Agree to disagree

Writers: Chelle, Jelena
Date Posted: 18th March 2014

Characters: P'nal, Derwill
Description: Derwill and P'nal have a bit of a discussion.
Location: Dragonsfall Weyr
Date: month 6, day 12 of Turn 7

"Greetings, P'nal," Derwill sauntered up to the brownrider as casually as
he could manage, waving at the mahogany brown as he approached. "Hello to
you too, Jodeth. Do the both of you have a moment for me?"

The brownrider looked up and saw Derwill standing there. He'd been
scratching Jodeth's underbelly. The brown was curious and watched the
approaching crafter with slight interest. The Wingsecond nodded. "Ahh I
suppose."

"Perfect!" Derwill replied, obviously delighted at not being turned away.
"I just have a few things I was wondering about and you might just be the
person to answer my questions."

"And what are those things Derwill?" He was hoping this had nothing to do
with any strange helmet contraptions.

"Well, I'm researching dragon communication, so I'm trying to gather as
much information as I can. I'm hoping to be able to develop a device some
day that will make communication possible for us non-riders."

**Ah he's still on that then.** "You do know that's already possible right?
If a dragon wanted to speak to anyone that wasn't their rider they could.
They just choose not to usually unless it's an emergency." Of course
sometimes with weyrmates and things like that, it happened, but still not
very often. P'nal wanted the man to know, though, that it was already
possible.

"Yes, but always on the dragon's initiative. Wouldn't the world be so much
safer if a holder could call out to an overflying searchrider if something
was wrong, for example?"

"Wait a moment. So you want people to be able to communicate by thought to
other people?" That was just odd.

"No, no, to the dragons," Derwill replied quickly. To other people.. that
was just silly. Or was it?

"Some already can. Here's the thing, though, if dragons communicate through
telepathy, which they do-they choose who to communicate with because they
choose whose mind they want to touch. What you are proposing would mean
that the person can choose which dragon's mind they want to link with. What
if said dragon doesn't want them in their brain?" P'nal, like most, revered
dragons over people and wouldn't ever dream of forcing any of them to do
something they wouldn't want. "You're eliminating their choice."

"I'm not saying we should give the device out freely," Derwill shook his
head. "I doubt it would be a very affordable thing. But it could be lent
out before threadfall to ground crews for better communication. That could
save lives and land."

"Right but who is to say that people will use them just for that? Why would
they not use it to call the Weyr whenever they wished? People are curious
creatures, Derwill. While your intentions may be good I think it may be a
way for nonriders who are always curious and jealous of the bond we share
with our dragons to try and have it for themselves." Indeed, P'nal didn't
trust such a thing. "I'm of the opinion that the current
firelizard/flagging method works rather well." Not many people ever got
Scored on the ground.

"So just because someone might misuse it, it should not be invented?"
Derwill asked. "I think it might have more advantages than we can now even
assess."

"The advantages would only occur if it was used correctly. Here's the
thing, though, what if the dragons could simple block those thoughts out if
they didn't want to hear them? So it would be useless." P'nal very much
disliked the idea of someone talking to Jodeth besides him.

"But I'm sure there would be some dragons who would like to talk to others.
Don't they have different personalities, just like people?"

"They do, but there are things about them that are basically the same. One
of those happens to be that unless it's an emergency they usually only
speak to their riders. Even then though, they may not speak to another
person. If they wanted to talk to others, they could. They just don't which
is why you're talking about inventing this thing in the first place." P'nal
needed him to see reason, if just for a moment.

Derwill sighed. Some of these dragonriders could be so snobbish! Yes, he
respected dragons a great deal. They were what made life on Pern possible,
so he could understand why their riders were so proud of them. But if
dragonrider-pride got in the way of saving lives... That seemed a bit
counter-productive. "I don't think we are going to agree on this ever, are
we?"

"I don't know. It depends on if you are ever able to see it from a dragon's
perspective instead of a human's." P'nal understood it was hard for
nonriders to do so because they didn't understand how dragons thought and
acted.

"I'm not a dragon, that's why I'm going around asking questions," Derwill
said with a shrug.

And that was why it was important to listen to those who knew the dragons
from having them inside their head. Derwill didn't seem to want to, though.
So P'nal wished him the best and went back to what he was doing. By the
look of things, the technician would probably never get anything like that
working anyway.

Last updated on the April 13th 2014

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Agree to disagree