Riverlands & Stepstones

[The Grey Wolf]

Has anyone ever thought it's a bit strange that the Vale, the Reach, and the Westerlands never tried to conquer the Riverlands? Also, why hasn't someone permanently conquered the Stepstones? Considering the significance of their location you'd think the Iron Throne (outside Prince Daemon) or one of the Free Cities (outside the Three Daughters) would make it a point to hold on to the damn place instead of leaving it a pirate's den.

[Bright Blue Eyes]

Well, they tried. And sometimes succeeded, for a time. Never got to fully integrate them into their heartland due to natural borders though, and eventually the manpower of the Riverlands was too great to subdue them.

 

The Stepstones seem to be rather inhospitable, no good way to establish a feudal hold on them and incredibly expensive to hold them otherwise.

[Lord Varys]

1 hour ago, Bright Blue Eyes said:

The Stepstones seem to be rather inhospitable, no good way to establish a feudal hold on them and incredibly expensive to hold them otherwise.

Well, they must have been firmly under Valyrian control prior to the Doom. The dragonlords wouldn't have suffered any piracy in waters they and their allies controlled.

And if this was the case it is clearly strange why the hell they did not continue to remain under, say, Tyroshi control. After all, Tyrosh itself is located on one of the Stepstones.

The Century of Blood could partially explain that but if Dorne can control some rocks in the sea like Ghaston Grey (or the Vale islands like The Paps) then it makes little sense to imagine the Steptstones as some sort of region of eternal piracy and independence. The quarrels between the Three Daughters most likely contributed to the situation there but one imagines Dorne would also have had a vested interest in getting rid of piracy this close to Sunspear and the Planky Town/Greenblood.

Vice versa, the rising power of Braavos should also make it very unlikely that the Sealord would suffer stuff like that. The presence of such pirate nests in the Stepstones would greatly hinder Braavosian trade with the south and the east. And one assumes that a big part of Braavosian wealth comes from this sort of trade.

And the same goes, of course, also for Volantene trade with Myr, Pentos, Braavos, King's Landing, and Gulltown.

Insofar as the piracy is actually controlled by Lys, Tyrosh, or Myr it makes sense that it exists but pretty much everybody else would have a vested interest to put an end to that for good.

8 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

Has anyone ever thought it's a bit strange that the Vale, the Reach, and the Westerlands never tried to conquer the Riverlands? Also, why hasn't someone permanently conquered the Stepstones? Considering the significance of their location you'd think the Iron Throne (outside Prince Daemon) or one of the Free Cities (outside the Three Daughters) would make it a point to hold on to the damn place instead of leaving it a pirate's den.

The Vale would have difficulties to permanently control any land on the other side of the Mountains of the Moon, and I guess the Westerlands more or less accepted their natural borders, too, knowing that getting too involved in a war with the Riverlands would leave its flank open to an attack from the Reach.

Back in the days of the Seven Kingdoms the Reach was actually in a worse position than the Riverlands. The Mountains of the Moon and the Nack served as natural borders against the Vale and the North, leaving only the Stormlands, the Reach, the Ironborn, and the Westerlands as dangerous neighbors.

[Bright Blue Eyes]

Air patrol by dragon got some advantages over ships. Like being twenty times faster even without taking reefs or stuff into account and the horizon being much further away.

 

To control the Stepstones by ship, they'd have to be settled, with a reasonable population density. Otherwise you've got the Carribeans of 1600-something. If they got no reasonable population of their own, you'd have to put a million settlers there, give or take. Quite impossible.

All the options left to the naval powers is to have a culling every couple years.

[Lord Varys]

21 minutes ago, Bright Blue Eyes said:

Air patrol by dragon got some advantages over ships. Like being twenty times faster even without taking reefs or stuff into account and the horizon being much further away.

 

To control the Stepstones by ship, they'd have to be settled, with a reasonable population density. Otherwise you've got the Carribeans of 1600-something. If they got no reasonable population of their own, you'd have to put a million settlers there, give or take. Quite impossible.

All the options left to the naval powers is to have a culling every couple years.

Well, they could also completely depopulate all the islands. Kill everyone. Or enslave everyone on there (something the Volantenes certainly would have no problems with).

But it really seems as if most of the piracy is actually state-funded piracy done by the Tyroshi and Lyseni (all those various Saans). But that should have resulted in some major coalition of merchant cities and states (Braavos, Pentos, KL/Iron Throne, Oldtown, Volantis) against Lys and Tyrosh, and they would have been destroyed.

