Do we know anything about this alliance? Why they allied, what the deals where or anything?
Speculation?

Fanon states that it came about with Helseth's marriage to a Dres noblewoman. The fact that Tedders, the writer of a lot of TES lore books, seems to like this fanon, or at least play along with it, indicates to me that it's good enough to be official. Besides, it makes sense anyway.

However it came about, however, it's implied -- and, really, you can deduce -- that the Dres-Hlaalu alliance was essential for Helseth's abolition of slavery in Morrowind, considering that the Dres are the Great House most infamous for the holdings in the slave trade. I'm sure that didn't go along very well with the more traditionalist factions within House Dres, not to mention slaveholders in other Houses such as Telvanni and Indoril.

I might be wrong but here a shoot:
The House Dres was once an ally of House Indoril, which was once consider the most powerful of the Houses. After many, many events occur, House Indoril became greatly weaken and House Hlaalu came in and became the most powerful house due to the influence of the Empire. This probably a reason why Hlaalu and Dres create the alliance, allying with the most powerful house i can assume.

I'm planning an fan fiction where I will discuss that particular relationship.

The Dres probably agreed with the plan only once they could devise a replacement system which is at least as economically profitable as slave owning. And it's not that hard to get. Get your workers to work all day long, so that they have to rely on somebody else to obtain food. Make it so that somebody else is you. Fix the price so that their wage isn't enough to pay for food and tenancy rent -- another thing they get from you. So they'll go ever more into debt. It's as cheap as slavery (since you'd have to provide food and lodging to slaves anyway), with the added bonus that if one of them die, you don't lose anything since you didn't have to buy them.

Prepare the transition to this little setup in your own plantations and workshops, but let the abolition of slavery take the other houses by surprise so that they can't adjust their economy or devise something equally devious -- you weaken them all, allowing you to raise even more.

The "slave" ban probably just means the Dres will need to do the same thing in a different method. I think Dres will soon be the next power house in the future. For one they probably are absorbing what is left of Indoril much faster then Hlaalu. If you were Indoril and you had to pick being part of Dres or Hlaalu, you'd go with the traditionalist. With the temple going down the two religions largely in play will be the Velothian traditional faith which the Dres have maintained, or the western Cyrodiil faith which probably only has a good grasp amongst some of the Hlaalu members. Next Hlaalu makes money off of selling ebony and glass. With the empire falling apart they won't have money for ebony and glass. On the other hand Dres makes much of its money off of food, and people always need to eat be it war or peace. I would say it is an uneasy alliance at best.

They are absorbing much faster, but Hlaalu already had power, and already absorbed a lot of power from Indoril, so it makes sense that they aren't absorbing as much power.

There is an aspect that has not been considered yet here: House Dres is said to be ruled by Vampires.

The Empire is more tolerant of Necromancy than Morrowind - but Dres has to have a 'supply' of cattle for the relevant ruling members so there has to be more to this than has been suggested.

Are Dres planning to gut Hlaalu or has Hlaalu agreed a deal for cattle rustling, etc?

And it is not just Indoril that they both have their eyes on.

It's a rumor born of fanfic IIRC.

Honestly, I doubt Hlaalu or Dres is worried about Indoril. The Temple is screwed, so they really don't present that much of a problem. I doubt the Telvanni even give a flying you-know-what, because they'll just be like "whatever" and continue with their lives. I think Hlaalu and Dres would be more worried about Redoran than anyone else. Redoran is made up of heavily-traditionalist people, who hold great pride in honor. Not to mention some of Redoran is known for its fierce warriors as well. They are pretty pissed at this alliance, and I wouldn't be surprised if another war between the Houses breaks out. :shrug: That's just me, but I'm still thinking anyways...

Redoran are also known for having had their capital city, Ald'ruhn, obliterated by Daedra shortly after warbands from Skyrim conquered most of their mainland territories... So the Redoran, all proud, tradition-bound warriors they are, are currently a bit too preoccupied by more urgently important things than countering Hlaalu political plots.

