>Do Dragaera and the East compete economically? What kind of relationship >do they have with each other economically? The question isn't entirely valid because "the East" doesn't really exist. The Dragaeran Empire is a large cohesive nation similar to the U.S. or perhaps Great Britain of 200 years ago or so ago. The East appears to be a conglomerate of smaller nations that are loosely aligned with each other when it's convenient or when a strong leader appears (e.g. Fenar), akin to Europe or the Middle East. (We actually know precious little about The East beyond what we learn in Brokedown Palace, and that story is as much fairy tale/allegory as it is factual reporting.) Additionally, the Eastern Mountains that separate the two bodies allow for limited communication and travel between them. You either go north to the pepper fields or south to roughly where Morrolan's domain begins. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong here.) There may be other paths through the mountains but so far none (that we've heard of) that would be usable by an army or caravan. Bottom line is that for the two to "compete" there would have to be some sort of common market they both wanted or some common resource that they both desire. They don't appear to have any common market at all and the pepper fields are as close as we've gotten to a resource worth competing for. Since each side pretty much desires the pepper fields for their intrinsic value rather than for their economic value (and since Khavren worked out the truce which, for lack of any report to the contrary, I assume is still in place despite the Interregnum) it's difficult to view the pepper fields as some kind of economic battle ground. Overall, I'd say that they don't compete at all and that the trade relationships are rudimentary. As mentioned by others, primarily unique or highly regarded commodities like horses and spices. If you imagine Dragaera as a unified version of Rennaisance Europe and The East as a sort of decentralized version of China of the same period, I think that you would have a reasonable picture of the situation vis-a-vis economic relations between the two. This is also one of the reasons that invasions from one side of the mountains to the other are rare in reality. With no real economic advantage to an invasion, they mainly happen when population pressures on one side or the other cause a "spillover" grab for territory or when a charismatic leader attempts to increase his or her own power base. Sethra the Younger epitomizes this latter general, as well as the general Dragaeran attitude in Vlad's time of prosperity within the Empire. The East is not truly an enemy. They're just "those guys over there that we're going to teach a lesson to someday". Even in the absence of powerful Dragaerans with pro-Eastern leanings (Norathar, Morollan, Zerika, etc...) Sethra would likely have some problems raising an army to invade the East simply because there's no mileage in doing so. Everybody's fat and happy, in a manner of speaking, so why go pick a fight where none exists? Even Verra, when attempting to start a war, strikes much closer to home at the Elde Island/Greenaere targets rather than at the more nebulous and less immediate target of "The East". On a tangential note (which no doubt led me to the China analogy rather than a more appropriate analogy involving Austro-Hungarian geography) I find it interesting that Brust's writings about The East all involve this magical fairy land angle. Brokedown Palace is a classical fairy tale written as a novel. Paarfi writes of The East as a place where the unusual happens as a matter of no great note. Coachmen are eternal. Witches perform exotic rituals to mysterious ends. A young man embarks on a kind of dreamquest and those around him nod knowingly and help him find his true name. Sorcery is really just a kind of technology to a Dragaeran. The East, in contrast, is a place where "magic" is in the air. It takes very little effort to imagine a Dragaeran visiting The East as a kind of Marco Polo visiting 18th century India and China. The ironic thing is that the East looks upon "Faerie" as a place of exotic magic and strange customs. While I'm not sure that I really want Vlad's objective (or so I imagine it in relation to Paarfi and others) viewpoint to de-mystify The East, I'd be very interested in finding out just what the impact of sorcery (via Miklos, Sandor, and others who have gone West and returned) and other Dragaeran imports have had on Eastern culture.