this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2023
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chapotraphouse
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The Empire is an extractive regime funnelling wealth into the imperial core of Cyrodil at the expense of the provinces. Not only that, but the provinces are extorted for the majority of the manpower of the imperial legions, with the officer core being made up of the Cyrodilian nobility.
The Empire knowingly permits slavery amongst it's subjects, and it's history is one of a succession of revolts.
The proto-fascist Stormcloaks are preferable to the extant fascism of the Thalmor and the mature imperial project of the Empire because it still has the potential to move in a less harmful direction, as the feudal regimes of the west and south of Skyrim do not share most of the exclusionary value of the northern holds.
Tamriel is not a capitalist country, the Empire is not characterized by a peculiar imperial extraction regime, just a continental system of legal suzerainty and tributaries ala the Ming or Tang. bethesda is very confused which vibes they wanted to evoke, so they're aesthetically romanesque, but the content of client kings and psuedo-feudalism is not Roman whatsoever. they're even on-paper against slavery, the most roman thing ever.
Tamriel is not a capitalist country, but imo it seems pretty clear the province of Cyrodiil is a province wherein the capitalist mode of circulation prevails and enjoys the patronage of a continent-spanning empire to extract various luxury/exotic goods from periphery areas for profit.
In Morrowind, this was ofc very, very clear (East Empire Company, monopoly on Ebony, paper contracts, co-opting local rulers, etcetc its all very British empire).
In Oblivion we see the imperial core which is suitably saccharine on its surface but horrifying just below (e.g. the murderous countess of Leyawiin, the feeding of prisoners to vampires in Skingrad, Bravil's general horribleness, beggars everywhere, etc.)
In Skyrim we see a part of the Imperial core (but not the core-core) 200 years after the Empire suffered its greatest crisis, defacto collapsed and 'returned' with a tiny portion of its territory (notably missing: the sugar plantations of Elweyr, the Ebony mines of Morrowind and Hammerfel; the tropical trees of Black Marsh i.e. the areas from which the majority of wealth would have likely been extracted).
Also I'd note that client-kings was very much characteristic of early Roman expansion (although definitely not so much the periods of higher imperial power). Pseudo-feudalism isn't really descriptive of what we see in any of the TES games imo; Oblivion uses titles such as 'count', but so did/does capitalist Britain.
You can extract resources without being capitalist. Unlike the historical Chinese dynasties, the imperial core territory is not self sufficient, they are entirely reliant on resources and manpower from the provinces to maintain control over their holdings.
yeah like the Romans. but Oblivion, Skyrim, and Daggerfall offer basically no evidence for that besides an aesthetic affinity between the Empire and Romans. Morrowind has more of that character and a nativist resistance streak, but the Empire can't even implement the ban on slavery there, so it's clearly tenuous.
after however many thousands of years of Lore there is for Tamriel, "core territory" surely expands. the "core" of the Huang He was good agricultural land in very remote times, but lacked mineral resources. once the agricultural produce of the valley state(s) grew enough to enforce influence over more expansive territory and bring those into the fold. after a really long time, huge swathes of land beyond the chief rivers of China are 'core' and we call them self-sufficient.
even if Cyrodiil itself is insufficient (which i kind of doubt on paper, cause they had to give them farms and mines, rivers and hills for gameplay variety) the whole continent is the integrated economic system we're talking about, and this is acknowledged even by the rebels in Skyrim with their "Talos made the empire" type shit. it's also supported with the games calling all the disparate 'countries' of Tamriel "provinces", the common language being spoken between the whole continent, and the long history of unification.
I'd argue this is intentional; the Septim Empire consciously mimics the Reman empire's aesthetics to bolster its legitimacy.
I wanna point out that Tamriel the continent has existed for thousands of years, but the Septim Empire of a United Tamriel lasted only around 400 years, and during a large part of that was consumed with internal conflicts, outright civil wars and failed Akaviri adventures.
Before the Septim empire, there was a thousand year interregnum of warlords under a nominal akaviri potentate. Before that, there was a Reman empire for a few hundred years which nominally controlled the entire continent except for morrowind, but the extent of its control on the Summerset Isles was getting tribute.
I also think that the imperial core of the Septim and Reman empires is likely not just cyrodiil, but likely extends to High Rock and Skyrim (empire of (tamrielic) man after all). It should also be noted that not the entirety of Cyrodiil, High Rock or Skyrim benefits from being "imperial core" to equal extents (c.f. beggars) or at all (e.g. goblins, reachfolk, orcs). In historical imperial cores, the benefits of imperialism trickle down, so to speak, to the imperial core's relative poor rather than being spread to the imperialised so i would assume this to be the case here
400 years of Septim, 400 years of Reman-everything-but-morrowind is a really long time, and clearly stuck ideologically in the between period being called "interregnum" with the warring states attempting to recreate that same system. Morrowind being the latest Septim-addition, and being subject to EEC exploitation is a bit more like a core-periphery relationship, but we don't actually know the extent to which Septims or Remans actually exerted control over other provinces "just tribute"--->"slave sugar plantations"
the clumsy thing about doing world-systems analysis to Tamriel is that the exploitative core irl had new frontiers for a capitalistic expansion, but Tamriel doesn't have new anything new for many centuries besides Akavir which they don't successfully exploit. so people itt are postulating some sort of medieval neoliberal turnabout where a core territory of the Empire (Skyrim) is a peripheral subject. much simpler to just think of it as medieval China or Holy Roman Empire
The in between period is called the 'interregnum' because the Akaviri Potentate originally positioned itself as a temporary regency pending the discovery of a new dragonborn emperor, and because Tiber Septim leaned on the Reman empire for legitimacy, not because each warlord saw themselves as trying to become emperor.
