More Words, Deeper Hole

I was wondering if it's a Marooned in Realtime situation, where they didn't have enough high tech to go around a growing population. They've got geosync satellites with particle beams but I'm not sure they can make any more. Though I just read the passage where Jannik leaves his meeting, and it seems like a very small rocket is his transport? Still, orbital difficulty >> sub-sub orbital difficulty.

Limited high-tech wouldn't explain keeping the rest primitive. Though I'm not sure if the wizards are actively keeping them primitive vs. being malignly neglectful and not teaching them anything. I doubt the wizards can be spun as meaning well in the end but there might be more roots than "we like the power differential."

Corvus at least was described earlier as being genuinely helpful in using his scrying information to notify about bad weather. "He’ll
predict the weather, sometimes, and always if there’s a heavy gale. And if the fishing is poor,
he’ll give advice that’s always true." Plus the installation of electric streetlights. Vs. Jannik's "helpfulness" in not unleashing the dragons.

Hmm, though he was keeping the lighting 'spells' secret. That's more than neglect, though still not persecution.

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Anyway I came here to note that the books are quite diverse: lots of skin and hair colors, a bit of sexual orientation diversity, and no obvious sexual division of labor -- warriors and bawdy-houses are both equal opportunity, if not explicitly equal. The big exceptions being the mostly female steerswomen and the mostly male wizards. The former is commented on; I don't think either is explained. Why have the steerswomen been mostly women for centuries?