The Last Days of the Fashion Club Options

[WellTemperedClavier]

Apologies. For personal reasons, I'm choosing to remove this story. I may repost it in the future. This is absolutely not the fault of anyone here; you've all been gracious readers, and I'm so honored that you gave me your time. I only ask that you accept this and respect my privacy.

This post has been edited by WellTemperedClavier: Nov 13 2024, 01:00 AM

[SubRosa]

Jeval is starting to sound like Anakin Skywalker. Not the one from the movies, but the actually well-portrayed one we got from the Clone Wars TV show. Just take out the bad people. How many other people do you have to kill in the process? Who decides how many of them justifies it? Shouldn't someone just do it unilaterally, because it is the right thing to do, and let democracy and ethics sort themselves out afterward? Doesn't the galaxy need someone to just do what is right to restore order?

I was going to say something last time, but decided against it because I felt like I was being too soap-boxy. So I might as well get my Thomas Paine out now then. As much as I can empathize with Mr. Flowers and his admittedly horrific experience in the Simulacrum War, I cannot find much empathy for the Empire itself, or in the justification for its existence.

Now granted the reason is because of real world empires, and how they behave, which I am admittedly projecting onto the game world here. In reality empires exist for one reason. For the conquering state to extract wealth from the conquered. That can be natural resources, or it can even be people, either in the form of slaves, or even in the form of soldiers.

For example, the British built railroads in their colonies. But those were not made for the convenience of the people living there. They were made to take the wealth extracted from the interior and send it to the coast, where it could be loaded on ships and sent to Britain. At the beginning of WW2 the British Empire was the largest single state in the world, with a bit over half a billion people. Her military was filled with colonial troops from places like India, Nepal, Africa, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, etc... Especially India. That wealth, and that manpower, made Great Britain the most powerful nation on the planet in 1939.

I think Bethesda wants us to believe that the Cyrodiilic Empire, especially that of the last of the Septims, was a kinder, gentler entity that any real world empires. But then again, they have the East Empire Trading Company in Morrowind. It has a monopoly on just about every resource unique or notable to the province, like ebony, glass, etc... Clearly it is at least inspired by the RL British and Dutch East India Companies. These again, existed solely to extract wealth from far flung places and bring it back to the centers of their empires.

But back to Mr. Flowers in particular, I am reminded that Tamriel was not always ruled by an Empire. The reason it is now is because Tiber Septim conquered all the other provinces. He did those same sorts of war crimes that Mr. Flowers witnessed in the War of the Simulacrum. The Empire would not exist without it. Nor could Tiber Septim have done it without foot soldiers like Mr. Flowers himself, or at least his analogues from that period. If I recall correctly after the Battle of Sancre Tor Tiber Septim sold all the Breton and Nord prisoners he had taken into slavery. Then when he got the Numidium he was going to use it to murder the royal families of all the neutral states in Tamriel. That was why Zurin Arctus betrayed him, in order to stop it.

So the Empire's hands are definitely not clean, and never have been. Even barring how they turn a blind eye to slavery in Morrowind because leaving that power structure in place is something they ultimately benefit from as well.

The flip side of this coin however, is that the current Empire does provide stability. IRL, the decolonization that took place after WW2 provides a clear example of that, especially in India. Most of the time the old empires like Britain deliberately kept the native population out of any form of self-rulership during their periods of empire. Then when they withdrew they just dropped it all in the laps of people who had absolutely no preparation for taking over and running a modern, industrial society. That is not because those people were infantile, or stupid. They were deliberately prevented from learning these skills by their colonial masters. Then they were just abandoned. The end result is almost always chaos and civil war, like with the Partition of India, which the British thoroughly cocked up.

But the flip side of the flip side, is that the alternative is maintaining the status quo. That just retains the same corrupt, one-sided, predatory systems of power that have always been oppressing people. Real change does not take place nicely and neatly. It's messy, and ugly, and often people completely undeserving pay terrible prices. It is why the United States exist. Why the 40 hour work week exists. Why slavery was ended (well, mostly). Etc...

We have the advantage of being able to see somewhat into Tamriel's future. So we know the cataclysm coming to Morrowind in the near future, and across the rest of the continent to one extent or another. This Empire is not going to transition slowly and methodically to de-colonization. It is going to be here one day, gone the next. In some regards it can indeed make one pine for the good old days of the Empire. OTOH, those days were really not all that good.

So what I am I saying? I don't know. I think that reality is messy and ugly. There aren't any shining knights and perfect heroes. Stability often comes at a price that is just a formalized form of brutality and oppression. While change is a democratized form of the same, since then everyone can do war crimes, not just the ancien regime that used to be in power. None of it is wonderful. I suppose the best we can try to do is make that change meaningful, so that it was somehow worth the suffering it required to come about.

For example, World War 1 and 2 did eventually lead to the European Union, which I do think is a vast improvement over the warring states period that existed in Europe for centuries before it. Now it is inconceivable for France to go to war with Germany. It is just heart-breaking that it took so much horror to get there.

Ok, off my soap-box now, I promise.

So Jevvie is out on the streets, and all the priests are saying "Totally go on worshiping the traditional way" and "Nothing to see here." We are clearly in the final days of the Tribunal Temple.

Tiphanna is dressed in.. brown? beige? An old cloak? Whoa. Things have changed a lot!

So Tiphanna is going back to Cathnoquey. I can certainly see why she would want to get away from her father. While she seems better, she does not seem entirely right as well. She still has these... pauses where she seems to have to stop to gather her thoughts. Maybe she is just choosing her words with care, because she does not want to say the wrong thing. Or maybe she is still recovering from the curse, and having to search to find the words at all. But it is still an improvement.

Well that could have gone better. But then again, as I said when I was back on my soapbox, change can be really ugly and messy. I can certainly see why Tiphanna would feel hurt about everything and lash out. Treads even warned about this. One can only hope that she can make a better future for herself in Cathnoquey.