World Database
Pern
Classification
PlanetLicense
FanfictionType
Fantasy PlanetActive Agencies
- No Active Agencies
Creator
- Anne McCaffrey
Planet Fact Sheet
Statistics
Solar System
RukbatPlanet Location
3rdPlanet Size
2,900 milesDistance from Sun
unknownLength of Year
362.1667 daysLength of Day
362.1667 days
Planet Overview
Pern is a fictional planet created by Anne McCaffrey for the Dragonriders of Pern series of science fiction books. It is said to be "Rukbat 3", the third planet in orbit around the star Rukbat, counting outward.
Source: Wikipedia
Overview
Planetary System Data
Pern is the third of five planets in the Rukbat system (the Pernese star is also known as Alpha Sagittarius). In a departure from reality, Rukbat is a class G (yellow) star in the series; the real Rukbat is a blue, class B star—although it could be that the star Pern orbits is simply a solar-type star that is near the real Rukbat which was given the brighter star's name for convenience. (See spectral classification for more information.) Pern has two moons, Belior and Timor (in order of distance). The Rukbat system in the novel also contains two asteroid belts and an Oort cloud. The Oort cloud and a rogue "sixth" planet, the Red Star (a Sedna-class inner Oort cloud object), plays a major role in the series, as it is the source of Thread.
Source: Wikipedia
Culture
The Pern of the Ninth Pass is a highly structured society, consisting of four different groups of people, Weyrfolk, Holders, Crafters, and those without a permanent home, the Holdless and Traders. The Weyr, Hold, and Craft Hall are all separate from one another and the leaders of each are equal in rank. But in the same way, they are interdependent, and no one group could exist without the other two. Individual Weyrs, Holds, and Halls are autonomous, but generally maintain good relations with one another.
Anne McCaffrey uses clothing ensignia throughout the Pern Chronicles to identify role and rank of different individuals. In the stories of the Ninth Pass, these ensignia include general colours, such as harper blue,[4] and accessories described as shoulder knots. The colour and pattern of knots denotes geographical affiliation, Craft and rank, such as apprentice, journeyman, or Master. Amongst the sailing members of Pern society, such knots can also indicate the rank of Captain.
Weyrs
The Weyrs are the home of the dragonriders of Pern. They are expansive structures, often situated in a cave-riddled extinct volcano, or along a mountain face, where there is enough space for the dragons, their riders, and the people of the "lower caverns", i.e. the staff which maintain the Weyr. Due to the unsuitable terrain of Weyr locations (volcanoes, cliff faces), Weyrfolk are generally unable to grow food. They depend on tithes of goods from the holds in order to survive, and in exchange, the Dragonriders have pledged to protect those holds from Threadfall.
Holds
The Holds of Pern are where the majority of people on Pern live. Holds are literally castles, just not quite like the castles from the Middle Ages. There are three sizes of Hold: Major, Minor, and Cothold. Major Holds are ruled by a Lord and Lady Holder, and their family. The remainder of the residents are staff and workers who run the hold, and professional crafters; all told, they usually number around one thousand. The Headwoman is in charge of the inner hold, and looks after all of the workings inside, while the Steward runs the outdoor parts of the hold. Major Holds tithe a portion of their produce to the nearest Weyr in return for protection from Thread.
Minor Holds are always beholden to a Major Hold, and tithe to them in return for protection from Thread and other dangers. They are run by a person who bears the title of Holder, and are home to smaller numbers of people than Major Holds.
Cotholds are small, family-run holds, and usually all those who live there are family or close friends. 'Family' on Pern generally means an extended family of several generations and branches, as opposed to the nuclear family common in Western societies on our own world.
Each hold is responsible for the discipline of its wrongdoers. Most times the Lord Holder will make the wrongdoer pay restitution and service to the wronged party. The next level of punishment is incarceration. Death penalty can also be used in response to heinous crimes. One of the greatest punishments is to be named holdless. This is where a person is stripped of all rank and status and thrown out of the hold. The most severe punishment of all is exile, usually to the island archipelago known as the Eastern Ring Islands. The reason this is the most severe punishment is because the holdless have nowhere to go during Threadfall and have no other human contact. This punishment is usually followed by a Shunning, which, in effect, causes the Shunned to be ignored completely by all humans. It is established in Dragon's Fire that the Shunned are marked on their foreheads with an indelible dye for identification.
