You're doing exactly what I talked about earlier: looking at the surface level. Anything can be made feeble and uninteresting if it's described the right way.



There is no distinctive imperial culture. What we're confronted with in Oblivion is a watered-down menagerie of bits and pieces of other cultures. That's all imperial culture (in the present) amounts to. That was my take, at least.

It was political, the Elder Council decided to make him the new Emperor. Not all politics have to involve endless debating and arguing. I mean, look at the Nerevarine's fulfillment of the Fourth Trial.


Correction; the answer simply wasn't the same as that of the PGE 1E that the pre-Oblivion lore buffs wanted. Or as easy to instantly dig up as was Dunmer information in Morrowind. And it's there, at least as much as Morrowind, just in a different way.

The other part is that politics in Tamriel and mythology are fundamentally tied together (especially when it comes to the empire and the emperor). The political questions of what it means to be an emperor, and what it means to be an empire, have mythical answers.

Was the "defeat" (to use a misleading term) of the Mythic Dawn and Mehrunes Dagon through the sacrifice of Martin Septim a result of the will of the gods (Aedra) or the will of man? The answer to this question is the mythical-political meaning of empire.

Don't criticise Oblivion for making mistakes and then not doing the same when Morrowind also changed the lore.



A better option would be to see just how much we do know about the Mythic Dawn, but fine.



What? I specifically mentioned Morrowind. And the point was that you cannot change someone's perception. The vast majority of Morrowind fans probably consider that just another fantasy medieval RPG, and don't pay any attention to the lore of the game. It has nothing to do with how the main quest is written.

And I'll reply to the rest later, I need to go and find Mythic Dawn info. Someone's gonna ask

that's cute, really

No, Daggerfall changed the lore in this situation and yes, I do wish they had not but stop blaming Morrowind. They are exactly the same as they were in Arena and if thats the case, Oblivion is at fault for this too since it used the Dunmer with blue skin. Also, I have full right about complaining about Oblivion's changing of Cyrodil.



Feel free. Here the main things I got about them from Oblivion.

1) They worship Mehrune's Dagon.

2) They appear to hate the empire.

3) Their leader, Mankar Camoran seems to Believe that Nirn (Or is that every realm) belongs to Mehrunes Dagon

4) When they die they go to "Paradise"

5) They are responsible for opening the Oblivion gates and succeeded in getting Dagon into Cyrodil for a few minutes until he was sent back into Cyrodil

There are a few details about their leader and how they get new recruits which are interesting and confusing so I wish the game expand on those as well as everything else. I mean, why a Bosmer? Why not get someone else to join you and how will you explain your plans to destroy the empire to them without driving them away? They could have given us much more info.



That's their choice then but the main quest can't be broken down to Good Empire vs. Bad Rebels. The simplest it could be (Even with removing tons of details that make it unique or more unique then Oblivion's poorly written MQ) is Nerevarine vs. Evil Dagoth Ur and this is losing all the details about the Tribunal, empire's small involvement, and Azura as well as much more.



Reply when you feel like also, if you could show me some of your sources for the Mythic Dawn info I would be thankful. Personally though, when it comes to the lore, at least for me, more detail would be better but don't make that one source tell you everything or make it be 100% fact either. Speculation is important but according to you Gallowglass all the lore is speculation which is way too much for me.

Quick Edit: I found the UESP lore article on the Mythic Dawn. It doesn't contain much info. Neither does the Oblivion Article.

Lore Article: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Mythic_Dawn

Oblivion Article: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Mythic_Dawn

When writing that, I didn't have the feeling I skipped over any political event in the main quest that was more significant then the act of collecting welfare. He didn't have to gather support with the nobility or the people, he didn't have to take out other contenders, he didn't have to bribe a priest to provide his reign with fortunate omens. None of that. Granted the main quest didn't allow for it, but that lack of politics in it is exactly what I'm arguing.



There is no distinctive imperial culture and for people that have been living in a single place for several thousand years that is a problem. Even as a melting pot Cyrodiil going to end up looking like it's main ingredient, Imperials. And even then, such a melting pot is mostly a fiction. Just to name a few American examples, the red scare, the Japanese-American internment, positive discrimination, anglo-conformity. As the Khajiit put it, a perfect society is always else where.

For that matter, to refer back to a previous example. One of the guys leading Blackwater is said to think of himself as a Crusader. Just to understand the how and why of that single sentence you need to know the whole history of a religion, that of a nation, it's wars, it's culture, recent events and the current mood. To understand why it's news, you need to understand even more.

