I was looking over the site, and came up with some questions:
For starters, what happened to the grubs? I seem to remember seeing sometihng, but now I can't find it. Did they all get wiped out by some grub disease? Are they still there and people have simply forgotten what they can do?
Diseases. Would there be sexually transmitted diseases in the weyr? (That could cause quite the scramble...) I haven't seen anything about it. Also, I went looking for information on firehead and other diseases on the site, and all I found was a reference to look in the healer hall craft pages. I didn't see anything, but I could be missing something.
I was looking at the candidate restrictions, and it said that no disabled person can be a candidate, but all the examples given were pretty extreme (blind, deaf, etc). I was wondering if a mild disability that did not interfere with normal function or threadfall would be permissable to impress? Say, someone partialy deaf in one or both ears. I have been living with this particular condition my entire life, and think I could portray it in Pernese conditions fairly accurately.
I'm not trying to be nitpicky here, but the next question is about seasons. Turns End is coming up, and according to the books that is during the winter. Now, seasons vary in different hemispheres due to axial tilt, and Pern has a tilt. The seasons whould be reversed, but it's pretty obvious that it's winter in the Southern continent. Am I missing something, or was this conviniently ignored for role-playing?
Is there a way to search and see if a name is listed in someone's persona file as a family or friend name if they are not the file heading? Also, the search engine in the persona file does not accept apostophes for searching, and would not return any elided male names I tried enven if they were major personas.
And finally, I'm not sure if this is a bug or not, but I've noticed that all the updates at the bottom of the pages list 2006 as their renewal date. It hasn't been August, much less September yet!
That's a lot of diddly info... Maybe I should have split these up. Whoops!
:D
Thanks for not skinning me alive...
I'm aware of the site bugs already, but unfortunatly I'm the only one who can go in and fix them, and I've got a job and too many classes, so I'm not always on top of them. ;)
It is not winter in all of our locations. At some point in the distant past the club founders went through a great deal of trouble to map out a geographical equivilent city to each of the major locations we have, and generate climate information. The climate information is now generated by algorithms our site programmer created based on these averages. The relative climate is based on longitude and elevation.
The colonists did their best to screen all of the candidates to make sure they were healthy, so we are fairly confident that no one would be bringing any STDs to Pern with them. Few of the illnesses we deal with on our Pern have any origin in Terran viruses or bacteria, due to strict screening procedures. However, some recessive genetic traits can have resurfaced down the line.
The grubs were rendered useless 1,200 turns ago so they were hardly anyone's first priority. They may reenter the scene as players at a later date, but that will be up to the Council. ;)
Candidates have to be capable of hard physical activity and fighting Thread. While it is possible that someone with a disability might be able to Impress, they'd have to convince the Weyrwoman that they were capable first.
A mild hearing loss might not be unmanagable in a situation where Thread is being fought, since communication is mostly mental, but such things are judged on a case by case basis to make sure they stay within the realm of the probable.
If I missed anything, sorry! I've got a couple more tests to get out of the way before I settle back down. :)
Thanks Bree! Good luck on your tests and everything -I know I'm going to be in the same boat soon!
Rochelle