ælfgifu) took control in England.

[...]popularly seen as little more than a brutal tyrant without virtue or redeeming value, Harthacnut has usually been presented in a highly moralistic fashion in most popular media over the centuries. In these stories, he is used as an archetypal figure of the corrupt and brutal nobleman whose own evils bring about his downfall, an almost idealized villainous figure from whose tyranny and grotesque abuses the populace are freed from.

As such, in contemporary media, there is little interest in conflicting perspectives on his family background and upbringing that produced him. This is not helped by the recorded accounts of his actions, including massacres, repressive taxation, executions, feasts in the midst of bad harvests, oathbreaking, violations of hospitality, loyalty purges, and even the posthumous beheading and disposal of Harold Harefoot, his paternal half-brother, in retribution for the death of Ælfred Æþeling, Harthacnut's maternal half-brother. His death on 11 June, AD 1042 is seen as appropriately fated, but even then, he is typically overshadowed by the other events of the day...

—Dragons of the North: Profiles Of The Viking Lords, Waterford University Press, 1733

I get a lot a questions asked repeatedly for A Thing Of Vikings, so I’m compiling an FAQ.

Where is Valka? Is she going to make an appearance?

Read And Find Out.

What about the Bewilderbeast?

Read And Find Out

Shattermaster?

RAFO

Screaming Death?

RAFO

Defenders of the Wing? Wingmaidens?

Probably not; the Wingmaidens’ narrative niche as a female-dominated faction is occupied by the Bog Burglars (and much more naturally, I feel), and the Defenders don’t fit at all with the European attitudes towards dragons (also, Mala is a Sanskrit name...)

The Light Fury? Or Grimmel?

I haven’t even seen HTTYD 3 yet, so how can I make informed decisions on how the characters might fit into my story?

Will Johann turn out to be a traitor?

This one I’m going to answer flat out. No. He will not.

For a couple of reasons, which I will outline here.

First, I started writing this fic well before that lazy plot twist was revealed, and had already built him into my worldbuilding in a manner that did not fit with that characterization.

Second, Johann, even before that character twist, was an antisemitic caricature (foreign untrustworthy/mercenary merchant with a hooked nose, big beard and beady eyes, and voiced by a Jewish man). Then they went ahead and made it worse, to the point that he could literally be something from Nazi propaganda: a backstabbing conspirator with a false-front of friendliness who is actually a member of a conspiracy for world domination? Yeah, I’m Jewish, so even in as something as small as a fanfic, I will give a hard pass on continuing to perpetuate stereotypes that hurt my people.

Is Hiccup going to find the Dragon Eye?

No.

Being quite blunt about it, while I hate what the writers did to Johann with him being an antisemitic caricature, the Dragon Eye bothers me as a writer. One of the primary things I’ve noticed about RTTE is the number of Plot Items unsupported by the worldbuilding, with the Dragon Eye and Dragon Root being the two purest examples. They’re both obviously there to enable plots that the writers wanted to write, and nothing more.

Consider this. If I wanted to include the Dragon Eye in ATOV, I would have to answer all of these questions before I could possibly include it:

● Who made it in the first place?

● Who decided that this complicated method of information storage was optimal?

● Who designed it to be readable only with the glow from a dragon’s throat when--as far as we know--Berk is the first place to engage in dragon taming?

● Why did Berk have no knowledge of all of these new dragon species that are within a week’s flight of their home prior to this point?

● How are all of these hidden lenses still in useable condition?

● Why were they hidden in the first place?

● WHY NOT JUST WRITE A BOOK!?

So, yeah. No Dragon Eye in ATOV.

What about Dragon Root?

Same problem as the Dragon Eye; they’re both plot devices shoved into the world with no consideration for how they’d affect that world. Can you imagine how that final raid we see in the opening of HTTYD 1 would have gone if they’d had Dragon Root? But, hey, it’s not like they haven’t lived in the region for 300 years!

It’s so transparently a plot device to take the dragons out of play without permanent harm so that the good guys can be put in peril without dragons getting in the way. But anesthetics and toxicology don’t work that way; there is no perfect knockout drug, especially one that works instantaneously on an animal the size of a dragon with a dose small enough to fit on a dart.

So, yeah, no Dragon Root either.

Have the Norse colonized America?

Historically speaking, yes; there were small Norse colonies in Vinland and sporadic contact starting about AD 1000. Whether or not that’ll have impact on the plot is a RAFO topic.

Will you be bringing in Eastern Dragons (Chinese, Japanese, etc)?

RAFO

What did Clodgall do to Gobber?

