Max flying/running speed?

Because I've never seen this discussed before... and I hope I didn't miss anything?

Raveolution wrote:

Because I've never seen this discussed before... and I hope I didn't miss anything?

Probably fairly fast. I mean, the giant creatures in Felarya aren't limited by the laws of physics that would make them impossible to support themselves. They aren't lumbering giants who shuffle along or anything. They can move about as good as a human of smaller size. Jumps, rolls, etc all seem to be fairly easy for them. So, I imagine the running speed of say, a 70ft tall human would be FAST. You'd need to figure out how long the stride of a running giant would be (lets assume a giant human, or elf here) and then figure out an average number of strides per unit of time that someone runs. Either way, it would be fast, very fast.

Centaurs...they'd be ridiculously fast, same with Harpies, especially when they're in their dives. I don't think fairies would be as fast, in terms of pure flgiht speed, since their entire bodies arent geared for flight like a harpy's...and fairies are terrible in terms of aerodynamics. They'd probably fly more akin to insects. Slower, but incredibly agile.

Nagas, im not sure about. From stories and such, it would appear they can slither at roughly the same speed a human of similar size can walk. I think in a straight race, a giant human would be faster than a naga of similar size...but I think nagas would have a lot more endurance, and that slithering would require less energy than running. Although, some snakes are extremely fast..so I wouldnt be surprised at all if a naga slithering at full speed was at least as fast as a similarly sized human/elf/etc.

Either way, you're looking at creatures that can run at or most likely over 100mph easily, and probably 400+mph with Centaurs.

You realize rcs you're speaking centuars being half-way to the sound barrier, right?

400mph seems way too fast for my liking. 200, maybe 300 would probably be better.

Fairies can outpace a running human, large or small. However, they're not likely to be able to keep up with a Centaur. They'd probably have a flight speed slightly above a running / slithering Predator.

Malahite wrote:

You realize rcs you're speaking centuars being half-way to the sound barrier, right?

400mph seems way too fast for my liking. 200, maybe 300 would probably be better.

Fairies can outpace a running human, large or small. However, they're not likely to be able to keep up with a Centaur. They'd probably have a flight speed slightly above a running / slithering Predator.

Im was just going by rough estimates. Either way, Centaurs would be incredibly fast. considering a giant bipedal pred could run at 100mph or more, the quadrapeds would be capable of incredable speeds. Especially centaurs, being half-horse and all.

Of course fairies could still easily outpace running humans. I said they were slower than harpies, not unbelievably slow.

Harpies now...I dont even want to think how fast they could be in a dive. I mean, predatory birds on earth can get up to incredible speeds. The fastest animal on the planet is a Peregrine Falcon afterall. 200+mph in a dive.

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You realize rcs you're speaking centuars being half-way to the sound barrier, right?

400mph seems way too fast for my liking. 200, maybe 300 would probably be better.

Just because it's impressive doesn't mean it's impossible.


I REALLY don't want to bring Toho monster logic into this discussion, but I don't think it's at all unbelievable that harpies could probably transcend the speed of sound while airborn.

We're talking creatures that have all the advantages of humans/animals and are HUGE, with none of the physical drawbacks.

GREGOLE wrote:

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You realize rcs you're speaking centuars being half-way to the sound barrier, right?

400mph seems way too fast for my liking. 200, maybe 300 would probably be better.

Just because it's impressive doesn't mean it's impossible.


I REALLY don't want to bring Toho monster logic into this discussion, but I don't think it's at all unbelievable that harpies could probably transcend the speed of sound while airborn.

We're talking creatures that have all the advantages of humans/animals and are HUGE, with none of the physical drawbacks.

Are you talking about a harpy transcending the speed of sound in straightaway pursuit, or in a diving attack?
Couldn't a fairy cast a spell to enhance her flying speed?

Raveolution wrote:

Are you talking about a harpy transcending the speed of sound in straightaway pursuit, or in a diving attack?

