The concept that technology inevitably "progresses" is a false one. It's assumed to be true by modern people, because we live at a time of advancing technology, but the fact is that during most of the last several thousand years, there was very little technological change at all, and it didn't "progress." Advances occurred in fits and starts, and new techs were slowly spread from one place to another. It's only in the last few hundred years that there's anything like a cumulative, advancing technology.

the only thing i can see happening to this effect is maybe some one who studys dwemer machines figures out houw there mad and all that and all the stuff inside the dwemer ruins and starts to use that in building and other places all over the place.


like emagian if in Markarth they got the robot things to start working again and they would follow what they told them to do. then there would almost be no point in having guards except to investigate crimes and stuff like that.

i could see them maybe having some thing that gives them running water but that about as far as i see them going tho.

I think there are indeed periods of regression, but I also think there is an overall positive trend. The rate of change has certainly increased the last couple hundred years, but it was hardly stagnant prior to that.

The way I imagine the year 1600 is quite different from the year 1700, which is quite different from the year 1800, which is quite different from 1900, which is quite different from 2000.

That's very true, but that still doesn't mean history would progress the same way in Tamriel history. It just doesn't follow.

In my opinion the "argument from earth anologues" is a fallacy. The universe of the Elder Scrolls is an invented world, a fantasy world, and should be treated as such. Saying, "Well, it didn't happen that way on earth," is a non-sequiter as far as I'm concerned.

Yes, as I said, in the last several hundred years there has been steady advance. But if you had live in the 14th Century, you might have gone your whole life without seeing any new thing at all, and if you did see something new, it was probably brought to your town from somewhere else. There was no structure or organization to human knowledge and technology prior to the Scientific Method and the Industrial Revolution.

I would suggest that there cannot be a steadily advancing technological society until there is widespread education and literacy, an organized scientific community who share information freely, and a kind of government that is willing to allow creativity and enterprise to flourish.

What doesn't follow? It doesn't make sense for the rate of cultural change in TES to be similar to Earth? You can hardly argue that point without reducing it down to "just 'cuz."

Plus, I was responding to the other poster's comment about Earth's history, I wasn't addressing any statement about TES at all.

I still think the strongest case against technology in TES is that it doesn't fit the genre or setting flavor meant to be portrayed. That's it. There is no other argument you can make that will prove science won't progress in TES. And let's not forget, we are talking thousands of years in TES, not hundreds.

Still, looking at the Loveletter and a bunch of MK's writing, I get a very distinct "mystical meets digital tech" vibe.

i always thought the stigma of education being tied with magick was a limiting factor for tech advances in TES.
why would a mage need a gun? would someone who isnt a mage sure but is he going to get the education while disliking things about mages.