Steve has started off with existing fantasies of elves and played with them in a realistic way. It is interesting that Tolkein has elves basically dying out as humans replace them - despite their immortality. Steve has copied their willingness to fight (and die), but he has made them sexual beings who can control their reproduction. He also has shown us peasants who live with a lot of same-old same-old. We all know how difficult it is to keep someone a peasant after turning them into soldiers and letting them see the world. He can return as a farmer, but a much more worldy farmer. So there are a bunch of peasants who somehow aren't taking over in population despite being in more safe professions than the warriors. Maybe they choose to reproduce slowly due to poverty. But if all you have is your children, they still have pressure to have children. As Dragaeran society gets more wealthy (which is certainly happening), how is it going to keep its population down? Citizen armies? Even Napolean didn't keep his population down, much less the feudal states before him. Soldiers die at a sufficient rate to require replacing. (Do Dzurs and Dragons reproduce more rapidly than Orcas?) It appears we will be seeing more of the impacts of social changes in this series. We have only been slightly introduced to the serfs who haven't yet been impacted by these tremendous changes. The real interesting thing here will be how Steve has this modernization work within the Cycle. I believe that's what he's going to do. The social forces of change are too big to revert, and I don't think he wants to destroy the cycle. -- Using M2, Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/