AIVAS was a fantastic discovery.

Among other things, the wonderful machine gave us the secrets to our
earliest beginnings. It gave us plans and designs for technology that
seemed something out of our wildest dreams. From it we learned how to
make lenses for seeing the very small or the far away. We learned how
to turn trees into paper and bind them into books with more ease than
hide. But most importantly, we learned how to get rid of Thread.

Or so we thought.

The plan was so simple that it was beautiful. Use the dragons to get
the engines from the floating ships and set them in strategic
locations on the surface of the Red Star. Ignite them in sequence and
push the asteroid out of its orbit. Floating through empty space, we
didn't think the Star could have changed that much.

That was the first of our fatal errors.

When we ignited the engines, they didn't fire in sequence as planned.
They all fired together. Our second mistake was the positions we
placed them. How were we to know that impacts from other celestial
bodies over the years had weakened the internal structure? How could
we have guessed that our attempt to push the Red Star away would
break it in half and double our worries?

The resulting chaos plunged our world into disorder. Two comets with
alternating orbits meant that we were now facing Passes of an
estimated 200 turns, with only 50 year Intervals in between. For the
first time in our history, we found ourselves with the very. very
real threat of planetwide civil war.

Nerat is the only Hold in the Northern Continent openly supportive of
the Progessive philosophy; who say to use what we've been given and
continue to grow from the information AIVAS provides. All others are
either carefully neutral or openly for destroying the computer and
sticking to the traditions that have carried us this far.

Traditionalists versus Progressives.

There's been enough of an outcry that the Weyr Council - in an effort
to keep the peace and act as protection for the Crafters still in the
AIVAS complex - sped up its plans to settle a Weyr in the mountains
south of the complex.

Two queens close to rising have come forth to lead this exodus, but
not all see this project as a positive step. Many are against it and
so the party they lead into the untamed south is small. They must
work against the marked candles to bring their Eastern Weyr up to
fighting fit before Southern withdraws its coverage.

We don't know much about our future, but one thing is for certain.

Life on Pern will never be the same.