> 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. I always thought this was obvious. They haven't had time or the desire to. Yet. Adrons disaster left the Empire pretty weak and as Aliera said in Yendi: "We're just getting on our feet, Sethra. We can't afford to go off East with tens of thousands of troops until we're sure the Empire is stable." Unless Vlad can put a stop to it, I won't be surprised at all if the East IS conquered. Vlad himself says that Easterners have no defense at all against sorcery. I don't see how they could hold out with that kind of a handicap. Sethra the Younger has been dying to invade for years it seems, and when Sethra Lavode hears about it her only comment is: "... as far as I'm concerned, let her." Ouch. If the greatest military leader on the planet thinks that there's no harm in wandering over and conquering the East, then the Easterners chances probably aren't that great. Morrolan states that the only reason Kieron the Conqueror left the Easterners alone in the first place is so that the Dragaerans would have someone to fight instead of each other. They get conquered every once in a while, then throw the Dragaerans out after a few hundred or thousand years. Hell, I'd say that the Easterners only chance of not getting conquered is if Vlad goes over, kills the Empress and takes the Orb for himself. Damn. That might even work. Shoby187 Erik Holmes AIM: ErikHolmes ICQ: 2593395 MSN: Shoby187 at hotmail.com "I didn't spend all them years playing D&D and not learn a little something about courage" Some dork, The X-Files