ω · Dragons
In the sleeve notes at the end of volume 8 we get a sneak peek into the fauna of the Joker Galaxy. Jüno in particular is home to very nasty-looking dinosaur types, while Delta Belun boasts stag beetles and sperm whales. If Jüno is supposed to be a prehistoric Earth, then perhaps Delta is something of a present-era Earth (in a parallel universe, of course). But the King of the Beasts in Joker is the dragon.
The official name for dragons in FSS is dragon natures. They live exclusively on Both, and there are five types, each of which has only one specimen in existence. There are a number of associations with each of four of the types:
STONE: COLOR: ELEMENT:
Sapphire Blue Thunder
Onyx Black Water
Jade Green ???*
Gold Gold ???
* The Green Dragon is often called Earth Dragon, but only because of its color is jade-amber.
The fifth type is the most fearsome of them all, the LED dragon. Nagano is at his most playful when asked what this LED actually means. The basic meaning seems to be “very strong”, and it refers to the past participle form of the English verb lead. “This dragon is so cool he has led every other dragon.” Nagano has suggested other meanings, among them: Leading Earthboth Dominion and Light Emitting Dragon. A typically Japanese misspelling of the adjective red must also be taken into account (the LED dragon is mostly white with red trims).
There are two factors that separate dragons from all other living things:
1) Dragons do not grow up like other creatures. Each individual actually recapitulates draconic evolution. In human terms, it would be as if our babies were born like fish, then evolved into amphibians, rats, monkeys and only reached humanity in adulthood. One important consequence of this is that young dragons are immeasurably weaker than adult ones, since in essence they’re practically different species.
2) Dragons possess genetic memory. That is, each dragon inherits the memory of its ancestors. This is like the Goa’uld in the Stargate universe, and possibly like the Shaman of Atoll in Hathuha itself.
A smaller detail, but I think a very revealing one nonetheless, has to do with the hands or feet of the dragons in FSS. In our world, Japanese dragons have 3 toes, Korean ones have 4 and Chinese ones have 5 toes. The dragons of Both have six toes, or more properly fingers (and one looks like a thumb). I think the point of this is that these dragons are superior to Chinese ones!
It is a commonplace that Western dragons are evil and scary, whereas Eastern dragons are benevolent and auspicious. From these sleeve notes, the sense that we get is that by and large Joker dragons are above and beyond such considerations. Awesome and indifferent might be one way to describe them, for now anyway!
[covered VOLUME 8: from page 58 to the end of the volume]
Kritik der Animationskraft 
Wow good job in presenting the dragon species. The para-text went over my head when I read it since I was more interested in proceeding with the narrative at that point.
Nagano and LED… what lulz. I don’t even know what to say anymore.
The dragons have claws instead of digits, and six is a ridiculous number because it’s rare even in nature: you get six limbs among insects, but six claws in a single appendage — you’d have to dig for fossils to find an example I think.
Dragons in contemporary Western fantasy have 5 claw digits/talons; particularly in the tradition of Dungeons and Dragons. See the illustrations of Keith Parkinson, Jeff Easley, and Larry Elmore. These are the guys I spent my childhood with, dragon-wise (Clyde Caldwell too, but he sucks).
Well, 5 digits is just like humans, right? According to the Chinese, original dragons have 5 toes and then as they march East they lose toes (thus Korea has 4, Japan has 3). The Japanese would say original dragons have 3, and they pick up toes as they march West. I guess Koreans could argue they have 4, and they lose or grow more as they head away from the center (but I haven’t heard this argument, and chances are they stuck with the Chinese interpretation). Anyway, opposable thumbed dragons look fearsome indeed!