A new red star appears in the sky. It streaks across with unnatural swiftness. With it comes a new threat, raining down from the day sky in great strands of death that eats all organic matter it can find, leaving the terrain scarred and ponies dead.
Based on Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern, but set in Equestria. We will not be using Pern characters, nor is it required you read any Pern books, or even know what Pern is, in the end. This is a story set in Equestria, with the ponies having to deal with a new natural threat/calamity and hopefully rising to the occasion.
Done for Arkansasdragon (who also provided the image), a patron! (you can join them and support my writing over here)
Chapters (22)
Oh my.
I haven't even read the description yet and I know what this is drawing from. Threadfall!
How'd that go again? *cough*
"We rise from the Weyr on our dragonmates bold,
Aloft in the sky, Bronze, Brown, Blue, Green and Gold.
Wheeling and turning, the hungry Threads burning
A dragon must fly when there are Threads in the sky."
Beware, ye pony folk:
Those threads of silver be no joke!
I've read all the Pern books.
All.
of.
them.
9535240
Welcome! Let's see how the ponies deal with it.
My childhood. Back in Okinawa, holed up at the library on base with every book of Pern I could get my hands on, in that old and comfy chair in the corner, reading, reading, reading. Until it was time to go, and I'd make sure to check out each and every one I'd brought with me if I couldn't finish before I had to leave.
Fantastic, I grew up on the Pern books, devoured all of them that were written before and waited eagerly for new ones both from Anne and her son Todd. I look forward to this fresh take.
I am especially curious on how ponies with their varied abilities will be able to handle thread when they have their own innate powers and do not necessarily need to rely on their winged companions.
9535285
A very good question. Perhaps Equestrian dragons have senses that make dealing with Thread useful, otherwise Spike would not be with Luna, I feel. Even if unicorns working in concert can defend against a Fall (since in most stories they seem incapable of casting actual spells, just telekinetic manipulation of varying types)... perhaps earthponies are our agenothree deliverer-equivalents. Pegasi might be in danger up there, though. Many possibilities!
Read most if not all of the Pern books, can't wait to see where this is going.
Doesn't Anne McCaffrey have some rules regarding Pern fanfiction?
I'm just imagining Celestia thwacking The Red Star with her sun.
"Bam. Red Star fried. Crisis over, everypony."
And everypony lived happily ever after without ever having even seen Thread.
9535404
As I recall she did write an open letter to her fans at one point regarding artwork, fanstories and home made RPGS, but her guidelines and requests were mostly common sense requests regarding posting copyright disclaimers.
She did ask that--albeit with no real enforceable imho-- that people obey the rules and laws and the general cannon set forth in each of her universes. However, I'm not a copyright lawyer so I could be mistaken about how much legal bite her "requests" within the informal letter has.
Her letter also did not specifically discuss crossover fiction in anyway, as it really wasnt a thing back in those days.
Soo... where are all the appropriate tags? Death? Violence? Dark?
Oh, forgot. It's the ponyfinder guy who still lacks his first original though...
9535574
What makes you say that?
Reads short description: wait is this pern????
This is a concept that I would not have expected to be ponified..... Will be watching intently.
Also: drummer beat Piper blow (I forgot the rest)
9535574
Oh, you are not dead. Hello.
But how will a pony even fit on Spike?
9535698
Pegasus-riding dragons of Pern?
i.pinimg.com/originals/27/cd/1d/27cd1de23ee382ec69d068dfbd837a7f.jpg
Since Spike recieved his wings recently, he can help more than you might think. Like it or not, Luna, you're going to need his help.
9535574
Wow. As Treehugger would say, "Harsh, much?"
Mellow out, dude. It's all ponies and rainbows here. If you want 100% originality, you gotta look in the dumpster behind Barnes and Noble, because what sells well is what people know. Originality winds up with torn off covers sent back to the publisher for a refund to the retailer more often than not.
Just had a chilling thought, what if discord is avias's equivalent in this universe?
That would mean the reign of chaos was a preventative measure.
Id have thought Manehatten would be far less affected through building materials than Ponyville. No idea if Trottingham is heavy stone terraces with stone and slate roofs, or wattle and daub thatched cottages.
If they aint got Grubs, then its gonna take a whole lotta burning to shut that stuff down.
Or water.
9539273
The first book states that all things considered they we're fortunate to have threadfall in relatively safe areas. Could be happening here as well.
Edit: meant first threadfall
9539299
We overlaid a map of thread fall on Equestria.
9536196
Oh? How so?
9539758
Simple, Equis could have been sheilded from red star via the celestials bodies, and the random movements to Chuck it out of orbit to eliminate the threat of threadfall.
9539919
Mind if we possibly borrow that idea? If it ever comes up in the story, that is.
