Weyr Oh Weyr - A Nicer Pern (Planning/OOC)

ALRIGHT Recent Pernese History: from 100 to 50 years ago, part 1.

Spoiler: fostering, education, and psychic power

About 100 years ago, 300 years into the most recent Long Interval, population growth led to a strong need to rework the systems. The first change was the fostering system, which before was mostly used by the rich to make connections to lower the chance for war, and by the poor as a means of dealing with unwanted kids or kids they couldn't afford without just aborting, killing, or abandoning them. The system worked, but only barely. It stopped war only when the agressors were both already nobility, and it kept children from being abandoned or killed only when someone actually had the resources to care for a whole nother child.

The new system, tested with Fort Hold and the Healer and Harper Halls, was essentially an early form of universal education. Infants and very young children (from just weaned to four Turns old) were placed under the care of the Healer's Hall. This also gave birth to the pediatrician craft, or Children's Healer. Journeyman healers who were not journeying or working with a Master would take charge of two children of three or four Turns and one child of one or two Turns. Children spent from dawn to twilight at the Hall then went home when their parent or parents got home from their shop or field or whatever. Play time, nap time, and meals took up the majority of the day, but the older children of three and four Turns were taught simple tasks and chores as well. They were taught very simple cooking, taught how to use a belt knife safely, how to repair rips and tears in their clothes, how to read and write, how to keep a space clean, how to recognize plants that were safe to eat as well as ones that were dangerous, and very simple first aid.

Older children, from five to ten or twelve depending on how quick the individual kids learned, were fostered at the Harper Hall. This gave birth to the education craft or Teaching Harper. Journeyman harpers who were neither journeying or working with a Master took charge of four or five children, and would retrieve them from home each morning and take them to the Hall. There they had breakfast, learned everything that Harpers usually taught each morning, and in the afternoons after lunch they went home to help their parents at their trade. Those who expressed a desire to work with dragons or watchweyrs were given a dog around this time, and anyone who expressed a desire to go into a trade other than that of their parents was taught the basics by their Teacher.

After ten years of this system, the Holders noticed that their crop output was higher since parents didn't have to watch over their kids while working in the fields, and their kids were more competent at a younger age. They declared the exercise a success, and the Healer and Harper Hall started making outpost Halls at the other Holds, calling them Children's Halls. Thus began public education, funded by grateful Holders who were anxious to have the kind of prosperity Fort Hold was enjoying.

For teens, up to age 16, they either worked with their families in the Holds, got an apprenticeship at a Hall, or joined up with a Weyr. They had all the basics, now they were learning stuff specific to what they were going to do later in life. This aspect was already perfectly functional, so they left it alone.

Around fifteen years after the experiment began, every Hold had a Children's Hall. About five years after that, Children's Healers began noticing that some children seemed to have psychic powers of some kind, usually Empathy but very occasionally telepathy or Projection. Children with Empathy were usually found because they would start crying at the exact, precise time as another child, or when an adult got upset or angry. Telepathy was usually found when a child would get upset and a passing dragon or watchweyr would try to comfort them. Projection was harder, because the change to notice was much more subtle, and usually occured in concert with another power. The healer's perception would warp slightly, feeding the child or not outside of the time they were supposed to, ignoring dirt or a mess, and so on. It took about ten such occasions for someone to notice their mistakes, in which time the child in question basically had the run of the place. On average, out of every thousand kids, fifteen would have psychic powers on a noticable level, ten of which would have Empathy, four would have Telepathy, and one would have Projection and either Empathy or Telepathy.

part 2 to be posted later this evening.

 

Pernese Recent History: from 100 to 50 years ago, part 2!

