There's an SF trope that if you have an entity composed of many individual telepaths, it would be super-intelligent. I'm not sure why that should be the case.
And yet mobs tend to be rather stupid. It's unclear how intelligent the "Firelizards of Pern" is. Excitable and long-memoried certainly, but not clear on intelligence.
Multiple perspectives and reasoning, with consensus presumably reaching the best (or least bad) solutions. Spoiler: Unrelated OC stuff I have a hivemind species that are essentially sentient space goo, and they definitely do not make the best collective decisions. Just because every microorganism in the hive agrees they should try to eat a spaceship does not actually make it a good idea. And just because most of you like the telepath that wears you around as a cape does not mean she is, in turn, a good decision maker. But it's democracy, damnit!!
Thing I'd Like to See Explored #857: In the first book, Ramoth actually kills/seriously injured someone before Lessa Impresses her and the way the whole thing is described, it almost seems like a compulsion. Like, imagine this bond that compels you to love and care for this being even if it has done or does awful things or things you'd strongly oppose.
maybe its like really intense weed-killer like it sucks the life out of the weeds. and then the grass, and trees, and any other organic it comes in contact with ooooo! what if it has a similar but less permanent effect as the kindergardens in steven universe? everything turns inert for a while until new growth returns maybe it eats up all the nutrients from the soil so you'd have to either change out the soil or build it back up before you could grow crops and stuff there? i could see people coming up with a local version of terra preta to try to combat it
reading that site raire linked found a bit on money i thought raised an interesting point so if we change the holds from a feudal system to a city-state system would that mean that the holds are the ones issuing the Marks instead of the craft halls? i mean that would make more sense anyway. if the Marks are made of wood and aren't backed by anything like silver or gold in canon then the only craft hall it would make sense to control it would be the one gathering the lumber in the first place
I would think it cold make sense as being the craft halls, and they represent a certain standardized amount of the hall's service depending on the Hall. Like a mininghall mark could be worth x amount of ore, or a weaverhall one x amount of fabric. Each is presumably marked for the Hall that printed it and there's a rate of exchange, but that would be hard to standardize. Holds closest to a given Hall would use primarily those marks.
yeah i could see that working. at least better than the canon system. oh and i found my Atlas of Pern and Dragonlover's Guide to Pern books if anyone wants some info from one of those sources?
another thought: how do they not get copper poisoning? if the local life is copper-based then surely there is some kind of issue just waiting to happen or do they eat only the kinds of plants and animals they brought with them to pern?
Well I mean they can eat some limited amount of it. Shellfish and such on earth are copper-based and you don't see people dying of clam chowder overdose.
oh i did not know that i just wasn't sure where the limit was and how much of the native fauna and flora they were eating ...this is what happens when im recovering and Internet at the same time >_< sorry, my bad
Yep, their blood is formed of a copper-based compound called hemocyanin. It's bright blue when oxidized, really quite lovely color.
They did some bioengineering at some point. I think it's mentioned in Dragonsdawn that the turkeys didn't do too well because of the high boron content of the local plants.
did some digging in my copy of The Dragonlover's Guide To Pern (under spoilers to keep size down) Spoiler: ore and minerals so it had enough minerals to be used like modern day earth but not so much to be useful to an interplanetary society Spoiler: genetic engineering i highly doubt you'd get humans to live that long without both better medical care than we have now and some genetic modification, so looks like that, at least, is canon and this would also explain away my concern about humans eating too much native flora and fauna. oh and its why the dragons can get enough boron from eating the modified earth species. Spoiler: native fauna and flora i wonder how the animals got the silicon they needed if it wasn't in the base of the food chain? Spoiler: Thread its space fungus. really effing big space fungus that grows super fast and eats super fast and can get bigger than a fucking anaconda. and that's not even its final form i'll add more when i've read further *edit* so the rest was kind of general knowledge and information we've already decided to change or stuff we won't need for a while if anyone wants maps of the weyrs or holds i can scan them and upload them here, just let me know what ones you want