Halls
The Crafthalls are the home to craftsmen; those Pernese skilled in a particular industry. The Crafts of Pern are: Harper, Smith, Healer, Miner, Weaver, Farmer, Fisher, Tanner, Baker, Vintner, and Herder. For example, the Harper Hall is responsible for the arts (specifically music) and teaching young children the Teaching Ballads, which provide them with basic knowledge. When a child is ten or twelve, they can be sent to be an apprentice at a Crafthall if they show a flair for that particular craft. The Crafthalls train the crafters and send them out all over Pern to provide their skills to even the remotest hold. Note that it is not necessary for someone to be (for example) a trained farmcrafter in order to grow food; holders have a wide variety of skills, but it is the crafters who are the experts.
The most recent craft, Starsmith (astronomy) was created during the Ninth Pass when Wansor, a Master of the Smithcraft, began his research into local celestial bodies. His work was influential to the major events of the Pass.
The crafts all use the same hierarchy. Everyone in each craft begins as an apprentice, usually from age twelve to eighteen, then becomes a journeyman (eighteen to thirty) with a great deal of hard work and dedication, attainment to the status of Master (thirty+) is possible. Not everyone makes it to Master, and some leave before even the rank of Journeyman is reached. Such a step from apprentice to journeyman is called 'walking the tables', based on the custom that apprentices and journeymen eat at different tables at a crafthall. The craft rank and hold they are beholden to are indicated by complicated knots which are worn on the shoulder.
The crafthalls are located near or in the Major Holds. For example, the Harper Hall and Healer Hall of the Northern Continent are both located in Fort Hold. At least some crafts have local crafthalls at other Major Holds; for example, there is a small Weavercraft Hall at High Reaches Hold, as well as a branch of the Healer Hall in South Telgar Hold.
The leaders of the Halls are called Mastercrafters, for example, the Masterharper is the head of the entire Harper Hall, and is not to be confused with a Master Harper, of which there may be several.
Other
The Holdless
People who do not live in an established hold – either by choice, or due to punishment – make up the Holdless. They have no guaranteed protection from Thread, and the life of a Holdless is often dangerous.
Several nomadic groups were part of the initial colonization of Pern. Similar to European Gypsies and Irish Tinkers, they disdain hold life, choosing instead to live on the road, traveling from place to place. They tend to live in tightly knit family groups and are fiercely loyal to their group and way of life. They are extremely distrustful of outsiders and do not often take in strangers, especially ex-holders, without some proof of trust. Many are Traders (see below) and help organize trading caravans which travel from hold to weyr.
Gathers
A Gather is a periodic, day-long event, similar to a county or state fair, held by Major Holds for recreation and commerce. References are made to Gathers as seasonal, indicating that several are held yearly at each Hold. At a Gather, Pernese from Weyrs, Crafthalls and Holds may mingle and enjoy various entertainments, including runnerbeast racing (enjoyed by the title character of Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern) and physical competitions such as boxing and wrestling (All the Weyrs of Pern mentions the use of "Gather champions" as guardsmen, and a supporting character of The Renegades of Pern is shown being rendered Holdless for repeated use of deadly force in Gather competition).
Gathers are also a chance for Craftsmen to offer their wares for sale, usually from Craft-run booths (although All the Weyrs of Pern notes that on occasion, apprentices will sell items that did not meet their masters' approval "under the table" to make some pocket money to spend at the Gather). Food vendors also operate at gathers selling snack items (as the hosting Lord and Lady Holder customarily provide a full meal to Gather attendees). Skilled Harpers, often Master Harpers and on occasion the Masterharper himself, are invited to play both performance pieces and dance music for the attendees' pleasure.
Traders
These are the people who take goods to trade to well-off holds, and to those people who often cannot reach a Gather. It is these isolated holders who need the traders and their trains of goods to keep them equipped with flamethrowers and farming equipment from the Crafthalls. Traders usually visit those holds that have few to no Marks, and so take produce instead of currency. It is very rare that a trader will carry perishable goods that can be found somewhere else such as grain or culled animals. The only way this will happen is if the good in question is local and/or exotic and will be highly valued by those with more marks in the larger holds.
Another way the traders serve the rest of Pern is by allowing Craft Journeymen or Masters to travel with them so that these talented men and women do not have to take the long and sometimes dangerous journey by themselves.
Currency
Pern's currency is known as the Mark. Marks are circulated in the form of coins made of wood, apparently as a fiat currency (though, due to Thread, wood has traditionally been a scarce resource during most of Pern's history), whose value is set by a meeting of the political and economic leaders of the planet, apparently as a command economy. The coins occur in the denominations 1⁄32, 1⁄16, ⅛, ¼, ½, 1, 2, 5, and 10 marks, with a few 100-mark coins for very large transactions.