Spoiler: sex ed

The population growth and the beginnings of the Children's Healers craft caused a change in sex education as well. Before, boys were taught about the wherries and the trundlebugs by their elder brothers or their father, and girls by their elder sisters or their mother. With the beginnings of pediatrics, Healers began to realize that this system just didn't cut it. Sex, sexuality, gender, and so on was taught to those old enough to be in the Harper's classes, from 5 to 10 or 12. At first it was to be sure what was coming up in their future in terms of puberty and so on, but the Weyrwoman of Benden Weyr came by the Harper's hall in one of the first few of these lessons, and decided to lend the overwhelmed Healer a hand. She proceeded to give the eight-year-old class the down and dirty on any topic they asked about, and brought up other topics like gender and sexuality that the Healers hadn't even considered talking about, as they were at that time taboo in the Holds and to a degree in the Halls.

The Healer started taking notes herself, and later visited Fort to get details from the Healers at the Weyr, as sex-related topics were not nearly as taboo there. Oddly enough, it turns out that having sex-pollen dragons as psychically bonded companions who don't care what your sex or gender are so long as they get to try to sex up a green or queen once in a while tends to result in a lot more introspection and acceptance. She got a full run-down of homo, bi, demi, ace, and poly sexualities and romances, as well as enough of a rundown of transgender, genderfluid, and agender to be able to teach her class.

Over the course of the next twenty years, the influence of this education caused a massive overturning of the taboo in the peasantry, or holders with a lowercase H, but the Holders with an uppercase H remained unmoved since their children fostered to other Holders and had private tutors rather than going to the Children's Hall. This led to an ironic case of the upper class having poorer education than the lower class. Over the course of the time since then to the present, nearly all Holders have begun sending their children to a Children's Hall, but there are still a few hold-outs, chiefly among them Yanus, Meron, and Fax.

Spoiler: gender Impression, flaming queens, and leadership

Along with Hold children, Weyr children also enjoyed the benefits of better education. Dragonriders would ferry the Weyr's children to the nearest Children's hall in the afternoons to share lunch with the Hold children, then taking classes until dinner time. Better knowledge and more awareness of how children age and mature led to the age to qualify for Impression being raised from 10 to 16. Better (or at least far more coherent) sex education for the Weyr children also caused upheaval about sixty years ago, when the then-Weyrleader decided to experiment with a couple of hatchings.

The first hatching, of six blues, six greens, four browns, two bronzes, and a queen, he put only girls on the Hatching sands, but kept a bunch of boys further back just in case. Only one boy impressed a dragon, and it was a green. The girl with a queen was sent to repopulate Fort Weyr in anticipation of the Pass, along with a third of the Weyrfolk and as many crafters and holdfolk as they could recruit. The next hatching six Turns later had five blues, eight greens, six browns, a bronze, and another queen. This time, it was all boys on the sands, with girls held in reserve. This time, one girl Impressed a bronze, and the rest were all boys. The boy who Impressed the queen was quite pleased, as he was already fairly sure he was gay.

Upon the conclusion of his experiment, the Benden Weyrleader declared that Searches would be ignoring gender from then on, as the dragons obviously didn't give a damn. This line of reasoning led to another change, because dragons didn't give a damn about the color of other dragons, just size and queen. A small blue would obey a large blue, brown, or small bronze equally, but would obey any queen no matter her size. Between queens however, the heirarchy was baffling, but seemed to revolve around some function of size, how angry her rider happened to be at that moment, how psychically powerful her rider was, and how many eggs were in her last clutch. But any dragon, no matter his or her color, size, age, or whatever, would obey the queen in charge.

Backtracking a little, Queens could always flame, they just matured enough to do so later. This was discovered in the First Interval by a particularly rambunctious queen and her rider, but in the first Long Interval queens became so scarce that the Weyrleaders and Weyrwomen agreed to stop teaching the young queens how, just so that they didn't accidentally kill one of the last queens learning how to chew firestone. The knowledge was made secret, and then lost when the Plague of Moreta hit. Later, when the first male to Impress a queen learned that he wouldn't be allowed to fight Thread, he was incensed, and decided to try anyways. To his astonishment, he discovered that she could in fact chew firestone and breathe fire. He was severely punished for it, as the Weyrleader thought he had just destroyed her ability to lay eggs, but six weeks later she mated, and a while after laid eggs which were perfectly healthy. There was a kerfuffle when it was noticed that the blues all had patterns with tinges of green and brown, but other than that they were all fine.