In any realistic setting something like that would have happened had one of the major straits during which a huge portion of the world trade (or at least the world trade in the western world) goes would be under constant threat from pirates for centuries.

I mean, that's about as likely as the major world powers suffering piracy with impunity in the Panama Canal, the Straits of Gibraltar, or the Suez Canal. That is just not very likely.

In a scenario in which there are no major naval powers in control of a region then piracy can easily be a thing. But not this close to many major naval powers, and certainly not in a region which is such important for the world trade.

[Bright Blue Eyes]

So, they depopulate the islands. Have a culling (I mentioned that by the way). Five years later there would be as many pirates as before. Pirates are not born upon the Stepstones, they are just hiding there.

 

In any realistic setting such as the North Sea/Baltic 1000-1700, the Carribean 1550-1750, the Mediterranean like, forever until 1800, Somalia and the Gulf of Aden today...

[The Grey Wolf]

6 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Insofar as the piracy is actually controlled by Lys, Tyrosh, or Myr it makes sense that it exists but pretty much everybody else would have a vested interest to put an end to that for good.

The Vale would have difficulties to permanently control any land on the other side of the Mountains of the Moon, and I guess the Westerlands more or less accepted their natural borders, too, knowing that getting too involved in a war with the Riverlands would leave its flank open to an attack from the Reach.

Back in the days of the Seven Kingdoms the Reach was actually in a worse position than the Riverlands. The Mountains of the Moon and the Nack served as natural borders against the Vale and the North, leaving only the Stormlands, the Reach, the Ironborn, and the Westerlands as dangerous neighbors.

On the Stepstones I agree. Maybe Fire & Blood will shed more on this issue.

As for the Riverlands I can understand where you're coming from but it would still seem strange to me.

Kings throughout our history have always tried to expand their domains so I find the idea that no king of the Vale, the North, or the Westerlands ever bothered trying to conquer the Riverlands because it would be too difficult to hold implausible.

The Riverlands are damn fertile and populous (if they could get their act together they'd probably have the second-largest army after the Reach) and disunited, which should make them really appealing to conquer. Furthermore, if the Stormlands of all kingdoms can take and hold them (which of the continental kingdoms seems to be the second-poorest (Dorne gets that reward) on account of its weather, population density, lack of a proper city even when you include the Crownlands, and sharing borders with two other aggressive kingdoms) for three centuries then why not the Vale or the Westerlands (which are closer, richer, have relatively safe borders from other enemies, and more fighting men in less space (making calling the banners quicker and easier)? As for the Reach they tried (and almost succeeded) in conquering the whole of the Stormlands in the past! If they could do that then I fail to see why they wouldn't at least try to take on a weaker opponent like the Riverlands, especially since there were probably long periods of time where the Ironborn at least were little more than a nuisance for the Shield Isles alone whenever they reached a nadir like after the Famine Winter. As for the North I can see the Starks having enough trouble holding the sheer breadth of the North together but since they were willing to war with the Vale for centuries over the Three Sisters then I find it unlikely that a few Starks wouldn't take it into their heads to conquer their immediate southern neighbor, which would be a good way of getting rid of extra mouths you can't feed in winter (they die in battle or marry and settle down in the Riverlands) while also providing the North with more income and food in said winter.

[Bright Blue Eyes]

The Arryns have tried to conquer the Riverlands. Repeatedly. It's right in the text, with names and everything. Roland II Arryn for example. No King of the Rock or of Winter is explicitly named, but presumably they also did.

[The Grey Wolf]

BBE

Roland II is the only one mentioned of the Vale Kings and sure we can assume the Starks and Lannisters did try but it is strange that no attempts by either of them or the Gardners are explicitly mentioned.

[Bright Blue Eyes]

So what? There isn't a single attempt upon Moat Cailin mentioned by name. There isn't a single attempt upon the Bloody Gate mentioned by name. There are barely any attempts anywhere explicitly mentioned.

[Lord Varys]

15 hours ago, Bright Blue Eyes said:

So, they depopulate the islands. Have a culling (I mentioned that by the way). Five years later there would be as many pirates as before. Pirates are not born upon the Stepstones, they are just hiding there.

Only if you assume pirates or soon-to-be pirates would go there. Ships do not come cheap, after all, and the Stepstones are islands. Not to mention that the powers in the regions keeping only a small presence there would dissuade pirates from making their abode there. I mean, this worked with any other island at the coast of Westeros. Ghaston Grey is Dornish, the Shield Islands belong to the Reach, and so on.

And while the Shields control the Mouth of the Mander the Stepstones control access to the Narrow Sea. Controlling them would be as important as controlling the Jade Gates yet apparently nobody ever even tried to establish such a control (or at least keep them free from piracy.

15 hours ago, Bright Blue Eyes said:

In any realistic setting such as the North Sea/Baltic 1000-1700, the Carribean 1550-1750, the Mediterranean like, forever until 1800, Somalia and the Gulf of Aden today...

Somalia and the Gulf of Aden are symptomatic for the world powers not caring to keep a region under control.

We are under the impression that there are many great naval powers rather close to - and interested in - controlling the waters around the Stepstones (the Redwynes, the Hightowers, the Volantenes, all the Three Sisters, Myr, Pentos, Braavos, and the Iron Throne).

Both state-sanctioned piracy done by any of the Three Sisters as well as independent piracy should have triggered some sort of response. It did, on occasion, but one really wonders why those places were simply not permanently claimed by any of the forces nearby. Tyrosh could have colonized the other islands, as could have Lys and Myr.

It just doesn't make much sense.

@The Grey Wolf

The Stormlands were much more powerful in the past, apparently, with much territory that now belongs to the Reach and the Crownlands actually being under the control of the Durrandons.

And we can see their control of the Riverlands being them overreaching themselves. Garrisoning and controlling the Riverlands would have been very costly, enabling the Reach and the Ironborn later to slowly cut them to pieces.

[The Grey Wolf]

22 hours ago, Bright Blue Eyes said:

So what? There isn't a single attempt upon Moat Cailin mentioned by name. There isn't a single attempt upon the Bloody Gate mentioned by name. There are barely any attempts anywhere explicitly mentioned.

The difference is while we have direct quotations from the books saying that armies attempted to take both Moat Cailin and the Bloody Gate we have, apart from Roland II Arryn, who was apparently an anomaly in that regard, no mention whatsoever of any Lannisters, Starks, Gardners, or other Arryns attempting to conquer the Riverlands, which considering its location, history, and status as the but-monkey of Westeros should have been conquered way more times than it was also.

[Bright Blue Eyes]

On 25.5.2016 at 10:53 AM, Lord Varys said:

Only if you assume pirates or soon-to-be pirates would go there. Ships do not come cheap, after all, and the Stepstones are islands. Not to mention that the powers in the regions keeping only a small presence there would dissuade pirates from making their abode there. I mean, this worked with any other island at the coast of Westeros. Ghaston Grey is Dornish, the Shield Islands belong to the Reach, and so on.

And while the Shields control the Mouth of the Mander the Stepstones control access to the Narrow Sea. Controlling them would be as important as controlling the Jade Gates yet apparently nobody ever even tried to establish such a control (or at least keep them free from piracy.

Somalia and the Gulf of Aden are symptomatic for the world powers not caring to keep a region under control.

We are under the impression that there are many great naval powers rather close to - and interested in - controlling the waters around the Stepstones (the Redwynes, the Hightowers, the Volantenes, all the Three Sisters, Myr, Pentos, Braavos, and the Iron Throne).

Both state-sanctioned piracy done by any of the Three Sisters as well as independent piracy should have triggered some sort of response. It did, on occasion, but one really wonders why those places were simply not permanently claimed by any of the forces nearby. Tyrosh could have colonized the other islands, as could have Lys and Myr.

It just doesn't make much sense.

 

For pirates, they do. They rarely pay for them after all. Sailors turn to crime, become pirates. They will loose their lives if tey'd continue living where they were born, so they search a new haunt. The Stepstones.

 

The Stepstones problem is their number and combined landmass. Controlling them requires far, far more manpower than any state would/could ever invest in colonialization efforts. You'd need a populated village every five miles or the like.

[Guest jasonothegreat]

On 5/23/2016 at 10:43 PM, The Grey Wolf said:

Has anyone ever thought it's a bit strange that the Vale, the Reach, and the Westerlands never tried to conquer the Riverlands? Also, why hasn't someone permanently conquered the Stepstones? Considering the significance of their location you'd think the Iron Throne (outside Prince Daemon) or one of the Free Cities (outside the Three Daughters) would make it a point to hold on to the damn place instead of leaving it a pirate's den.

