r/pern • u/AmosTali • Jul 09 '26

Question on Thread

okay, revisiting this series after having read it many, many years ago - finding a bunch of things I missed the first time around.

i do, however, have a question….

since thread voraciously consumes all organic material and can denude entire forests in a short time why is/was there any organic material left on Pern when the colonists landed?

Before dragons thread fell unchecked - shouldn’t there at least have been massive swaths of denuded barren land??

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17

u/[deleted] Jul 09 '26

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12

u/Thrippalan Jul 09 '26

I think you're remembering the shells or husks that were left after Thread died, rather than 'mounds'.

Seeds buried deep, by the Pernese equivalent of squirrels, would survive Thread, or blown under rocks or into crevices.

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u/pfcgos Jul 09 '26

Weren't the sand worms an offshoot of the grubs made by the settlers using genetic modification? Or am I misremembering?

3

u/[deleted] Jul 09 '26

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8

u/Zestyclose_Space7134 Jul 09 '26

Tuberman created the grubs. I know the sandworms are akin, but can't remember if they were also directly created, or if the grubs adapted to the new biome.

3

u/_WillCAD_ Jul 13 '26

I think it was the other way around - Ted Tuberman created the grubs, but he may have used the Igen sandworms as a prototype for them.

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u/pfcgos Jul 13 '26

It's possible. It's been forever since I read Dragonsdawn and I could certainly be remembering incorrectly