The Dragonriders of Pern is a very long-running science fantasy series that began with Dragonflight, published in 1967. Twenty-four novels and two story collections in the setting were published before Anne McCaffrey passed away in 2011; some of the later books were co-written by her son Todd. The series is a rationalised fantasy, with the backstory being that the planet Pern has been colonised by humans from a far future Earth, but they lost their technology and were plunged into dark age by the onset of "Thread," a spore that consumes all organic material. The human colonists were able to genetically engineer a creature similar to the dragons of Earth legend to deal with Thread, destroying it in the air before it could touch the ground. Human dragonriders form telepathic bonds with these creatures to control them. After many centuries, a new, more medieval fantasy-ish society emerges.
Ronald D. Moore was a fan of the book series. He achieved his initial success in television by working as a writer on Star Trek: The Next Generation. His first script, The Bonding, was acclaimed as a character-focused study. However, he also became valued on the writing team for both his encyclopaedic knowledge of the franchise, his fascination with the Klingons (developing much of the lore behind the species) and his strong sense of story. Moore worked on The Next Generation from its third through seventh seasons (1989-94), co-writing the series finale All Good Things... with his writing partner Brannon Braga. The two writers joined forces to write the seventh and eighth Star Trek movies, Generations (1994) and the very well-received First Contact (1996). Subsequent to this he moved over to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and worked on that show from its third through seventh seasons (1994-99), amongst other things developing the USS Defiant and continuing to serve as "the Klingon guy," whilst penning many of the show's strongest episodes.
With Deep Space Nine wrapping up in 1999, Moore decided to move to work on Star Trek: Voyager, then in its sixth and penultimate season, which his former writing partner Braga was working on as effective showrunner. Moore was dissatisfied with the direction Voyager had taken, feeling that the writers had not taken the premise seriously enough. He wanted to have the ship damaged and stay damaged from episode to episode, whilst the crew would be more morally compromised by their journey to get home. Braga and franchise overseer Rick Berman both felt it was too late to make such changes, and Moore, disappointed, decided to leave the franchise altogether.
Moore briefly worked as a consulting producer on Good vs. Evil before joining Roswell in its second season. He developed the background mythology for the show's alien race and wrote some of the show's most popular episodes. After it terminated in 2002, he was offered the opportunity to develop Dragonriders of Pern.
The rights to the property had been circulating for many years, with Irish company Zyntopo Teoranta picking them up in 1996. They partnered with Canadian company Alliance Atlantis to develop the extensive CGI that would be required to depict the dragons and other fantastical elements in the story. They then consulted with Moore to develop the project further.
Moore's by-then long list of credentials had led to doors opening at other companies, and New Regency and Warner Brothers were receptive to the idea: a high concept, a proven scriptwriter with his own fanbase, a very popular book series with a huge number of readers, and fantasy being absolutely huge with the success of the Lord of the Rings trilogy (still incomplete at that time). They greenlit a pilot episode, hired experienced TV director Felix Enriquez Alcala to direct, and began building sets and casting. They also engaged in concept art and further CG experimenting, developing an "in-the-moment" documentary style for the CG, to make the audience feel they were really on the back of a dragon.
Alcala and Moore were scouting locations in Santa Fe, New Mexico when word came in that the studio was sending them a revised version of the script. For Moore, who'd written the script, this was news, as the script had already been greenlit and they were moving into pre-production. For the studio to request rewrites on a script after it had been completed and drafted was unusual; for them to revise it themselves without informing the showrunner was unheard of. The revised script completely changed the story, which no longer bore any resemblance to Anne McCaffrey's novel. In Moore's words, the studio had "done a WB on it all right, it had become a teenage idiotfest." Moore asked the studio for an explanation and even offered to rewrite his script to incorporate some of the elements they'd wanted added. They replied that their script would be the only one that was going to be shot. The studio agreed to a telephone call the next day.
By pure chance, Moore was due to attend a panel at the Museum of Television and Radio in Beverly Hills that night. Also on the panel was Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski, who'd had his own confrontation with an intransigent, interfering network over his show Crusade, and well-known Star Trek writer and SFF author Harlan Ellison, a well-known fighter for the rights of the writer. Ellison's advice to the audience of aspiring writers was to "stand up and have some principles. Don't whore your talent out to anybody, show some balls in this business. Be about something. What does it really mean to be a writer if you can't protect your talent?"
During the telephone call the next day, Moore reiterated he was not going to make the script that had been sent from the studio: he was happy to rewrite the script to their specifications himself, but not just shoot someone else's crappier version. When the studio exec presented Moore with an ultimatum that they could all just call it a day there and then, they were flabbergasted when Moore agreed. The project collapsed and was cancelled, apparently after almost $2 million had been spent on pre-production and development work.
Moore was glad he'd stuck to his principles but was concerned if this move would make him unemployable; fortunately, it was only a couple of weeks before producer David Eick, whom Moore had met on Good vs. Evil, got in touch. He'd been talking to Universal, who'd been working on a new iteration of Battlestar Galactica with director Bryan Singer. They'd gotten quite far into planning a new take on the franchise, even test-building some props and sets, but Singer had abruptly taken off to work with Fox on X-Men 2 after a substantial amount of money had been offered to him. This had left the BSG project hanging. Eick asked Moore if he'd like to redevelop it with him, and Moore said yes, and the rest there is, as they say, history.
As for Dragonriders of Pern, the series rights were picked up by Copperheart Entertainment in 2006, with David Hayter (yes, Solid Snake) producing. Warner Brothers later took up a new option in 2014. So far, the series has not been made.
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