>PotD spoiler follows: > > > >Good points, but >1) Vlad is a specialist in death - how come he never mentions rifles, if >they exist? See for example the description of Temek the weapons master Just because firearms may have been invented at some point in the Dragaeran past does not mean that they are at all common, or even existant, any longer. Dragaeran history is long enough that lots of information can be lost. >in chapter 2 of Yendi. >2) I still feel that the brigands we meet in PotD would be armed with >muskets or blunderbusses or whatever if there was ever any firearm tech >on Dragaera. Again, this is assuming that knowledge of them has been retained. If, as I speculated, they were rendered obsolete by sorcerous counter-measures at some point in the distant past, it is easily feasible that knowledge of their construction, and even existence, would have been lost, or only available to diligent scholarly research. >3) I think my Teckla army with gatling guns vs Easterners point has stood >unchallenged. Actually, I had already raised a challenge before you brought the point up -- we have reason to believe that the Dragaeran nobility would *not* have wanted to give peasants such weaponry. This was, after all, the reason that the Japanese decided to eliminate the manufacture of guns from their own culture. >4) I don't really care about guns - if a Higher Authority decides His >books are better this way that's good enough for me. I'm officially >out-nitted on this subject. I haven't had a chance to participate in the thread for awhile, and I'm certainly willing to let the subject drop, but I still think that there are sufficient reasons to suppose that firearms technology wouldn't have gained any inroads into Dragaeran culture while, never the less, remaining perplexed that Easterners don't have the technology (to say nothing of more advanced tech). [1] Be that as it may. -- Andrew Lias [1] Yes, I've seen your suggestion that Dragaeran invasions reset Eastern tech periodically. I find this unconvincing for two reasons: 1) The East has never been fully conquered. Any territories that have not been conquered should continue to develop technology. 2) Ongoing military conflict should *spur* technological development, not supress it. We also know that certain Easterner manuscripts have survived immense spans of time. Given this, I find it difficult to believe that the sort of obliteration of knowledge that would be required to consistently reset Eastern technology back could be feasibly achieved. _________________________________________________________________ The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail