Nils Weinander's subject "KoW and coffee" leads me to combine two threads:
The Kingdom of War is nasty (choose one according to taste) 1) because they're coffee drinkers. That vile liquid has melted their brains. 2) because when they were cut off during the Ban they were forced to invent and drink instant coffee. That vile liquid has melted their brains.
Does anyone remember "The Quest for the Sacred Melita" (from one of the first 3 or so issues of Different Worlds, I think)?
There was speculation that the KoW must recruit, and that they're all psychopaths. I suspect it's pretty easy to get people to act like psychopaths if they belong to a group of psychopaths. And if they're convinced it's the right thing. Remember that experiment where the man in a white coat (with a clipboard) told people to administer shocks to someone in the next room. And the one where people got to be prison guards and started acting inhumanely. Average people do seem capable of behavior they would ordinarily reject, especially when there's institutional (or peer) pressure.
So not only does the KoW make its enemies more like itself, it makes its victims more like itself.
Peter Metcalfe suspects
>The Heartlands of the Kingdom of War may not have much in the way of food
>supply but it is the base for a lot of other things
While we're speculating, perhaps the Heartlands is something the KoW is *fleeing* by expanding outwards.
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