The various warring states were not attempting to recreate the Reman empire; in general they were just returning to the status quo before Reman united most of the continent against the Akaviri invaders (who then swore fealty to him). When I wrote 'nominal' control I meant:
Reman troops on the coast of black marsh with most of the coastal argonians swearing some form of fealty on pain of having their hist trees burnt to the ground
Alinor officially being subservient, but even Reman diplomats not allowed outside the diplomatic district of the capital
Half or more of high rock, hammerfell and skyrim being de-facto independent (reachfolk, orcs, alikr)
An unknown portion of the jungles of cyrodiil filled by ayleids still
The Septims and Remans are entirely seperate entities with entirely separate organizational structures (as far as we know anyways; we have mostly just myth/song/legend for the Reman period).
Setting aside Reman empire bc there's a distinct lack of information on it, we have indication in Morrowind of the empire's relationship to the province it has the least official control over. So imo at least this tells us that the provinces outright conquered and forcefully integrated would have even more unequal trade relationships (and e.g. in Argonian account we hear of slavery in Black Marsh, of Argonians, by imperial immigrant-landlords).
I wanna re-iterate my position that Skyrim is part of the Septim/Mede Imperial Core; i have no interest in arguing about what others in the thread are arguing.
"Tamriel" is a continent. The Empire is based in the human core of Cyrodiil, 1/2 of High Rock and Skyrim. The Imperial Core of the Human Empire has tons of New Frontiers to expand into; Black Marsh, Morrowind (Temple preserve of Vvardenfel newly open for business and settlement in Morrowind), Valenwood, the Orc controlled territories of High Rock (eventually taken over through co-optation), the goblin controlled territories of Cyrodiil, any area considered 'wild' and therefore being "unproductive" (given time, this would likely see the empire drawn into conflict with the Bosmer bc green pact, but thats part of why the Septim empire pushes the cult of the 8 and 1 so much).
And you mention the HRE, but it should be noted there was a whole frontier (both for the feudal lords and for the bishops) to the East of it for the entirety of its existence. There was continual economic pressure put on them, German merchants (and bishops) and outright settlers throughout Hungary, Poland, the Baltic. When the HRE was created, like half of Germany wasn't even German or Christian and that would change within 300 years.
Pretty sure they abolished Slavery following the Red Year in Morrowind, as the Dres that were the biggest reserve of support for slavery were all eaten by the Argonians when they bulked up on Hiist sap so the Hlallu king had enough influence to end the practice without the possibility of a Dres-Redoran-Indoril uprising.
Also, Ulfrick is a huge dork and is not good enough at break-dancing to defeat the Thalmor in the one arena that truly matters. He's also presumably racist towards monkeys, and we're gonna need the Imga if we're going to pull this off. Even with Numidium Tiber Septim could only force a draw with the old Altmer. What chance do we have without a bunch of ballet-doing gorillas?
I really think our best chance is quickly putting down the Stormcloak revolt then using the death of Emperor Mede to steer a charismatic Bosmer leader on to the throne, then use mixed loyalties in Valendwood as a lever to break Elsweyr off from the Dominion. If the Empire can demonstrate that it's a credible challenger to the Dominion we can probably get the Hist on board purely through shared interest in maintaining the status quo of reality, then start constructing Battlespires in the northner parts of the Tamriel in preparation of eventually invading Summerset Isle from the one direction they're not expecting; ~~space~~ Oblivion!
If we can figure out where Vivec fucked off to and assemble a strategic mythic alliance of Paarthunax, Vivec, the Mane, the Dragon Born, the Nerevarine if they're still around, and whatever other quasi-divine pro-existing legends are wandering around I think we have a good chance of yelling "TAMRIEL EXISTS" loud enough to deafen the Aldmeri high wizards to all other possibilities.
This post demonstrates unprecented levels of lore-knowledge
Right? It has been amazing. I have been wanting to jump in with some love for the actual heros who are the anprim trans argonians but I wouldn't really have contributed anything of value.
I got lost on the way to picking up my adventurer's gear. I know that's all of an entire room. Lotta lore went over my head.
We're gonna push King Ulfric left, any day now he'll allow the Dunmer out of the ghettos of Windhelm and the Khaijit to trade inside the walls!
