History
In Dragonsdawn, the race was intentionally engineered to fight Thread after it first caught the human colonists on Pern unawares, with devastating results. Geneticist Kitti Ping Yung designed the dragons by manipulating the genetic code of the indigenous fire-lizards that had been acquired as pets by the colonists. The dragons were named after their resemblance to Western dragons from the legends of old Earth. Later genetic manipulation by Ping's granddaughter, Wind Blossom, also resulted in the watch-whers, ungainly, nocturnal creatures who bore a slight resemblance to dragons. The later novels, set during the third pass, have shown the watch-whers are more useful than commonly thought in the novels set in the first pass.
Read more about this topic: Dragons (Pern)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“There is a constant in the average American imagination and taste, for which the past must be preserved and celebrated in full-scale authentic copy; a philosophy of immortality as duplication. It dominates the relation with the self, with the past, not infrequently with the present, always with History and, even, with the European tradition.”
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“The best history is but like the art of Rembrandt; it casts a vivid light on certain selected causes, on those which were best and greatest; it leaves all the rest in shadow and unseen.”
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—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)