All the coins are the same size, denominations being indicated by a stamped number. They also have some sort of picture marking representing the type of hold or craft mark they are. If the number has a line above it, then it represents a unit fraction (that is, 32 would be 1⁄32), whereas a line below the number indicates an integer. The ½ and 2 Mark coins are the only ones that could be potentially confused.
Every craft produces its own marks, and the supply is kept constant, new marks only being produced to replace old ones. Some craft's marks are valued over other crafts depending on the political climate of the time.
The Mark is a moderately large amount of money (somewhere around $20), but an exact exchange rate is impossible to determine due to the differences between the fictional Pernese and real world economic systems.
Source: Wikipedia
History
Exploration
Pern was explored and cleared for colonization by an Exploration and Evaluation Corps team, two hundred years before the actual colonization commenced. This is in keeping with McCaffrey's themes of space exploration and colonization to escape from a polluted and overcrowded Old Earth, explored in many of her different series.
The EEC team spent ten days assessing the planet. They recorded geographical, geological, botanical, ecological and zoological information in a variety of locations, some of which are recognizable as areas of interest in other Pern stories. One member of the EEC team, Shavva bint Faroud, found the pristine planet so beautiful that she struggled to remain objective. (In a classic McCaffrey inter-story connection, Shavva is later revealed as an ancestor of Avril Bitra, the astronavigator of the Pern colony.) Despite the beauty of the planet, the EEC team were puzzled by a repeated random pattern of circles of bare dirt, which they observed across the whole globe. Eventually, they labelled the planet with the acronym: Parallel Earth, Resources Negligible (i.e., insufficient to support interstellar commercial investment).
Colonization
Pern was colonized by settlers originally from Earth, First Base on the Moon, and the colony at Alpha Centauri. These people had lived in a technocratic society recovering from a war with an alien race. The colony was led by Admiral Paul Benden and Governor Emily Boll, who had both been key leaders in the war. The 6,000 colonists wanted to return to an agrarian society with a low level of technology so badly that they were prepared to take a fifteen-year one-way journey to an isolated part of the galaxy.
Less than a decade after the first colony was established, the settlers discovered that their chosen planet was subject to periodic attack from space by the destructive Thread, a spaceborne spore that destroys organic substances on contact. This was responsible for the mysterious bare circles noted in the EEC report. Unable to retreat from the peril, the settlers developed methods of combating the Thread. A small indigenous lifeform, the fire-lizard, was discovered with remarkable adaptations against Thread: flight, teleportation, limited telepathy, and the ability to chew phosphine rock and generate bursts of flame. (McCaffrey explored another of her favourite themes, biological manipulation, using it as a plot device to allow the colonists to battle Thread.)
Kitti Ping, a scientist trained in genetic manipulation by the Eridani, genetically "upgraded" these into full-sized flame-breathing telepathic dragons, who were able to sear the Thread before it could fall to the ground. Dragonriders became a vitally important and highly respected profession, especially after a mass migration to the northern continent, where they lived in Weyrs (weyr rhymes with 'here'), and, as time progressed, the settlers forgot their Terran origins.
Last Contact
In the weeks following the first Thread attack, the colonists debated sending a homing capsule to Earth, asking for help. The colonists demonstrated independence and bravery, traits that come to typify the Pernese, in deciding to fight Thread alone. A small segment of the community disagreed, and Ted Tubberman, colony botanist, stole the official colony SOS beacon and sent it off on a homemade launch pad. As a punishment for this, Ted was shunned by the colony.
Some fifty years later, a Fleet battle cruiser, the Amherst, passed by the Sagittarian Sector on a search for alien incursions, and noted that the Rukbat sector had been flagged for investigation by passing ships. (Such heartlessness of large bureaucracies is another common theme in McCaffrey's novels.) The captain on board, Anise Fargoe, authorized a rescue run under the leadership of Lieutenant Ross Vaclav Benden, nephew of Admiral Paul Benden, to discover the reason for Tubberman's SOS. Upon arrival planetside, Ross flew the shuttle Erica in a scanning pattern, but failed to notice the new settlements in the northern hemisphere, as they were looking for surface heat signatures and these were situated in deep cave systems to protect them from Thread. In the southern hemisphere, the Erica found the original settlement buried under volcanic ash, but a faint beacon still pulsed in the southern mountain range. Ross and his crew found original colonist Stev Kimmer, now an old man, in charge at Honshu Hold. Stev mislead Ross and his crew that he and his people were the last survivors of the colony, thanks to the depredations of Thread. They were evacuated, and the Rukbat system was interdicted, ensuring that Pern would remain undisturbed in future centuries.
