The empire is the law. This phrase which has been minted on a coin has led me to creation of this small theme.Do you accept the Empire which was created by Septims? What is your opinion: is the history of Empire a history of triumphal procession of a true civilisation or it is the way of bloody tyranny, way of discrimination?

As fo me, when I travelled on dusty territories of Morrowind, I always dreamt of visiting the central province. Since the first moment of contact with game magic, I was fascinated by imperial culture. Bethesda has created a surprising alloy of antique (Roman) and feudal civilisations, which break your heart. Some of my friends told me: Huh, an imperial legion - martinets, but as for me, it was the most worthy guild which embodied indisputable ideals: honour and fealty.

Especially, in a context of the theme I want to tell that I was amazed with one moment. Do you remember before entering land of Ur near Red mountain, you meet an imperial soldier who tells to you history of his life, about long decades of his soldiering in imperial legion. He has decided to look at the world before death. He gives you happy coin. And only in ruins of Red mountain, having studied ancient books, you understand, that you met the Emperor of the past.

Long live The Empire!

To me the Empire is a strange mixture of medieval values and Western liberal thought. I have never seen an absolute monarchy that also embraces the values of freedom of trade, religion and speech.

On the whole the Empire is probably a good thing. This qoute from Morrowind sums up my opinion nicely:



The Empire does have one downside though and that is that it is still a form of oppression. Values like freedom of speech and religion might be good things, but when they are forced upon someone then that is still oppression.

Long live the Empire!

Offtop

Huh... I want to say so many words, but my english is so bad. So I need some time.

Well, something good always comes from something bad, and vice versa. Sometimes the Empire does "bad" things, sometimes they do "good" things. It evens out in the end.
So, like you said.

Indeed. They keep the provinces at relative peace together, trade between all nations which is good. But this also allows a lot of idiots to spread faster so it's a double edged sword like you said.

The Empire is (was) somewhere in between; neither a tyranny nor a modern Western democracy. As was written in the Loranna RP once, the people of Tamriel will miss open borders and the free exchange of ideas if they ever lose them -- which is possible, now that the Third Era has ended. Hopefully the provinces won't go back to the notion that only one race "deserves" to rule its respective province, and they won't start forms of ethnic cleansing.

If we were able to see the Fourth Era unfold, it's possible that it would parallel our world's Medieval period: warlords rising and carving out many small principalities, the loss of technology (the way Roman sanitation was lost, for example, and illiteracy became widespread).

Everything hinges on the world we're shown in the next TES game, though. We'll either see another Tiber Septim rise, or a spreading anarchy.

So it's like the Internet?

Glory to the Empire!

In my opinion merit of Bethesda that it has created the world in which two components which in a reality do not converge in any way are embodied: the strong powerful monarchy and the law power. Am I right?

Well, Oblivion made the empire seem like a good idea, as long as the leaders aren't incompetent. My short time with Morrowind has left me with a very negative impression of the empire.

Morrowind left me with the distinct impression that some sort of Empire exists. Oblivion? Not so much.

The emporer gets the last say, and thats usual conqour, or hes to damn made to give a crap. Either way, I hate the empire, I always go on a crusade against them in MW after I

1) Finish the MQ
or
2) B) Get to level ten and have nothing better to do

Solomon?

True that, the Ottomans had everthing your talking about.

Oblivion left me with the impression that most organisations were pigeonholed into being good or evil based on what they do, like the holy Mages' Guild vs. the vile Necromancers, the lawful Fighter's Guild vs. the chaotic and, yes, the glorious empire and Nine Divines worshippers vs. evil Mehrunes Dagon and the Mythic Dawn. What happened to organisations/deities/etc having shades of grey and not being totally good OR bad? The only group that felt morally ambiguous to me in Oblivion was the Thieves' Guild.

Anyway, I believe the empire is necessary. If it didn't exist (or a tyrant or incompetent person took the throne) then the neighbouring provinces would degrade into war as there'll be no one to control races that have built up a vengeful attitude against their neighbour(s) for whatever reasons. That doesn't mean it's good though. After all, it's still oppressive, and the Tiber Septim's conquest would have no doubt involved a lot of killing, but Oblivion takes the empire and essentially turns it into a holy utopia, complete with a leader who has light shining out of his back end. It definitely wasn't purely good in Daggerfall or Morrowind.

The Triune Law was sacred.

The Laws of the Sixth House were sacred.

The Numidium - Dwemer? -> Lorkhan.

What do you mean by sacred? Since nearly anything in Tamriel is sacred.

That's an interesting thing, really. It practically has a bill of rights (freedom of cult, speech, association, etc., ban on slavery, and so on), so the oppression is not against the individuals. Instead, it's against the provincial powers...

The Dunmer of Morrowind seem to think otherwise!

Cyrus the Great?

Fantasy games in general have a history of depicting benevolent dictatorships teetering on the brink of destruction (from outside sources).

Tiber Septim was a mortal who was given a brief tenure enjoying absolute power - Numidium. Look at the destruction and carnage he wrought with that one golem. He forged an empire that commanded nearly all of Tamriel. The Tribunal, being gods and knowing what absolute power really was, didn't see any need to indulge in such wanton destruction. That said, Talos and Tiber, both were examplary and awesome mortals, on the same wavelength as the 3 in One and they have much admiration from me regardless.

I think Beth was definately going for a more colourful game this time, trying to appeal all the cryers out there who thought Morrowind was too depressing and boring.

I suppose the Empire is good in the long run, but the provinces really didn;t have a choice. They could either resist the Conquering of their homeland, and fail, resist with speech, and fail, or surrender.

Think of it this way, I like my country, atually I love living here however I can google canada svcks and get 400+ web pages saying that it does. Some people will like the empire and others (mainly the other provinces) wont

Still, nilloc, the whole point of debating is to convince your opponents that your viewpoint is superior.

I have a generally negative view of the empire. Some things about the empire are good, but I see them for the most part as trying to take over the world through violent oppression and justifying it with a few liberal values. On one hand I agreed with the Empires opposition to slavery, on the other Morrowind should not be under the control of foreign occupiers.

In Oblivion, the Emperor seemed like a nice enough person, heroic even. The guards were often bastards, but in Oblivion the little attention is given to the fact that the Imperials occupy other countries by force. Looking at the history of the empire, a lot of people were killed in the name of taking over the world.

So, as far as empires go the Imperials are not all bad, but they are still an empire are guilty of some pretty serious crimes against humanity just the same.