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Alright so let’s say that we have a massive dragon about 2 miles long. This big guy needs a lot of fuel to power himself and since there is only so much food he can eat at one time, he decides to run on nuclear power. Now dragons (in this universe) utilize metals in large quantities for various purposes such as in their scales, bones, claws, etc. So this gigantic dragon goes and munches on some radioactive metals and stores them in a special organ that is immune to the effects of the radiation. The dragon then uses the energy for heat, to generate electric currents, and generally keep itself alive.

So here is the actual question. Would the above exposition (eating radioactive material), be a sufficient explanation for a radiation based breath attack? Bonus points if anyone can devise a way for said breath attack to use alpha, beta, and gamma radiation. More bonus points for anyone who could describe the effects of such an attack.

P.S. - I know that I can make this creature do whatever I want, as I’m the one writing it and “it’s a dragon.” However, I would like to have some sort of plausible explanation for its incredible abilities other than the standard “it’s a dragon and can do what it wants.”

The simplest answer is the dragon works like a nuclear reactor, causing fission of the nuclear materials its eaten, which releases tremendous heat and abundant radiation. Normally, a nuclear reactor does this in a containment vessel (meaning the nuclear process, and its bypoducts, never leave the vessel), but the dragon's innards act like a containment vessel.

When they need to attack, the dragon simply stops regulating the process (i.e. drawing the heat off to use for energy) which builds up tremendous heat. We're talking about enough heat to make lava, such as the corium that is produced in a nuclear reactor meltdown. Mix that heat with other materials the dragon has eaten, and you have a highly toxic radioactive substance that is not easily dealt with (just standing next to corium for a few minutes will kill you). In theory, you could also build up hydrogen (caused as a byproduct of the nuclear reaction breaking down water) and have the dragon exhale it. Still pretty radioactive.

Just be sure your dragon has a ready source of coolant (like water or something else).

If the breath attack is purely radioactive it wouldn't be a very good offensive weapon because exposure to even large doses of radiation still take a while to kill, on the order of hours or days. To get such a large amount of radiation to immediately kill you would have to generate a powerful enough reaction to require tons of shielding to keep from frying your dragon.

Alternatively, maybe the radiation breath is not instantly lethal, but strong enough to give a lethal dose to anyone not completely encased in lead armor. Radiation poisoning is a pretty horrifying way to die, I'll let you look up the full list of symptoms and effects but to name a few:

• Nausea & vomiting


• Skin damage from radiation burns that can lead to infection


• White blood cell death which can make infection worse


• Anemia from red blood cell death


• Changes in blood chemistry


• Internal bleeding

And of course an increased chance of cancer, leukemia, etc. If this is a world before the health effects of radiation exposure has been documented, let's say people who return from trying to slay this dragon report they saw a flash of blue light (Cherenkov radiation) and begin to die over the next few hours or days from an "unknown disease". It would definitely inspire fear in those who want to slay the dragon.

A purely radiation breath could be done by having an organ which stores radioactive material and is surrounded by shielding (your dragons can use metal in their bodies, so it could be lead or tungsten). All you need to do to release this radiation is open a hole in the shielding, working like some laboratory and medical radiation sources. To win the bonus points for using alpha, beta, and gamma, all you need to do is change the level of shielding:

There could be some flaps in front of the organ the dragon can use to block different types of radiation, although gamma would be used almost exclusively for its penetrating ability.

General Dragon Thoughts

Eating radioactive material is sufficient explanation for a radioactive breath attack, for the simple reason that vomiting radioactive debris at someone is legitimately lethal.

One difficulty to consider is that highly radioactive material is rare in nature (such material decays away quickly on geological timescales), so the dragon will perhaps struggle to get enough material or be strongly tied to a particular deposit that does contain sufficient concentrations of fissile material.

A second difficulty is how, biologically, to get value from radioactive materials. Heat is one thing, but what you really need is a way to do chemistry and manipulate the complex molecules that compose a living organism. You'd be looking for a semi-photosynthetic system that can capture the energy of gamma, beta and alpha radiation in wave modes and broken bonds of organic molecules.

Breath Attack Specifics

Radiation is not good at immediately killing things in the way that, say, being on fire is. Extreme radiation doses that shred up your molecular machinery still take about an hour for the body to get to a sufficiently bad state that it dies. Less extreme, garden-variety radiation sickness kills over a few weeks.

Regardless, the dragon could happily vomit radioactive debris from its internal stockpile at people, and if it were sufficiently dirty material they would die over the next month or so.

Or, if the dragon has an internal organ that is running a nuclear reaction, you could arrange that organ such that it can be opened/moved to a direct line of sight to the outside world (eg. organ is on the gullet, like a throat pouch, and dragon can open their mouth, flex the pouch, then BOOM, anyone in front of the dragon is staring at an exposed nuclear reactor and taking a hideous dose of gamma & beta radiation)