>From: Damien Sullivan <phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu> >To: dragaera at dragaera.info >Subject: Re: Two words about two letters etc. >Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 19:10:21 -0800 > >On Wed, Jan 08, 2003 at 05:48:06PM -0700, Andrew Lias wrote: > > hundred years. For that matter, I would opine that not all > reigns are >prone to staging invasions. Can you imagine the > Empire in the cycle of >the Tekla doing so? I can't. If so, > that's several thousand years, >right > >I can. Roman Republic built the Roman Empire, which was itself pretty >static. The French Revolution conquered all of Europe. I'd quibble with the example of Rome (long before it became an empire, it was only nominally a republic, power having long since been consolidated into Patrician hands), however the French Revolution is a very good counter-example (as would be the Russian Revolution, come to think of it). I do often wonder what different reigns are like. The reigns we've seen don't deviate too far from our common-sensical understanding of how empires work, but I wonder, for instance, what a Jhereg reign would be like (would the entire empire persist in the form of an Al Capone fantasy) or an Orca reign, for that matter (would it be rampantly capitalistic, with Robber Barrons calling the shots). _________________________________________________________________ MSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus