[Dragaera] Thoughts on age and experience on Dragaera

[Alexx Kay]

> Could it be the genetic manipulation based upon the animals from which
> Dragaerans were developed?  Leaving aside dragons*, it's possible that
> developmental learning was degraded from the humans when they were
> spliced with local DNA.
>
> * Okay, dragons and perhaps athyra.  Beyond those two, what evidence is
> there that any of the other animals used to form the Houses have a high
> intelligence?

The one athyra that I recall seeing (in _Athyra_) didn't seem especially
*smart*.  They have some sort of psionic powers, but that doesn't imply
intelligence, per se.

Similarly, the Dragaeran version of dragons seem to have at least some
psionic sensitivity, but we've not seen evidence of even human-level
intelligence.

There's evidence that many kinds of witch familiars have roughly
human-level intelligence.  But that seems to have more to do with their
being familiars than with the underlying intelligence of the animal
species.

Alexx

"[CALVIN AND HOBBES] requires a great deal of research and I need to
 do more interplanetary exploration and paleontology work before I
 can continue."
   -- Bill Watterson on his upcoming sabbatical