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• HBO’s “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” is a prequel show in the “Game of Thrones” universe.
• The story is set about 100 years before the main series and 70 years after “House of the Dragon.”
• At this point in the timeline, the Targaryen family is still in power, and the realm is at peace.

“A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” is HBO’s latest spinoff series that fleshes out the sprawling fantasy world created by George R. R. Martin.

The new show, which premieres on Sunday, is set in peacetime Westeros about a century before the first events of “Game of Thrones” — long before Jaime Lannister killed the Mad King Aerys, ousting the Targaryens from power and triggering a war for the Iron Throne.

However, “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” is not the oldest Westerosi tale that’s been brought to screen. It takes place several generations after “House of the Dragon,” another prequel series focused on the Targaryen dynasty, which is heading into its third season later this year.

Keep reading for a breakdown of where these three series fit on a timeline and how the main characters are connected.

Warning: Light spoilers ahead for the George R.R. Martin book, “Fire and Blood.”

‘House of the Dragon’ tells the story of a Targaryen civil war

“House of the Dragon” is adapted from “Fire and Blood,” a fictional history book about the Targaryen family, sourced from various scholars and firsthand accounts that often contradict one another.

The show focuses on a particularly fraught and bloody period in Targaryen history known as the Dance of the Dragons.

At the beginning of season one, King Viserys I sits on the Iron Throne. He canonically ruled from 103 AC to 129 AC during a peaceful and prosperous time in Westeros. (The abbreviation AC denotes “after conquest,” meaning the number of years after Aegon I conquered the realm and became the first Targaryen king.)

After the deaths of his wife and newborn son, Viserys broke with patriarchal traditions and named his firstborn daughter, Rhaenyra, as his successor. However, Viserys later remarried and had more children with his second wife, Alicent Hightower.

Upon his death, a civil war broke out between Rhaenyra and Alicent’s eldest son, Aegon II, both of whom believed they should ascend to the throne. The war was fought between 129 AC and 131 AC.

At this point in history, many of the royal Targaryens were dragon riders, meaning their armed conflicts were particularly deadly — for the humans, of course, but in a war between kin, for the dragons too.

“House of the Dragon” season three will continue to explore the escalating violence between the half-siblings and their factions. The showrunners plan to wrap up with season four, and viewers will discover which Targaryen ends up on the Iron Throne — and whose lineage continues to rule Westeros for generations to come.

‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ introduces Rhaenyra’s descendants

“A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” season one is adapted from “The Hedge Knight,” a novella set in 209 AC, nearly eight decades after the Targaryen civil war ended.

It’s the first in a trio of novellas about Dunk, the titular hedge knight, and his young squire, Egg.

Dunk is not a land owner, let alone a lord or a dragon-riding royal. He’s an orphan from Flea Bottom — the poorest area of King’s Landing — who was raised by Ser Arlan of Pennytree, serving as his squire. The pair did not have a permanent home, but rather roamed Westeros offering their services.

While the new HBO show and its source material both focus predominantly on Dunk and other common folk, a few characters with familiar surnames help place the story in time.

At a jousting tournament in Ashford Meadow, Dunk crosses paths with Prince Baelor Targaryen, heir to the Iron Throne and Hand of the King.

Baelor is the great-great-grandson of Queen Rhaenyra and her husband-slash-uncle, Prince Daemon. (There’s a lot of incest in the Targaryen lineage. It’s best not to dwell on it.)

Dunk meets other members of the royal family at the tournament, including Baelor’s son, Valarr; Baelor’s younger brother, Maekar; and Maekar’s second son, Aerion.

This is an awkward time in history for the Targaryens. Although the family still holds its seat of power in Westeros, it no longer has dragons. The population was severely diminished by the civil war, and over time, dragon eggs stopped hatching.

Aegon I and his sisters conquered Westeros using dragons, and House Targaryen’s connection to the magical beasts helped legitimize their claim to power — as if they were ordained to rule by divine right. Without dragons, the family lacks firepower, both symbolically and literally.

