Okay. That wasn't the worst conversation Judith has had. She looks inquiringly at Ron, hoping to get some indication of whether she got a good grade in talking to random people here, something it is normal to want and possible to achieve.

Ron looks back in confusion, as he continues walking with Judith and appreciating the scenery. Eventually, they see a group of people dressed in suits and helmets that fully cover their bodies, swinging at each other with scarily real-looking swords. One of them is notably more skilled than the others, managing to strike hits as he fights them off and pushes them back.

"Of course you'd have good sparring gear. Although I'd have thought with all this technology around, you'd be doing better than swords by now?"

Ron replies. "We're doing better, just not funner! And we also have sniper rifle, assault rifle, and submachine gun sparring, as well. So maybe we do have funner, as well, but still like the variety?"

"I... can work out what those probably are from context, but our state of the art was the hand crossbow," replies Judith. "How do you spar with one of those 'rifle' or 'gun' things? Don't the projectiles go too fast?"

"Well, that's fine if the point is testing out how well you can hit people with them. Sparring is mostly about the part involving people pretending to attack each other, isn't it?"

"I'm - not sure how those are different? Sparring is pretending to attack each other for practice? You can't really tell if you're aiming right if you just point at people and shout, although it does give them practice at dealing with broken lines when the person you shouted at goes down, it's useful if you might need to be ready at any time or don't want to waste the herbs."

"You don't point at people and shout, silly. You fire real projectiles! And you don't need practice dealing with broken lines, that's a non-issue now."

"Okay, and you have one of these sparring suits that just, soaks it up, I guess?

How do you fight for real, then? Or has armour technology just got way ahead of personal weapons?"

"We would fight, if it were to happen, for real mostly using drones and artillery, although there is still some need for capable soldiers as things like scouts or sentries. And we don't fight for real, just to make that obvious."

"...that must be nice." Definitely more a Day thing than Autumn, regardless of War Fish, he also always treated it more like a strategy game than an actual fight, he'd probably love the sparring club. "I suppose Dawn would keep having tourneys even if there was no actual fight to prepare for."

"There's a riddle I remember being asked, when I was a child. I'm hoping you're going to love the answer as much as me. The riddle is: when can it make sense to start a war?"

"I'm not sure what the riddle answer is, but there are a lot of actual reasons - like, the other guy is going to start a war at a time to their advantage if you don't do it first, or they're doing something so awful to their people that war is better... or some people would say, just because you could be better for them than their current government - or use their stuff better than they are..."

"I don't think any of those really make much sense. I'll give you a hint, because I think we're thinking about wars differently. You're a general, and you have essentially 0 resources other than soldiers. Knowing this, when does it make sense to start a war?"

"Now, because you're going to need to feed your soldiers, unless you can safely disperse them somewhere they can feed themselves; probably better an organised war than unleashing bandits, although neither's a great choice and you shouldn't have got there in the first place."

"So it sounds like the only thing that happens is that you're using your soldiers starting a war so you can have soldiers. And you'd think that unleashing bandits would really dissuade just about anyone from trying to raise an army! I'm not quite sure how you'd be in a situation where you have an army, but you can't disperse them so they can feed themselves. Presumably, they must have been doing that before joining your army? I don't think that's a very good answer to my riddle."

"You were the one who said I had an army and nothing else. Usually you raise an army because some other people are trying to kill you and you'd like to fight back more effectively."

"I don't count wanting to fight back more effectively as starting a war. I'd like to try giving you the biggest hint I can without revealing the answer: the answer to the riddle is related to the general's soldiers, and nothing else."

"It makes sense to start a war when you have ended up with too many soldiers? I mean, it doesn't, but if they're going to kill you otherwise then some people will do it anyway. The only actually good reasons for starting a war are external circumstances."

"The only time when it makes sense to start a war, is when you end the war with more soldiers than you started. A general could use his soldiers for nearly any purpose, but using them in a war must mean that they cannot be used to loot the people or tax your empire. Someone else starting a war when it's good for them, because they can expect to subjugate you and your men, or doing something so awful that a war would be better, or because you'd be better for them than their current government -

in all these cases, what makes them special is that a general can be sure that at the war's end, he will have more soldiers than he had before its beginning. If you have nothing but soldiers, a war will ultimately never give you any bounty beyond more soldiers, or more citizens to tax so you can support your soldiers, amounting to the same thing."

"...I'm sorry, but that doesn't actually make sense? That sounds like a very - Jotun perspective on war. They definitely go to war so that they can - produce more war. But most people go to war because they want something in particular - land, resources, to liberate people..."

"There are people who jump out of windows because they think it's a suggestion from their cat! The thing limiting a general's land is, in the end, how many soldiers he has able to protect his land, and the willingness of them and his people to work for him. A general who conquers land but loses his soldiers, will be unlikely to keep it for long."

"The resources won through war are similarly limited, although obviously, having the wealth through conquest to support your soldiers is a perfect reason for warring with your neighbors. There is no need to start a war for resources; if it would lead to victory for one side, then it is only foolhardiness that makes it happen to begin with."

"And liberating people is one thing a war tragically fails at, unless it uses their numbers to create an army powerful enough to overcome their oppressors, of course."

"I think you have a very different model of war to me?

Military might does affect how much land you can hold, but resources are just as much a part of that as soldiers - a properly supplied and trained soldier can be worth a hundred terrified peasant levies.

And the shape of the land also affects things - one country I know has no soldiers, but is entirely surrounded by mountains, has built traps in all the passes, and has the favour of an Eternal to call on if all else fails.

It's generally not foolhardiness that starts wars over resources - I mean, sometimes it is, wars over land are often that way, someone is upset that their great grandfather used to live there and now it's someone else's - but, it's incomplete information. Both sides think they can win because one of them has underestimated the other - or because it's genuinely uncertain, sometimes wars turn on weird events, sometimes people will fight just in case something happens to change the balance while they're doing it, or because they prefer a fight to the alternative where they definitely lose.

Liberating people isn't easy, but assuming the rulers are sufficiently concentrated and sufficiently awful, it can sometimes work. We took Ossium from the Druj, who rule by fear and torture and despair, and the people there are pretty much universally grateful for it. We went and fought the island full of people running the global slave trade, didn't take over the island, just killed enough of them that they couldn't maintain control over their slaves any more and the liberated people did the rest."

"You're correct; one supplied and trained soldier is worth a hundred peasant levies. So they'd surrender to him, and strengthen the warlord's army, whether directly or indirectly. If a country has traps and mountains making it impossible to invade, trying would never let you strengthen your own army. And well, if the war could end well, with you on top and your army mightier than ever, then starting it probably shouldn't be called foolhardy. And taking Ossium: you said it yourself, you killed enough of them that they could no longer control the slaves, leaving them to do the rest."

"The peasant levy doesn't surrender if their alternative is worse than death. I'm still not sure how this relates to not having wars, other than that you already killed everyone who wanted to enslave people, or torture them, or would start a fight for bad reasons, or had other irreconcilable differences?"