On Fri, 23 Jul 2004, Chris Turkel wrote: > > On Jul 23, 2004, at 11:42 AM, Jose Marquez wrote: > > > Philip Hart wrote: > >> I've long wondered how the agrarian Dragaerans (say that 3x fast) > >> managed to cope with the overcast. Perhaps they've been experiencing > >> diminishing crop yields for many cycles now... Also maintaining good > >> topsoil for 200k years is probably difficult. > > > > Magic? > > Thats the big thing that changes the standard equation; magic. Anybody know anything about agriculture? I can vaguely imagine that it's possible to fix nitrogen in the soil by sorcery, but I can't see how the (pre-Interregnum) Empire could do that on many millions of acres multiple times per generation. And I think that doesn't help with erosion (do we know that the Teckla till? [3x fast again]). And I certainly don't see how the calories the plants miss because of the overcast can be replaced. So perhaps that's one damper on the development of Dragaeran society.