On Wed, 2003-01-08 at 14:12, Andrew Lias wrote: > >From: Philip Hart <philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU> > >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. > > Again, I think that's a stretch. By the same token, however, Dragaeran's > don't have skyscrapers, which may indicate certain limits to their own > technologies (or may simply indicate aesthetic preferences). It may also be indicative of their needs. We didn't have sky-scrapers until we had huge citys. We didn't have huge citys until we started the industrial revolution. The Empire didn't have an Industrial revolution, and due to their sorcery based technology, I don't think they're likely to have one. Instead you have a few citys that are good centers of trade, especially with people outside the Empire. And you of course have the royal court in one of those cities. But other than that, most of the population is out in farmlands farming, or sitting in their estate manors watching over the farmers. You don't have the huge amount of people all trying to live in a very small area that helped lead our sky scrapers.