Guild Wars 2

Even with hibernation, life requires sustenance. The Elder Dragon seem to be surviving off of their own extrusions. How is this possible?

Mm… I’m not sure the comparison holds. You can’t live off your waste because it’s, well, waste. Your digestive system has already extracted the parts with nutritional value, and has no use for what’s excreted.

For that to hold true for the Elder Dragons, there would have to be parts of magic that they derive no value from. As far as we know, that’s not true- our biological systems expel what we can’t convert into energy, but the Elder Dragons sidestep that process by feeding on energy directly. It’d be more analogous to a plant expelling sunlight during the night and reabsorbing it by day. There’s absolutely no reason a plant would evolve to do so, but if it did, and if that light remained in the local system until it resumed photosynthesis, there’s no reason it couldn’t reuse it.

Unlike real food, magic doesn’t hold nutrients to extract. Magic doesn’t change when it leaves the Elder Dragons during hibernation – just when they create corruption.

No extraction, no devalue.

No devalue, can be re-consumed without loss.

Now, corrupted magic might be another matter entirely, but we do not know if they “re-consume corruption”. However, given Taimi’s recent Episode 2 “reveal” about magic and the Elder Dragons’ draconic energies, I don’t think that it fundamentally changes when used to corrupt things either.

Describing the dragons as “eating their poop” is invalid in many ways, some of which are mentioned above. For one thing, it sort of implies that they actually produce the magic in their consumption, where that doesn’t really seem to be the case. It’s more like the magic seeps out from them much like water will eventually leak out of a sponge.

Plus, it’s magic. We don’t know what sustains dragons, or if he eats anything besides magical artifacts. Or the magic can sustain them without any degradation in the magic. Because, well, it’s magic.

Bears hibernate. Do they eat their own excrement?

Think of Dragons as sponges. When they are awake, they sop up all the magic available until they are completely wet and can’t hold any more. When they are asleep, all that magic they sopped up slowly leaks out of them until they are a dried up sponge again.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Unlike real food, magic doesn’t hold nutrients to extract. Magic doesn’t change when it leaves the Elder Dragons during hibernation – just when they create corruption.

No extraction, no devalue.

No devalue, can be re-consumed without loss.

Now, corrupted magic might be another matter entirely, but we do not know if they “re-consume corruption”. However, given Taimi’s recent Episode 2 “reveal” about magic and the Elder Dragons’ draconic energies, I don’t think that it fundamentally changes when used to corrupt things either.

If it doesn’t contain nutrients how do they survive?

Daniel Handler.4816:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Unlike real food, magic doesn’t hold nutrients to extract. Magic doesn’t change when it leaves the Elder Dragons during hibernation – just when they create corruption.

No extraction, no devalue.

No devalue, can be re-consumed without loss.

Now, corrupted magic might be another matter entirely, but we do not know if they “re-consume corruption”. However, given Taimi’s recent Episode 2 “reveal” about magic and the Elder Dragons’ draconic energies, I don’t think that it fundamentally changes when used to corrupt things either.

If it doesn’t contain nutrients how do they survive?

The specifics of the how is pretty unknowable, it is magic after all. Elder Dragons don’t have to follow the same rules of biology as normal animals, they are an embodiment of magic.

Moonyeti.3296:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Unlike real food, magic doesn’t hold nutrients to extract. Magic doesn’t change when it leaves the Elder Dragons during hibernation – just when they create corruption.

No extraction, no devalue.

No devalue, can be re-consumed without loss.

Now, corrupted magic might be another matter entirely, but we do not know if they “re-consume corruption”. However, given Taimi’s recent Episode 2 “reveal” about magic and the Elder Dragons’ draconic energies, I don’t think that it fundamentally changes when used to corrupt things either.

If it doesn’t contain nutrients how do they survive?

The specifics of the how is pretty unknowable, it is magic after all. Elder Dragons don’t have to follow the same rules of biology as normal animals, they are an embodiment of magic.

I don’t think it is unknowable. It is a pretty important part of the lore. Either we have some idea now, or the writers are sure to tell us.

Unless Elder Dragons are bound by some metaphysical law, they would not hibernate without reason. If the lack of magic in the world inspires their sleep, then its consumption must be key to their survival. They are perfect recyclers but they are still mortal.

Moreover if this truly is a closed system, won’t the world eventually run out of magic?