Not to mention, their history of incest has led to a phenomenon known as Targaryen Madness. Some of them turn out to be disproportionately, inexplicably cruel. As Cersei Lannister later says, “Every time a Targaryen is born, the gods flip a coin.”

In “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” we see how the common folk have begun to question the royals. Raymun Fossoway, a squire whom Dunk meets in Ashford Meadow, privately describes the Targaryens as “incestuous aliens, blood magickers, and tyrants.”

“They find themselves finally without the thing that put them in power, which is such a precarious position to be in,” showrunner Ira Parker explained to Entertainment Weekly. “Fifty years on from the dragons, people are starting to ask the question, ‘Well, why are we still letting them be in power?'”

‘Game of Thrones’ season one is set about 100 years after Dunk and Egg’s first adventure

“Game of Thrones” begins with King Robert Baratheon on the Iron Throne.

House Baratheon managed to seize power from House Targaryen in 283 AC following Robert’s Rebellion, sometimes known as the War of the Usurper. By the time the show begins, about 17 years into Robert’s reign, there are only a few Targaryens left alive.

The oldest is Aemon, who’d long ago renounced his royal title to become a maester. He’s Maekar’s third son and Aerion’s older brother, though he never appears in “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.” Viewers finally meet Aemon at Castle Black when Jon Snow joins the Night’s Watch.

Maekar’s great-great-grandkids, Daenerys and Viserys, are living in exile in Essos following their father’s murder.

It’s later revealed in season seven (spoiler alert!) that Jon Snow is a Targaryen as well. He’s the long-lost son of Daenerys’ other brother, Rhaegar, and Ned Stark’s sister, Lyanna. (Yes, that means Daenerys is Jon’s aunt.)

One of Dunk’s descendants also appears in ‘Game of Thrones’

“The Hedge Knight” begins with Ser Arlan’s death, leaving Dunk to make a new life for himself. He begins introducing himself as Ser Duncan the Tall and adopts a personal sigil for his shield: an elm tree and a shooting star at sunset.

In Martin’s main book series, Brienne of Tarth recalls seeing a similar shield in her father’s armory, leading fans to speculate that Dunk is Brienne’s ancestor.

Martin confirmed this theory in 2016 at a sci-fi and fantasy convention in Baltimore. In his writing, he has also described both characters using the same phrase: “Thick as a castle wall.”

In addition to their hulking frames, Dunk and Brienne are both renowned for their loyalty and honor. Brienne became a fan-favorite character in “Game of Thrones” after swearing her allegiance to Lady Catelyn Stark, an oath that sends her on a quest to find and protect Catelyn’s daughter, Sansa.

Despite the rampant sexism she faces as an unfeminine woman in Westeros, Brienne perseveres and forms important bonds. She’s rewarded in the final season of “Game of Thrones,” when she’s officially knighted by Jaime Lannister. She ends the show as Lady Commander of the Kingsguard.

Attentive fans will know that Dunk had a similar rise. Despite his lack of wealth and status, he’s still remembered a century later in “Game of Thrones” season four, when Joffrey is thumbing through a written history of the Kingsguard. “Four pages for Ser Duncan,” Joffrey says. “He must have been quite a man.”

• A version of this story originally appeared in the BI Tech Memo newsletter.
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Silicon Valley is sending a clear message about how staff should perform, and how it wants to pay them.

Instead of obsessing over punishing the bottom of the stack, Big Tech is increasingly choosing to shower rewards on the top:

• Meta’s overhauled performance system is the latest and most striking example. Under its new “Checkpoint” program, standout employees can earn bonuses worth up to 300% of their target. That’s tens of thousands of extra dollars tied purely to impact, not promotions or title changes.
• Google is loosening the funnel into its top performance buckets and shifting more bonus and equity upward.
• Amazon is doubling down on sustained excellence, allowing long-term top performers to earn above traditional pay-band caps.

What’s especially notable is how this is being driven by AI, according to Zuhayeer Musa, cofounder of Silicon Valley compensation data cruncher Levels.fyi.

As AI tools get more powerful, the value of high-leverage individuals is rising. The most prized employees today are “player-coaches,” people who ship work themselves while also guiding projects, mentoring peers, and shaping strategy. AI makes that hybrid role even more potent, allowing a single strong contributor to amplify their output, and their influence, without managing a large team, Musa wrote this week.

