There were some pretty insightful posts regarding the presence of magic in the world and how it would affect one's technology. Technology comes from need, and such need must come from the economically comfortable classes with the means to improve, be it by assuring their comfort in times of peace, be it by reassuring their comfort in times of war. Our own Dark Ages saw a stoppage of technological development because of the severe lack of a middle class and the free initiative to develop and, therefore, improve in life's means. What with Tamriel's highly military and nobility based structure, the closest thing we see to middle class are mages and merchants. Most merchants have at their disposal magical devices and all mages have magic at their disposal. Physics, biology, mathmatics and every single aspect of hermetic logos must share research efforts with the arcane in Tamriel.

And magic being resource effective and highly controllable when it comes to spreading it to the masses, it seems appropriate that it is and that it remains the main form of technology in the world.

Great Post.
Although i agree with your statement ?(...) that [Magic] (...)t remains the main form of technology in the world?, there would still be plausible reasons for technology to develop. Take a religious group of people who oppose the use of magic in any shape or form. They would have to resort to technology to get things done.

I'll pass on the technology.
Thats what Fall out is for anyway IMO.

Only reason I play the TES series is the nice medieval fantasy type setting.
Now if they kept to some myths and legends, say like ancient Alexandria and the automatons type of technology I might be able to except and live with that.
As long as it did not unbalance the game and make it feel to Scifi'ish.

You also have a world where the gods and demons are an active part in the lives of the citizens of tamriel. There are no religious conflicts in the world, because the deities are accepted by everyone as entities that exist. When you have that much persistantly present power imposing your entire life, progression and self fulfillment take a side seat.

Through all the Empires that have fallen, we only had a few "dark ages" i think:

The European Middle Ages (500-1500 AD)
The Greek Dark Age (1100 BC–750 BC)
the dark ages of Cambodia (1450-1863)
and the mayan Dark Age (900 AD)

Technology comes from need. War is war, and it brings about the need to be intuitive. during the course of world war I, military aircrafts made great strides in technology. It went from flying the plane over the enemy and dropping grenades, to automatic machine guns mounted behind the propeller, that shoot precisely, and only, when the bullet will go in between the propeller blades.

Also, it can be argued that The Medieval Dark Ages was not brought about only by a collapse of the empire, but by a widespread "awakening" in Europe. People thought little of Science and Technology and concentrated their lives on Christianity. Many books and records were burned... anything that didn't agree the Church's way of thinking in any way. Some who opposed the belief, for instance, that "god made things fall", and argued that there is a scientific explanation for it (gravity), that person would most likely be killed. There was no room for advancement during this time because they common philosophy during that era was directly opposed to scientific advancement.

The Renaissance fixed that though.

I can't remember if it was in Morrowind or Oblivion offhand, but one of the ingame books describes a battle and it mentions...cannon. So technolgy is certainly possible, even if it is made much apparent use of.

There will be technology. Swords, axes, shoes, chairs, cups, doors, etc. are all technology. Not terribly advanced tech, I'll grant, but tech none the less. All objects of human manufacture are technology, the shaping of natural resources to reproducible patterns. Remember that at the time, the Neolithic revolution's development of agriculture and sedentism represented a major technical advancement to humanity over the previous lifestyle of nomadic hunting and foraging.

That being said, I think that magicka is technology - as it is simply a means of harnessing the ever-present background radiation leaking in from Aetherius, not much different from turning a lump of ore into a steel knife, I feel.

Edit: Also, the words "magic" and "machine" are etymologically related, deriving from an ancient PIE root meaning something like "to make possible"