I do not know of any methods for the benign extraction of magic. Even if we use Aurene to gather magic from non-living sources, eventually all of it will be trapped in the flora and fauna of tyria.

In our reality we talk about possible methods of recycling that will last until the death of the universe. But I don’t know if Tyria has that level of entropy.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Unlike real food, magic doesn’t hold nutrients to extract. Magic doesn’t change when it leaves the Elder Dragons during hibernation – just when they create corruption.

No extraction, no devalue.

No devalue, can be re-consumed without loss.

Now, corrupted magic might be another matter entirely, but we do not know if they “re-consume corruption”. However, given Taimi’s recent Episode 2 “reveal” about magic and the Elder Dragons’ draconic energies, I don’t think that it fundamentally changes when used to corrupt things either.

If it doesn’t contain nutrients how do they survive?

The main point of nutrients is to be converted into energy. That’s an unnecessary step when you feed on energy directly.

The secondary point is to provide the physical elements used to make up the body. We don’t have any clear evidence on that point, but we do know that magic in general, and dragon corruption in particular, seems to have an easy time changing matter from one form into another. That being the case, it’s possible that the dragons don’t need organic nutrients as we know them. They might be able to convert inorganic matter- rocks, soil, water, all things that we’ve seen the dragons corrupt- into their physical forms. They might be able to constitute physical forms directly from magical energy, something you can argue the dragons, elementalists, and necromancers have already been seen doing on a smaller scale. Or they might supplement their magic diet by snacking on their minions, and we don’t know about it because nobody’s been able to hang out and observe an Elder Dragon at their own leisure. It’s also worth keeping in mind that dragons might not be intrinsically linked to their bodies like we are- Kralkatorrik can turn into a sandstorm, after all, and Mordremoth wasn’t tied to any specific physical form. If their ‘bodies’ are really just containers for the magical energy they subsist off of, a la Exalted, then they might not need to provide specific kinds of substances for brain functions or chemical messengers or the like.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Unless Elder Dragons are bound by some metaphysical law,

Given that they’ve been linked directly to major components of the All, that seems very possible, but…

they would not hibernate without reason. If the lack of magic in the world inspires their sleep, then its consumption must be key to their survival. They are perfect recyclers but they are still mortal.

Only if you make a series of assumptions about their nature. We don’t know why they fall into quiescence- we call it hibernation, because it mimics on a much larger scale what we see biological creatures do, but we don’t know if the same reasons apply. The only expert testimony we have on the topic is Glint, who put it like this: “I saw how they feasted on all flesh, on all minds, on all life. I saw how they ate until there was nothing left to eat, and then fell, sated… But three hundred years ago, the dragons’ bellies were empty and their minds were awakening.” That’s not a description of a bear hibernating for a winter. That’s a lion settling down for a nap after it gorges itself. Taking anything Glint says at face value is problematic at best, but when our sole point of evidence is against taking hibernation too literally, I’m not inclined to get tied down to that interpretation. We also don’t know if they’re mortal, not in the way you mean it- they can be destroyed, and breaking apart their body does the trick, but that doesn’t mean it’s possible for them to starve to death in the way we usually think of the matter.

Moreover if this truly is a closed system, won’t the world eventually run out of magic?

According to the asura, Tyria has some sort of Law of Conservation of Magic, so if it truly is a closed system it follows that the world won’t run out of magic.

Even if we use Aurene to gather magic from non-living sources, eventually all of it will be trapped in the flora and fauna of tyria.

Which, as far as we’re aware, isn’t a bad thing. It’s actually what we’re aiming for. The point of using Aurene as a magical battery isn’t to contain some arbitrary amount of magic; it’s to keep ambient/ley magic at a low enough level that it isn’t harmful to Tyrian life. Having her attack that life wouldn’t just be defeating the point, it’d be wholly unnecessary.

Daniel Handler.4816:

I don’t think it is unknowable. It is a pretty important part of the lore. Either we have some idea now, or the writers are sure to tell us.

Unless Elder Dragons are bound by some metaphysical law, they would not hibernate without reason. If the lack of magic in the world inspires their sleep, then its consumption must be key to their survival. They are perfect recyclers but they are still mortal.

Moreover if this truly is a closed system, won’t the world eventually run out of magic?

I do not know of any methods for the benign extraction of magic. Even if we use Aurene to gather magic from non-living sources, eventually all of it will be trapped in the flora and fauna of tyria.

