Hi I'm new to the Elder Scrolls universe and I just got to the point in the main story-line in Oblivion where you are gathering allies for Bruma. When you ask Chancellor Ocato to send imperial troops to Bruma, he says that all of the Empire's legions are engaged in the 'provinces'. I have two questions about this:

1. Are the provinces not the cities and regions within Cyrodill (i.e. Chorrol, cheydinhal, etc)?... because I havn't found any Imperial troops garrisoned in those cities.
2. If Ocato means somewhere else entirely by the provinces, does this mean that there was a conflict taking place recently before the events of Elder Scrolls: Oblivion?

I know my question might be hard to understand but any help would be appreciated.

Cyrodiil is one of many provinces in the Empire, you can see them all http://www.imperial-library.info/maps/n-enc-tamr-map01.gif.

Actually that map doesn't have Orsinium, the Orcish province, which is a very small and very new province in the mountains of High Rock.


There haven't been any outright wars but there is considerable unrest in and among the provinces. If you overhear people discussing rumors and news they'll talk about Nords (Skyrim) invading Morrowind (Dark Elves) and a few other sparks but theses situations haven't devolved in to full scale wars yet (although the Nord/Dark Elf conflict is close).

No, the provinces are not the cities inside cyrodiil. the provinces are the other "countries" controlled by the empire, such as morrowind. i'm not sure if there was a notable conflict right before oblivion, but i assume they have to keep their presence known or provinces might get it in their head that it's a good idea to rebel. i'm not a lore buff, but i hope this helped some.

edit: yeah hungry donner's is more comprehensive an detailed, go with it

Thanks, a bunch guys this is sure to broaden my view on Elder Scrolls. I think I'll do some research on these conflicts if possible.


=Thanks again guys =

http://www.imperial-library.info/

:D

Btw ty for the map link, imbeginning to see cyrodill in scale with tamriel

That's actually a little misleading because the scale has changed from game-to-game. Morrowind took place on that large island in... Morrowind and it wasn't much smaller (ingame) than Cyrodiil. While ES II took place around the Illiac Bay and that was quite literally the size of Britain. ES I more or less used Daggerfall's scale (ES II). We forumites use Daggerfall's scale for referring to the size of Tamriel and use Oblivion as a necessary ingame abstraction, but you are free to imagine it however you want.

I see, thanks man,perhaps they change the scale of tamriel in each game to make the province of focus stand out more?... just an idea lol

The size of actual Tamriel stays the same, but they do some freaky stuff with the scale and population.

Both Vvardenfell and Cyrodill would have been much bigger IRL than in the games, but Cyrodill would have been MUCH bigger, and had a MUCH bigger population in the tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands or millions.

The imperial city had a population of one million when Tiber Septum took power from Cuthlecan (I hae no idea how to spell that name) and should have been, 440-some years later, at around 10-15 MILLION people. It had around 100 in-game