Don Edwards

Russia as a whole is rather thinly populated. 90% of its population are in the European 25%, which is still thinly populated compared to the rest of Europe. Which means that, relative to its size, it doesn't generate a lot of resources or industry. Most of its major rivers flow north, into Arctic and near-arctic seas that freeze over in winter. Its non-iced ports connect to the ocean through waterways that other countries control - except for Murmansk, which is on a rather mountainous peninsula in the extreme north so is probably nearly-unreachable by land in winter. (Its historical significance is also limited by the fact that it was founded during World War I.) Meanwhile it's bound by mountains along most of its western and southern reaches. All this seriously hampers communication and trade. Russia has exactly one megalopolis, and that one is shared with Finland and Estonia. The US, in contrast, has 11, five of which are shared. Heck, Canada has parts of three. Europe has seven, one of which takes in France's entire eastern border, big chunks of neighboring countries, the entirety of a couple smaller countries, and London; that one area's population is about 2/3 of Russia's. Seriously, the main thing that has protected Russia from being overrun and conquered substantially more often than history portrays, is that it isn't worth the effort unless the possibly-would-be conqueror is (a) running from a stronger enemy, (b) chasing someone, or (c) after something on the far side. (Genghis Khan was chasing someone.) And that's before we get into its political and social history...

Not weird. Just the maiden's father's wishful thinking.

Everyone needs to be self-serving to some degree. However, like everything else, it can be overdone.

At most, I would go with that probably being true. But I have doubts of even that. Start with a new deck (they are assembled sorted by suit and then number), and for the first several shuffles some orders are near-impossible. In fact, two "perfect" shuffles will give you four aces followed by four deuces then four treys, etc., with the suits being in the same order in each group.

I'd say that a guy who believes he's sterile - but isn't - is likely to be less limited in his spreading than the average guy.

One big hole in it: take an individual, X. Add some significant number of generations, I'll say about 20 but don't quote me. After that amount of time, one of two numbers will be statistically indistinguishable from zero. Either the number of living descendants of X, or the number of living people who plausibly could be descended from X (based on geography, migrations, and trade routes) but aren't descended from X. Based on when it appears Raven was born, I'd say that (at least) most humans of European ancestry are descended from Pandora.

There are also several instances of "ring species." These happen when there's an obstacle to a species' spread that individuals can't cross, but can go around. Said obstacle being quite large, as compared to the distance individuals travel. So they spread around it in both directions, over multiple generations, with slight genetic drift... and when they finally meet again on the far side of the obstacle, the new neighbors can't interbreed. So variety A can cross with variety B, who can mate with variety C, and so on... but A and P, who are next-door neighbors, can't. (Another puzzle of "where and how do you draw a species line?". Along with the notion that each individual is the same species as their own mother, but if you go some number of generations back then maybe they aren't the same species....) There are some specimens from north-central Asia that carry the DNA of H.Sapiens Sapiens, H.Sapiens Neanderthalensis, H.Sapiens Denisova, and... um... those other H.Sapiens. Not Heidelbergensis. The ones we know absolutely nothing about except these odd traces of DNA in these specific specimens.

Usually sterile. This is more true of the males than the females. Tigons, the offspring of a tiger and a lioness, are the same.

Looked out the window a bit ago and could see the rain streaming down, blown practically sideways... .... and nothing was getting wet. It wasn't rain. It was pollen particles from the trees.

https://runt-of-the-web.com/damn-you-autocorrect-fails/#2

Well, telling these humans the new rules for immortals would, at least, be allowed under the old rules - guiding and/or empowering.

If I had that job, I'd probably start by wiping the drive.

That depends on the baron. Some who inherited their titles were noteworthy for a near-complete lack of both accomplishments and screw-ups.