Lore Questions - East Empire Company

[Jinzor]

 

If I had to be a betting man, I'd say the pirating of the ECC is being backed by the Thalmor. One of many things they can do to try to influence or prolong the length of the Civil War without doing so directly.

 

This would make a lot of sense.

 

 

I agree, this would be a good idea I think. Both the Imperials and Stormcloaks could blame one another for the privateering Blood Horkers (for the reasons I stated above), yet, when accused, will explain how they could not have done it, but neither will listen; convinced that their half-thought out theories are correct. However, it is in fact a ploy made by the Thamor in an effort to prolong the war and a way to hurt the economy of Skyrim.

Edited September 14, 2015 by Jinzor

[CaptainPatch]

If I had to be a betting man, I'd say the pirating of the ECC is being backed by the Thalmor. One of many things they can do to try to influence or prolong the length of the Civil War without doing so directly.

There are actually only four applicable scenarios:

 

1) If nearly all of the attacks are against EEC ships when they are transporting Stormcloak cargoes, then most likely the "pirates" are working for the Empire.

2) If nearly all of the attacks are against EEC ships when they are transporting Imperial cargoes, then most like the "pirates" are working for the Stormcloaks.

3) If the attacks are approximately equal, Imperial and Stormcloak cargoes, then most likely the "pirates" are working for the AD.

4) The "pirates" may actually be pirates, attacking targets of opportunity. The fact that the EEC owns and operates the largest market share of the maritime trade traffic just makes it look like the EEC is being targeted disproportionately.

[fraquar]

1) If nearly all the attacks are against ECC ships when they are transporting Stormcloak cargoes, then most likely the "pirates" are working for the Empire - but only if the Empire is winning the war. If the Stormcloaks are winning, it's a pretty good bet a 3rd party is instigating matters to try to level the playing field - i.e. an AD backed operation.

 

2) Same as 1 for the Imperial war shipments.

 

3 makes no sense, they (AD) wouldn't be targeting proportionately (especially when the Imperial shipments likely vastly outnumber any Stormcloak shipments anyway), they'd be targeting one side to level the playing field. All targeting proportionately means is the weaker side gets weaker, and that's contrary to their objective. At any given time, we'd expect to see disproportion if the AD was backing raiding operations.

 

Agree with 4.

[fraquar]

If the AD was backing operations, much like Karliah, they'd be going through an intermediary to get their work accomplished. We know the AD has ridiculously good intel on Imperial operations in Skyrim, hell they were waiting for Tullius at Helgen. Their depth of knowledge of Stormcloak operations is another question though.

[CaptainPatch]

 

Windhelm is the ECC Headquarters

 

Sorry, I didn't mention this before - for my mod, I'm going to be creating a new EEC headquarters in Skyrim and make the existing EEC presence in Windhelm just a trading post with an office

There's a distinct difference between a Headquarters and a Transportation Hub. HQ is primarily a large Administration building that does mostly paperwork that relates to ALL of the Hubs. The EEC operations in both Solitude and Windhelm are pointedly just Hubs, as they really have only ONE EEC Administrator attending to operations for that ONE city. The HQ is also where you would find the CEO, corporate President, and the Board of Directors.

[kimmera]

 

 

Windhelm is the ECC Headquarters

 

Sorry, I didn't mention this before - for my mod, I'm going to be creating a new EEC headquarters in Skyrim and make the existing EEC presence in Windhelm just a trading post with an office

There's a distinct difference between a Headquarters and a Transportation Hub. HQ is primarily a large Administration building that does mostly paperwork that relates to ALL of the Hubs. The EEC operations in both Solitude and Windhelm are pointedly just Hubs, as they really have only ONE EEC Administrator attending to operations for that ONE city. The HQ is also where you would find the CEO, corporate President, and the Board of Directors.

 

 

If it is organized that way.... again we really don't know the structure. There isn't necessarily a board. There are companies but have we seen anything like modern corporate business structures in the TES setting? Usually it seems more like proprietorships (either sole or family business). Not sure that we have seen any indications of businesses as independent entities from ownership or situations where there is a board of directors and the head is anyone other than the owner.