The result is a revival of the individual contributor track. You no longer have to become a full-time people manager to earn top-tier pay. At companies such as Meta, Google, Amazon, and Nvidia, senior ICs can now match (or beat) the compensation of managers simply by delivering outsized results, he noted.

For ambitious employees, the takeaway is simple: in the AI era, execution compounds. And Silicon Valley is increasingly willing to pay for it.

Sign up for BI’s Tech Memo newsletter here. Reach out to me via email at abarr@businessinsider.com.

• OpenAI is officially preparing to test ads in ChatGPT.
• The move comes as the AI company looks to increase revenue amid $1.4 trillion in spending commitments in the coming years.
• CEO Sam Altman once portrayed ads as “a last resort” business model for the company before softening his stance.

Netflix famously backtracked on its stance toward ads. Now, OpenAI is following suit.

The AI pioneer announced that ads are coming to ChatGPT — less than two years after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman portrayed them as “a last resort.”

“Ads plus AI is sort of uniquely unsettling to me,” Altman said during an event at Harvard University in May 2024. “I kind of think of ads as a last resort for us for a business model.”

Altman’s softened stance since then underlines the massive change OpenAI has undergone in the last two years, and the company’s embrace of advertising is a testament to just how expensive the AI race has become.

In June, the OpenAI CEO said he wasn’t “totally against” ads, he just wanted to make sure OpenAI got the balance correct.

“We haven’t done any advertising product yet. I kind of…I mean, I’m not totally against it,” Altman said on OpenAI’s podcast. “I can point to areas where I like ads. I think ads on Instagram, kinda cool. I bought a bunch of stuff from them. But I am, like, I think it’d be very hard to — I mean, take a lot of care to get right.”

In October, Altman expressed a desire to make sure the company went about ads in the proper manner when asked about OpenAI’s past criticisms that other tech companies made addictive products.

“We’re definitely worried about this,” Altman said in response to a question that expressed concern about the similarities of Sora, OpenAI’s AI video app, and TikTok and the potential of ads. “I worry about it, not just for things like Sora and TikTok and ads in ChatGPT, which are maybe known problems that we can design carefully.”

Meanwhile, Altman, former Instacart CEO Fidji Simo (who OpenAI hired as its CEO of applications in early 2025), and seemingly every member of the company’s C-suite have expressed an almost insatiable demand for more compute in interviews.

It’s proven a costly endeavor. OpenAI now has roughly $1.4 trillion in spending commitments on data centers and related infrastructure, drawing questions about how it plans to pay the bills without the benefit of the advertising businesses of its Big Tech competitors, like Google and Meta.

OpenAI also completed its restructuring into a more traditional for-profit, a move Altman said was designed to make it easier to attract future investments.

How the ads will work

As part of the announcement, OpenAI said that free and Go users of the popular AI chatbot would start seeing ads being tested “in the coming weeks.”

Sharing details on the planned test, OpenAI said that ChatGPT’s results “will not be influenced by ads,” the ads will be clearly labeled, and chatbot conversations would remain private and not shared with advertisers.

Paid users of OpenAI’s Plus, Pro, Business, and Enterprise plans won’t see the ads, the company said.

Simo, OpenAI’s CEO of applications, who has previously spoken about her desire to get the ads balance correctly, wrote on X that the most important factor was “ads will not influence the answers ChatGPT gives you.”

While Instacart launched ads during Simo’s time leading the company, she has said OpenAI’s approach would look different.

In November, Simo told Wired that the company would be “extremely respectful” of the deep well of user data, OpenAI has when it came to launching ads.

“If we ever were to do anything, it would have to be a very different model than what has been done before,” she said. “What I’ve learned from building ad platforms is that the thing people don’t like about ads very often is not the ads themselves, it’s the use of the data behind the ads.”

• TikTok has rolled out a new micro drama app in the US and Brazil called PineDrama.
• The app’s feed looks a lot like TikTok’s, but just contains videos from mini drama series.
• The company has been experimenting in the category via a “Minis” section in its main app.