Upon this, the two Weyleaders and Weyrwomen threw up their hands, switched jobs, and called it a day. From then on, Weyrleader became a joint elected position, functioning together with the Weyrwoman as a triumvirate. The first Weyrleader was in charge of Weyr life, legal disputes, and supply. The second Weyrleader was in charge of disaster relief, Hold and Hall services like mail, transport, and construction and excavation, and coordinating the various crafts of the dragonriders to the best effect. The Weyrwoman was in charge of training both riders and dragons, policing and disciplining riders and dragons, directing them while fighting Thread, and functioning as a form of air traffic control. Weyrleaders were chosen at every third Hatching, based on popular vote. Wingleaders were chosen based on a mix of how well their dragon was obeyed and how good they were at the task.

Spoiler: The Most Disturbing Hatching Ever, tw rape, tw murder

An impression held by many that did not change until fifty three years ago was that Impression was the best indicator of morality. Fifty three years ago, a routine Hatching was disrupted when, upon one of the older male teens Impressing a bronze, a girl in the audience started screaming that he was "lying to the baby". After calming down, she explained that the teen, who came from the same Hold as her, had raped her and several of the younger girls on the Sands for Impression, threatening to kill her. She believed him, as he had already raped and murdered three girls back home, and she spread the word to the other girls he raped, hoping they wouldn't be killed either. An investigation ensued, and was confirmed by each of the girls indicated. The teen was confronted, and he confessed. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, and his dragonet was restrained.

Eventually, the dragonet asked the Weyrwoman, who had Telepathy and thus could talk to all dragons, what his rider had done wrong. She explained, and he asked what was so wrong about that. The conversation continued until the Weyrwoman realized, upon confirming with several other dragons, that dragons have absolutely zero concept of human morality, they just feel shame for their rider's deeds when their rider actually feels guilty. If the rider really feels no guilt, the dragon sees no fault unless it also conflicts with draconic morality.

Six months later, the teen broke himself and his dragon free and attempted to jump between to escape pursuit, and the dragons began keening around eight seconds later. They were found sixteen years later embedded in a cliff face.

Spoiler: The Most Disturbing Hatching Ever, no tw version

An impression held by many that did not change until fifty three years ago was that Impression was the best indicator of morality. Fifty three years ago, a routine Hatching was disrupted when, upon one of the older teens Impressing a bronze, a girl in the audience started screaming that he was "lying to the baby". After calming down, she accused him of several heinous crimes, which he eventually confessed to. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, and his dragonet was restrained.

Eventually, the dragonet asked the Weyrwoman, who had Telepathy and thus could talk to all dragons, what his rider had done wrong. She explained, and he asked what was so wrong about that. The conversation continued until the Weyrwoman realized, upon confirming with several other dragons, that dragons have absolutely zero concept of human morality, they just feel shame for their rider's deed when their rider actually feels guilty. If the rider really feels no guilt, the dragon sees no fault unless it also conflicts with draconic morality.

Six months later, the teen broke himself and his dragon free and attempted to jump between to escape pursuit, and the dragons began keening around eight seconds later. They were found sixteen years later embedded in a cliff face.

 

Maybe the algorithm the analyzer uses is skewed?

<possible pseudo-science because I can't be arsed to hunt down sources>

To my knowledge, both history and science texts tend to be written by men, or at least have men as the primary authors. Plus, "formal" writing tends to use fewer adjectives, and more frequent adjective usage is a trait commonly ascribed to female writers.​

</possible pseudo-science>


More on topic....I really really love reading this thread and I hope you guys don't mind me lurking even though I have nothing really useful to contribute but worldbuilding is kind of my thing and I really love reading all the background stuff that's being written!

