‘House Of The Dragon’ Viewership Falls Sharply With Episode 3
(boundingintocomics.com)
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Well, if you measure evolutionary rates by generations rather than years, and keep in mind that northerly adaptations are rather smallish changes that can happen over a fairly few generations with enough pressure* and a smallish population .... but that would just argue more for the loss of melanin, unless they have some way to make up for the vitamin D and lack of sunlight issue, possibly through diet; if there's enough in their food, then skin absorption won't matter so much.)
The Pern stories kind of started with the same premise, though most of the "evolution" - beyond the survivors of the og 5000 settlers breeding into mutty "future people", as would be expected - was cultural and linguistic, and we see how culture can almost completely change in, like, three generations (Ontario is actually a good example. It was very (Small c, kind of rightish Liberal for the most part in the cities, large C outside) conservative WASPy when I was growing up, and didn't even legalize "Sunday Shopping" until the 1990s - now it's primed to vote federal ND fucking P.)
*pressure, of course, means deaths caused directly, or at least more or less so, because of the trait in question, whether that trait is physical, or mental/behavioural ...
Well, with McCaffery's work, if you get to the point where just before the meteor strikes the planet, she details the landing of the colonists ... and the disaster of the first threadfall as well as their efforts to bread the fire-lizards into full-sized dragons to char the thread while airborne.
Fast forward to Moretta's Ride and you get explained about the 200 year gaps in the passing of the red star.
Finally they find that the southern continent is a paradise because of the soil worms that consume the thread. Soil worms that the original colonists bred and introduced.
(Sorry, I found Dragonsinger/Dragonsong/Dragondrums early in my 6th grade year and spent a long time collecting and reading the rest of the works. Must like Piers Anthony's Xanth series.)
Yes, that population went through several bottlenecks, and this back when they were still arguing "macro" vs "micro" evolution. In fact, a lot of the "sexism" of the first few books seems to have come from the worst bottleneck (caused by a pandemic); when something like that happens, the commoners are less likely to give up their girls to the other Estates (in this case, Weyrs and Guilds.)
I don't quite remember the reason why the southern continent was abandoned, since the soil worms and dragons negated the need for fire crews. I guess the rocky soil of the northern continent couldn't support it, thus initiating a societal pressure due to an increased workload resulting in the huge division of labour first seen in Dragonsinger.
I remember, also, an interview that McCaffery gave where the question was asked ... "Why don't you put religion in Pern?"
Her answer was simply, "Because it's my world and religion has no bearing on the story."
I remember being impressed. Still am. I have the same attitude on shoehorning in niggers or faggots, or genderswapping. "Why? ... Does it matter to the story? No? Then why change it?"
I think they were just so panicked, they didn't know about the worms yet, and they were too focused on engineering the fire lizards up to pony-sized dragons, they just figured going to the rockier northern continent and moving underground was their best bet in the long term, iirc, which led them to abandon .. a lot of technology a little earlier than they otherwise might have. The whole purpose of dragonriding was to try to spare cropland and necessary forested area from Thread, and that was easier to do if they didn't have to protect houses, too.