mindstalk: (rathorn)
So, you've read the Pern books. Five colors of dragon and fire lizard, reliably matched to sex and to reproductive strategy, at least for females. Gold fire lizards lay clutches and watch over them, green fire lizards just lay them and run. Kind of weird, like drudge classism for fire lizards, right?

Or not! https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/wir-dragonriders-of-pern-spoilers.859004/post-23249907


I have my own headcanon about fire lizard breeding practices. Their clutches are HUGE: dozens of eggs, up to fifty in F'nor's clutch. Menolly can hold three eggs in one hand while climbing. A tiny fire lizard queen couldn't possibly lay thirty or more eggs of that size in a few hours or days. They would weigh far more than she does.

Ostriches have an unusual reproductive strategy. A dominant pair will make a nest and the dominant female will lay up to a dozen eggs. Other females in the area will add their own eggs, which may or may not have been fertilized by the dominant male. The dominant pair doesn't object to the additions, which can bring the total number of eggs in the nest up to 60. The female, who can recognize her own eggs, makes sure they're in the middle and pushes out some of the excess, then the long incubation begins. The extra eggs reduce the chance that a predator will steal all the dominant's eggs. The secondary females have a small chance of surviving offspring without putting in any work. Everybody wins!

A gold fire lizard only lays a dozen eggs, with the rest of the clutch contributed by greens. They're not lazy or stupid, any more than a cuckoo is lazy or stupid for abandoning her eggs. When greens get their eggs in a gold's nest, the eggs get a measure of protection from a larger fire lizard who can command her fair to help. The queen allows it because she puts her own eggs at the center, where they are less vulnerable to tunnel snakes. And when the eggs hatch, the queen's hatchlings have a better survival rate because of their size and strength. Again, everybody wins. Sometimes a green can't find a willing gold's nest. They make their own, smaller nests and abandon them to fate.


And then, even better, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Side-blotched_lizard

"it turns out that there's a real-world example, the side-blotched lizards, who have three types of male and two types of female, each of which has a different reproductive strategy and is helpfully color-coded to match:"


Orange-throated males are "ultra-dominant, high testosterone", who establish large territories and control areas that contain multiple females. Yellow stripe-throated males ("sneakers") do not defend a territory, but cluster on the fringes of orange-throated lizard territories, and mate with the females on those territories while the orange-throat is absent, as the territory to defend is large. Blue-throated males are less aggressive and guard only one female; they can fend off the yellow stripe-throated males but cannot withstand attacks by orange-throated males.

Orange-throated females lay many small eggs and are very territorial. Yellow-throated females lay fewer, larger eggs, and are more tolerant of each other.[4]


Now, none of that matches fire lizards all that closely, even the two female strategies are different from the ostrich or inferred green/gold division. And the males don't match up, even if we assume there's 'control' of green females by brown or bronze fire lizards. (Golds are clearly in charge when around.) But five color-coded strategies? Neat.

As presented the male fire lizards seem pretty redundant. I did speculate about blues doing more fishing than others, and being camouflaged from prey fish or predator wherries. Alternatively they might be using handicap principle sexiness: "Sure the bronze is big and flies high, but I'm so quick and clever that I can thrive despite looking like a flying sapphire, mate with me."

Tempted to say that bronze/brown is a human distinction, and browns are just bronzes who didn't grow as big.

You could do more if it weren't so clear that fire lizards had colors fixed at hatching, like browns becoming bronzes and dominant if they're the biggest male around.

The wiki tells me that 'modern' fire lizards are actually feral engineered organisms that displaced their wild progenitor; the original 'dragonets' were given Mentasynth and other genetic hanges, which may explain why an alien species Impresses to readily on humans. So maybe there was originally a more dynamic color thing that got 'fixed' by the humans.

There's also the question of whether alien compound eyes see color the same way we do...
mindstalk: (Default)
Pern -- starting with the Harper Hall -- was one of my childhood SF book series. I didn't read all of Anne's output, let alone her son's, but a fair bit. Mari Ness on Tor.com is re-reading Dragonflight, with interesting analysis; part two talks about some of the feminist aspects.

The reviewer's part one was odd, though, claiming "Weyr Search" started as fantasy and was diverted into SF. It would be interesting to see the original text in Analog, but the Internet fails me. She cited dogs turning spits, Hold as castle, swords, Lessa shapechanging...

Pern was always obviously SF to me, dragons or not; the first Pern words I read were the preface about the golden G-type star Rukbat and the lost colony around it. A commenter alleges those words were in Analog; certainly they're in my copy of Dragonflight, which I re-read today.

As for the other elements: there are dogs ('canines'), lashed to a spitrun; sounds like a treadmill or capstan rather than dogs on hind legs. There are castle-like aspects to the Holds, ramparts and towers, but the Hold proper is clearly carved into the cliff, even in the first part of the book. There are mentions of sword hilts, and later of swords, but Fax and F'lar duel with knives -- maybe neither brought a sword to dinner.

Lessa is clearly a powerful telepath, but the text really does suggest an actual illusion rather than mind control:

"as she shifted her regular features into an illusion of disagreeable ugliness."

done while F'lar is aware and staring straight at her. Lessa's mental nudges are usually on the unwary, and she's described earlier as blurring her arm when she notices F'lar looking at her. OTOH an illusion power seems extravagant and subsequently unused, while Lessa is telepathic through the book.

There are other oddities. F'lar's guest room has hangings:

‘The many-colored hangings were crowded with bloody battles, individual swordplay, bright-hued dragons in flight, firestones burning on the ridges, and all that Pern’s scarlet-stained history offered.’

Yet it feels as if Fax has invented conquest, so what battles?

F’lar fantasized about forcing tithes by firestoning, but shortly thinks that dragons would never hurt a human (except at hatching, poor things.)

Other observations:

Dragonriders have their own empathy: "She had had to learn that, although it was her nature to seethe, she must seethe discreetly. Unlike the average Pernese, dragonriders were apt to perceive strong emotional auras."

When the watchwher kills itself for Lessa, the dragons mourn it as one of their own; F'lar calls it a cousin; Mnementh says basically "no way! we were just honoring the sacrifice." I know they are in fact related... I suspect McCaffrey was in fact winging some things, like the social history of Pern, but had long ranging Plans for others.

Mnementh is a lot chattier and more proactive than I remember, including being politer about Lessa's name than F'lar ("that girl", even after sex with/raping her.) He's also capable of sarcasm:

'"Back to Ruatha?" F'lar repeated the words stupidly; the significance momentarily eluded him.

It certainly does, Mnementh agreed'

There's no religion, but both Lessa and Larad feel some of their thoughts or actions are 'heresy' or 'blasphemy', like wishing for Thread instead of Fax, or marching on Benden Weyr.

Even Manora doesn't tell Lessa *why* she's afraid of Lessa leaving the Weyr before Ramoth's flight, F'nor's the only one to give her a clue.

The Weyrleader system seems a stupid form of government, but sometimes the winning bronze is the one the Weyr wants, rather than just the strongest bronze. Though there's also "like dragon like rider".

The whole time travel plot is still brilliantly handled.

As Mari notes, when F'lar falls into despair, they send for Robinton, whom he hasn't even known for long, not some local-Benden friend.

Besides the preface screaming THIS IS A TERRAN COLONY PLANET, much of the book (and series!) is pretty strongly SF in feel rather than fantasy. Yes, dragons and knife fights and Lords, but also rediscovery of tech and even new advances.

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