 

I am adoring the worldbuilding you're doing @cosmofex even if I'm not contributing much in the way of help. Loaded up with school rn, but consider this a major thumbs up to your brain thoughts.

 

^

 

aw thanks peeps!

worldbuilding is like, my favorite thing ever. its more fun for me than playing around in the worlds i make could ever be. if i could make a business out of helping people build their idea for a setting into a cohesive Thing, i would be on that in a heartbeat. i get to go into loving detail on everything i want, not just what the character sees!

ok, for real tho, i am great at naming Things, not people. someone needs to start suggesting names for all these "and then some dude"s or they're all gonna get named something from my Grand List Of Generic Names, which is great for sounding like a posh victorian gent or lady, and not so great for sounding like a real person who is real.

also, Dibs on rp-ing an apprentice of some craft or another who Gets In Way Over Their Head, Menolly style. i don't actually want to play Menolly tho because i am terrified i'd mess her style of singing up, and that is like, essential to rp-ing her. i can't do poetry for shit, let alone songs. alliteration and punnery is all i've got going for me.

 

DELVING INTO Recent History: 50 to 20 Turns Ago, In Which The World Became A Smaller Place

Spoiler: TESLA TIME

Fifty Turns ago, a poor holder in Telgar named her newborn daughter Nikola in a surprising moment of foresight, after her grandfather of the same name. Nikola grew up, decided tits were for squares, and became an apprentice at the nearby Smithcraft Hall, where nobody knew his birth sex. He became a journeyman at age 16, and for his Mastery project invented the steam engine a year later, becoming the youngest Craft Master in Pernese history. Fandarel, inspired to his usual desire for efficiency, made the Steam Locomotive for his a month later in a fit of furious invention. The engine was a small prototype, only large enough to pull a single mine cart, but it was large enough to test the machine and it's improvements until it reached the point where it could be implemented at a larger scale. Over the next thirteen years, the two competed back and forth to improve the design as much as possible. When they reached the point where traditional metalworking methods couldn't make the parts they needed to continue about three years in, they began competing there as well. Fandarel invented the blast furnace, Nikola invented the Bessemer Process. Fandarel invented hot blast, Nikola invented the dynamo. With the advent of cheap, high quality steel, the railway design suddenly became practical not just for use to move mine carts full of slag and rubble, but for Pern-wide transportation. The first set of train track was finished 20 years ago, from the Smithcraft Hall to Telgar Hold, and from Telgar Hold to Telgar Weyr.

Spoiler: construction

Meanwhile at the Miner's Hall, Portland cement was invented, opening up the ability to cheaply build Thread-proof structures wherever bags of cement or concrete could be carried. With this, combined with the newly invented cheap sheet metal and rebar, Holds and Halls replaced their wooden structures with concrete, since it was stronger and lasted longer. The Miner's Hall split to start the Builder's Hall, home of architects, stonemasons, concrete finishers, and bricklayers. The Builder's Hall almost immediately was swamped by requests to shore up or repair older structures. The Woodsmith Hall did not lose significant business from this, only changed what kind of business they did. Crossties for railroads became one of their biggest businesses, and all of the business for fine or artistic goods or furnishings remained as it was before. The only trade that was harmed by the use of concrete in building was for building materials, but even that wasn't hurt much since it was still safe to build with wood on the inside of structures, so long as metal, stone, or concrete was thick enough on the outside to stop Thread.