In our reality we talk about possible methods of recycling that will last until the death of the universe. But I don’t know if Tyria has that level of entropy.

First, no ley-lines would exist if the flora and fauna would eventually absorb all magic. There’s been atleast 10 thousand years of history, and we know that there have been multiple cycles of the Elder Dragons doing this, so it’s been long enough essentially for all flora and fauna to absorb all the magic that they could. There is a limit to how much magic can be absorbed by most creatures according to what we see. The bloodstone madness shows that the psych breaks when exposed to an extremely high level of magic, so we have that limit exposed to us already. We also have the shadows lined on the walls around where the bloodstone explosion seemingly took place, as shown in the first episode of LWS3, so we know there is also a physical limit, otherwise the body would be annihilated. We also know that something absorbed the bloodstone explosion, alongside there being lots of floating stuff near the epicenter of the explosion, so it didn’t totally destroy everything around it. it DID cause destruction, but not complete destruction, otherwise we would not be able to see the place that the bloodstone explosion originated from, nor the nuclear shadows from the explosion itself.

Secondly, we’re explicitly told that the Elder Dragons, during their hibernation, release magic back into the world. It seems apparent to me that there’s a finite level of magic too, seeing how magic levels in the world drop to the point where Elder Dragons must hibernate because they can’t feed on any more magic, since there isn’t much/any left.

There’s also the stuff about the shadowstone, the krait oil and rifts too. Presumably, we’re starting to see the effects of what too much magic released into the world is like. So it would take a long time for those levels to return to ‘sustainable’ levels, assuming no other elder dragon is killed and every dragon, including Aurene, is given enough time to absorb the magic.

With the death of all six elder dragons, we may be in some trouble. Hopefully Gleam will show up out of nowhere and claim elder dragon status while Aurene grows up.

As for exactly how the Elder Dragons can self sustain with the general absorbing of magic and release of it, we don’t have any details. As of this moment, it is unknowable and may never be known by players or developers. It’s a detail, but I’m not sure it’s key knowledge for anyone to know. It might show up if we need to place magic in containers like the bloodstone to prevent ambient magic levels from becoming too high.

The current understanding of Elder Dragons doesn’t make much sense. They are basically the magical equivalent of a perpetual motion machine. They need to consume magic to function, but that functioning doesn’t actually consume the magic being used.

In other words they are pooping out 100% of what they ate.

Granted our understanding is only from the tyrian perspective, which is limited to only recent history and a few ancient scrolls written from equally limited perspectives. Perhaps they don’t extrude all of the magic that consume each cycle, and that millions of years from now there will be no magic left.

We also don’t know how closed the system is. We know dragons consume magic and then let it go again… But we don’t know if there is another source of magic in action too.

We know there is a Sun warming the days on Tyria, The Dream connecting the minds of sylvari (and maybe others), the Mist joining times and lives past, and we know there are multiple races that have used, stored, mined and even shared magic from and with the environment. We don’t have the tiniest clue if some of them can actually be creating more magic, or wasting magic forever…

So we can barely assume dragons consume and release magic in a similar proportion. We know they can be a disaster now because they do eat large amounts of magic that could affect Tyria today.. But we don’t know for real were that magic comes from, or if it is really wasted or if it goes to some other place. Maybe they even PRODUCE MORE magic during their sleep. We just can’t see the larger, coomplete picture.

Ardid.7203:

We also don’t know how closed the system is. We know dragons consume magic and then let it go again… But we don’t know if there is another source of magic in action too.

We know there is a Sun warming the days on Tyria, The Dream connecting the minds of sylvari (and maybe others), the Mist joining times and lives past, and we know there are multiple races that have used, stored, mined and even shared magic from and with the environment. We don’t have the tiniest clue if some of them can actually be creating more magic, or wasting magic forever…

So we can barely assume dragons consume and release magic in a similar proportion. We know they can be a disaster now because they do eat large amounts of magic that could affect Tyria today.. But we don’t know for real were that magic comes from, or if it is really wasted or if it goes to some other place. Maybe they even PRODUCE MORE magic during their sleep. We just can’t see the larger, coomplete picture.

The asura have claimed that magic is constant (or conserved)
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Maginamics

Daniel Handler.4816:

If it doesn’t contain nutrients how do they survive?

Short answer?

Because magic.

(No, seriously, in this case, it really is “because magic.”)

Long answer?

