The queens and their riders form a separate queens’ wing when they fight Thread, but since they mustn’t chew firestone, the queens’ riders use flamethrowers. The greens are capable of laying eggs, but since their offspring would only be the smaller dragons, they are included in the fighting-wings, and the firestone makes them infertile. From largest to smallest: the gold female called the queen, the male bronze, the male brown, the male blue, and the female green. Because of the hazards associated with travelling between times (“timing it”), it is discouraged and kept secret, with people rediscovering it from time to time.ĭragons vary in colour and size. After a while, the humans discover that the dragons can also travel in time, but the transit time is longer. The void they pass through is bitterly cold, and there is no sense of sight, hearing or touch. A person needs to be empathic and have mild telepathic ability to be able to “Impress” a dragon at the time of its hatching, thus becoming its rider.Īnother ability the dragons have is to go between, that is, to almost instantly transport themselves, and anyone they are carrying, from one place to another. A dragon can communicate mentally with other dragons, but also with its rider. The dragons are also telepathic, and each develops a close rapport with its rider. These winged creatures are able to fly, and to breathe fire when they chew firestone, thus being able to burn the Thread as it falls. And they breed creatures from an indigenous lifeform, which they call dragons, because of their similarity to the mythical creatures of Earth. The colonists build accommodation in cave systems, and in buildings made of stone, to protect themselves and their livestock from the Thread. A “Pass” of the Red Star lasts for 50 years, with Thread falling periodically during this time. It devours any organic matter – plants, animals and humans, and even the carbon-based plastics that the early settlers use. But when it does, a “mycorrhizoid” spore lifeform crosses space from the Red Star to Pern, and rains down from the sky as threadlike filaments. Its erratic orbit only brings it close to Pern every 250 years. However, they don’t realise until a few years later the hazard caused by a rogue planet, the Red Star, in their solar system. Anne McCaffrey’s “Dragonriders of Pern” series is a science fiction series (but with something of the flavour of a fantasy series) describing the lives of humans and dragons on the planet Pern.
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