TikTok is making a fresh bet in one of the most promising new media categories: micro dramas.

The company has rolled out a new stand-alone app in the US and Brazil, called PineDrama, dedicated to micro drama series. Micro dramas — also called “verticals” and “mini dramas” — are serialized shows that users watch in roughly one-minute clips.

The most popular micro drama series often include romance or the supernatural, or both — think sordid love affairs with vampires or werewolves. PineDrama’s shows are no exception, with one series, “Love at First Bite,” garnering 18 million views. Its current top three trending shows each had over 100 million views, according to tallies displayed in the app.

On prominent micro drama platforms like DramaBox and ReelShort, viewers can usually watch some episodes of a show for free before being asked to pay $20 a week or more to watch the rest.

PineDrama’s business model is unclear. Right now, users can log into the app with their existing TikTok accounts and watch all episodes of micro dramas like “The Officer Fell For Me,” “The Return of Divorced Heiress,” and “My Unwanted Billionaire Ex” for free. There are also no ads.

“What’s interesting about this one is it’s the first time they’re launching it advertising-free, and it doesn’t yet have a paywall,” said Hernan Lopez, founder of streaming consulting firm Owl & Co. He said PineDrama looks like an experiment and expects it to add monetization over time in the form of subscriptions.

“It’s a sign that vertical video is evolving,” he said. “You’re going to see more announcements this year from many other companies.”

Owl & Co. estimated that the micro drama format had generated $1.3 billion in the US in 2025, mostly from direct payments from viewers. Some investors have been skeptical of the business model, however, because of the high marketing costs required to attract new users.

PineDrama isn’t TikTok’s first foray into micro dramas.

The company earlier released a section in its main app, TikTok Minis, where viewers can binge on bite-sized series without leaving the platform. Many of the same micro drama suppliers on TikTok Minis are also featured in PineDrama, including Dreame, Stardust TV, and ShortMax.

TikTok’s parent, ByteDance, is already entrenched in micro dramas through Douyin, TikTok’s Chinese sister app, and dedicated micro drama apps in Asia, such as Melolo and Red Fruit.

• The Trump administration is leaning on a major power grid operator to bring down prices.
• That includes calling for a new power auction.
• It comes as Trump has pushed for tech companies to “pay their own way” on data centers.

The AI data center boom is driving up electricity prices. President Donald Trump is leaning on a power company to fix it.

Trump and a group of governors from northeastern states are calling on PJM Interconnection, the nation’s largest power grid operator, to hold a new power auction.

The goal is to allow major tech companies to foot the bill for new power plants. According to a release from the Department of Interior, a “coalition of leading technology companies” has committed to funding new generation capacity, though no companies are named.

“Make no mistake, if PJM, this faceless bureaucratic organization that is driving prices up on the American people, does not change, and does not reflect what we are putting forth here today, Pennsylvania will be forced to act, and forced to go at it alone,” Gov. Josh Shapiro said at an event for the announcement, according to Politico.

The Trump administration and the governors are also urging PJM to make a series of other changes, according to a Department of Energy fact sheet. Those changes include:

• Providing 15-year revenue certainty for new power plants;
• Capping the amount existing power plants can charge customers;
• Require data centers to pay for new power plants built on their behalf.

PJM operates in 13 states in the mid-Atlantic and parts of the Midwest. Representatives for the company were not present at the Friday event.

“We don’t have a lot to say on this,” PJM spokesman Jeffrey Shields told Bloomberg on Thursday. “We were not invited to the event they are apparently having tomorrow and we will not be there.”

In a statement on Friday, Shields did not immediately commit to the White House’s directives.

“PJM is reviewing the principles set forth by the White House and governors. The PJM Board’s decision, resulting from a multi-month stakeholder process on integrating large load additions, will be released later today,” Shields said. “The Board has been deliberating on this issue since the end of that stakeholder process. We will work with our stakeholders to assess how the White House directive aligns with the Board’s decision.”

Ari Peskoe, the director of the Electricity Law Initiative at the Harvard Law School Environmental and Energy Law Program, told Business Insider that it’s unclear whether the administration’s approach will work.