Source: Wikipedia
Terms
Agenothree: a common acid-like chemical on Pern. Groundcrews use it during a fall.
Apprentice: The lowest level in a Crafthall, basically a trainee.
Bahrain: The smallest of the three ships which brought people to Pern, captained by Jim Tillek.
Belior: Pern's larger moon.
Between: an empty space of sensory deprivation where dragons go to get from one place and another.
Blackrock: coal
Buenos Aires:Another of the three colony ships, captained by Ezra Keroon.
Craftmaster: The highest level in a crafthall, a fully trained craftsman.
Day Sisters: three 'stars' visible on Pern's horizon at dawn and dusk, which are actually the ships that brought the settlers to Pern.
Dawn Sisters: another name for the Day Sisters
Deadglow: an insult. Basically, it means 'fool'.
Fellis: a flowering tree native to Pern.
Fellis juice: made from the fruits of the fellis tree, it is a powerful sopoforic.
Fire lizard: A smaller version of the dragon native to Pern.
Firestone: phosphine-bearing rocks which dragons chew to produce a flame.
Glow: a light source which can be carried in a handbasket.
Harper: Harpers are responsible for the education of children in hold, hall and weyr. They are the musicians and entertainers of Pern and may also be called upon to arbitrate disputes.
Headwoman: someone selected by the Weyrwoman to take charge of the domestic duties in a weyr: cleaning, cooking, childcare, etc.
High Reaches: the mountains in the north of the Northern Continent.
Hold: A dwelling cut out of rock so it is safe from Thread. Where common people live.
Holdless: people who have no hold for whatever reason, often because of crime.
Impression: the joining of minds between a dragon and their rider at Hatching.
Interval: the time between passes of the Red Star, usually about 200 Turns.
Journeyman: The middle level in a crafthall. An apprentice who has reached a certain level of competence and 'journeys' around Pern.
Klah: a stimulating drink made of tree bark.
Looks to: is Impressed by.
Long Interval: an Interval twice the length of a usual one.
Lord Holder: A man who is in charge of a principal hold. The title is inherited and the Lord is responsible for the running of his hold and the well-being of its people. The holders in return supply the Lord with materials and generally do his bidding.
Mastercraftsman: The leader of a crafthall. There are many craftmasters, but only one Mastercraftsmen. However, all have the title 'Master'.
Numbweed: a salve which is used as an anaesthetic.
Oldtimer: one of the riders who Lessa brought forward four hundred Turns.
Pass: the time when the Red Star is close enough to drop Thread on Pern. Usually about 50 years in length.
Pern: the third of Rukbat's five planets.
Red Star: a planet which has an erratic orbit, passing Pern infrequently and dropping Thread on it.
Rukbat: a golden G-type star in the Sagittarian sector with five planets.
Runner beast: an equine adapted to Pernese conditions from fetuses brought frozen by the Settlers.
Settlers: The original humans who colonized Pern.
Sevenday: a Pernese week.
Shards: a Pernese oath meaning 'damn!'.
Shells: see 'Shards'.
Thread: a mindless organism dropped from the Red Star which devours all organic material. It can only be killed by starvation, water, extreme cold and fire.
Timor: Pern's smaller moon.
Turn: a Pernese year.
Watchdragon: The dragon and rider who have pulled watch duty on the Weyr roster. A 'watch' is four hours long.
Watchwher: A nocturnal, photosensitive relative of dragons used as a guard at night.
Weyr: A home of dragons and riders, usually an extinct volcanoe.
weyr: (note the small 'w') a dragon's den.
Weyrleader: Usually the rider whose bronze has flown the senior queen in a Weyr. He is in charge of the fighting wings of dragons and responsible for the training and discipline of dragonriders in his Weyr, and with the Weyrwoman the general running of the Weyr.
Weyrlingmaster: An ageing rider with good skills who is responsible for the training and discipline of weyrlings.
Weyrsinger: the harper for the Weyr, usually a dragonrider with harper training.
Weyrwoman: Usually the rider of the senior queen in the Weyr. She is in charge of the queen's wing during a Fall and the care of dragons and riders. She ensures tithes are satisfactory, appoints subordinates and with the Weyrleader is responsible for the general running and peace of the Weyr.
Wherry: a large, turkey-like bird.
Yakima