what makes stable borders 'stable'?

[Helios.]

the different nations seem to have been around for a long time, in either direct or indirect conflict with each other for YEARS. why do you think the borders havn't changed very much? what is special about the countries that prevent them from being dominated? what prevents them from taking over?

[BlackenedPies]

Inability to mobilize a war economy. They don't have the resources or political power for a large scale military campaign. Defense and skirmishing are cheap; expensive war needs support from the population. Trade is also an important reason. If a nation converts to a war economy the other nations could embargo and force them to be self sufficient- difficult when you're focusing on military production. The most important factor is alliances. If nations decided to ally then alliances could pool resources and mutually support eachother. Without similar goals alliances won't happen.

I know little about the game lore but I assume the nations can't afford to mobilize for war.

[FranckM]

From what I read from the lore no faction is always an allied to another and they all have more than one neighbor so it my just be fear that another faction could attack while mobilizing troops.

[HamsterIV]

I think that the nations did not have much contact with each other due to uninhabitable post apocalyptic landscape. Each nation was probably an isolated patch of inhabitable land in a vast wastescape of nothingness and death. We are joining the story right as a new technology (airships) makes it possible for these isolated patches to interact with each other.

[Helios.]

the nations absolutely can reach each other, the angleans are constantly raiding as far as the teeth, and the chaledonians have a contract protecting hanat from the angleans.
the yesha have a standing army i believe, and definitely have advantages over the other nations in terms of natural resources, having a stable agriculture and ore and forests in their borders, or nearby.
the angleans don't have much other than war to DO, and it brings in more resources than it costs them because of all the loot they bring home, which is why i imagined their military being one of the only things they actually do, the other being exploring and discovering new secrets from the old technological wonders they live in and around.
some of the other nations i think maintain their borders more mechanically: they arent motivated to work in concert except when they are threatened, and so defense becomes a unifying force only as long as they are being attacked. the arashi i imagine to be something like this. chaledon perhaps in some respects as well, but their natural resources mean they CAN spare people to venture out into the world.

[HamsterIV]

In the lore page:
http://gunsoficarus.com/world/history/flight-of-the-icarus/
It states the original Icarus was the first to reconnect the sparse human populations. That it took two decades before another airship would fly, and that the loss of the Icarus put trade back 30 years. If I read the time line correctly the factions may have existed for 100 years but have only been in contact with each other for the last 10. For many of those 10 years they were still figuring out how airships worked.

It was 10 years of development between the first airplane (wright brothers 1903) and the first strategic bomber (Sikorsky Ilya Muromets 1913). So we could be entering the story right as military conquest via airships is becoming feasible.

[HamsterIV]

I take it back The Lore says it is 300 years after the great war and the Icarus took flight in 212, so the factions have had 68 years to mess with each other.

[Carn]

Some of them also have natural borders, that though may not deter raids, make invasions difficult. Chaladon is a completely island nation. Anglea seems like it is on another landmass. The Baronies are surrounded by mountains. And Arashi is on giant desert. Yesha is full of canyons.

[Squidslinger Gilder]

The world map looks big but if you look at the original map's legend, its actually very small. This world is only taking place in I'd say, a tiny fraction of the greater world. So these cultures really aren't that far apart. But it comes down to do they have cause to conquer? For some reason they are fighting over resources in this small area instead of branching out beyond the borders of the map. Unless the land there is still very inhospitable. Muse lists the world as a result of chemical warfare. Some fact I wish they'd elaborate more on because it doesn't seem very feasible for chemical warfare to have done all this. The only theory I have is that perhaps it turned the world into a giant iceball somehow. Except for this small area. It's slowly unfreezing or going back to normal. I dunno. Maybe it isn't necessarily ice but something else. Perhaps it emits some kind of gas which is what is used in airships to make such impossible designs possible?

If this was the case then Firnfeld could be a potentially lucrative place for gas suppliers. Anglea too.

Due to general closeness of the nations, wars and conquest could be very brief or it could be very easy to conquer everyone in short order. I personally think based on the original map that the scale of the world is a bit larger than is listed. It just seemed off from the start. But this could be why Muse did away with the original map, because they wanted to start more anew.

[Helios.]

the time scale is an interesting one: 68 years is a long time to be developing new technology especially since we know at least a few of the nations are investing heavily into archeotechnological rediscoveries and advancing in huge steps.
50 years sometimes isnt that much, sometimes its HUGE, so its hard to know if we are talking 500-550 AD levels of advancement where we are talking maybe metallurgical advancement, but basically the same thing. or like 1910-1965 levels, where each 10 years a revolutionary technology emerges?

we know the chaledonians for example were WAY late to the airship party, but have advanced at an alarming rate, so it may be that their rapid advancing might mean that they will be expanding a lot in the coming years. their borders are impossible to cross without air ships, and chaledon's air fleet reflects this truth: they are all light, agile ships capable of intercepting and outmaneuvering larger vessels and destroying them. short of huge fleets flying in formation, there is always a way to slip a few squids in there to cause mischief. nobody si gettign into chaledon uninvited with the airfleet zipping around

the arashi i would guess would be nearly impossible to invade even though they have incredibly valuable old tech ruins that they have used to create amazing new tech. i imagine that the desert is nearly impossible to march across with an army, so any invading party would have to be on airships. an ambush of 10 or 15 people hiding under blankets with artemis rocket launchers could destroy most ships in a matter of moments. this sort of attack would end any sort of raid. 

its anyone's guess who will make the knockout discovery, maybe angleans will discover something game-changing and start conquering the warm and fertile parts of the world with indestructable metal soldiers. maybe the mercantile guild will crash the economic system of some of the neutral major cities and expand their hegemony. maybe the fjords will reach out and capture some land that allows them to feed their people comfortably and then use their surplus resources to hugely expand their airfleets.

who knows? that's why its fun!

[Clockeye]

I have a theory about borders.
IMO, the influence of the capital is lower the farer you are from it.
This means, the cities/villages on the borders don't care that much about war, which creates a very
wide areas of grey land everyone's fighting for. There would be no way in that destroyed world to
protect such a wide area. The borders are just there to mark which cities respect which way of living, but outside the borders?
The Yeshan city could be surrounded by Angleans, but it'd still be Yeshan, becouse iceman can't breach their wall. That's why the
war doesn't change the borders, and just gets resoures to one side or another.

[Helios.]

that might have been tue before teh flight of the icarus changed everything. the advent of airfleets means that control can be WAY better maintained than everyone walking or even riding horses or cars. we know that the chaledonians for example have a contract keeping hanat safe, and its on the other saide fo the map. i think its not abtou as much distance eating away loyalty, but so many powerful nations who will be leery and scared if one nation starts eating up neutral territory. also some of the neutral cities are incredibly well fortified. anvala for example is on top of a mountain with huge walls with the best gunners in the world protecting them

[Clockeye]

Well then, maybe the borders are then stable not beocuse of distance, but becouse it's much easier to defend against airships than fight from them?
Like, imagine making a turret with 6 lumberjacks on it. Perfectly stable, since on the ground.
I guess the fights could be fought over smaller villages and outposts, but the boders still remain stable.