Riverlands ceding territory

[FylkirKarl]

If the Riverlands were to cede territory to make their borders more defensible against invasions, how much and what territory should they cede? The most obvious choice would to cede everything below Riverrun as would leave their rivers to act as a natural barricade against any forces and would give them an easier way to defend against invasions with how Riverrun is made, but that would cost them Harrenhal, Pinkmaiden, Maidenpool etc which are some fertile and bountiful lands along with all of the men coming from those lands. What do you think could make the Riverlands more defensible against invasion? A manmade river to connect the rivers between Pinkmaiden and the Stoney Sept to close off one large area of invasion from the West? Another man-made river from Riverrun to the Sunset sea to entirely close off the west from an invasion unless they use a bridge or use boats which would be excellent for the Rivermen who use light infantry skirmishers. What do you think? Is the idea of creating manmade rivers as a defense against an invasion is too much? Would the Riverlands ever have the chance to be more defensible against invasions or do they just have too many weak spots.

 

[falcotron]

I think making manmade rivers with the technology likely available to them would be a massive undertaking. Look at how expensive Suez and Panama were even in the 20th century.

Meanwhile, giving up the southeast means not only giving up half their bountiful farmland, it also means giving up all of their trade with Essos (and Dorne). They'd no longer have a port city (unless they could somehow convince traders to bypass Maidenpool and come to Saltpans instead), nor would they have the river-to-ocean trade cities on routes like the Blackwater Rush (and we don't know how important those are in-universe, but in our world, it's not a coincidence that half the Hanseatic cities were not on the coast, but a bit inland on rivers like the Elbe and the Weser—and we do know that people fought over the Blackwater Rush for centuries). That would already be costly today, but imagine how much worse it will be in the future, assuming Westeros progresses toward a more modern economy.

More generally, the reason they're a rich land is basically the same reason they're a frequent battleground, so giving up the latter probably means giving up the former.

Also, who would they cede them to? Turning the Crownlands into a rich and powerful domain instead of just King's Landing and its dependencies probably isn't in the interests of any of the Lords Paramount, but any other alternative means giving the Stormlands, the Vale, or the West wealthy territory on their borders from which they could attack more easily than ever. The only real option is to create a new land—and if they did that, I'd rather be LP of South Riverlands than North Riverlands.

 

[Trigger Warning]

It isn't worth the loss in power and revenue and a man made river is beyond too great an undertaking. 

The issue is that it's being compared against regions that just happen to have super defensive bottlenecks, typically that should be the exception rather than the rule. They should just build castles on strategic points along the rivers to project power which I imagine they already have done, they just never work because GRRM has castles fall like dominoes or be insurmountable when the plot demands it. 

[falcotron]

30 minutes ago, Trigger Warning said:

they just never work because GRRM has castles fall like dominoes or be insurmountable when the plot demands it. 

My headcanon is that a couple centuries of dragon-based warfare was enough for Westeros to lose all strategic knowledge of siegecraft and castlecraft, and they're only gradually relearning it. (And it's even worse in Essos, with a few millennia of dragon-based warfare, and then the Dothraki showing up to attack everyone just as they were starting to learn how to fight each other.)

I know that doesn't quite work in a few instances (you can explain Storm's End as Stannis and Randyll being geniuses who figured things out ahead of everyone else, but that doesn't work for Riverrun…), but it still works better than what we actually get in the story.

[FylkirKarl]

I'm not saying that building the man-made rivers or canals as a defensive bottleneck will be easy, but this is the same universe that has the Kingsroad, Harrenhal, the Wall and Casterly Rock as man-made constructions with medieval technology. I have to disagree with my point of ceding the Southern riverlands as now that takes away a lot more harvest and troops than I had expected and would render the Riverlands mute. Their best chance is to just build more castles along the borders as a position of strength as someone said above.

[falcotron]

12 hours ago, FylkirKarl said:

I'm not saying that building the man-made rivers or canals as a defensive bottleneck will be easy, but this is the same universe that has the Kingsroad, Harrenhal, the Wall and Casterly Rock as man-made constructions with medieval technology.

Well, the Kingsroad is, other than its length, not out of line for medieval technology—we're told that it's nowhere near as impressive as the old Valyrian roads still in existence all over Essos. Also, the Kingsroad was built by a strong and popular king with the resources of the entire Seven Kingdoms.

And the Wall and various ancient castles were built with magic in their bronze age, not with medieval technology.

Harrenhal is a good point, however. But the Hoares nearly bankrupted their realm to build it over 40 years, and used thousands of slaves captured from the neighboring realms. I don't think that's something the Tullys or Freys or whoever could get away with today. And Harrenhal itself would hardly be a positive inspiration to anyone who wanted to try a construction on that scale again. And I still don't think the scale is anything like a Panama-like artificial river across a continent.

[Dorian Martell's son]

23 hours ago, FylkirKarl said:

 Would the Riverlands ever have the chance to be more defensible against invasions or do they just have too many weak spots.

No, it was written specifically to be a magnet for conflict. It makes for a more interesting story that way