Spoiler: Oldive used to be a jebby little prick

While these advancements were going on, the Healer's Hall experienced a boom as well. The invention of gelatin capsules, hypodermic injections, germ theory, vaccines, pasturization, anaesthesia, and antibiotics all found their origin in one night of drunken revelry after it had been confirmed that a bad case of plague had not only been successfully quarantined, but also cured with zero fatalities. The healers, overjoyed, began a party the likes of which hadn't been seen since the end of the last Pass, and one participant, a journeyman named Oldive, volunteered to be the one sober person, just in case someone got in trouble. He started writing down ideas for all sorts of things said by drunken Masters, and showed the Masterhealer the list of descriptions in the morning. The Masterhealer laughed at him, and told him "If even one of those things work, I'll give you a Mastery right there," thinking them to be impossible. A month later, Oldive presented himself to the Masterhealer and kissed a patient with fever (who later became his wife) full on the lips. When he didn't get sick the Masterhealer asked him how he did it, and Oldive replied "Three of the seven things on that list. Now give me the damn Mastery." After becoming a Master Healer, he spent the next twelve years proving or improving the rest of the list.

Spoiler: betcha didn't know the waterwheel was so important. also, tw: Library of Alexandria 2.0

Another invention that occured 50 years ago was the re-invention of many uses of the waterwheel. This began as a one-uping argument between journeymen of the Smithcraft, Woodsmith, Miner's, and Farmer's Hall, which turned into cooperative invention, and Mastery projects for everyone involved. Starting with the Gristmill concept, they created the ore mill for crushing and processing ore, the pulp and paper mills for refining wood fibers into paper, the saw and planing mills for refining timber into finished lumber, the textile mill for producing simple textiles out of cotton, wool, and linen, the trip hammer mill for pounding metal harder than any smith could by hand, the bark mill for grinding scrap from the Woodsmith Hall to tanbark for the Tanner's Hall, and the wire, rolling, and slitting mills for producing wire, sheet metal, and nails. All of these types of mills were known to have existed at some point in the past, but the methods of building them had been stored on paper, and while the more important records of Weyrs, Holds, and Halls had been written on hide so it would last, less important things like mill construction technique in a time when no new mills would be needed for a very long time due to a stagnant population were written on paper. One of the worst tragedies of the Seventh Pass was when, due to a snow storm during the first Threadfall of the Pass hiding the fact that the Pass had begun, Thread fell on the Papersmith Hall, destroying it and everyone inside completely. Without the Library inside, which contained the sole copies of dozens of works, including the plans for many types of mills, the ability to repair more delicate pieces of these mills vanished. During the Pass, the Smithcraft Hall, who under normal conditions would have been able to examine parts and reproduce them easily, was so overloaded just making and repairing agenothree tanks and the equipment of dragons and their riders, and by the end of the Pass, the remains of the many broken-down mills had decayed beyond repair. Since hand-crafted parts were sufficient for all the crafts unaffected, and the Paper craft had nothing left and no one used paper for anything important anyways, the various Halls elected to simply up the number of apprentices they kept, rather than try to rebuild mills from nothing but their memories.

As a sidenote, with the invention of a cheap means of making paper, the Masterwoodsmith had an idea, and invented the movable type printing press 36 Turns ago. Fandarel saw the design, and invented the typewriter, which was "far, far more efficient if you just want to write up something legible quickly."

Spoiler: anything with a * is something that i'm gonna need help hashing out, since im not gonna be the only one using this shit

