Possible Diamond Dog and Griffon Canon

[Whammy]

Alrighty then, Billy Mays has suggested some possible information on Diamond Dog culture and what not for site canon purposes. Please feel free to discuss and/or add on to what he has written up:

Jun 15, 2013 20:33:26 GMT -6 @billymays said:

Alright, as we discussed I'll be sending you my ideas on how Diamond Dog culture.

As already established by the show, the Diamond Dogs' society pretty much revolves around gems, both of collecting and hoarding them. My thoughts is that their society would work like a caste system, where Diamond Dogs are essentially born into the role they eventually become. A dog who's parents were soldiers would become a soldier, one who's parents were miners would become a miner, etc. Diamond Dogs live in a close society where dogs of the same caste as them work together to accomplish tasks. In some ways due to their underground habitat and caste system, the way the Diamond Dogs work is similar to an ant colony (minus the leaders being queens that give birth to all of the workers and soldiers, obviously).

The highest members of their society are the leaders, who like their lower caste brethren inherit their roles. Only the biggest and strongest male inherits the role of leader. There are three "leader" families, of which Spot, Fido, and Rover (the three main Diamond Dogs who appeared in the episode Diamond Dogs were in) are a part of. If a leader is small, this only means that there wasn't much competition for the role of leader. Although only the strongest male inherits the leader role, all born into the leader families are respected and are seen as being higher in society than their lower caste counterparts, and usually wear diamond studded collars and carry gems within the pockets of their clothes to show superiority. Generally, the higher up a dog is in their caste, the more gems he/she has in their personal collection.

Diamond Dogs don't necessarily hate other races, they more just don't really care about them. If they take notice of a member of another race, it's likely either because they are encroaching on Diamond Dog territory, or the Diamond Dogs just want to take advantage of them for their own goals (like how they kidnapped Rarity in order to try to force her to look for gems). They also rarely have any problems with taking gems from other races, whether it be by theft or by force. Within their own society however, stealing from other dogs is highly frowned upon and will be met with severe punishment, often being imprisonment, forced labor, or in extreme cases, banishment. Due to them having similar hoarding tenancies, Diamond Dogs pretty much never get along with Dragons, and when the two meet they often end up fighting over each others hoards of gems or other shiny collectables.

Alright, that's all I got for now. Any thoughts?

[Deleted]

I have several objections to this Diamond Dog canon, although I do agree with some parts of it.

1)Locked Caste social system
While this DOES keep most Diamond Dogs neatly swept under the rug and explains their significant lack of presence above ground, it does mean that just about every single character made in the species will be an outsider to this rule or in exile. It also makes lives within that caste pointless; Miners must mine but will never get rich, soldiers must guard but will never be anything but soldiers. And leaders will always be corrupt, wicked bastards who exploit their underlings. Realistic, but too sad

Alternative: Wealth determines social status- You can still argue the case that the bigger you are, the better- if you can mine enough gems to get you started, then you can hire dogs to mine for you- (definite fixed wages for them vs the uncertainty of mining for themselves) and soldiers to guard your wealth, but it also creates incentive for diamond dogs to seek out new, creative ways of getting gems, such as stealing them from dragons, or earning them as traders (cough) and creates a realistic goal for many- to strive to be top dog, rather than being born to it.

and/or

2) Species wide canon: I object to this simply on the grounds that what works in a temperate climate like the area around Ponyville might not work in extreme climates like the desert (diamond dogs have tunnels in the appleoosan mountains according to comic canon) or the arctic north (there's no way they wouldnt be interested in the Crystal mountains XD)

Alternative: only tribal or regional canon- So that if people want to make diamond dogs that have different priorities or a different social structure, they can simply state that their dogs are from an area where things are done differently. But I do think that all Diamond dog society should be gem-centric. That's just common sense.