Or even more. We don't know how far 'we' got with space travel.boballab wrote:I think we are missing what is meant by the term Great Ancient Civilization. The Great Ancient Civilization is not one country or even continent, it is the entire world.
Except that none of the characters (apart from possibly Patches and Teacup) in these stories are average surfs. I would especially expect the 'godlike' spirits or the shamans to be better informed than that. I'd especially expect it to come up during "We don't hate all humans" statements. It's always nice to come across american authors who are graceful enough to admit their nation really dragged their feet over slavery, rather than leading the charge, as many of them like to pretend.The average people of Noraam really don't think much about what happened on the other side of the world during the war because it has no effect on their daily lives. <snip> the average serf didn't give a fig about what has happened or is happening in China, if he even knew such a place existed.
Giving PCs to american indians would not help them advance faster than europeans, unless they were shown how to use them first. Have you considered the (large) number of discoveries the noraams would have had to make before they realised that crystals could be used for anything? More conventional techniques would have had a head start while the noraams figured all that out. Spirit Walker implies that the loremasters playing around with electricity is a recent thing.Now the thing to note and the reason everything in the story that would be important would occur in Noraam is very simple. The failed experiment that resulted in the making of mana crystals is in Noraam. This allowed Noraam to advance faster then anywhere else
And again, it is exceptionally difficult to destroy all or even most technology without killing off the humans.