25 Turns ago, the first Lord Holder's Council was held to decide universal laws and systems, since the incredible advancements in mobility, industry, and medicine had led to similar advancements in crime. Luckly, since there were only twelve major Holds present, it only took them about a week of twelve-hour-a-day argument to sort out each point. First came agreements on currency. They agreed on a single good or service from each Hall which had a constant supply, and set the value of the New Mark as a specific quantity of any one of those goods*. The New Mark would be good for that amount of that material anywhere and at any time, and the value of other materials would be set accordingly. Next, they decided on a system of measurements for mass, length, volume, time, temperature, light, and electricity, since units like "dragonlength" depend on which dragon you're using to measure it, and units like "one hell of a zap" leave a lot to be desired*. Next came essential rights, as they figured it was best to know what everyone, regardless of their crime, COULD do, before you started working on what they couldn't*. Finally came laws. Knowing the subject would take the longest of them all to sort out, they seperated it into Law of Marks for monetary issues*, Law of Beasts for animals other than dragons and watchweyrs*, Law of Injuries for humans, dragons, and watchweyrs*, Law of Damages for property*, Law of Lands for trespass and environmental safety*, and Law of Laws for judges, lawyers, and Lord Holders*. Each Hold could also make their own laws, but they only extended as far as the Lord Holder was willing to pay to police, which usually meant "as far as the far edge of the fields that feed the Hold." The whole Lord Holder's Council took nine straight weeks, and not one of them left precisely overjoyed, but were each at least satisfied that none of the rest of them did either. They agreed to meet every third month to compare progress on implementing the changes, and to modify them if need be.

Spoiler: turns out laws are a good idea, Fax is dangerously megalomaniacal, and Yanus is a prick, a dick, and a mindless gobbler of pig shit. who th'fuck knew.

The Halls and Weyrs waited for one year after the end of the Lord Holder's Council to see how the various laws affected the Holds, until it became obvious that the effect was incredibly good. Having laws rather than inviolable traditions meant that actions which were perfectly fine though frowned upon under the old system, such as working your holders until they drop, were suddenly seen and treated as the harmful acts they were. Having dedicated judges and lawyers meant that greavances could be heard and dealt with immediately, rather than at the whim of a Lord Holder who might have two hundred requests for appointments in a day, or might be going to an Impression, or might just not be feeling it today. The Lord Holders in turn could devote much more time and energy to the ones that actually did require personal attention. Within two years, the Mastercrafters of each of the Halls had gathered and agreed upon the universal Hall Law* to cover what the various Hold-specific Laws did not, as well as craft-specific laws, and the Weyrs had done the same with Weyr Law*.

There were hold-outs, however. High Reaches, Nabol, and Crom Holds under Fax's control refused to join, and Fax brought soldiers against anyone who attempted to enforce or even talk about the Holder's Law on his land. Many of the more minor holds held out as well, waiting for better proof that such things were helpful. The only one left today of the minor holds that hasn't taken up the Holder's Law is Half Circle Sea Hold, mostly because Yanus is at sea too much to get the troubles that eventually drove all the other Holders and Lord Holders to give in and take up the Holder's Law. Seeing no gain for himself and not thinking of anyone else's, he simply ignores it, or when pressed to give "a real reason," he tells the person that "there's not one person in Half Circle that has need of it, and they all know their duty without it. Why bother changing what doesn't need any changing when there's nets that need mending and fish that need gutting? Now pick up that line and get back to work."

 

ok guys, we've reached the point where Pern is beginning to recivilize itself. it's early enough in the game that everything still looks pretty similar to how the board was before everything started up, but we're definitely In The Shit now. all that's really changed from the point of view of someone on the ground is that money is starting to look just as viable an option as barter at a gather, you don't have to haggle to buy a damn pie but you do for a six tiered cake with sugar glass, kids know shit, the Weyrs vanished but Benden is trying to fix that (smarter not harder Lessa, you don't have to fuck with the time space continuum every time you lose your favorite earrings), the Weyrs learned that dragons don't give even one shit between the lot of them and on a wide variety of subjects, Fandarel is so very, very bi for Nikola, and Nikola is a thing and also very, very gay for Fandarel but like, <3< style. Fandarel just wants to impress Nikola but Nikola keeps being like "anything you can do i can do better, i can do anything better than you" and Fandarel says "yes you can but look, i made you a blast furnace, isn't it pretty?" and Nikola blushes then makes it better than he did.

it's all very technical, but you get the general shape of things.

here's what's left of The List.

