Timeline

The year is 2757 and the Tenth Pass looms. The events of the books pretty much happened as indicated. However, the computer storage was in poor shape; a few developments were possible from information in the AIVAS data banks, but lack of an appropriate base for manufacturing and lack of public support doomed any great leap forward. Books, yes. Computers, no.

Threadfall

It was supposed to be gone forever. It's been a couple years now since the first hints that the Red Star was moving back into position, and now the Weyrs are quite sure of that. Not everybody believes, and some Holders are of the opinion that they should be able to create devices to protect their own lands in the time between now and the start of Fall. Or at least enough to cut back the need for the Weyrs.

The North

Since the supposed end of Thread, people have spread out further, and much of the new construction is wood rather than stone. Technological developments mean that farmers can manage more cropland per worker, which means everybody's eating better than they used to, but there's also less need for the number of children that rural Holders are still managing to have. Several Holds, lead by Crom and Telgar, are shifting to economies based more on industry than on agriculture. The old Weyrs have dwindled in population and those remaining have generally continued to receive a much smaller tithe in exchange for cargo and personal transport services to the Holders, but the current amounts being sent will not support a Weyr at full strength and few of the Holds have increased their giving in recent years.

The South

Several Weyrholds have been established on the Southern Continent, but there just really aren't that many dragonriders who want to be Holders, as it turns out. The Southern Continent has seen rapid expansion. The grubs in the South do prevent serious tunneling by Thread, but not surface decimation; this is less of a big deal in dense jungle that actually benefits from periodic thinning, but is more of a problem with farmland. The South, in other words, has its own problems.

Crafts

The Smiths and Miners have expanded greatly in the last fifty years or so, as the Smithcraft works increasingly at creating industrial machinery, and the Minecraft has moved into the extraction of oil and natural gas in addition to coal and useful metals. The Harpers have a number of enormous printing presses that have gone into service in the past seventy years or so, and books are now widespread, and have led to both increased literacy rates and a lesser chance that any given child in rural Pern gets to see even a route Harper.

Money

The Crafts agreed to decimalize currency, collectively, about ten years ago. That means that marks are now broken into 100 'pieces' per mark, although the pieces are not actually that small. This has allowed Holds to expand taxation, and traders to use more subtle pricing strategies. Thanks to the resilience of a mark, however, the old fractional marks are still in wide circulation, and not everybody is apt to be happy with the change.

Igen

Igen has a climate relatively similar to central New Mexico: Extremely dry, quite hot in the summer, frigid in the winter, with a monsoon season running through months 7 and 8. Temperatures in the summer, including most of that rainy season, run from about 90-110F at midday. Winter highs are likely to be in the 40s, but because it's so dry in the winter and there are no clouds to hold the warmth, the overnight lows can reach significantly lower.

Light, loose clothes are favored in the summer, with lots of hats and long sleeves to block the sun year-round.

Dragons

Golds to girls, bronzes to boys, all else is pretty open. Ruth was the only odd-colored dragon to have hatched in known history. For more information, check out the Dragons page.

Stuff We've Decided Pern Has

Tea and cane sugar have remained common in the north.
Pretty much all standard non-religious swearing, plus 'heaven' and 'hell' have stuck around largely as equivalents for 'a very fantastic place/feeling' and 'a very awful place/feeling'.
Books, in quantity, as a relatively recent development.
Tobacco, cloves, cannabis.

Stuff We Don't Have

Honey. (But the endearment has, to pardon the pun, stuck.)
God. (But a lot of people still believe in some form of afterlife or fate.)
Coffee.
Motorized vehicles. (Although some movement towards rail is possible in the future.)

Stuff We Haven't Decided About Yet

Opium? Cacao? Possible new finds on Southern.
Herbal/chemical birth control?