[CaptainPatch]

 

we really don't know the structure. There isn't necessarily a board. There are companies but have we seen anything like modern corporate business structures in the TES setting? Usually it seems more like proprietorships (either sole or family business). Not sure that we have seen any indications of businesses as independent entities from ownership or situations where there is a board of directors and the head is anyone other than the owner.

I believe that it is mentioned somewhere that EEC operates under a charter provided by the Empire. A charter isn't something that the Empire would want to get out of its oversight. That is, it isn't like EEC would be selling/leasing franchise rights to just anybody. That would make every EEC hub to be under the direct ownership of the EEC and under the direction of EEC appointees/employees. Further, part of the oversight involves penalties: The Empire would want to know where the Powers That Be in the corporation can be found so if they commit some no-no, they can be quickly arrested and punished if they have royally pissed off the charter-giver. [There is an adage in Business that goes, "You may delegate authority, but you can never delegate the responsibility." In short, companies are responsible for the actions of the employees they have set to perform whatever tasks.] That person/those persons can't run the company as a single entity if they are scattered all over the map if they are all responsible for setting corporate policy. (Especially is a low-tech world where Communication can take weeks.) As an example, the people that were in charge of operating ALL of the East India Company were located in the same city (London). But it had a network of far flung offices scattered around the globe, each under the direction of local Administrators that saw to the day-to-day locals operations, and responsibility for assuring corporate policy was adhered to.

[kimmera]

A charter is essentially a license. The concept pre-dates that of the corporation. A charter, or letter of mark, or the like allows the bearer certain specific rights within the kingdom, sometimes as a monopoly right but not always.

 

Examples would be the right to engage in piracy against foreign powers, the right to declare your wine 'the official royal wine' or even the right to have a ship or a vineyard at all.

 

The Crown does retain the right to pull that license so does still retain control, but no corporate structure is required.

[fraquar]

The headquarters would know any and all shipments the ECC was making, like any transportation headquarters in any company would. Case in point, I work at a transportation hub but to deviate from any planned transportation route I have to clear it through our transportation headquarters (not corporate HQ, but transportation HQ - two different physical locations). Windhelm is the ECC's transportation HQ in Skyrim - all ECC shipping in Skyrim would be expected to be tracked by Windhelm ECC HQ.

 

If the mod author is going to relegate Windhelm to just a hub, that's fine - my guess is he'd move the transportation HQ to Solitude then?

[CaptainPatch]

The headquarters would know any and all shipments the ECC was making, like any transportation headquarters in any company would. Case in point, I work at a transportation hub but to deviate from any planned transportation route I have to clear it through our transportation headquarters (not corporate HQ, but transportation HQ - two different physical locations). Windhelm is the ECC's transportation HQ in Skyrim - all ECC shipping in Skyrim would be expected to be tracked by Windhelm ECC HQ.

For that era, tech level, that first line is quite wrong. It may know these things eventually, once the hub office forwards a copy of all manifests that were shipped that month. The speed of transportation would be reduced to a crawl, even for local deliveries if the central HQ had to first be notified of what was to be shipped before it ever left the dock. The hub Administrator would be responsible for assuring that company policy was strictly adhered to -- e.g. the kinds of things may be limited to just raw materials but never finished goods, or may include finished goods excluding weapons, etc. -- hiring and firing of company personnel, maintenance of company structures, equipment, and other assets, etc. In short the Administrators decide where and how money shall be made (shipments), what kind of expenses the company will incur to do so (additional ships built, others decommissioned, and negotiating contracts) all in the best interests of the company. Accounts would be required ("the books") to show that their decisions were profitable (Rule #1) and within the guidelines of company policy. For example, the local hub would make money for EEC by transporting goods, but not by buying and selling goods like a common merchant. The exact limitations would have been spelled out in the charter.

 

It would be highly unlikely that the EEC would have its HQ in a Skyrim city. It may be possible that there was a Provincial HQ in each province. But all of those would most likely in turn report to the central HQ, most likely in Cyrodiil and within Cyrodiil, most likely in Imperial City.

Edited September 27, 2015 by CaptainPatch