Questions about Gourntonk and Ian Starshine

[Bogardan_Mage]

You are wrong, actually:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0758.html

Quote from above comic "Spins of the Father":

"When he first appeared on the continent, he (Tarquin) conquered eleven nations in eight months.

It took a coalition of no less than twenty-six other countries to defeat him and drive him out"

So, considering the other 11 have to be mutually exclusive (especially since this all happened in the space of a year or so): 11 + 26 = 37.

And that's 37 minimum, since the coalition was NO LESS than 26. Could have been more.

And I said 20-30, so there's actually 7 to spare in case any are based off continent, or crumbled in the space of another to take their place.

Ok, so you're assuming that a different set of circumstances is the "normal" state. Doesn't make it any more valid. If anything, the map shows us that all of the Western Continent is less divided that it was when Tarquin was defeated, so how is the casual observer supposed to determine that the Empires of Blood, Sweat and Tears are the aberrations?

But that would create another point of oddity when looking at the map: if the 3 nations started out back-to-back-to back, you'd be able to easier see the progressing 'stability'. Yes, the borders change, but since they started out so small, they wouldn't have been able to afford any large-scale changes for quite a while. The three would generally have to stay in the same place. Sure, the borders might move a hundred miles or so here or there like wartime borders of attrition, but the three countries would have to get significantly larger before things could start to look considerably different.

If they started out in different areas, at least that way they could expand independently for a while.

You're still assuming, baselessly, that it's trivial for a casual observer to recognise continuity when the empire changes. Actually, for some reason you're selectively applying this only when the countries are near each other. When they're in different areas you're just assuming they'll "expand independently" without considering what that entails. The con as described by Ian and Tarquin relies on all three countries working in concert, they simply don't have the option of "expanding independently" if they want to avoid precisely the pitfall Tarquin was trying to avoid with the scheme in the first place. Remaining hidden from people who are unlikely to notice them in the first place is not more important than enacting the actual plan!

Actually, I was thinking of the Elves in this scenario, not other nations in the southern half of the continent.

Long lives and a stable yet geographically close location. Yes, the Elves are ideally situated to notice this one particular clue. It's still pretty circumstantial though, and the Elves are, in Hinjo's words, "slow to go to war". I really must stress that the strongest thing in Tarquin's favour is that nobody is looking for a grand Machiavellian scheme underlying Western politics. Not one that works, anyway. The clues are only worth something if someone is willing to examine them.