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."

[Destri Melarg]

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?

The EEC has sole authority to trade in Raw Ebony, Raw Glass, Dwemer Artifacts, and Stahlrim. They also enjoy favorable tariffs and regulations on Kwama Eggs, marshmerrow, saltrice, & Telvanni Bug Musk (Which, incidentally, I have never seen outside of Morrowind. One wonders if the EEC Board of Directors is hoarding it all for themselves ).

There's actually no mention in Oblivion of Redoran's part in the abolition dispute. All we're told is that they're fighting the Nords over Solstheim (which is a bit bizarre, as it's Imperial territory and there are no Redoran settlements there). I can't see them getting involved in a messy civil war, over an issue which barely affects them anyway, at the same time they're busy battling Nord invaders. Far more likely that they'd maintain an uneasy neutrality, perhaps on the basis that they couldn't spare the soldiers.

You’re right; there is no mention of Redoran’s part in the civil war in Oblivion. However this is not something that was just fabricated to spark argument within this thread. We know that Redoran was allied with Indoril based on the timeline:

Helseth of Hlaalu forms an alliance with House Dres. Helseth then renounces the slave trade and reforms the Grand Council. Indoril and Redoran cannot embrace this new rule of Helseth and the power of both Great Houses reduced dramatically all these years. Furthermore, House Redoran is caught in the bloody dispute with the Nords of Skyrim.

In the wake of this civil war, according to the Third Edition of the Pocket Guide:

The Great Houses themselves, long stagnant, are adjusting to the new powers in the land. Some, like Dres and Hlaalu, appear to be on the rise, embracing the new traditions while welcoming the return of the old. Others, like Indoril and Redoran, seem to be waning, unable to change with the times.

The Dres thing is just complete bollocks. It's repeatedly stated in MW that their economy is totally dependent on slave labour (and no, it's not remotely plausible that they'd remodel it within 6 years), and that they are utterly, violently opposed to any attempts to limit or abolish slavery.

I don’t see why this is such a sticking point. We’re not talking about the invention of new machinery or the building of new railways, roads, and other infrastructure as was witnessed during the near century needed to complete the Industrial Revolution. We’re talking about the relatively subtle shift from a strictly agricultural enterprise (which only deals in a single crop) to an enterprise based on trade. That is something that could be accomplished in less than a decade, especially if their hands were held throughout the process by their allies in House Hlaalu.

People can make all the excuses they like for Bethesda, but I refuse to give them a pass on this one.

Bottom line, I am not saying that Bethesda should get a pass. It is frustrating how much they change the lore. I have had to change a significant amount of my own fanfic to jibe with all the new lore invented about the dragonborn! But the question Kazaera raised is ‘can anyone make sense of this?’ That is all I have tried to do.