CaptainPatch

What a stretch. If it had been the jarl of Eastmarch sending aid to the jarl of the Reach, then Ulfric's force would have been labeled "Eastmarch Stormcloak militia" to distinguish them from Eastmarch guardsmen. They weren't. Ulfric was a big boy by then. He had even been old enough to go off and fight for the Empire in Cyrodiil. When he got back, he apparently/obviously gathered a military force together under his own banner, that of the Stormcloaks. NOT Eastmarch militia; not any hold's militia. (And probably labeled "militia" so they wouldn't be confused with bandits -- which they behaved like after having captured Markarth from the Reachmen/Forsworn.)

As bad as the Black Death plagues were, the die-off amounted to "only" 33%. In a LARGE population, that is eminently survivable. 90%, otoh, is catastrophic, no matter what the size of the population. Yes, some/most native tribes survived, but in a seriously weakened state that helped to make them pushovers to European incursions. And quite a few tribes and sub-tribes (clan equivalents) vanished entirely. Accounts in New England described numerous native communities where only the structures remained. Given that native History was almost entirely oral history, there simply were not enough survivors of many vanished tribes to pass on the story of their demise. Spacing of communities isn't as important as the amount of interactivity between communities and community members. For example, it doesn't matter that two communities are a hundred miles apart if there is a traveling merchant that runs a caravan from an infected community and travels to the distant community. And then to another and another and another... Of course, an important factor is the nature of the deadly disease itself. If an infected subject shows symptoms almost immediately, then it's possible to quarantine that person and keep him away from everyone else until he dies or recovers. If, otoh, a person can be contagious for days/weeks before showing symptoms, that disease WILL be quite pervasive. Also keep in mind that the Indian tribes in the Western Hemisphere pre-Columbus were often HUGE, with communities exceeding 100,000 population being relatively common. By the time the European settlers arrived, tribes that exceeded a couple thousand in total were quite rare. (But a hundred years later, as the survivors had built up substantial antibodies, tribal populations were on the rebound.)

One of the most significant things that happened in the Western Hemisphere was introduced by European explorers: European diseases from which the natives had ZERO immunity. By the time the first settlers arrived, the overall population had dropped by nearly 90% in many/most areas. There were entire tribes that ceased to exist, before European settlers built their first cabin. Depopulation from disease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_history_of_indigenous_peoples_of_the_Americas Populations that are too small and isolated have the added problem that they lack genetic diversity. (There's a reason why most civilized societies don't allow siblings or first cousins to marry.) [but since this is "just a game", that can probably be disregarded.... along with any other realistic considerations.] Except that Tullius is NOT a Military Governor of Skyrim. He is strictly the director of Imperial military operations in Skyrim and primary liaison with the local legitimate government.

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.

If you are suggesting a one-for-one representation, then if Skyrim is a typical province representation, than an entire empire would amount to just several hundred/a couple thousand at most citizens. A population that small, spread over that much space would be in danger of disappearing due to extinction, even with no wars being fought. One debilitating flu epidemic could kill of an entire city. (There are some diseases that cannot be cured by shrine blessings or Cure Disease potions.)

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.

That last part is ridiculous. That's like saying that a treaty signed by the USA would not apply in CA because CA was not a signatory to the treaty. Being part of the Empire, any Imperial treaty applies to every province in the Empire. But you raise a good point. Tullius and the Legion, as being direct representatives of the Empire, would be responsible to suppress the attacks being made on the Thalmor Talos-hunter patrols. (Something ALL of my characters have been guilty of whenever they encountered such patrols out in the middle of nowhere.) Every one of those attacks is a treaty violation, and Tullius would be obligated to pursue and punish anyone violating an Imperial treaty.

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.

Maybe there's a comma missing here. Are you saying "the Alikr, who are Redguards"? Or counting the Alikr and Redguards as two different groups? Because in the Great War Plus (Hammerfell being the 5 years after TGW), 1) A Redguard Forebears army broke the Thalmor siege of Hegathe. 2) The Redguards pursued the Thalmor into the Alikr Desert South of Skaven, but it was the Alikr that made life.... interesting all the way back to the South coast. And 3) it was a pointedly an Imperial army that retook the Imperial City at the Battle of the Red Ring. So it wasn't ALL just the Redguards.

