Synopsis: Villarceau

The world currently named "Villarceau" is basically a flat disk with a hole in the middle. Humans live on one side, elves on the other, and dwarves on the edge (there's no magic, but there are some gravitational tricks of the setting that induce racial traits and geographical features). Each side has a major ocean in the center, the human side with an immense whirlpool that drains through a hole in the disk and emerges from the elvish side in a pillar of water that launches upwards for several kilometers before evaporating and falling back down. The elvish sky is dominated by a very large moon (if I were writing it as a science fiction book, the inhabited disk would technically be the tidally-locked moon of a gas giant, but the inhabitants couldn't possibly know that) which blocks the sun for most of the day and makes organic resources very scarce on that side of the moon (little or no photosynthesis, though they have some very large mushrooms), making for a lot of dangerous carnivores.

The elves are... not pleasant. They're not mischievous or amoral or anything like traditional Fae Folk, but neither are they exactly Tolkiennic. In fact, they're basically Wagnerian Nazis who want to conquer the light side because they've deserve it and humanity doesn't. The dwarves spend a great deal of time keeping them contained, but the humans (mainly Greek city-state cultural analogues) are basically ignorant of the threat and squabble amongst themselves profusely. (The dwarves haven't told them much because they'd kind of prefer not to be thought of as needing help, especially when the humans rather envy their mineral wealth.)

The elves, of course, eventually break through the perimeter and begin conquering major tracts of the light side; the humans rally together, ultimately under one General Durcheinander. My currently-nameless MC is a footsoldier in his army who gets caught up in major intergovernmental intrigues before the war is finally resolved.

A major part of what I'm considering is how humanity can fight and win against an enemy that is innately superior to it in all military aspects, without giving up or losing its sanity. Trees are important (the elvish political movement uses it to symbolize their goals, since trees only grow on the other side), as is the whirlpool/pillar, the gas giant, and themes of penetration/interaction/spying/communication (deep but unmapped caves often go all the way to the other side but are inhabited by dangerous animals and elven outcasts). (The "light-is-good"/"dark-is-evil" dichotomy isn't as big; most of the creatures and cities on the dark side are bioluminescent and very well lit, so that dichotomy breaks down pretty quickly. Plus all of the civilizations, including the elves, are severely factional anyway.)

If you're still with me after all that, got any ideas for a better title?