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]

I don't fault you for trying to answer Kazaera's question, but my own answer to that question has to be "no, it's flat-out impossible to make sense of that."

That's funny because the more I think about it the more it is beginning to make sense to me.

I guess this is the sticking point: like Helena, I'm not seeing how the shift from an agricultural to a mercantile system is small or subtle. It's a total revamping of their economy - giant, giant plantations which will have to be closed down, trading needs to be built up and they won't have any routes or partners even goods to trade with, and as said the food has to come from /somewhere/ and if the lone agricultural house shuts its doors... I suppose Dres could go from growing-food to trading-food but again, it has to come from somewhere so that should probably mean a shift in their trading partners' economies to account for the sudden loss of food producers, and that would also mean a huge change in what foods are even available in Morrowind since I'm not seeing saltrice grown in Cyrodiil or Skyrim (maybe Black Marsh? although I... do not think people in Black Marsh would be very happy to trade, really. The Arnesian War isn't that long ago, and Dres would still have been raiding them for slaves.)

Okay, I’ll concede the point. Let’s assume you and Helena are right and the shift from agricultural to mercantile is too large to complete in six years. The decision to make such a shift is not. I could very well imagine that such a shift is still an ongoing concern by the time of the Oblivion Crisis. The Pocket Guide states that House Dres are 'embracing the new traditions.' Dres, to my knowledge, is still the major producer of saltrice. They just now have a structure in place whereby they also trade in the substance (presumably through an agreement with the EEC who enjoys favorable tariffs and regulations). This agreement may have been brokered by their associates in House Hlaalu, who have the machinery in place to conduct effective trade throughout the Empire. Dres doesn’t have to invent the wheel here; they just have to get on the wagon!

So I keep thinking, it might be possible but it would be huge and probably cause a lot of damage not just to the House but to the rest of the province as well and I can't actually see any motivation for Dres to do it. Maybe, maybe, there is a story behind this of someone who took House Dres by storm, or of a long-running change that had been going on behind the scenes, and if it's true that'd be a very interesting story I'd like to know more about but as things stand I've not seen a single hint of that. (Maybe the "canon" Nerevarine joined House Dres, ha.)

Dres could have been motivated by a number of factors that I can see. First I imagine Helseth forged an alliance with the House by convincing them that the traditional beliefs of the Dunmer are no longer viable with the death/disappearance of the Tribunal. Second, with Hlaalu as a partner Dres begins to realize that basing their entire economy on the production of a single crop is extraordinarily limited, especially since House Hlaalu is calling for the abolition of slavery. Given their new alliance, Dres has every reason to want to avail themselves of Hlaalu’s expertise in matters of commerce, something that they sorely lack. Hlaalu, on the other hand, has every reason to ensure Dres’ continued success. Why?

1) Dres serves as Hlaalu’s foothold for commerce on the mainland. Or, if their holdings on the mainland are such that they don't need a foothold . . .
2) Hlaalu needs to ally themselves with one of the Great Houses or they risk going into the conflict over slavery alone. They aren’t going to be able to ally themselves with Indoril, and Redoran is their sworn enemy. Besides . . .
3) Dres territory borders the swamps of Black Marsh. If we go by the timeline (and there really is no reason that we shouldn’t in this case), we know that the Argonians invade soon after the eruption of Red Mountain. It isn’t hard to imagine that relations between the two provinces are strained at this time. Hlaalu benefits from having an ally at the border in case the lizards get jumpy.

And re: tradition - I could see Redoran and Indoril fighting against abolition for that reason (Indoril especially, yeah). I just have a lot of trouble seeing a civil war where the Houses fighting against abolition only really have tradition as their argument against it and the two Houses fighting for actually have something to lose - especially when Dres is described as also being very anti-Imperial and pro-Temple and so quite probably at least as inclined to campaign against change solely on tradition grounds as Redoran or Indoril!

I think that Redoran and Indoril would have more than just the nebulous concept of ‘tradition’ as their main argument. It would be safe to say that both Houses would engage in a war if they felt that their way of life was being usurped by Imperial rule. Hlaalu is an Imperial proxy; I think we can all agree on that. The call for the abolition of slavery is not being made strictly because it is the morally ‘right’ thing to do. Hlaalu is currying favor with the Empire. I think they see that, in the long run, the loss of profits from Argonian and Khajiit sweat are more than made up by the profits received from good ties with the Empire. If we buy into the idea of Hlaalu and Dres coming together in alliance then I think it is safe to assume that Dres' longtime stance on Temple doctrine has shifted. It's also safe to say that Indoril and Redoran would go to the mattresses before they would allow Morrowind to exist under the yoke of Imperial law.

This post has been edited by Destri Melarg: Sep 1 2011, 07:58 PM