Much of the perception is skewed by the scaling that Bethesda was working under. Like the towns and villages, there is only ONE graphic for a character where there should be tens, hundreds, thousands of people. Comparing to Vietnam, a sweep of an area looking for opponents would have at a minimum involved at least one company = 100-120 men. The same kind of sweep/patrol that we see being done by just 4 Imperial soldiers. The battles at Whiterun and Solitude would have involved thousands/tens of thousands of soldiers, on BOTH sides. But in total, both sides combined, we see less than 100 soldiers. So, with that kind of scaling going on, I can see that there were "significant" numbers present. After the civil war ends in an Imperial victory, the FIRST thing that happens would be Tullius sending the good news back to the Imperial City. In that communication, he would query as to whether there were any specific orders that the Emperor would want to issue upon hearing that news. I would guess that Tullius would be praying to be told that he was to return to Cyrodiil ASAP. But more than likely I expect that he would be told to stay put and to make sure that the rebellion is truly and finally squashed. Along those lines, the logical course of action would be to create a small Imperial garrison in each Skyrim city which would be conducting sweeps in the areas immediately surrounding each city. Fully half of Imperial assets in Skyrim would be sent to the Reach to squash the Forsworn once and for all. AFTER THE FORSWORN have been subdued, then the next objective would be to put bandits out of business. (At least the larger operations that used to occupy the vacant forts, mines, etc.) Unfortunately for Tullius, he most likely wouldn't be recalled until after the Forsworn threat was removed. (Gives him extra motivation to make that happen ASAP.)

There's a distinct difference between military strength used to fight a war with an external foe and military required to maintain domestic tranquility. Domestically, Imperial military assets augment local authorities to suppress rampant banditry, civil unrest, and civil disorder. During times of war with a foreign power, that augmentation isn't available and the local authorities find themselves stretched thin, allowing those domestic problems to get out of hand. [This is something I have wondered about ever since the first time I helped the Empire win the civil war. Once the Empire was no longer needing to fight frequent battles with Stormcloaks, it really should have freed up manpower to hunt bandits and suppress the Forsworn attacks. But post-civil war, nothing changed. (I'm guessing that those elements were deliberately NOT reduced, just to give the player more things to do.)]

Forgot about pitch. :blush: But the point still remains: It IS possible to get quite a few different "voices" from just ONE voice actor. (Jim Backus for example, and his were without benefit of sound editing.)

Whatever the location, Bethesda will have to set up an intro that makes it possible for a player to build a character for ANY race. That said, from a marketing POV, I can't see them taking the franchise to a location where most players would have difficulty building empathy with the locals. For example, if you took all of the player character builds in the TES series where Argonians were an option, I would hazard that less than 5% of those characters would have been Argonians. Even Khajit would have been more popular I think. Of course there, there have been a LOT of players who have, but across 20+ million consumers, even a small percentage is a LOT. Still, Bethesda really has to look at projected total sales, and that WILL be affected by the popularity of the game setting. In the case of Black Marsh, that would most likely be adversely.

Trivial. Bethesda already had the voice actors' recordings, so they were no longer a factor. The only additional effort was the sound editing, taking existing recordings, tweaking bass and/or treble and playing through the editing equipment. Given scale and costs of the entire project (Skyrim), it would add about 0.0000......01% to the cost of the program.

So which do you prefer? 20 characters using the same voice, or 20 characters with 20 different voices but with slightly less quality for each?

Ignorant question: (DO correct me if I get any of this wrong.) As I understand it, the Snow Elves/Ancient Falmer controlled most of Skyrim when the Nords/Atmora arrived. The new arrivals built Saarthal, which the Snow Elves destroyed. The Nord/Atmoran survivors fled back to Atmora and returned even stronger with Ysgramor and his Companpions and proceeded to kick the snot out of the Snow Elves. Nearly annihilated, the Snow Elves fled to take shelter with their Dweomer cousins, and got sucked into the deal that eventually transformed the Snow Elves into modern Falmer. Now, from casually playing Skyrim, I always got the impression that the Dweomer had disappeared even before the Nords arrived. But as recently as 1E 113, the Nords had only just cleared the last of the elves from Skyrim. That would have the Snow Elves as Snow Elves just about 4,340 years before the game starts. That is, within the recorded history of Men in Skyrim. And the Dweomer don't vanish until much later than that. So, is there an approximate date as to just when the Dweomer vanished? And shouldn't there be records of interactions between Men and Dweomer? (Especially considering all of the Dweomer ruins that can be found scattered all over Skyrim -- which wouldn't be ruins when Men first took up residence in Skyrim. Is there any timelines showing showing overlap between Dweomer and Dragons? And what kind of relationship would the two groups had with each other?