Atop of what Aaron said, and the whole matter of energy in our universe versus Tyria’s…

Magic is, in effect, an infinitely renewable energy source where it can be used as energy without ever losing quality – unlike food – or at least the reduction of quality/quantity is so minimal that it effectively is infinitely renewable to all mortal perception (we may learn that the amount of magic is actually 0.001% lower than it was 1,000,000 dragonrise cycles ago, which means it would eventually run out, but not even within a million Forgotten generations that last over a thousand years each).

However, the Elder Dragons, too, are inefficient at utilizing this energy source as they try to withhold as much magic as possible without releasing, leading them to hibernation when they cannot consume more. If they released magic while awake, to later reconsume it, they could potentially remain awake indefinitely – but at a weaker state of being than they seem to be attempting to reach. Of course, this means that were there only two or three Elder Dragons, they could reach (or exceed) that state and have magic on the side.

Because of the two facts, the Elder Dragons can not only reconsume magic without loss (so far as we know at least), but they must reconsume it to survive.

Crinn.7864:

The asura have claimed that magic is constant (or conserved)
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Maginamics

A claim that was held before the notion that Elder Dragons consume magic was publicized to asuran community.

The entire chapter 3 of the asuran personal story is about that claim, and how the asura masses believe it because their government had withheld information from them (cue conspiracy theory nutjob shouting “I was right!”).

Of course, the claim may still be right, given the “disproving of the claim” by Gorr was claiming, in turn, that the Elder Dragons destroy magic, rather than retain it (something we learned in Season 1).

Daniel Handler.4816:

I don’t think it is unknowable. It is a pretty important part of the lore. Either we have some idea now, or the writers are sure to tell us.

Um… why is it important? They were asleep, and now they’re awake and trying to kill us. Why do we need to know how they stayed alive? Did you ever ask how Sauron existed years later? Or any of the other Sealed Evils in a Can? They just did, and it’s not important why because we’re going to kill them.

Also, magic. Magic is the answer to anything that doesn’t make complete sense.

Dragons are not the source of magic.

All dragons magic may be magic, but not all magic is dragon magic. Dragons eat all types of magic, including other dragon’s magic – but I don’t think they eat their own.

Gorr demonstrated that the idea of constant infinite magic is flawed, by showing dragon minions and dragons, by extension, do create a lowering in the magic present in a place, “consuming” or “destroying” it.

However, Gorr’s theory doesn’t explore any suficiently large area, or during any suficiently large amount of time, to demonstrate how magic works universally, or even at the planetary level.

All we know is dragons consume magic here and now (this continent, the last few years). We don’t know if there is another source, or if dragons eventually destroy all magic they eat, truly free it while sleeping, or if they create more magic than they consume. All there is is speculation and questions.

The scholars need to make much more experiments and calculations yet to find a complete law to explain magic behavior and “life-cycle” properly. Present day theories are way too incomplete.

Rognik.2579:

Daniel Handler.4816:

I don’t think it is unknowable. It is a pretty important part of the lore. Either we have some idea now, or the writers are sure to tell us.

Um… why is it important? They were asleep, and now they’re awake and trying to kill us. Why do we need to know how they stayed alive? Did you ever ask how Sauron existed years later? Or any of the other Sealed Evils in a Can? They just did, and it’s not important why because we’re going to kill them.

Also, magic. Magic is the answer to anything that doesn’t make complete sense.

Much of the plot revolves around the Elder Dragons. Omadd’s machine indicated they are essential to balance of the world. As the story continues to delve into that topic I imagine we will learn more.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

For that to hold true for the Elder Dragons, there would have to be parts of magic that they derive no value from. As far as we know, that’s not true- our biological systems expel what we can’t convert into energy, but the Elder Dragons sidestep that process by feeding on energy directly. It’d be more analogous to a plant expelling sunlight during the night and reabsorbing it by day. There’s absolutely no reason a plant would evolve to do so, but if it did, and if that light remained in the local system until it resumed photosynthesis, there’s no reason it couldn’t reuse it.

A better analogy might be oxygen or carbon dioxide. A plant is always respiring in the same sense that animals do, taking in oxygen to burn sugars into water and carbon dioxide and expiring the latter. During the daytime, however, photosynthesis reverses this process, taking in carbon dioxide and water to produce sugars and other organic molecules useful to the plant and releasing oxygen, a process which occurs at a high enough rate that over the course of its life, a typical plant releases more oxygen than it consumes and consumes more carbon dioxide than it releases. Regardless of its source, CO2 is still CO2 and therefore useful to a plant.