'ghettoes' lmao this is blatant imperial propaganda, they have like 1/3rd of the city, stone walls, doors, lights, everything. there are 3 streets in the city and they have an entire one of them, theres like the inn and the graveyard and the blacksmiths house and the castle as the entire rest of the city, there are literally more dark elf homes than nord buildings. all of the homeless are men, not elves. and this is during a civil war in their literal revolutionary military capital. any other political power would have treated the elves worse in the same situation. even other elves would probably not let dark elf refugees shelter in their military capitals during a war in which the dark elves loyalty was in question. Ulfric will personally recruit you no matter what race you are, he literally doesn't care as long as you fight the imperialist invaders. this 'stormcloaks are racist' narrative is the most baby-brained surface level read of the situation. literally 2 guys in the city are racist, one of them homeless and mentally unwell, not any of the leadership, and the person they are harassing literally turns out to be related to an imperial spy if you look into it.
The warcry "Skyrim belongs to the Nords!" Is in itself a racist warcry that erases native Snow Elves (and Falmer) existence, as well as the pagan Reachmen of the south west (who are A: native to the Reach and B: not Nords!)
literally no faction in skyrim is on the side of the reachmen so you might as well say every faction is fascist
Oh how generous of the Nords to allow them 1 whole alley in their city where they cannot tread otherwise, whereas in Solitude any Man or Mer may walk the streets unhindered! Indeed, that you hold parts of Skyrim to be more progressive than Windhelm is such that they retain some tradition and loyalty to the Empire! To suggest the Nords are not racist is to lay bare how the Empire, after losing to the Thalmor do not treat the Altmer in such contempt as the Nords do the Dunmer for no good reason at all save Nordic Supremacy!
'1 whole alley' its literally a third of the fucking city, they have more houses than the nords do! they can travel anywhere they want! they have thicker walls and bigger houses than the high street in whiterun! and every city in skyrim bars the khajiit traders, they are literally all fences. not all khajiit, just the ones that are travelling merchants. the fact that the empire just accept the altmer's fascist rule is not an argument in their favor, but the opposite - the altmer literally want to unmake reality. every single one of them believes in the necessity of this, it is their religion and the elder scrolls series is honestly written based on some weird racial/ethnic lines
They had two choices, accept a ceasefire with some concessions so that they can build strength for the next war (this is literally just a waiting game the Imperials will win--humans breed faster than elves) or die. The Stormcloaks are being ridiculous babies and the thing they're maddest about, the enforcement of the ban on Talos worship, is something they themselves brought about. It wasn't being enforced until they started protesting about it and brought undue attention to the matter. They're just fucking idiot fascists, they don't understand the situation they're in at all and everything they do makes everything worse.
This is a fringe conspiracy theory even among lore nerds. No one in-universe believes this to be the case and even from our bird's eye view of the situation there is very little evidence of this. But even assuming you're right, the Stormcloaks are making their success in this endeavor significantly more likely.
Also I'd like to point out that saying "the altmer" want to do this is really cringe and racist. Altmer are a race, made up of individuals. They aren't a hivemind and don't have a shared set of beliefs lol It would be like saying "The asians" want to do xyz when you're talking about Vietnam or India or something.
literally, more dark elf housing with better construction than the nords have, in their own fucking city in the middle of a fucking civil war! What other nordic cities can say the same? which other nordic city accepted a third of their population to be foreign refugees? which other nords offered a third of their city to elf refugees? None of them!
The text, explicitly: "These people are restricted to a ghetto and when they dare to venture out they are openly mistreated by the extremely racist local population. Look, here's an example literally right in front of your face the moment you enter the city. Look at it. This is an oppressed population."
You, somehow: "Wow, the dark elves really got it good here!"
the example 'right in your face' literally turns out to be an imperial spy lmao, literally 2 people harassing a spy does not = a racist movement. cite another specific example and you may have a point.
i have proven to my own satisfaction that the stormcloaks are significantly less racist than any other nord city in skyrim, and i have already shown that the single instance of harassment is literally against a literal imperial spy. if you don't understand how that proves me correct about the stormcloaks being the least racist faction of the civil war beside maybe the reachmen (who kill all foreigners indiscriminately but have an excuse in being the current target of indiscriminate genocide themselves) then theres no point in further engagement
The game explicitly states that they live in a ghetto and shows you many examples of them experiencing racist persecution. There's several quests and lines of dialogue that touches on this within the game, not to mention the other clear signs of racist bs we see the Nord's exhibiting (the reachmen and the khajit being treated as they are).
It's very clear that this is what they intended to convey.
The fact that the game engine is limited to showing Extreme small cities and that the resources they had available at the time made it so they just copy-pasted houses for the dunmer rather than making a bespoke level design isn't evidence of the dunmer "actually being treated better" but instead just an example of how limitations of technology and production will at times interfere with the story one is trying to tell.
literally every faction in skyrim is racist against the khajiits, literally every khajiit merchant in the game is a fence and will buy stolen goods no questions asked. that is a kind of racism built into the game world by the writers, but the stormcloaks are not unique in that regard. every nord in skyrim basically hates elves anyway, most of them don't give them 1/3rd of their town