How do I use late Victorian mad-science to tame lost world megafauna?
The Scenario: My late Victorian Era mad scientist wants to domesticate the dinosaurs and mammalian megafauna of his "Lost World" island getaway, for use as companions, guardians, draft animals, and even mounts for his many henchmen. The problem is that he doesn't have thousands of years to do it. In fact, for the timeline of the story to work, he needs to succeed in under a decade.
That makes true domestication, via selective breeding, impossible. The solution will probably have to be a bit slapdash. The best I can think of is psychosurgery, primitive deep brain stimulation, or some kind of behavioral training; but I'm open to all ideas. Being a mad visionary genius, I don't mind if he jumps a bit ahead of the real world technological timeline, or stumbles onto something not yet supported by scientific theory.
That said, I don't want whatever method he settles upon to be easily reverse engineered into a wider variety of setting-breaking technologies. Internal consistency is important to me. Finally, while I'm fine pushing the limits of the possible, and exploiting the unknowns of brain anatomy and behavior, I'd like to keep things as close to real world science as I reasonably can while still getting the effect. That way I'll have a much clearer idea of what my characters can and can't do, and hopefully be able to add texture to the world by referencing actual scientific developments.
The Question: Given the above, what is the all around most effective way for my mad scientist to go about domesticating his new menagerie?
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1 answer
I'd go with mad-scientist chemistry, better living through better drugs. You train them the same way we train other animals; with sticks and carrots. But instead of getting physical (electric shocks or mere food), let's use some awesome drugs.
First, a knockout dart: He can fire it into a Brontosaur and within an hour or so, it gets sleepy, lays down and falls asleep for a few hours.
Doctor Crazy then attaches a collar to the dinosaur with surgical ports, the collar contains a fair amount of drugs to cause three things: Pain, Intense pleasure, or another Knockout (so he can refill when needed). These are triggered "remotely" by whistles (the mechanical kind) of one particular resonant frequency (different for each drug) that makes the membrane holding the drug in its vial permeable, so a dose leaks into the bloodstream of the animal (that's we we needed those surgical ports).
Make sure Doctor Crazy invents chemicals that work in tiny doses. Then let the Pavlovian training begin! It works on animals as dumb as flies; it can work on dinosaurs.
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