The Vale has invaded the Riverlands, A long time ago, and they failed miserably. The Reach has the Westerlands in the way but you do got a point with the Westerlands. Maybe just a small scale war that didn't end well? 

 

Also I always imagined the stepstones to not be very fertile lands. Meaning their only real significant reason to invade would be to get rid of pirates. But why would you launch invasion just to Kill Pirates and maintain undesirable land?

IF the stepstones aren't desirable 

[Lord Varys]

8 hours ago, jasonothegreat said:

The Vale has invaded the Riverlands, A long time ago, and they failed miserably. The Reach has the Westerlands in the way but you do got a point with the Westerlands. Maybe just a small scale war that didn't end well? 

 

Also I always imagined the stepstones to not be very fertile lands. Meaning their only real significant reason to invade would be to get rid of pirates. But why would you launch invasion just to Kill Pirates and maintain undesirable land?

IF the stepstones aren't desirable 

Tyrosh is on one of the Stepstones. They are pretty close to each other and at least the Tyrosh island must be fertile enough to support a major city state.

The idea that the Tyroshi (and the Lyseni and the Myrmen) could afford to have independent pirates in their backyard just doesn't make any sense. Their own economy would soon become affected by that. I mean, this is as if we assume England would allow the Channel Islands or Ireland to do piracy in its waters own waters. That is not all that likely.

State-sanctioned piracy makes some sense but this causes the problem of the other naval powers nearby never deciding to actually severely punish the cities backing those pirates. Braavos and Volantis certainly could do that, as could the Iron Throne.

[Bright Blue Eyes]

50 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

The idea that the Tyroshi (and the Lyseni and the Myrmen) could afford to have independent pirates in their backyard just doesn't make any sense. Their own economy would soon become affected by that. I mean, this is as if we assume England would allow the Channel Islands or Ireland to do piracy in its waters own waters. That is not all that likely.

"Allow" got nothing to do with it. But that's exactly what was going on during the 16th, 17th and early 18th century. See Grace O'Malley for an example. Not the only one by far.

[Guest jasonothegreat]

On 6/16/2016 at 5:00 AM, Lord Varys said:

Tyrosh is on one of the Stepstones. They are pretty close to each other and at least the Tyrosh island must be fertile enough to support a major city state.

The idea that the Tyroshi (and the Lyseni and the Myrmen) could afford to have independent pirates in their backyard just doesn't make any sense. Their own economy would soon become affected by that. I mean, this is as if we assume England would allow the Channel Islands or Ireland to do piracy in its waters own waters. That is not all that likely.

State-sanctioned piracy makes some sense but this causes the problem of the other naval powers nearby never deciding to actually severely punish the cities backing those pirates. Braavos and Volantis certainly could do that, as could the Iron Throne.

That is very true and most likely a plot hole on GRRM part but you could also look at it like this.

Tyrosh is a very large Island from the look of the maps, also more east than the other western step-stones. Perhaps we can presume The Western Stepstones are similar to Dorne while the Eastern Ones are similar to Southern Essos. Which would explain why Dorne would never really have the chance of maintaining settlements and control on their side. 

Back to the Point on Tyrosh, it also has land on Essos which we could say where most of their fertile land is compared to their Dyes (Which come from the island). 

Lys probably does more business with the Slave Cities as the whorehouses there are quite famed, Lys also has the advantage of being the first island that Merchant ships from the East pass meaning they likely stop trade and this can be their main economic benefit, and also mean they Lyseni ships never have to travel through the Stepstones. 

 

Tyrosh seems to have some control over the Stepstones (Example, Little Tyrosh) And as well if my Memory serves me Correct, the Largest Pirate harboring Stepstones is Bloodstone, fairly west. As well It is said that the three Daughters do fight over control of  these islands so we can say that while Pirates take hold of it the Daughters are still claiming it their's by right.

The Stepstones (As I am reading now) are amongst the disputed lands of the Daughters so they may not be able to have a regulated patrol on the parts of the Daughters

As For Myr I can see no way the Pirates cannot affect them so they seemed screwed. It appears the Stepstones' Pirates are a result of the Daughters never being able to claim them for a sufficient amount of time

http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Stepstones