> Ian wrote:
>
> > The remaining adults can fight in an emergency (though a
> > percentage are unfit for military service - about 5%)
>
> I find that somewhat hard to swallow. Are we *really* saying that
95%
> of Heortling men and women aged 15+ are "fit for military service"?
> (Per my pop stats, qv., that would exclude over-65's *only*).
>
It might depend on your definition of an emergency. I'd call "trolls
are about to devour you and your children" an emergency. Yes I'd
believe that 95% of adults would be capable of helping the fight in
that sort of life or death situation. They may not be especially
effective, they do know the basics of shoving pointy things at
whatever is trying to eat them.
I wouldn't call anything much short of absolute survival to be that
sort of an emergency. I'm sure you can't get 95% of the adults for
any sort of "military service, no matter how dire the situation,
because you can't take 95% of the adults away from the stead for more
than a couple of days without children and livelyhood being at
extreme risk, which would be just about as big a disaster as whatever
you were trying to fight (notable exception here for "the only way
the world survives is with I fought we won" type situations)
--Bryan
--Bryan