The Famous Five, Heroes and Villains of the Age of Martin Septim Options

[Ceidwad]

Welcome to my fanfic. I've been planning on posting this up for some time now. Now that I have the first 10,000 words or so down seperately, I feel ready to post some stuff up here. I hope you will all enjoy reading it as it develops. I haven't a clue how much I will write eventually, if I manage to finish it. But it will likely be very, very long. Indeed, there's an excellent chance that I'll finish writing a Skyrim fan fiction before (if) I finish this!

The Famous Five is an unusual fan fiction. It takes the form of a historical commentary/synthesised text written some 90 years after the events of Oblivion, and relies rather heavily on my own creative license to fill in some historical gaps in between 4E2, when the stories end, and 4E85 when the book is written (I should add, I have not read any Elder-Scrolls related lore works, such as the Infernal City).

This work weaves together the stories of five different characters that I roleplayed in Oblivion, and I hope to include some of my minor characters in it too. Subject to approval, it may also be nice to include some other chorrol.com members' fanfic characters in it too. It would be entertaining to see the outcome of a meeting between Luther Martinus (who you will get to know) and, say, Buffy or Teresa, for certain!

At present, I regrettably do not have screenshots; however, I hope to add some in future if and when I can get Oblivion for PC.

This is my first attempt at writing a fan fiction. I have thought about it for a while, though. I welcome critique of my writing as well as positive comments. I have not planned most of the fanfic, but have a general plan of how it will pan out. It will include actual in-game events, relationships and quests which inspired my roleplaying, and be supplemented with whatever ideas take my fancy at the time of writing.

Below is the prologue and the first entry. I plan to update every few days to a week, depending on how much I can write. This will vary. At times, I may not update for a while. I do, however, hope to persevere with this and update pretty regularly.

Happy reading!

This post has been edited by Ceidwad: Mar 26 2011, 05:00 AM

[Ceidwad]

Thank you for the responses so far. Some good suggestions - I agree with most of them and have implemented them.

I just wanted to reply to some of the points in your post, Destri. Some very pertinent points and I am glad you have brought them up.

You mention the date of the publication of Martinus' Memoirs by Ida Ottus, and ask about how it fits in to the historical picture of the memoirs. This is not totally set in stone for me, but the basic picture is sketched out and I hope to expand on it in some time.

I have it in my mind that Martinus writes the original memoirs near to the end of his life (circa 4E50 or so, although I haven't setled on that). Then, they are widely read by the population and recieve wide acclaim in pro-Imperial circles and cautious acceptance by others. Following that, Ida Ottus's version is produced in 4E64 - it is basically full of praise and romanticism, and little else - and other Imperial historians praise it and echo a sort of consensus.

In the next 20 years, some new things are discovered and analysed (for example, the diairies of my Arch-Mage, and maybe some contradictory evidence found in Cloud Ruler Temple) which leads to a shift of opinion among some, such as my writer Mr. Steel-Quill. Naturally, pro-Imperial historians dispute this evidence.

The next thing you ask about is the interaction of the Mages' Guild and Martinus in 4E2 in deciding the future course of Imperial policy. You are right, of course, that the Mages' Guild has no interest in who does or does not join the Imperial Legion. However, as you also allude to, the Mages' Guild has vested interests in maintaining order in Cyrodiil and Tamriel, and defending its own position and power (weakened, but by no means extinguished, in the battle with the Necromancers).

The confrontation between the two is basically over a strategic disagreement between two loose political coalitions, both roughly equal in strength, over how to handle the threat of provinces seceding with no strong Emporer to command authority.

One 'pro-Cyrodilic' party is led by Martinus, who, being the saviour of the Empire, becomes a focus of support through of sheer force of personality. This coalition includes some members of the Elder Council, the Chapel, the Imperial Legion and many Imperials in Cyrodiil. It stands for an aggressive promotion of Imperial culture and influence in all parts of the Empire but especially Cyrodiil, in the hopes that this will strengthen Cyrodiil internally so that it can militarily combat seperatism.

The other 'pro-Tamrielic' party favours an inclusive approach which sees such imperialism as being more likely to cause secession than prevent it. This coalition includes the Mages' Guild, who oppose the measures as being likely to lead to violence and fragmentation of the Empire, in addition to non-Imperial citizens of Cyrodiil, minority religious groups, and sympathetic Elder Councillors. The Mages' Guild, in my mind, also has many members sympathetic to the cultural and religious pluralism which the pro-Cyrodilic party would stamp out.

Essentially it's a clash of visions. I have not fully worked out the details but the plan is to end the book with a blow-by-blow description of a heated debate in the Elder Council Chambers in 4E2, where both 'parties' (including Gwenyan and Martinus on either side) argue their case and a vote is taken to democratically decide the strategy the Empire will follow. I do not yet know whether, and if so, how, High Chancellor Ocato may figure in this. There are also likely to be some unexpected occurances at the debate!

All this is a long way off, though. At present, I am still very early in the writing of Gwenyan's diaries. It will be some time before Martinus becomes involved in the drama. He mainly describes the events of the Oblivion Crisis, which is still a few years away. Note that, for the purposes of this fan fiction, certain events will be chronologically put a few years earlier than they actually occur in Oblivion - for instance, the Mages' Guild will undergo its struggle against the Necromancers from 3E431 to 3E432 instead of 3E433/434 as in the game. This is purely to make sense of anomalies; for instance, as I did not do the Main Quest with certain characters, the landscape had not changed with them, many characters were alive that died in the Main Quest, etc. Of course it is still not perfect, but it works best this way.

As far as Berrick's illiteracy is concerned, I'd like to make clear that it is because of his background, nothing to do with race. (I know you weren't implying this, but I'd like to make it clear nonetheless.) It is purely to give me a different and creative way of telling a story (telling it through Azzan), and Berrick, being someone who relies in life mostly on his athleticism and wit, rather than learning, seems the most natural of my characters to give this role to. Indeed, we may note that two of the finest wizards in the Mages Guild are Redguard, despite what Trayvond says about mages in Hammerfell!

Oh, and I hope to have dispelled a couple of racial stereotypes with my use of two Nordic scholars as a framing device. Alessia Ottus may have claimed that 'you should not expect to find any books [in Bruma], for Nords are ignorant and are not fond of learning'. But I hope that Mr. Skrollsen and Mr. Steel-Quill have posthumously proved her assertion wrong!

This post has been edited by Ceidwad: Mar 26 2011, 10:20 PM