For my Nerdology Underdogs challenge, I decided it was time for another Team 1 More Page tie in, and I turned to Anne McCaffrey’s Pern for inspiration (spoiler alert), namely the first settlers on Pern from Dragonsdawn. Several thousand humans took a one way trip to the uninhabited planet of Pern, looking for a respite after a long, bloody alien war and hoping to return to a lower level of technology. For several years, life was good…until Thread began to fall.

“Thread” was a space-born organism that fell in long silvery strands (hence the name the settlers gave it) and devoured any organic material it fell on until it had gorged itself to death. Because Thread only fell every 200 years, the initial survey team had missed it. Now these settlers were stranded on a planet with what little technology they had left rapidly failing them under the stress of overuse as they fought what they calculated would be a 50 year incursion.

In desperation, the settlers turned to one of the few indigenous species: fire lizards. Thread was susceptible to being burned, and these little lizards not only breathed fire, they also had proven to form tight mental bonds with humans who were present when they hatched. The settlers managed to alter the fire lizards genetic structure significantly and managed to hatch 18 full-sized dragons with human-like intelligence who each chose his or her rider - the first Dragonriders of Pern, and terrifyingly small group intended to start the defense of a planet.

Although eventually the dragons of Pern included all of the colors that fire lizards came in (gold, bronze, brown, blue, and green), the first dragons were gold (the egg-laying females) and bronze (the males). The bright metallic color of the yarn used in my shoulder shrug echoes the colors of the bronze dragons.