This gets even more interesting as the story evolves. There are those who seriously believe they can just *touch* the outside world lightly as far as technology is concerned?

Their Empire is very strong and very organized. But if they need new technology they have the same weakness as the rest of the world. And that's going to cost them.

What weakness are you thinking about?

Pretty much the weakness inherant in their very request for service from Gene and Roger. You can't use a little technology nowadays.

It used to be (back in the days when the Empire's compuer was new) that a computer was a separate thing unto itself. You could watch TV, drive your car, cook food in your oven, talk on your phone, take pictures with your camera, be awakened by your alarm clock, etc. Nowadays... your TV, your car, your oven, your phone, your camera, your alarm clock and nearly everything else have computers in them. And soon they will all be communicating with each other.

If the Empire can't go back to scribes then they're headed for the future. In this segment of the story it is actually revealed that some Empire merchants have to function outside the Empire so that they can do Internet buisiness. That's the shadow of doom being cast right there. Their new main computer is going to enable them to do things they couldn't do with the old one. Once those improvements take hold the Empire will have to chose between constant improvement or stagnation. You can't change a little, its either alot - or none.

"The effects of the computer's lost stretch further than expected..."

Situation normal...

This is very interesting, the story is slowly getting bigger and bigger- I really want to see where this goes