The predators don't interact with their environment at the same level as humans do. They are not really transcending any physical law only from the humans point of view but from their point of view they are moving normally.

Raveolution wrote:

Couldn't a fairy cast a spell to enhance her flying speed?

Some fairies are master of teleportation spells, so some could increase their speed in many ways too. In addition there is the scarlet elves who are able to increase their natural speed to.

As with Rav, I could maybe see a Harpy surpassing the sound barrier when in a dive. Maybe. Not standard flight. Even then one comes up with the issue of a sonic boom, which so far we have yet to see follow a Harpy's passing (to my knowledge).

The size argument also doesn't work completely. For instance, compare a small house spider to a tarantula. The Tarantula is going to easily be well over ten times its size, yet it cannot easily run ten times as fast as the thing. They are the same type of animal, though (arachnid of the spider variety).

I'm fine with Predators being fast, but coming close to the sound barrier is a bit much.

A predator is not necessary incredibly fast but with it size it can cover easily a long distance in a few time.

For example: if we suppose a giantess run at the same speed as human, the giantess will outrun the human not because she runs faster but due to the fact she has to do less steps to cover the same distance as the human does.

gwadahunter2222 wrote:

A predator is not necessary incredibly fast but with it size it can cover easily a long distance in a few time.

For example: if we suppose a giantess run at the same speed as human, the giantess will outrun the human not because she runs faster but due to the fact she has to do less steps to cover the same distance as the human does.

Thats kind of obvious. But, because of the greater distance being covered, her speed, as registered by a human, would be close to, or above 100mph in a full run.

rcs619 wrote:

Thats kind of obvious. But, because of the greater distance being covered, her speed, as registered by a human, would be close to, or above 100mph in a full run.

I think we will have the same result it was the speed of a human registered by a tinies or a neera. The 100mph is speed of the giantess from a human point of view but it wouldn't be the same from another giantess view.

The problem is not the speed but how it's registered, it's not with the current humans standard we will have the real speed of a predators.

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The size argument also doesn't work completely. For instance, compare a small house spider to a tarantula. The Tarantula is going to easily be well over ten times its size, yet it cannot easily run ten times as fast as the thing. They are the same type of animal, though (arachnid of the spider variety).

Flawed argument.

A tarantula and a house spider are both spiders, but they're VERY different in terms of shape and build.

In addition, tarantulas and house spiders operate on the same level of physics, and it's already been proven that humans and giant predators don't. It would be entirely impossible for a human to survive at a scale of a hundred feet, yet giants do it all the time, and demonstrate roughly human-level reflexes. Thusly, giants operate with a set of physical laws which are identical to a human's, except scaled up.

Thusly, most species of harpies and fairies could indeed probably breach the speed of sound. The reason you don't hear anything about them generating sonic booms is because nobody thought to consider the fact that they would.

But then again, the community has a way of underestimating prettymuch everything that comes with great size. You know, what with giant characters being lighter than air, and flinching from weapons that shouldn't even trigger a nerve and all that. But if someone sat down and did the math, a harpy's airspeed would probably be close to or even greater than the speed of sound.

I have to agree with Gregole here. I mean, you're talking about massive creatures, who's size doesnt hamper them with physical limitations.

Personally, I think a lot of the confusion on this thread is from people honestly not realizing how HUGE predators are. The largest animal, that we know of, to ever live on Earth is the Blue Whale. It is about 100ft long on average, and weighs about 100 tons. Now...lets look at Crisis, she's 70ft tall, and somewhere between 220 and 240ft long, and she'd weigh somewhere around 400 tons or more. These creatures are simply massive and their size alone grants them incredible speed by comparison. They are sometimes 2 or 3 times larger than the largest anime to EVER live on our planet. I mean, Fiona is only a couple feet short of being able to stretch out from goal line to goal line on an Football field (American football).