“The intent here is correct, which is to appreciate that data centers are driving up prices in PJM, and an attempt to remedy that for consumers,” Peskoe said. “It is meant to isolate data centers from the rest of the market, and, in theory, that seems like a workable approach; but these markets are really complicated, and it’s hard to predict how this all shakes out.”

Trump has been making a broader push for tech companies to pay for the electricity consumed by new data centers in a bid to lower energy costs for consumers.

“My Administration is working with major American Technology Companies to secure their commitment to the American People, and we will have much to announce in the coming weeks,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Monday, adding that tech companies must “pay their own way.”

Microsoft on Tuesday released a plan that includes asking utility companies to set higher rates for the company in order to keep costs down for consumers. Other major tech companies could follow a similar path.

• A European arms maker flew what the Royal Navy called “the UK’s first truly autonomous full-size helicopter.”
• Leonardo’s Proteus demonstrator has completed its maiden flight.
• The move comes after Lockheed Martin subsidiary Sikorsky unveiled an uncrewed Black Hawk.

A new uncrewed helicopter design from European defense and aerospace company Leonardo has taken flight. The move comes after rival US defense firm Sikorsky revealed a pilotless Black Hawk concept last year.

The British Royal Navy on Friday said “the UK’s first truly autonomous full-size helicopter,” the Proteus, completed its maiden flight.

It said that “British aviation history has been made” and that it is “one of the world’s first full-sized autonomous helicopters.”

The Proteus, rather than having a crew in the cockpit or cabin, has sensors and computer systems “driven by cutting-edge software.” Those allow the helicopter to “understand and process its environment, make decisions, and act accordingly,” the Royal Navy said.

A Royal Navy spokesperson told Business Insider that the new design is “a one-off prototype/demonstrator,” explaining that “the Navy and Leonardo will use it for trials and experimentation, but it’s not a production-line machine for everyday usage.”

The navy said in its announcement that Proteus “will serve as a testbed for future hybrid air wings.” It described the helicopter as a step toward having uncrewed aircraft operate alongside crewed platforms.

The Royal Navy operates drones, such as octocopters made by Malloy Aeronautics that can carry supplies between ships, and the Peregrine, which is a “scaled-down helicopter” that does surveillance missions. But, it said, Proteus “eclipses them in terms of size, complexity and above all autonomy.”

Lockheed Martin subsidiary Sikorsky, a key competitor in the helicopter space, unveiled the autonomous U-Hawk, a new uncrewed Black Hawk helicopter, last October.

Pentagon commitments to more autonomous aerial weaponry have pushed US defense companies, both the major players and startups, into intensifying competition to build these systems.

This desire for change is clear in the helicopter space: US Army leadership told Business Insider in July that it wants to invert the current ratio, going to 90% drone and 10% crewed.

Efforts to develop this technology extend beyond the US though, as the Proteus flight shows.

The UK’s autonomous future

The helicopter was designed and built by Leonardo to “unlock the potential of uncrewed aerial systems,” the Royal Navy said.

The aim, it said, is to operate these types of systems alongside crewed aircraft in a “hybrid air wing” combining crewed aircraft, be it traditional rotary wing aircraft or fighter jets, and cheaper autonomous systems like drones.

Leonardo said that the Proteus helicopter concept was designed with a large modular payload bay that can carry two standard NATO pallet loads and that it can perform a host of missions ranging from anti-submarine warfare to airborne early warning. The company said that “with this multi-role design, a single aircraft type can address multiple mission objectives cost-effectively.”

Aircraft like this could play a role in the UK’s future anti-submarine warfare plans under Atlantic Bastion, a new strategy aimed at countering Russian undersea threats. Britain is pushing toward a hybrid naval force designed to detect and respond to submarines and other technologies targeting critical seabed infrastructure.

During its maiden flight, Proteus made two short flights, operating from the Predannack airfield in Cornwall, in the southwest of England, the Royal Navy said.

It said Leonardo, which developed Proteus under a roughly $80 million program, had done ground tests on the helicopter’s sensors and engines weeks prior.