I posted the topic on clocks yesterday to determine whether or not I could have a clock-maker character for an RP. After thinking about it for a moment I began to wonder what Tamriel would be like with a tad more technology. Not handheld portable guns (Firearms have already been invented, ie: Sentilien cannons.), but like simple machinery like clocks and other renaissance level technology.

How would you guys imagine a Renaissance era Tamriel? Taking in account how magick would shape things as well as the understanding of Dwemer technology?

I think a Tamrielic Rennaisance, in its literal definition, is inevitable with the fall of the Septim Empire. I also think it will be very alien and strange to us. A rennaisance is the act of looking back to a more advanced time in more detail than previously done, then making newer use of their rediscovered principles. For example, the use of ancient greek philosophical texts that had been lost but rediscovered by the Crusaders as preserved by Arabs.

So it could happen, but it would likely not be as you expect. More likely people will rediscover the secrets of crafting Centurion like creatures or spaceflight from study of Adamantine Tower.

not quite yet. Possibly in a few TES games, but the next 2 at least will be in more of a dark-age-esque thing that happens with the fall of a great empire

A Renaissance equivalent age in Tamriel probably won't happen until we get the 5th era and the author of the loveletter.

You don't know that. Beth can decide to skip the next few hundred years for the next game. Hell, they can even decide to go back in time.

The Dwemer and Ayleids will probably the Greece and Rome to Tamriel's Renaissance, supplemented when(and if) the Altmer will allow foreign scholars to study their records.

Instead of guns and chemistry though, there would be a gradually more secularized, liberal views on the nature of magic allowing different schools of thought and practice to develop leading to a more scientific than theological view on the relationship of Nirn between Oblivion and Aetherius. In turn, this'll change on how the Et'Ada are viewed and perceived and understood, especially with the Aedra which will probably become more like forces given a face than actual beings with an agenda. Plus, along with the intellectual reforms there will possibly be more democratic systems of government, along with more sophisticated technologies ranigng from mage-made welkynd stones and Dwemer warmachines, to magical lamps and clocks. Magic is an integral part of the Elder Scrolls universe, so I don't expect to see smokestacks, guns, or planes anytime soon, if ever. Tamriel will most likely advance technologically only beyond the 16th to 17th centuries.

I've always imagined the Reman emperors as a (the) Renaissance, with the Alessian era as classical antiquity and the Order as the medieval era. The Potentates and Septim are like the colonial powers.

I see the Alessian era as further back than that. Bronze Age, for the most part.

Technology in TES doesn't really seem to be based on any particular time. I haven't played it, but some of the clothes in Redguard seem to be rather recent looking. give or take a few hundred years. I don't like it, to be honest. But I haven't played it, so I won't judge that much.

Less technology and more outlook. Dominance by a monotheistic church? Holy wars to rid the world of infidels? An empire calling itself Roman Alessian and Holy while being only barely related to either? The split of Empire into two parts, Eastern and Western Southern and Northern?