Complaining about a piece of Oblivion-given Morrowind lore, abolishing slavery leads to civil war, yeah, but the details... Options

[Kazaera]

(mods, please move this if this is in the wrong place? I couldn't figure out where this topic would go.)

So I was reading up about what happens in Morrowind post-game, according to Oblivion, and ran across this little tidbit.

Apparently Helseth incites a civil war, which he and his allies win, in order to break the power of the Great Houses and consolidate his own. And how he starts this is by banning slavery.

So far, so good. This sort of makes sense, given how fraught slavery is as a topic.

Except. That the civil war apparently happens between Hlaalu and Dres on the anti-slavery side and Redoran and Indoril on the pro-slavery side. Telvanni is Sir Not Appearing In This War.

First, the minor WTFs: Redoran is the in-game house that seems to make least use of slaves, and Indoril seems to be presented as very close to the Temple, also sort of military/religious and not a major slave-owning power either. Since slavery is also a matter of Dunmer tradition and so on, I could buy Redoran and Indoril *supporting* the major slave-owning Houses who protest against this, but have some trouble seeing them being the only ones... considering that of all the houses they would possibly be affected least from everything we've seen. (Hlaalu's got plantations. Worked by slaves.) I also have a lot of trouble seeing Telvanni stand by and do nothing, considering they're very pro-slavery and use slaves a lot.

But all of that pales next to Dres.

I mean, we don't know much about Dres lorewise. But what we do know is that: they are an agricultural House. They have huge, huge plantations that rely solely on slave labour. They are very anti-Imperial, very much Temple-supporters, apparently traditional allies of House Indoril, and very, *very* opposed to abolishing slavery.



I actually considered having slavery outlawed somehow in my Morrowind fic and ending up going "no, that would never happen because Dres would never stand for it." And now apparently, canonically, they not only have but fought a war to abolish slavery???

Especially because... you know, from Dres's description, this would totally ruin their economy.

Of course, apparently (I haven't played Oblivion myself so I'm going off the UESP wiki) you hear rumours that House Dres has "remodelled its economy from an agricultural one to a mercantile one". To which my reaction is twofold:

1. What, overnight?

2. ...if House Dres is the only primarily agricultural Great House, and it magically swaps its economy for one based on trading, then... where is the food coming from?

I have been continually WTFing over this piece of lore since I stumbled across it. Honestly - has anyone been able to make any sense of it? Because I'd love to, really, but I just hit "House Dres" and go "......what."

[SubRosa]

Well, keep in mind that there is nothing in the lore that says cows live in Cyrodiil, but you can still get beef there. Relying on Bethesda's lore is not a good way to build a realistic world. At some point you have to just pitch what they say at the moment (as it tends to change with new games) and rely upon your own sense of what is plausible. I cannot count how much of Bethesda's lore I have had to chuck because of its stupidity (yes, I am looking at you Green Pact).

In a real world, there would be stores in every sizable settlement selling all manner of goods, clothing, tools, candlesticks, pottery, furniture, you name it. Hlaalu is the only House noted as being mercantile in nature. It is their 'personality' as given in the game (as opposed to being a warrior house, or a magician house) so it is only reasonable that they are the ones with the biggest and most plentiful stores across the province, including the mainland. If not, they would be missing out on a huge pile of money. And no one on the mainland would have bowls to put their saltrice in, or spoons to eat it with!

I admit, I am filling in these blanks all on my own. Another person's mileage is going to vary. But if Hlaalu is not doing all the buying and selling, someone else is already. I am sure small time mom and pop businesses are all over the place selling all kinds of general goods. But given that this sort of thing is a gold mine (Walmart anyone?) I am sure at least one of the major Houses would have been entrenched in the business of big business for thousands of years.

Obviously the East Empire Company has a piece of the pie. As I recall, they have a monopoly on importing and exporting things from Morrowind. Or is it just exporting Morrowind stuff to the rest of the Empire? Hmmm, on a completely different note, I bet there is a lot of septims to be made smuggling kwama eggs to Cyrodiil. But there had to be someone doing it long before the Empire came along, as that was only in the last 400 years and change.

OTOH, if Dres did become a mercantile house, it would be good news for the regular folks, as they would have 3 stores to go to, instead of 2. Granted, they still would have nothing to eat...