Their house was on the decline anyway, progressively losing mainland territory to the economically-prosperous Hlaalu. With the long period of peace (before the Nord invasion and the Oblivion Crisis, I mean), the presence of the Imperial Legion, competition from the Fighters' Guild, and the decision by House Telvanni to develop its own militia rather than continuing employing Redoran mercenaries; House Redoran's traditional sources of income shrunk dramatically. Then, the better-connected Hlaalu were getting all the good charters (remember how the Redorans felt about some Hlaalu-controlled mines near their territory). To stay afloat, House Redoran had to abandon that which it could no longer afford to control, and the Hlaalu immediately filled the vacuum.

Oh....well that's good to know. Thanks.

Indoril would much faster be absorbed by Dres then Hlaalu because absorption in the former can be in many cases, favorable, while Hlaalu absorption would never be favorable for an Indoril. As for Redoran, they are broken. I would say Dres at the moment is more capable military wise then Redoran. You have to keep in mind that Dres fight the Argonians just as much as Redoran fight the Nords. The Dres however had also had the Arnesian War with the Argonians, meaning an actual military engagement, not border skirmishes. I wrote up a fan thing about Dres that should be floating around the lore forums somewhere, anyone can search for it by author's name, I havn't written really any threads in this forum.

Heh, and if you hadn't noticed yet, ImmortalBlood is a Dres fan. =)

You guys actually may want to help out at Tamriel Rebuilt, as Map 6 is all Dres territory I believe, and they may need some check ups for lore and visual direction. They run a tight ship lore-wise, but I'm not sure they have very many experts.

TR has very intelligent minds in the Lore department. Really, I don't think they'll be having problems there anytime soon.

EDIT: Not that you're saying they don't. That's not what I was trying to get at.

I could look into TR in helping with stuff about Dres. I'd really hate to see them be "grumpy isolationist slave holders" and just that. Dres has the potential to be very culturally influential and interesting considering their past and how they maintain their tradition.

There's actually a similar discussion going on at another forum, where I posted another idea to go along with the "it's been replaced by another system" theory:

That's because Lettuce and I didn't tell each other what we were posting.

I personally don't think Argonians would much care to move anywhere else for several reasons:

1. They are more culturally intune with the Dres. Like it or not they fill a role and their culture is probably more similar to southern morrowind then say Hlaalu.

2. Racism is a sense is just as blatant if not more further north. Why do I say this? The Dres actually interact with Argonians on a higher level then just "master, slave". Remember the Argonians logically are the other half of the slave trade. In the north Argonians are just that, slaves so you don't see an interaction beyond that.

3. The climate in the south is more similar to what they would prefer. Now I know not all of Morrowind is a smokey dusty ash desert with some rocks thrown in but the climate does change as you go further up north.

House Dres organizes raids to take slaves. It's not the same situation as the "Triangular Trade" where the Europeans and Americans bought slaves from African kings, who had sent their own warriors to raid other tribes for slaves. House Dres doesn't buy its slaves from the Argonians and Khajiit, they take them, and then use them in their plantations or sell them to the other houses.

We don't know for sure that Helseth would institute serfdom.

I prefer Helseth's approach as written by Ted Peterson in the Lore RP, even if it's technically fanon. Ted wrote that Helseth abolished slavery for a couple of reasons; chiefly that slavery and the House system were seen by Helseth as helping keep Morrowind backward compared to the Empire. Ted's version of Helseth has as his aim the destruction of the House system, consolidating power under one mer's rule. A civil war between Hlaalu/Dres and the Redoran/Indoril alliance drags on for about three years if I remember right, including the Redoran/Indoril alliance using Nord mercenaries at one point until the Nords started pulling their own strings.

Anyway, hopefully there will be a TES 5 and we'll find out how much of this (if anything) was used in writing it.

Here's another thread that discussed slavery: http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=635723&hl=

I really don't see Dres siding with Hlaalu over Redoran and Indoril. Technically if Dres sided with Redoran and Indoril, considering how the empire is going, Hlaalu and Helseth would be crushed easily. You have both of the battle hardened houses (Dres and Redoran) fighting against Hlaalu who rely on the empire's pay check. Literally there is no advantage to having Helseth/Hlaalu being in a position of power rather then Redoran and Indoril from a Dres perspective.

But Dres did side with Hlaalu. They formed an alliance.

Actually, Gez, they do according to the Argonian Account series -- walords sell some of their kin into slavery for the Dres.

But that does not mean they are friendly, nor that they would side against Redoran for the sake of Hlaalu.