1. give menolly a better life
2. lessa remains Untamed
3. less of the brekke/f'nor awfulness being awful
4. one vote each for Menolly/Lessa and Menolly/Sharra
5. five votes for Menolly/Mirrim
6. Ace Jaxom
7. Lessa's friend the Watch-Weyr gets a better life
8. explore just how much Impression will let you forgive, and what the knowledge of forgiving what you never would otherwise will do to you (covered the draconic side ("basically anything"), now we need the human side)
9. trans characters! (working on it!)
10. thundersmith hall
11. wild west dragons (gettin reeeeeeaaaaal close here)
12. bone wars
13. pernese natural history
14. new weyr in the Nerat area
15. explore what happens to Thread that burrows

the up side is i've covered two thirds of the list! the down side is that eleven of the fifteen are stuff that happens either in the present or later, meaning i've got "thundersmith hall, human forgiveness of dragons, wild west dragons, and more trans characters" as everything for the twenty years up to the present. honestly, that's not much. certainly not for the Pernese Industrial Revolution. i'm thinking of adding a chemist's hall to make up some of the gap, but i've been giving a lot of love to the crafthalls and stiffing the holds and weyrs. i need some suggestions!

also, when exactly IS the present? are we starting just before the turn like in Dragonflight, are we starting soon after like Dragonsong, are we starting at Random Arbitrary Moment Disconnected From Time And Space?

 

Chemistry is good. If you need a source to develop it, perhaps the glassmakers + healers? I don't know if Pern does stained glass, but if it does, Local Glass Person Assures You that they would be at least somewhat aware of chemicals due to colorants.

 

OK HALLOWEEN TIME UPDATE

The Recent Not-Yet-History: 20-11 Turns Ago

Spoiler: Things speed up

-20 Turns

• Nikola hooks his dynamo up to a waterwheel creating a constant power source
• the railway from Telgar Hold to Telgar Weyr is finished in anticipation of being repopulated
• Fandarel invents the light bulb
• the Chemistcraft Hall is founded in Igen by delegations from each Crafthall
• the population of Pern reaches 4 million, just over triple it's probable population in Dragonflight, due to the enrichment of the earth over the past several hundred Turns.

-19 Turns

• Nikola wires the Smithcraft Hall to his generator, ensuring constant, safe, bright lighting.
• the railway from Telgar Hold to Lemos, Crom, and Igen Weyr begin construction
• overcrowding in the major and larger minor Holds force the founding of twelve new minor Holds despite the invention of a relatively cheap means of expanding the size of the Hold itself.

-18 Turns

• The Great Rail Company begins when four Lord Holders purchase the right to construct the railroads from Nikola and the Smithcraft Hall
• The GRC hires as many holdless as will accept their marks to construct railways to and from each Crafthall, Weyr, and Hold.
• Nyssa Hold, one of the twelve new Holds, is sacked by Fax
• Black Powder is invented at the Chemistcraft Hall

-17 Turns, In Which Fandarel Hates Snakes With An Unholy Passion

• the railways from Telgar Hold to Lemos Hold is completed
• the grenade is invented at the Chemistcraft Hall
• the landmine is invented by Nikola
• the rocket is invented by Fandarel
• the cannon is invented by Nikola
• the mortar is invented by Fandarel
• the arquebus is invented by Nikola
• the musket is invented by Fandarel
• you get the picture, competition was fierce, and more importantly the tunnelsnakes were awful that year. They got to pistols in about six months because Fandarel insisted on efficiency, and anything you couldn't shoot a whole nest of tunnelsnakes with in one go without using a runnerbeast and cart to do it with just wasn't going to cut it.
• just, new gun once a week. kill a bunch of tunnelsnakes, bitch about how long reload takes, make a new one. every week. for six months. Nikola was going crazy.

-16 Turns

• the railways to Crom and Igen Weyr are finished
• penicillin is discovered
• Fandarel invents breech-loading, rifling, and the shotgun shell
• Nikola gets fed up with Fandarel's obsession with guns and heads off to start the Thundersmith Hall, swearing off his nonexistant "liking" forever. Totally.