A literal approach to this analogy would imply that the dragons have some other resource that they combine with magic for sustenance. Lesser dragons certainly do eat regular food (see Aurene’s interest in fish, for instance), so it’s possible that the dragons use magic as a catalyst for more efficient digestion or in some other biological process.

Rognik.2579:

Daniel Handler.4816:

I don’t think it is unknowable. It is a pretty important part of the lore. Either we have some idea now, or the writers are sure to tell us.

Um… why is it important? They were asleep, and now they’re awake and trying to kill us. Why do we need to know how they stayed alive? Did you ever ask how Sauron existed years later? Or any of the other Sealed Evils in a Can? They just did, and it’s not important why because we’re going to kill them.

Also, magic. Magic is the answer to anything that doesn’t make complete sense.

Biochemistry answer: when you know how a system works, you can turn it into an attack. People who try to cure cancer, aids, and other diseases try to do so by studying how the disease works, and then engage one of the mechanics.

A nice example is breast cancer. Due to unlimited growth we know there are more HER2 receptors on the surface. So we can create a toxin or virus that specifically targets HER2 and it will kill off the cancer cells. Healthy cells will not have enough HER2 to take a legal dosis.
Another method was this really necrotic bacteria. They found out that it eats and processes a certain alcoholic group. So as medication they gave the patient a molecule that had an alcoholic and a D-amino-cyanidic group. The human body can’t process it, so we’re safe, but the bacteria eats, cleaves of the D-amino and the Cyanide group and dies.

If we can study how the dragons eat, we can mess with their food. A less ham-fisted attempt of what we did with Zhaitan.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Rognik.2579:

Daniel Handler.4816:

I don’t think it is unknowable. It is a pretty important part of the lore. Either we have some idea now, or the writers are sure to tell us.

Um… why is it important? They were asleep, and now they’re awake and trying to kill us. Why do we need to know how they stayed alive? Did you ever ask how Sauron existed years later? Or any of the other Sealed Evils in a Can? They just did, and it’s not important why because we’re going to kill them.

Also, magic. Magic is the answer to anything that doesn’t make complete sense.

Much of the plot revolves around the Elder Dragons. Omadd’s machine indicated they are essential to balance of the world. As the story continues to delve into that topic I imagine we will learn more.

Omadd’s machine indicated that the dragons were important, not that they were essential. You also seem to put a lot of value in a 2 minute clip from 3 years ago. The origin of the dragons isn’t important to the story, and possibly will never be revealed. While on that topic, the sylvari are also not the answer to everything. Try to realize this in future discussions.

Rognik.2579:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Rognik.2579:

Daniel Handler.4816:

I don’t think it is unknowable. It is a pretty important part of the lore. Either we have some idea now, or the writers are sure to tell us.

Um… why is it important? They were asleep, and now they’re awake and trying to kill us. Why do we need to know how they stayed alive? Did you ever ask how Sauron existed years later? Or any of the other Sealed Evils in a Can? They just did, and it’s not important why because we’re going to kill them.

Also, magic. Magic is the answer to anything that doesn’t make complete sense.

Much of the plot revolves around the Elder Dragons. Omadd’s machine indicated they are essential to balance of the world. As the story continues to delve into that topic I imagine we will learn more.

Omadd’s machine indicated that the dragons were important, not that they were essential. You also seem to put a lot of value in a 2 minute clip from 3 years ago. The origin of the dragons isn’t important to the story, and possibly will never be revealed. While on that topic, the sylvari are also not the answer to everything. Try to realize this in future discussions.

“On that topic” by which I mean completely unrelated to the OP, if you want to be patronizing make sure its selective. This is the lore forum, we have had entire discussions over less than 2 minute clips from 3 ago. I have not been part of them all, but I know most of the people in this thread have at one time questioned snippets.

Of course, I was part of the threads I created, including whichever Sylvari/Pale Tree topic you seem to be referencing. To my knowledge you either contributed a little or not at all to any of those discussions. Were Drax, Konig, or AaronA to tell me I should “try” something, I would give it more respect. You on the other hand are a kitten, making suggestions on behalf of people that never asked, over beliefs I do not hold.

If you want to kitten you have to do the time. When Konig loses his patience in the midst of a long discussion, it is understandable. When you become an off-topic kitten in under three posts it is unacceptable. Try to practice that in future discussions.