For example...the average stride of a 6ft tall human is what? somewhere around 1.5 and 2 ft? lets simplify this and say 2ft, or roughly 1/3 of its height. Now, lets scale this up to a 70ft tall giantess/elf/fairy/whatever. You're talking about a creature that would be able to cover 20+ft in a single stride. That is just them walking normally too. The strides would only get larger and more frequent in a full on run.

Will concede spider argument.

GREGOLE wrote:

Thusly, most species of harpies and fairies could indeed probably breach the speed of sound. The reason you don't hear anything about them generating sonic booms is because nobody thought to consider the fact that they would.

Or, an argument one can make to explain them never going that fast in stories, is that while they can reach such speeds, they're still human-like in reaction times.

Imagine a Fairy attempting to weave through the forest when it crosses roughly 60m (at least) in the time it takes them to react to something. They'd splat against a tree and 'explode' rather spectacularly. Similarly, it would be very detrimental to hunting prey because by the time they've realized they saw something they would have already notified it of their presence with a Sonic Boom and are going to spend more time turning around / bringing themselves to a stop.

I don't think a Harpy or Fairy could fly at such speeds, but then that's just because I don't like giving a whole species the capability to one-shot anything with a full-tilt punch. Seriously, going 333m/s and assuming the fist n' arm has 'only' the mass of a school bus leaves a punch over 550 megajoules in power. For comparison, a bus hitting you at 50mph is equal to about 2.5 Megajoules (So that one punch is akin to being hit by 220 buses moving at 50mph). Another comparison would be that this is comparable to roughly 200lbs of TNT going off in one's face (but less omni-directional).

I think they might be able to get close with magical aid, but flying supersonic or above naturally seems like a silly - as well as a pointless - ability in a Vore-centered universe.

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But then again, the community has a way of underestimating prettymuch everything that comes with great size.

I've seen quite the opposite. Such as Predators wading through 7.62mm NATO fire with the bullets bouncing off regular flesh, explosives from infantry anti-tank weapons only leaving minor burns (the flesh not even being breached), etc. simply because the skin must then be hundreds of times more durable than a human's.

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But if someone sat down and did the math, a harpy's airspeed would probably be close to or even greater than the speed of sound.

I - again - personally doubt it. At least outside diving extreme distances. If the can, I must again point out that it'd be horribly impractical and likely only be of use when a Harpy needs to "Get the hell away" from something.

EDIT: Their stride may be increased, but speed of the step itself? Right now, assuming that they make a step as fast as a human (roughly two-to-three each second), they're going to be going either 27mph or 40mph at a 20ft stride. Of course, this seems a bit silly. Especially only 20ft a stride. But then, a human only covering 1.5ft each stride seems silly also. Using math, it turns out the average male stride is about 31in. With the average male being something like 5'10" (or 70 inches), that's just shy of 1/2 the height... but that also makes about one stride a second at walking speed. Giving the Predators two to be generous, and at 1/2 their height (of 80ft we'll say for this debate) for 40ft each, we're speaking 80ft covered a second. This brings them up to... 54mph for walking speed.

Actually, I'll get to work on this now. If I do it with my own math (or have it shown to me step-by-step), I'll believe the numbers given.

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Or, an argument one can make to explain them never going that fast in stories, is that while they can reach such speeds, they're still human-like in reaction times.

Imagine a Fairy attempting to weave through the forest when it crosses roughly 60m (at least) in the time it takes them to react to something. They'd splat against a tree and 'explode' rather spectacularly. Similarly, it would be very detrimental to hunting prey because by the time they've realized they saw something they would have already notified it of their presence with a Sonic Boom and are going to spend more time turning around / bringing themselves to a stop.

