Re: Some random thoughts

>         Isn't that "unnatural selection" similar to what happened to
> Germany at the end of WWII?  Instead of selecting the strong to *survive*,
> most of the skilled and experienced soldiers *died*.  This led to
weakening
> of their military power, not a stregthening.  (IIRC, this was especially
> noticable in their airforce, with few experienced pilots left to teach
> the next generation.)  The weak who were unable to fight did most of
> the survivng.

    It was even worse in Japan...towards the end of the war, their pilots
were so green that at least one battle was known as the "Great Turkey Shoot"
because we were shooting down dozens of their zeros while suffering few, if
any, casualties ourselves.

    Back to the original post: I've thought about that myself, actually.
Endless war is actually more believable with lower technology, because it
has happened before (Hundred Year War, 30-Year War), because it takes a lot
longer to expend local resources.  Heck, I think Rome was rarely at
peace...it was always fighting some war somewhere.

    Here's a potential scenario: imagine a vast, "pitcher plant" sphere ala
Clusterspace, where many, many goblin tribes fled to at the end of the war
and became trapped.  The elves pursued, and also became trapped.  The elves
are vastly outnumbered, but have the advantage of being unified, while the
goblins are fighting themselves.  The elves take on one tribe at a time, but
given the vast number of tribes, it's taken them centuries to willow down
the goblin tribes.

Adam