On Wed, 4 Feb 2004, Noam Izenberg wrote: > On Feb 4, 2004, at 4:24 PM, Philip Hart wrote: > > Excellent questions. Re diseases, I believe we have no evidence, but > > I'd be inclined to think the J didn't mess with the basic cellular > > mechanics to the point that viruses couldn't learn to pass to Ds from > > Es, given that they live in close proximity (v. Guns etc for more). > > That could be answer enough. Even if all the reasoning below were > circumvented, an invading army could be put down by one of the > plagues. Except: > > On Feb 4, 2004, at 4:43 PM, lazarus wrote: > > I can't recall and thus don't have any textev, but I distinctly got > > the impression that the various plagues' coming from the East would > > have to mean they were transmitted from Easterner to Dragaeran. How > > else would the plagues be hanging around waiting to sweep west? > > If the plagues come _from_ the East and only hit Dragaera because its > various protections have failed, then that would be a wonderful > precursor to invasion - even invasion embodied simply by natural > expansion to fill the voids left behind by dead outlying Dragaeran > communities. In _FHYA_, pg 546 of the ppb, Paarfi writes that after the Disaster "the first seeds of the Great Plagues were beginning in Adrilankha, Candletown, Northport, Branch, and Tirinsar." I think this thread overestimates the weakness of the post-Disaster Empire - certainly formidable Dragaeran armies are assembled in the Pirodessey.