On Tue, 14 Jan 2003, Philip Hart wrote: >On Tue, 14 Jan 2003, David Silberstein wrote: > >> Another thought that occurred to me, by the way, is that there may be >> certain rules and limitations on what sorts of methods may be used in >> warfare, and there is an agreement (similar to our world's various >> arms treaties on the use of chemical, biological and radioactive >> materials) or moral convention simply not to use certain types of >> weapons in warfare. > >I like this argument. On the other hand, why are rifles worse than >sorcerous thunderbolts? I think this has been implied above, but let me argue it further anyways: It is in the interest of the Dragaeran power elite to make sure that weapons are thought to be either sorcerous or hand-operated, and weapons research thus just does not go down certain lines, and would be suppressed if it *did* go down those lines. Sorcery is a function of the Orb; those who use sorcery are still dependent on the Orb. If deadly weapons were introduced that did *not* depend on the Orb, the Cycle itself could be broken, and a new regime could be introduced. Even the most ambitious general in Dragaera does not want to do that. They seek power within the Empire, or to take the Orb itself. Getting back to my notion that some weapons and tactics are just not used, rifles would be the first step towards an escalating arms race for greater and greater destructiveness, more so than a sorcerous arms race which involves the ability to shield and counteract sorcerous attacks. There's a lot about the Orb we don't know. It's powerful enough to affect the regional geology and meteorology. Maybe it *does* automatically make sure that certain research paths are not taken, all by itself? There may be a lot of reasons why there are no rifles, nor even advanced mechanical weapons, let alone chemical ones. > And for that matter, what about Morrolan using a Morganti weapon on >everyone in his path, even if they're mostly Teckla? On the other >hand, since `Blackwand does what he says', maybe he doesn't destroy >dozens/thousands of souls per battle. But no one knows for sure but >him (and Verra?). Yes, I've posited that he has destroyed few or no souls. My notion is that part of the standard operating procedure for Great Weapons is that the gods tell the bearers, "Handling souls is *our* job. You can send them to us, but don't destroy them unless we tell you to", or failing that, that destroying souls is overkill, even for an ambitious Dragon. I expanded more on this notion in the thread from 11/2002 titled "Morrolan: Just a Big Softy, Really?"