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This article is about the fictional planet. For the bird, see European Honey Buzzard. For the commune in France, see Pern, Lot.
Map of Pern, primarily the Northern Continent
(Dutch language)

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.

No Pern fiction has been published since July 2012, several months after Anne McCaffrey's death.[1] There are two collections of Pern stories; twenty-three novels, some written jointly or solely by Todd McCaffrey, the son of Anne; and a few authorized companion books by other writers.[1] The figure shows the habitable portion of Pern's northern continent and a tiny portion of its southern continent, which are the setting for the first novel Dragonflight (1968) and its sequel Dragonquest. East–West it shows approximately that hemisphere known prior to the last two books (2011, 2012). North–South it does not show the abandoned region of "Landing" and early colonization, further to the southeast, whose rediscovery and resettlement is one unifying theme of the stories that follow Dragonquest in Pern historical time, perhaps one third of the series.

The Atlas of Pern (1984), a companion book by Karen Wynn Fonstad in consultation with Anne McCaffrey, provides geographical detail for a region extending further south and east, covering the habitable portion of the so-called Southern Contient. In their geographical scope The Atlas maps cover the settings of all but the last two books, Dragon's Time (2011) and Sky Dragons (2012). Those two are set largely on the smaller and heretofore unknown Western Continent, on the other side of Pern from the settled Northern Continent.


Historical synopsis[edit]

Exploration: The Chronicles of Pern: First Fall[edit]

Pern was explored and cleared for colonization by an Exploration and Evaluation Corps team, two hundred years before the actual colonization commenced.[2] 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.[3] (In a classic McCaffrey inter-story connection, Shavva is later revealed as an ancestor of Avril Bitra, the astronavigator of the Pern colony.[2]) 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).[3]

Colonization: Dragonsdawn[edit]

In the novel, Dragonsdawn, 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.[2]

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.[2] 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: The Chronicles of Pern: First Fall[edit]

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.[2]

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.[3] (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.[3] 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.[3]

Planetary system data[edit]









Firestone is a phosphorus-bearing rock found on Pern. Dragons and fire lizards are able to produce spontaneously flammable phosphine gas from firestone, and to burn Thread out of the air by emitting the gas.

There are two firestone varieties. One is highly unstable, prone to release potentially explosive gas on contact with even the slightest bit of moisture, which makes it extremely dangerous to mine, store, transport, and consume. (Evidently it does not explode in a dragon's mouth, however.) The second variety is relatively stable, and must be "digested" in a dragon's second stomach to produce phosphine. The stable variety was discovered on the beaches of the Southern Continent soon after Landing, by observation of the native fire lizards (in Dragonsdawn). About 500 years later it was rediscovered by Kindan the harper and successfully mined (in Dragon's Fire), and thereafter used exclusively by dragonriders.

Golden queen dragons cannot produce phosphine from firestone. They help fight Thread by deft spotting and flying with riders who use mechanical flame throwers.

Firestone is believed to render female dragons sterile, which is considered beneficial regarding the green females. They are the smallest dragons, and sexually active, which would produce too many too small dragons if they were fertile.

The traditional theory is debunked for the reader's benefit in Dragonsdawn, where it is noted that green dragons are sterile and gold dragons are unable to use firestone by design. Evidently that knowledge was lost and the folk explanation generated, before the Third Pass at latest. (Both the gold and green female fire lizards are fertile, and both use firestone to flame Thread. There has been little study of fire lizards since the early days, however, and wild green clutches produce few young because greens do not defend their nests or carefully choose secure sites.)




Indigenous species[edit]








Introduced species[edit]








Human settlement patterns[edit]




Thread, a deadly phenomenon that appears throughout the series, are thin silver filaments of a space-borne mycorrhizoid spore that devours all organic matter that it touches. Pern periodically experiences Threadfalls, in which this deadly organism rains down from the sky.

Orbital dynamics[edit]



The two Long Intervals were caused when dragons were sent back in time by AIVAS to detonate large explosions on the Red Star's surface. The explosions perturbed its orbit, causing the long intervals. A third explosion in the present completed the calculated change in the Red Star's orbit, ensuring that thread never again threatens Pern once the present pass is complete.







Social structure[edit]




Main article: Weyr



Main article: Holds of Pern






Main article: Crafthalls of Pern







The Holdless[edit]

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.










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 132), whereas a line below the number indicates an integer. The ½ and 2 Mark coins are the only ones that could be potentially confused.


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.

See also[edit]


  1. ^ a b Dragonriders of Pern series listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database (ISFDB). Retrieved 2014-03-04. Select a title to see its linked publication history and general information. Select a particular edition for more data at that level, such as a front cover image or linked contents.
  2. ^ a b c d e McCaffrey, Anne Dragonsdawn, 1988
  3. ^ a b c d e McCaffrey, Anne The Chronicles of Pern: First Fall, 1993
  4. ^ McCaffrey, Anne Dragondrums, 1979