9540628
Sure
F
F
Well here it comes:
Drummer, beat, and piper, blow
Harper, strike, and soldier, go
Free the flame and sear the grasses
Til the dawning Red Star passes
F
F
F
Mere tinplate wont protect against Thread, merely give at best a reroll on glancing strike.
Good thing Anne McCafferey didnt know about Organosilicates in detail, or did and realised that Thread that could Quartz, could destroy a planet, not just life on its surface?
F
9594762
According to the novels, thread dies with fire, can't survive for long in a regular atmosphere, and pretty much drowns immediately in water. So dragons, as well as every spell caster that can produce or manipulate fire and/or water in some form, are quickly going to become the Big Damn Heroes of the world, once they catch onto those facts. And while any thread that reached land will propagate and spread for a few ours, the infestation is pretty much already dying (albeit slowly) and had been almost as soon as it reached the upper atmosphere. Even a heavy enough rain was shown to greatly reduce the threat of at least part of a threadfall, and would stop thread from propagating once it reached the ground, but Pern was at the mercy of a complexly natural weather system and couldn't depend on it raining heavily on demand.
The sad sad truth about the thread is that is isn't even really attacking on any sort of conscious level.
bit
F
Hoo boy. This does not look good. If a Deus Ex Machina is forthcoming, it best come right quick!
9594762
In such a case, I don't imagine that most buildings will fare much better.
9594762
Wait what? Could you please explain that?
9594929
Sigh, missed an Eat in the Eat Quartz thing.. its Silicones, a silicon oxide backbone, pure qurtz or sand, wrapped with methyl groups. Its been too many decades since I did the course at university, just that some stuff you get these days generate acetic acid, extremely concentrated vinegar, and not dificult to consider other acids etc such as organic acids which can be quite horrific in their corrosive abilities.
9594949
I think I'm even more confused now. Thread is a carbon-based lifeform, a fungus, that eats organic matter, via chemical conversion yes, but how could it eat quartz?
9595057
Apparently grass is so high in silica content that theres at least one type of termite thats evolved to digest it? Something about them eating the silicon e sealant used in Biosphere 2 experimental dome project or something many years ago?
Just thinking it was a good thing Thread was organic only, not organic rock etc to eat more things.
9594836
I thought they had to burn it out on the ground with flamethrowers? Or was that just something they thought they had to do until they rediscovered the southern continent and it wasn't a blasted wasteland.
9595107
They did have to burn it out with flamethrowers and nitric acid, because once the thread burrowed, it ate all the plants from the roots up (and everything else organic underground), leaving the area around the burrow sterile. But after discovering the thread-eating grubs protecting the land in the southern continent, they brought some north and starting seeding the farms with them. It will still take a long while to seed the whole north with grubs, but they do help.
9595107
It's still dying when it burrows, just slow, and they're basically killing the soil around them when they do this. These people were primitive, so even a LITTLE good land going bad was an atrocious loss to them, thus they needed ground teams to handle every single Thread that got past the dragonriders.
Thread isn't individually dangerous. Indeed, a single incident can be more or less weathered alright. But it comes in waves. In sheer volume the land and everything on it would be a blasted mess of dissolved biomass.
At this point you start calling it thread, without so much as describing it as threadlike or looking like silver threads. The best description before that is
While anyone who has read the Pern novels knows already what is going on, and won't blink twice at the name, you've now got anyone who hasn't read them thoroughly confused.
Just figured I ought to point out a minor continuity quibble.
9595219
Not really dying. Not fast enough to matter, anyway? A thread burrow can spread until it runs out of biomass to reproduce...running into a body of water or solid rock (or presumably a barren sandy desert, etc) will end the spread, but otherwise it needs to burn, freeze, or drown.
Hence the Pernese obssession with building everything out of stone or in rock caves/tunnels, and with removing any and all greenery from around habitations--to the point where the riders from Benden Weyr have to order a holder to get it done or the dragons will do it with FIRE because it's been neglected during the Long Interval since the last threadfall. That was in Dragonflight, I think?
And thread can infest individuals it scores...the dragons teleporting between kills it with cold before it can spread. Whether that happens every time, or is just a possible result, I don't recall. It's been a few years since I last read that series.
9595467
It was. :)
Between always kills thread with cold--if they stay in it long enough. I just read a bit in Moreta where a rider didn't stay Between long enough with his dragon to get all of the thread off his wing, and the dragon's wing was badly shredded.
As for thread infesting people it scores, that seems to depend on if the thread hit at a glancing blow, or if it has enough time to attach to them and burrow into their flesh.
9595461
Fixed!
Its going to be a long ride to plot out the total footprint of just this first hit. No word yet from lands hit overseas?
Jeez. Reminds me of the Tarr from Slime Rancher. It exists to make more Tarr... and more Tarr... and more Tarr......
Just hold down the trigger and KEEP FIRING!