I don't think a Harpy or Fairy could fly at such speeds, but then that's just because I don't like giving a whole species the capability to one-shot anything with a full-tilt punch. Seriously, going 333m/s and assuming the fist n' arm has 'only' the mass of a school bus leaves a punch over 550 megajoules in power. For comparison, a bus hitting you at 50mph is equal to about 2.5 Megajoules (So that one punch is akin to being hit by 220 buses moving at 50mph). Another comparison would be that this is comparable to roughly 200lbs of TNT going off in one's face (but less omni-directional).

The incredible force behind their punches would be balanced by the incredible durability that they would display.

Giant predators are identical to humans in every way, as far as their personal physics are concerned. This means that a giant's punch is identical to a scaled up human punch. And therefor, it does indeed have that much power behind it.
By that same logic, all other Felaryan predators are as able to withstand a punch from their kin as they would if they were at a human scale.

The physics behind giant Felaryan predators is identical to a scaled up version of the physics behind humans. And those physics dictate that a harpy can probably reach supersonic speeds.

As for coordination, I'd like to point out that VERY few large birds fly at high speeds in the forest. Note that insects do, and note how fairies like to fly around at a smaller size to avoid ramming into them.


If you don't want to give them the benefits that come with great size, then why even make them huge in the first place?

YES, a punch from a giant hurts a helluva lot more than a punch from a human. That's because giants are a helluva lot bigger than a human.

While I'm working on the running calc right now (Look at my edit in the last post), I will say this:

With the way you have the scaling right now, Negav should have fallen long ago. Very long ago. Weapons comparable to a 120mm armour cannon would be similar to someone poking a Predator. Unless Negav is mounting something similar to railguns of ridiculous sizes, the weapons would be worthless against the denizens of Felarya. As would almost all magic - Predator or Prey available.

Lessee.... Giant monsters... impervious to conventional weaponry...


Uh.... HOW is this new, exactly?

Running speed: A human can run about 15mph on average (as the highest number I could find for "on average"). As was stated earlier, we cover about 31 inches a stride. At 15mph, we're going a little over 22ft/s. Turning that into inches and dividing by 31, we get about 8.5 strides a second. Again working with an 80ft height for the Predator, we have 40ft strides. Multiplying that by 8.5 gives us about 340ft/s (or a smidge over 100m/s), we've got a max running speed of - much higher than even the estimated 200mph given on page one - 231 miles per hour.

While we were all underestimating running speed, I was greatly underestimating such. I apologize for any inconvenience over this topic, and will concede that (at least in running) Predators should be able to get "really fast".

This leaves us now then with how much we should adjust reaction times to efficiently handle such speeds, how much a variable slithering / being arachnoid / etc makes., how much the jungle limits the running speeds, etc.

GREGOLE wrote:

Lessee.... Giant monsters... impervious to conventional weaponry...


Uh.... HOW is this new, exactly?

Because it basically means Miratans, Negav, and all them should not even be on the map anymore. Unless your main piece of armour is comparable to a Bolo Mk 33 tank, if a Predator knows you're there they should be able to take you down. And as far as I'm aware, Negav's weapons and that available to the Miratans make them safe from Predator attack. Heck, the Miratan base is safe with just two heavy cannons. Unless we're assuming either kilotons are lobbed by the thing or it's lobbing around shells the size of a trailer house, that shouldn't be anywhere near enough to even draw the Predator's attention.

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Malahite said:
Or, an argument one can make to explain them never going that fast in stories, is that while they can reach such speeds, they're still human-like in reaction times.

Imagine a Fairy attempting to weave through the forest when it crosses roughly 60m (at least) in the time it takes them to react to something. They'd splat against a tree and 'explode' rather spectacularly.

Alright...the scale of the speed is the same to them as it is to a smaller creature. A harpy would have no more trouble controlling its speed than any other bird of prey. As for your argument about reaction times...you should remember that the predators are NOT human. They are part animal, and posess enhanced senses, reflexes and reaction times.

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Similarly, it would be very detrimental to hunting prey because by the time they've realized they saw something they would have already notified it of their presence with a Sonic Boom and are going to spend more time turning around / bringing themselves to a stop.

