Re: Spelljamming and Technology - article

> I would have thought that the stabilising force, of which you speak, is the
> Imperial Elven Navy.

Another candidate for such manipulation would be the Arcane/Mercane
trading houses.  They probably wouldn't be as effective in this matter
as the IEN,  however.  The trade houses would want to harness and
control new technology for their own use.  But, if they use new
technologies, sooner or later the technology will fall into the hands of
some powerful adventurers who will either reverse-engineer it, or make
something original to copy or emulate it.   The IEN, having a more or
less standardized doctrine on such matters, may be in a better position
to keep such efforts in check.

It's also possible that if the Arcane/Mercane trade houses frequently
bicker among themselves, or even use commercial espienoge, to keep one
another off balance, new spelljamming technology may take a *very* long
time to reach the general population.   There may be scads of prototypes
for wonderful new spelljamming technologies sitting in Arcane
warehouses.  But, the Arcane themselves are too tied up in their own
machinations to put them to use.

Finally, if the IEN is aware of the Arcane machinations, then they may
be using the situation to their advantage.  If one Arcane trade house
has prototype technology, the IEN may surupiticiously inform a
competitor of the project, thus starting another round of bickering.
During the confusion, the IEN may sneak in and destroy the prototype
technology, perhaps using third party agents to keep themselves above
suspicion.  It would depend on how cunning the IEN is at any given time.

--
Richard J. Pugh: the Cyberbard
http://rjpugh.home.comcast.net/