(snip) > The Orb of course is a computer/router/... What a wierd thing to say. Calling it a Great Weapon would be a demotion, to call it a router is mindboggling. Zerika I managed to create > such a complex object from scratch but her empire was relying on exploding > sticks millennia later - this puzzles me. Have you considered devine intervention? > > Plane travel is pretty close to teleportation - consider its effect on > human digestion... If I was an architect I'd argue that > steel/elevators/skyscraper design technology is equivalent (in effect if > not quite in aesthetics) to the magic behind (below) Castle Black - > including its unfortunate vulnerabilities. > > Anyway, it's hard for me to understand the lack of guns, electricity, > what have you in the pre-modern era - esp. given that the empire trades > with an island where sorcery doesn't work. > > - Philip >