On Thu, 5 Sep 2002, Steve Simmons wrote: #The Dragaerans stories aren't military sf/fantasy (thank God!), but a #fairly important military question hit me this morning. After 200,000 #years of war, why have neither the Dragaerans nor the Easterners been #able to definitively conquer the other. Add to your list: The mountains are passable in only one or a few places, so there aren't a lot of options for attack routes. That makes defense easier and tends to maintain the status quo (that the mountains divide the races). -- Mark A. Mandel http://world.std.com/~mam/Cracks-and-Shards/ a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website