I never understood why it is that Bethesda never bothered to tweak the recordings of the voice actors' voices. I can understand that it is cost-prohibitive to hire ONE voice actor per character, so naturally we have about 20 actors doing innumerable voices. But if they slightly shift the treble and/or bass of each recording, one actor could provide scores of distinctly different voices. Enough at least that it doesn't sound like scores of characters all having identical voices.

http://www.uesp.net/w/images/7/76/SR-npc-Urag_gro-Shub.jpg"Did you see that Librarian from Winterhold? He's got green skin, Green. Skin." And for that panel of four that you showed, if #4 had his tusks pulled, he wouldn't look all that different from #1.

What I call "Living down to peoples expectations." Still mentally contemplating that visual of an Orc before and after having had his tusks removed. If it wasn't for the green skin, they would be able to pass as any other Mer. So I'm surprised that some/many Orcs didn't go that route.

I've been pondering the overall sudden transformation from Aldmer to Orsimer. Can you imagine just how difficult the transition was for those affected, to effectively have to learn how to eat all over again, what with those tusks becoming so prominent on the lower jaw? I wonder just how many of the newly altered chose to just have the tusks yanked, just so they didn't end up wearing their meal all over their faces.

Is there any differentiation between fact and fanciful mythology? Like, if I accept the concept of sentient trees, would it be possible to send an envoy to open up a diplomatic conversation with them? Now, in TES, the deities and Daedra DO exist, and you can deduce their existence by the direct actions they take whenever someone goes and gets a blessing, or the Daedra have a conversation with a character. But I really have to wonder about sentient trees. Especially ones that can do bioengineering by tweaking their own tree sap.

@Lachdonin Was there some explanation of the origins of the Argonians and how they came to more or less own Black Marsh?

Thanks for clarifying that! I keep on confusing those two because I tend to try to connect it to the Norse multi-plane model of a single world-universe contained in the World Tree, Yggdrasil. (Asgard, Alfheim, Midgard, Svarthalfheim, etc.) So, Nirn. Gotta keep remembering that.....

Nice to know something is going on with the rest of the world. Still, as time passes, people get to wondering if things may have altered dramatically during the long interim. [chuckle] Perverse thought. The Dweomer disappeared to the other side of the planet. There they built up an all-encompassing, self-sustaining Steampunk empire and has since advanced to the Atomic Era level of tech while still having access to Magic. Recognizing just how primitive Tamriel has remained, it placed it under quarantine 2,000 years ago. Nobody goes in, and nobody gets out. Tamriel is actually a continent-sized wildlife preserve.

There seems to be tons of stuff concerning Tamriel. But Tamriel is just ONE continent on the planet Mundus. I've been thinking of Tamriel as being about the size of Australia, but North of the Equator rather than South of it. If the landmass of Mundus is approximately equivalent to Earth, then there's six more continents-worth out there. I've noted mention of Atmora as being where humanity came from to colonize Tamriel. Which makes me wonder, why did emigrate? What was so bad about Atmora that an entire migration seem like the right thing to do? Disaster? (Like what happened in Morrowind.) Overcrowding? Exhausted resources? What??? And given that Atmora wasn't totally depopulated, just what has been going on there for the last 5,000 years? You would think that in all that time there would have been at least a few visits from people from the Old Continent. Heck, if there could be an entire mass migration using the sailing vessels from 5,000 years ago, the East Empire Company should be having regular trade runs set up between the two continents. Atmora would be just ONE other continent keeping Tamriel company on the planet. What are the other continents like? Like the current Atmorans, why haven't we noted any visitations, expeditions, or delegations? Where's Mundus' versions of Leif Ericson, Marco Polo, Zheng He, John Cabot, Francisco Pizarro, Hernan Cortes, Ferdinand Magellan, Hernando de Soto, et al? It's only natural for intelligent beings, nations, and empires to want to see what lies just over the horizon. Where are they?