Semi-OT: The Icaran Empire Preview (the book one)

[Hunpecked]

Some more thoughts on the early Icaran society described by Starhawk:

In an era of squabbling city-states I would expect even a peaceful and intellectual state to have an army at least comparable to its neighbors'. In fact, I would say such an army would be a prerequisite for the establishment of a prosperous culture; otherwise it's too tempting a target for its poorer, more warlike neighbors. It's also more difficult to expand a peacetime army in an emergency without a significant cadre of trained, experienced soldiers and a pre-existing military infrastructure. A prosperous state could fill in with mercenaries, of course, but the money would eventually run out.

I like the idea of starting a "future" AAR far in the past. On the other hand, it's a lot of work to rewrite thousands of years of history convincingly, even as an overview. In addition, when writing the "real" story, the author constantly has to keep in mind that most of the history we take for granted probably never happened in his fictional universe.