You do realize the point of this thread is MAXIMUM speed right? Not practical ones. We arent saying that harpies would constantly fly around at full speed. Real birds dont do it because it isnt practical. We're saying they COULD go supersonic...based on the physics that they are subject to. OF COURSE they would fly slower and more deliberately when hunting.

...and as far as the sonic boom...it travels BEHIND the object going supersonic. The prey would never even hear anything coming until after the pred had arrived. As far as hunting goes, the sonic boom could even be a weapon. If a 90ft tall, 100+ton harpy flies right overhead..that sonic boom WILL send you flying, and probably blow out your eardrums for that matter.

Your argument about "one-shot punching things" was handled well by Gregole. Of course the durabilities would be scaled up as well. Crisis punching Anna would be like a human punching a human. Crisis punching a human WOULD be like several busses hitting them...since her hand weighs several hundred pounds and will be travelling fast.

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Malahite said:
I think they might be able to get close with magical aid, but flying supersonic or above naturally seems like a silly - as well as a pointless - ability in a Vore-centered universe.

So, a peregrine falcon being able to dive at speeds in excess of 250mph (1/2 the speed of sound) is silly, right?

...and this is a pet-peeve of mine. Felarya is NOT a vore-centered world That is exactly the image Karbo is trying to get away from. It is a fantasy themed world where vore will sometimes happen. He went to great lengths with his recent art and manga to get away from the image that Felarya was all about eating.

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I've seen quite the opposite. Such as Predators wading through 7.62mm NATO fire with the bullets bouncing off regular flesh, explosives from infantry anti-tank weapons only leaving minor burns (the flesh not even being breached), etc. simply because the skin must then be hundreds of times more durable than a human's.

Yeah, we've all seen stories like that. But they're wrong as well. Assault Rifle rounds might sting somewhat to a pred, but larger caliber rounds, like .50cal and various anti-armor rounds could be lethal with a headshot. Explosives can be iffy though. They are dependant on shrapnel...and with a pred, the shrapnel would be tiny, and if it did any damage, it would be minimal. Fire would still work though, so there's always napalm.

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Malahite said:
I - again - personally doubt it. At least outside diving extreme distances. If the can, I must again point out that it'd be horribly impractical and likely only be of use when a Harpy needs to "Get the hell away" from something

You do realize that most harpies tend to live in mountainous areas, right? they arent flying at full speed through the trees. They'd be flying across plains, mountains and vast open expanses more than anything...where speed would be VERY preactical to get anyway in any amount of time.

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Malahite said:
EDIT: Their stride may be increased, but speed of the step itself? Right now, assuming that they make a step as fast as a human (roughly two-to-three each second), they're going to be going either 27mph or 40mph at a 20ft stride. Of course, this seems a bit silly. Especially only 20ft a stride. But then, a human only covering 1.5ft each stride seems silly also. Using math, it turns out the average male stride is about 31in. With the average male being something like 5'10" (or 70 inches), that's just shy of 1/2 the height... but that also makes about one stride a second at walking speed. Giving the Predators two to be generous, and at 1/2 their height (of 80ft we'll say for this debate) for 40ft each, we're speaking 80ft covered a second. This brings them up to... 54mph for walking speed.

Thank you for making my point even more valid. Your math just proved that at a BASIC WALK, a pred would be moving at more than 50mph...as fast as a car goes on the highway...and a BASIC WALK at that. That means that they would easily break 100mph in a full run with no problem. I could see them getting to 120-150mph though ^_^

Malahite wrote:

GREGOLE wrote:

Lessee.... Giant monsters... impervious to conventional weaponry...


Uh.... HOW is this new, exactly?