The only thing hinting at some societal discontent are Allesia Ottus and a few hints of cannibalism by the Count of Leyawiin. But this is only superficial. Other then those two people nobody seems to be concerned. That doesn't really create the impression that there is any sort of widespread negative opinion of Betmer. Hell you can't even talk about it with Ottus.

Why wouldn't the Elder Council appoint him? He worshipped the Nine and he could wear the Amulet. And he had the support of the Blades.


Distinctive from what exactly? It was pretty distinctive from Dunmer culture, Nordic culture, and Khajiit culture. To name a few.

To be honest, wiki pages do not always contain all the information. You have to play the game and listen to learn more. The wiki won't show every line of dialogue or what Paradise is like. You actually have to play the game.

http://imperial-library.info/tsoo/tsoo14.shtml

Can you give me sources of this dialogue and information. I don't want to play that horrid MQ again. Also, this was about the Mythic Dawn, not paradise. I can get the paradise page if you like though and UESP is very trustworthy as far as wiki's go.



Yeah, I noticed nothing new about paradise.

Forgot the Library, but it ain't a wiki so I was still right in a way...

The Mythic Dawn are in Paradise. Like me telling you to stop referring to Morrowind because we were talking about dark elves. And I have given you a source: the game itself. And Brian has given you another, the Library. So get off your high horse if you refuse to actually play the game.

I know, I knew all that stuff. I do wish it was slightly more detailed but Paradise is the more detailed then the Mythic Dawn IMO.

If just one of the above principalities was assigned to the correct prince, it might be easier to believe that anything presented as "lore" in paradise was in any way valid.

:facepalm: They go in-depth about the Mythic Dawn in Paradise. They show their rank structure there, how they are treated and viewed by Mankar, how they themselves think of Mankar, even though there are many disagreements among them. Reveals that they aren't just a bunch of total loons who worship Dagon ceaselessly. The more cooperative (and higher ranked) agents are shown as being intermediaries between the Dawn and the Daedra, with some of them personally torturing the ungrateful, while others with this role detest it.

That's how paradise works, not the Mythic Dawn.

Don't you see? Using the rough draft of a pre-writing concept document not intended as a final product is just another narrative strategy to get us to dig deep into the nuances of Oblivion's hidden lore.

What else would there be to know about them? I'm curious, what did they seemingly leave out?

:facepalm: Again, you are not getting the point. To repeat an anology, if you were talking about the political structure of Morrowind I should not just say, "We were talking about Dunmer, so stop getting off topic!" Paradise is the home of the Mythic Dawn! Their base! Talking about the Mythic Dawn but excluding all references or sources from Camoran's Paradise is an exercise in futility, same as talking about Blades without using Cloud Ruler Temple, or anything else of the like.

No Paradise is where the members go when they die. The base is in Lake Aurrius Caverns where the Dagon shrine was. Also, there ws no Cloud Ruler Temple mentioned in Daggerfall or Morrowind, that was Oblivion.



Its not so much that its more of how interesting they could have been but instead they were made out to be the "Evil peoplz who summon demons". They dont just open Gates to the Deadlands for no reason and they should not have become the stereotypical villains. So I just felt they were boring. Its not a case of what needed to be added. Its that they ended up boring due to how much of a stereotype they are and they needed more development.

The Dagon Shrine in Lake Arrius was a base, but not the base. Yes, it was probably the largest base of theirs in Cyrodiil and very important, but Mankar worked from Paradise and all his dead agents lived again there, to train for their attack and domination over Tamriel.

Also, you seem to not have understood my anology. I was talking about how you refuse what is said in Paradise for a source on what the Mythic Dawn were like. I said that was like excluding Morrowind in a discussion of Dunmer, or Cloud Ruler in a discussion on Blades.

Ok, thanks for clearing that up. It felt like Paradise is one thing and the Mythic Dawn in Nirn is something different. They still needed more development though, IMO, and not to be such a stereotype.

Well, I thought having them all not be a hive mind and have different opinions in Paradise was pretty unique. They weren't all a bunch of weirdos. There were still some weird guys who treated you like crap and still loved 'The Master' even in his Paradise. Probably the dudes that'll get the 'honor' of torturing the ungrateful.

No, that's good. This makes the Mythic Dawn the most developed thing in vanilla Oblivion. I think part of the misunderstanding was how long ago I played the MQ which was so bad I hate the idea of playing it again. Are there any mods that add some political intrigue to it like Daggerfall?