Post-Apocalyptic Pern

[JKatkina]

So Dray and I were discussing Pern (on Valentine's day, no less XD) and we had an idea.

Say that plot in one of the books to rid Pern of the Red Star went so very, very wrong -- but they didn't know it yet.

Say they knocked the planet into an orbit that meant that their current manageable Thread volume and schedule was gone... and for a long time, it seemed that was that. But three or four centuries later, the Red Planet returns.

But it returns in a big way. Instead of being a star in the sky, it becomes a moon, a gigantic looming spectre of death. And instead of a Threadfall that dragonriders can fight and beat, the skies are blanketed in Thread. Any dragon who goes out is killed. Any hold not made of stone and mortar is devastated.

And more than that, the Red Star has come too close to the planet. The ground shakes violently -- Weyrs fall in on themselves or explode, as ancient volcanoes become active again. The sky is blackened -- but Thread still falls.

In the subarctic areas of the Northern continent, a small weyr, a monument to the days when dragonriders were needed, stands double as a training outpost, a 'boot camp' as you will for weyrlings and weyrlingriders. Other weyrs in the Northern continent stand abandoned, the Southern continent preferred by most. A large group of weyrlings is there, training, along with a few riders -- one bronze, some of each of the other colors. There is no gold here, and has not been for centuries.

Winter kills the thread that falls here during this devastating time, but the dragonriders are forced from the weyr proper as first the ground shakes their caverns in, and then the volcano begins to grumble beneath them. They are forced to the hold, bringing their supplies and their injured, and as frozen, shattered Thread falls with the snow, they hole up and wait.

In a season, maybe even a year, the horrible planet in the sky has shrunken to a tiny speck and Thread is falling less and less, then finally not at all, and the ground stills. But winter has stayed, the sun kept out by the omnipresent volcanic clouds, and nothing here grows. The few adult dragons who remain go to see what has become of their kin in at home the southern continent -- only to find nothing.

A spattering of survivors, here and there, saved by luck rather than skill. Few humans, fewer dragons. Everything, every plant, every animal, has died -- razed by thread or killed by the unnatural winter following.

As they gather the survivors and return to the Northern continent's single Weyr under its blanket of snow, the dragonriders realize something awful: No Queen dragon has survived this apocalypse.



But life continues, as it always does. The remaining riders and humans pick up the pieces, and the volcanic clouds eventually settle. The hold breeds its remaining herdbeasts and the dragons and riders are forced to take part in such mundane activities as farming and construction -- an indignity that slowly becomes a way of life. The line between holders and weyrfolk blurs and eventually disappears altogether as the weyrs proper have all been destroyed in the volcanic onslaught.

Greens breed. The time of Golds and Bronzes is long over. The larger greens breed, and many of them rather than a single ruling female, producing small clutches. Now and then a Bronze is born, thanks to recessive genetics from the single bronze survivor; when they're born they serve as studs and little else, but otherwise, browns are the mates of choice. Genetic diversity has actually gone up, as more different dragons are allowed to lay eggs, and there is more variation among the given colors. Dragons are smaller again, a side effect of greens breeding, but they seem cannier, and the rapport between dragon and rider is as strong as ever. Best of all, dragons are no longer accessories, playing games and demanding tithe, but productive members of Pern society even away from Threadfall. They are farmers, miners, builders, herders, gatherers, fishers -- just about anything.

Life is hard -- the planet-wide temperature drop has meant that they have moved south, the northern regions covered in snow all year, every year. Vegetation and wildlife are struggling to survive. But humans and dragons both have survived the apocalypse, and life continues.

[Yakima]

*giggles...then laughs* Oh, that's good. And it's even funnier to me because I'm reading Dragonflight all over again (to curb my need to to Pern stuff and having everything Falas/FGPC wise on hold...other then fixing records and writing a Search story of a rider who has Impresses a long time ago but he's my favorite character and thus deserves a proper Search story...finally).

Anouther thing I have to laugh at is the dimention falas is in has that operation going wrong and a few more Passes of Thread have fallen since then. The Elventh is said to be the last. *smirk* Honestly, me, trust a computer to tell me when Thread is going to fall...Heh...

XD

[Shard]

Huzzah for small, greeny-variety dragons!

[Dray]

If I had time I'd want to make an RP out of it. XD "It's hatching time, assemble the candidates!"

*bronze hatches*

Everyone: "8OOOOOO"

There would be many marty stus instead of mary sues, of course of course. X333

[TyGryph]

I used to play in an RP weyr back when it was Yahoo! Clubs that had a similar setting.

Far North Weyr, though I believe they were exiled for some reason, and they somehow grew to believe that they were the last survivors on the planet. The dragons were smaller and more compact, were paler and had an iridescent sheen to their wingsails, and somehow evolved a minor blubber layer to help keep them warmer.
(Then, of course, somebody had to bring a HUGE bronze from some other weyr in almost right away.)

... damn, looks like somebody else tried running that exact game on a forum: http://farnorth.1.forumer.com/index.php?showtopic=9
(they spoiled it too. where'd those holds and other weyrs come from?)

[Dray]

I like the idea of having an entire Pern apocalypse as opposed to a 'woops, looks like we forgot the rest of the world existed! :D'

(Also: D: at the premise of that forum. I couldn't even tell if the exiles were the dragonriders who wanted to take over the world, or if they were the ones opposed to it.

And WTF about 3 golds being too few to propagate? O_o Ramoth did it all on her damned lonesome back in the day of the actual books! Fail!)

[Xenoqueen]

Way to go on actually making an INTERESTING Pern! XD

[Dray]

No more mary-sue competitions whenever a gold egg is present! ;P

(Also, welcome back from the con, Phe! 8D Have fun?)

[TyGryph]

IF Post-Apoc Pern were to be played, how long after the retreat of the Red Star would things be set? Immediately afterwards (finding survivors, being indignant at having to muck out the barns, trying your absolute hardest to get something to grow) would be kindof hard. And I'm sure there would be people who were driven halfway insane from the constant keening of dragons when yet another one didn't survive the endless threadfall. Or would it be in the dragons as productive members of society era?


FarNorth's Premise was a bit shaky; the we-want-to-rule sorts (which were exiled) would have found a way anyway, I suspect. At any rate, hundreds of years later, attitudes would have changed. I hope.
The game could have succeeded if the players could have had a chance to establish their hidebound insular not-quite-inbred society a little bit BEFORE an outsider came in. Sure, a new Weyrwoman from elseweyr probably could have dug up mention of the exiles and sent a trusted liutenant to check if there were survivors, and then the whole re-integration / zomg they're effectively a different breed of Pernese dragon now thing could've been fun too. But no...

[Dray]

I'm not sure about the RP idea! Kat was saying something about either/or or both. XD You could probably have the 'just after' game go for a specified amount of time, wrap it up, and then move to a more open-ended 'a while afterward -- not when the continent was reclaimed, but there's been a couple of generations passed).

Most RP concepts DO have potential... it's just... they rarely get played to that level.. 9.9' Not focused enough.