Alatreon and Dragon Element

Alatreon holds the secret to Dragon Element

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Plenty of people have speculated about Dragon Element, about what it is and how exactly it works. I myself have had plenty of theories about the nature of this mysterious element in the past, but today I propose a new angle on this topic. As you can guess from the title, I think Alatreon may have provided some hints about Dragon Element we hadn't even considered before. So let's break it down and answer why I think the Blazing Black Dragon holds the answers to this subject.

To start off, let's consider what we know about Dragon Element. We know that it's a mysterious substance that manifests in a few forms, notably as a black/crimson gas and as crimson electricity. We know that large imbalanced amounts of it can end up affecting the minds of Monsters, hence why the likes of Crimson Glow Valstrax and Savage Deviljho end up being so aggressive against everything in sight. We know that this element can nullify the other 4 elements when used against them, Hunter weapons and Monsters alike. We know that many Elder Dragons, even if they don't explicitly create Dragon Element, still have it present in their bodies via the Dragon Element particulates found in their Elder Dragon Blood. We know that some Monsters that produce it have a ravenous appetite that requires a lot of sustenance, namely Ebony Odogaron and (Savage) Deviljho.

So what does Alatreon have to do with all of this?

Let's look at Alatreon's own relationship with Dragon Element. We know that the Blazing Black Dragon can produce all 5 elements, but it's important to note that it has no organs to produce Fire, Water, Thunder, or Ice like other Monsters do; it doesn't have a Flame Sac or Aqua Sac or any other specialized organs. Instead, Alatreon exclusively produces Dragon Element on its own. What allows it to create the other 4 elements are its horns, which are used to convert its Dragon Element into the others. You can actually see the Dragon Element present in some of its attacks, like the brief sparks of crimson in its lightning attacks, the internal crimson energy in its ice pillars, and the crimson sparks in its flame breath.

But then why am I claiming Alatreon is the key to figuring out Dragon Element? So what if it can turn it into the other 4 elements?

I think Alatreon's ability to do this is a hint as to what Dragon Element is. What if Dragon Element energy is actually the baseline element? What if this draconic substance is the base element that's actively changed by various natural processes into the other 4? Or at least related to that base energy?

I've theorized before that Dragon Element is a corrupted form of pure Bioenergy, the hyper-dense energy that permeates all MH biology from plants to minerals to the Monsters themselves. What if Dragon Element is an unrefined and uncontrollable form of pure Bioenergy, one that theoretically can be turned into the other elements but is too unstable on its own for this to be done normally? Only Elder Dragons can actively turn Dragon Element into other elements, as seen with their Elder Dragon Blood and their powerful elemental prowess, but perhaps Alatreon possesses the best control of this ability, able to control Dragon Element energy so efficiently with its horns that it can change this corruptive substance into any of the others at will.

In turn, the Blazing Black Dragon's elemental control might also tell us why Dragon Element nullifies the other 4. What if, rather than just shutting off the 4 elements, it is instead consuming them? Just as how Alatreon converts Dragon Element into other elements, maybe this substance in its natural state does the same in reverse, whereby Dragon Element actively converts other forms of energy into more of itself when it comes into contact with them. In that sense, this would also explain the ravenous nature of non-Elder Dragon producers of the substance, as perhaps their ability to create Dragon Element consumes a lot of their Bioenergy reserves, requiring them to eat much more than other Monsters to prevent it from consuming their bodies.

Maybe this can even explain Dragon Element's different forms. What if, the greater one's control over Dragon Element, the closer it gets to proper elemental forms? With weak control, it just becomes a black gas, but this gas gets denser and more crimson with greater energy density and control; this could be akin to water vapour. And with full crimson lightning and flames, this is from Monsters with extremely high control that shows Dragon Element almost reaching proper elemental forms as Thunder and Fire.

TL;DR

So there it is. What is Dragon Element? It's the corrupted form of the base source element that the other 4 elements are created from. This corrupted form nullifies other elements by converting them into more of itself when in contact with them. Alatreon functions by reversing this process with its horns, converting Dragon Element back into other elements.

The natural states of Dragon Element show how it has the potential to become other elements given these states' similarities to other elemental states.