Because it basically means Miratans, Negav, and all them should not even be on the map anymore. Unless your main piece of armour is comparable to a Bolo Mk 33 tank, if a Predator knows you're there they should be able to take you down. And as far as I'm aware, Negav's weapons and that available to the Miratans make them safe from Predator attack. Heck, the Miratan base is safe with just two heavy cannons. Unless we're assuming either kilotons are lobbed by the thing or it's lobbing around shells the size of a trailer house, that shouldn't be anywhere near enough to even draw the Predator's attention.

You'd do well to not forget the eye of Negav...which is what actually protects Negav.

Either way, you wouldnt need a tank, lol. Preds, while massive are still flesh and bone. High-powered, armor-piercing rifles aimed for the head would be enough to pierce the skill. end of pred.

Someone brought up the peregrine falcon, so I thought I'd throw this out to consider.

The peregrine falcon velocity during a dive has nothing to do with the bird flapping its wings - its all a matter of gravity versus the area & drag coefficient of the bird.

Head out, wings held tight against the body, and claws extended back, the bird minimizes both area and drag coefficient and literally falls out of the sky.

The work is being done by gravity and the only reason the bird doesn't go faster is air resistance.

A human skydiver can achieve velocities of 225 - 230mph simply by freefalling in a vertical position, head down, limbs held tight against the body - same as the falcon does.

The highest skydive on record was made by Joseph Kittinger. It was also the fastest skydive ever - he reached 614 mph. That, by the way, is the record for the highest velocity by a human being through the atmosphere, at least according to the Guinness Book of World Records.

The problem with great speed is ... great air resistance. That's something I don't see being taken into account here. The bigger you are, the more air resistance you're going to have to overcome to achieve a given velocity. That's why sports cars are typically small and lightweight. You increase either of those two attributes, and the horsepower requirements to reach a given speed increase in lock step. Giant predators aren't really very aerodynamic, so barring magic or dimensional weirdness, they aren't going to be running around breaking the sound barrier.

timing2 wrote:

Someone brought up the peregrine falcon, so I thought I'd throw this out to consider.

The peregrine falcon velocity during a dive has nothing to do with the bird flapping its wings - its all a matter of gravity versus the area & drag coefficient of the bird.

Head out, wings held tight against the body, and claws extended back, the bird minimizes both area and drag coefficient and literally falls out of the sky.

The work is being done by gravity and the only reason the bird doesn't go faster is air resistance.

A human skydiver can achieve velocities of 225 - 230mph simply by freefalling in a vertical position, head down, limbs held tight against the body - same as the falcon does.

The highest skydive on record was made by Joseph Kittinger. It was also the fastest skydive ever - he reached 614 mph. That, by the way, is the record for the highest velocity by a human being through the atmosphere, at least according to the Guinness Book of World Records.

The problem with great speed is ... great air resistance. That's something I don't see being taken into account here. The bigger you are, the more air resistance you're going to have to overcome to achieve a given velocity. That's why sports cars are typically small and lightweight. You increase either of those two attributes, and the horsepower requirements to reach a given speed increase in lock step. Giant predators aren't really very aerodynamic, so barring magic or dimensional weirdness, they aren't going to be running around breaking the sound barrier.

If you tried to take in gravity, air resistance and so on...giant predators would not even be able to exist..much less fly. The laws that effect them are different, and allow them to behave like a scaled up version of a human, essentially. Thats how giantesses can run, jump and roll and how harpies can even fly. But yes, Harpies of any kind are hardly aerodynamic and shouldnt be able to fly...but they do.

rcs619 wrote:

If you tried to take in gravity, air resistance and so on...giant predators would not even be able to exist..much less fly. The laws that effect them are different, and allow them to behave like a scaled up version of a human, essentially. Thats how giantesses can run, jump and roll and how harpies can even fly. But yes, Harpies of any kind are hardly aerodynamic and shouldnt be able to fly...but they do.

Then the answer becomes whatever the writer/artist can get away with before people begin calling BS.

This puts a new spin on the Princess Bride quote, "I wonder if he is using the same wind we are using."