-15 Turns

• A queen is hatched at Fort Weyr and is sent to restart High Reaches Weyr.
• A queen is hatched at Benden Weyr and is sent to restart Telgar Weyr.
• Lessa Impresses the new Ruathan watchweyr.
• Fax conquers several Holds, including Crom and Tillek.

-14 Turns

• Nikola invents the Tesla Coil
• L'tol is incredibly lucky in firestone drill
• railways to Nabol, High Reaches, Igen, and Bitra are completed
• vulcanized rubber is invented
• Fandarel invents the repeating rifle. Nikola's sigh of exaspiration can be heard all the way to Nerat.

-13 Turns

• A queen is hatched at Fort Weyr and is sent to restart Igen Weyr.
• A queen is hatched at Benden Weyr and is sent to restart Ista Weyr
• Queens are hatched at High Reaches and Telgar, but are kept there to speed the growth of the Weyr.

-12 Turns

• F'lar Impresses Mnementh
• the first signs (other than the blatantly obvious rate of dragon matings and queen eggs being layed) of the Red Star coming are noted and dismissed by most.

-11 Turns

• railways to High Reaches Weyr, Ruatha, Fort Weyr, Fort Hold, Tillek, Benden Weyr, and Benden Hold are completed. It takes 26 hours to travel from Benden Hold to Tillek Hold by train, for two marks.
• The GRC announces Traveling Hostels, where you can purchase a compartment on a train car for 10 marks. they are linked together and used as a mobile appartment complex and as a mobile workforce for repairing tracks.
• Queens are hatched at all Weyrs.
• the Pernese Population reaches 4.5 million. Overcrowding is becoming a primary concern for most Holds.

 

ok but like, i just reread all of this and like, the hype is real my chums. the problem is i have the motivation but no inspiration. i got nothing. i think it's to the point where we have wild west pern, but not so far that it's unrecognizable or wildly ooc for the world. does anyone have more to add, or should we start making characters?

 

(I don't RP, but. This is excellent worldbuilding to deal with the bullshit that is canon Pern. A+++ would read and incorporate into own headcanons again a thousand times over)

 

I REALLY want to join this this is some quality worldbuilding yo but my Pern days are long behind me and mostly forgotten and I mostly just remember something about Mellony being awesome and I want a ton of firelizards (also Ramoth being in the first Pern novel I read?)

Basically I have all kinds of OC ideas but I'm hesitant to share them because I can't remember the details of the world they should be in XD

 

I know I'd like to probably have a rider of some kind and maybe??? A crafterhall person???? BUT I AM NOT COMPLETELY SECURE ON THAT.

 

So far I've got 'steampunk biologist who studies firelizards, watchweyrs, and dragons by extension but is basically interested in ANYTHING that grows or moves' :P Also I'm trying to decide if they should have a watchweyr as well as a clutch or so of various rescued firelizards XDD

 

Ok so I had to leave to concentrate but now I was able to gather the spoons and just <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

That said, I think we need a set of google docs for this.

So I'm starting one and basically copy pasting/organizing your stuff @cosmofex

I think we can start adding characters and fleshing things out already, and change things as they come up. I know I'm going to make a journeyman dragonhealer, unsure of whether they believe Thread is going to happen.
Oh! Did the designs for firethrowers get lost in this version? Do they also need to be redesigned?

 

Ok I made a bigass googledoc, I'm going to be editing permissions so everyone can start adding to it for the mo', though at some point we'll need to tighten editing rights once we have things set down more into a canon.

 

Also, I'd like a role call of who wants to roleplay - your knowledge leve ldoesn't matter, we can brainstorm and help you away! This is OUR project dammit, we get to have our cake and eat it!

 

Consider me in!

 

I'd be interested, though I don't know how often i'd be responding, as work takes a lot of the spoons out of Me.