RAFO

Why are you being so mean to Christianity?

I’m not. I’m presenting it honestly; the Church’s corruption and brutality during this era is a matter of historical record. I can give sources for the massacres and atrocities committed.

Can you have the Protestant Reformation occur 500 years ahead of schedule?

Now for what possible reason would that happen?

Isn’t having LGBT characters historically inaccurate/bringing in modern politics?

You’re kidding, right? LGBT people have existed all through recorded history. It’s only since the takeover of Christianity that they were forced to hide for fear of persecution. And with the inclusion of Cami and the Bog Burglars, I think I have enough support in the worldbuilding for Berk being reasonably LGBT-friendly!

Polyamory is immoral and cheating; why did you include it?

Historical accuracy, because the Norse were polygamous, and because I’m polyamorous, as is my wife, and there are moral and ethical differences between consensual non-monogamy and cheating.

Shouldn’t Wulfhild get punished for lying to Hiccup and Astrid?

If you’re of a punitive mindset, sure. But Hiccup is much more forgiving, and managed to bring Astrid along for the journey to forgiveness.

Will you include [plot idea I want you to include]?

No.

Will you include [characters or plot idea from my favorite intellectual property]?

No.

Will you include this dragon or OC I just made up?

No.

Why not?

Because if I include it because you asked, then I have to explain to other people why I didn’t take their requests. I do occasionally offer Tuckerizations to friends (i.e. having a character named after them because names are hard), but I don’t accept unsolicited requests to have material included into my story. Period. I’ve had enough tantrums thrown in my inbox over this that I’ve had to make it a blanket policy, thank you.

But I want you to include it!

And I should include it... why?

Because I want you to!

Well, you are welcome to write your own story and include it then. This story is mine, and you don’t get a say on how it goes.

Chapter 72: How The Wheel Turns

There are two great dangers with using dragons for military purposes—overuse and underuse, and frequently they mirror each other. As with any fighting resource, the temptation to concentrate everything you have into a single hammerblow will always be there. And it is worse with the use of dragons, due to their high mobility. One can easily rationalize to oneself that the utility of keeping a mass formation of dragons that can rapidly deploy outweighs the risks of raids and other high-speed attacks. But the mere fact that dragons are fast doesn't mean that they can fly across Midgard in a day. Time is still needed to get any army moving, and that is still the case for flocks of dragons, regardless of how well-trained or well-drilled they are—and that still allows for a window which someone alert and ready to attack can use to their own advantage.

—The Wing And The Ax, Queen Marshal Astrid Haddock I, undated draft, Waterford University Archives

Chapter 71: Next To Godliness

In the aftermath of the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, the Byzantine Roman Empire had inherited the full formalized legal and political structure of the old Roman Empire itself, without needing to reinvent it. This structure gave it the internal cohesion it needed to maintain its political and military strength. As part of that political strength, the Empire was noted for playing its various rivals and neighbors off against one another in order to keep threats at bay.

One of the core aspects of Byzantine military policy was their use of diplomacy and foreign influence in the furtherance of military strategy. They maintained active ambassadors with every neighboring state and many that were further away, and did not hesitate to meddle in the internal affairs of other states.

This made the Byzantine Bureau of Barbarians (Greek: Skrinion tōn Barbarōn) an office of considerable influence and importance in the intricate bureaucratic and political structures of the Byzantine government, and it did its job masterfully. Suspected of having been the espionage office of the Empire by modern scholars, it was, officially, a protocol office for dealing with the ways of foreigners. However, the office also maintained lists of rivals to foreign thrones, and would happily supply those individuals with money and support if it looked as if the current throne-holder might become a threat, or possibly merely uncooperative.

The Empire also made use of a similar tactic on a larger scale—supporting rival states if their neighbors threatened the Empire. If the Rus' threatened war, then the Pechenegs could be subsidized. If the Bulgarians grew restive, then the Rus' could be contacted and favors called in. A noted exemplar of such divide-and-conquer tactics was Emperor Heraclius, who once intercepted a note from the Persian king ordering the execution of a general and his staff. The emperor added 400 names to the execution list and sent the note on its way, and watched as the Persian empire fought itself to put down the rebellion that ensued.

Another example of such manipulation occurred when it came to light that Sigurd Trondsson (see Chapter 21: The Dragon Riders) was actually Snotlout clan Jorgenson, effectively next in line to inherit the chiefdom of Berk after Hiccup clan Haddock and his issue. The Bureau…

—Constantinople: The Child of Rome's Empire, Venice, Italy, 1725

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