This idea was focused on in the game Fable 2, where the first game was set in a medieval-like setting, the second game was set in a more colonial-style version of the game's world.

So that made ne wonder, could anything like that happen in the Elder Scrolls world? Could their technology get advanced enough to use guns? I think that would be kind of interesting.

Its not really like our world. Nor like Fable.
In "classic" DnD the level needed for Magic is so high that it have impact. However this is TES not "classic" DnD. The only chance of guns aka Dwemer jumped of the extinction train long ago.
What would advance:
*Ways of enchanting along with metalcraft
*Building tecnics
*Social Reforms
*Alchemy
*Some more

However steam and guns and electricity is not on that list.

Well in all fairness Fable's world wasn't exactly like ours either, but anyways I just thought it would be an interesting thought. I mean Tamriel is a civilization, and civilizations change eventually right?

I think if the creators wanted to include a more evolved Tamriel that wasn't pure Medieval Europe-style they could. They probably won't, but they still could.

Tamriel is various civilisations, some with civilisations within their civilisations. The competition between them would mean that any improvements in technology would be not be shared, and probably wouldn't actually occur across the entire continent even if they were. Not many races of Tamriel aren't conservative.

And Tamriel is not like medieval Europe. You have airships! And besides, it depends on where you were in Europe. There is no way to describe medieval Europe, and no way to compare it to anything. The only thing it has in common with Tamriel besides most weapons and armour is the disunity and diversity of cultures and ideas.

medieval europe is radically different from the empire. tamriel has influences ranging from iron age china all the way up to the german renaisance, plus everything in between and a whole whallop of modern concepts.

civilizations do eventually upgrade, but its not such a clear cut concept as people seem to imagine it to be. our world evolved guns out of pure coincidence, and there were some 5k years of history before firearms came to be. the last 100 (or maybe 200) years of earth history have featured dramatically fast innovations: trains, tanks, plains, cars, computers, etc. the biggest innovation from ancient mesopotamia (3k bc) to rome (100 AD) was the discovery of some new types of metal*

*ok, huge simplification here. please dont start listing all the things invented between then, but do accept that the modern innovations are radical compared to the ancient advancements (esp. as relating to the lives of the common man).

That's oversimplifying it

Well, here is thought. If you look at the technological progress of the last 108 years, you can see a radical change brought about by technological improvement. Not just in tech itself but everything in life.

Right now, we talk and do things that would seem impossible in the past. Nobody in 1901 would believe or even understand the possibility of a pocket sized telegraph that could also display pictures and surf a network of computers -machines made to compute things- also hooked up to telegraphs controlled by other computers.

If you would apply the same concept to a world fuelled by magic, something that already represents unrecognisable technology, then how would you represent that? With more magic? Sure you could talk about magical chips, but then you'd only copying the real world, not actually looking into the future of Tamriel.

So to answer the question is, very strange, very alien.

It is however also so that Mundus used to be much stranger in the past when the old magic hadn't yet changed into something lesser. So in a sense things used to be much more advanced. There is some stuff written about that, but you could also take ideas from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisibles and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramayan_3392_A.D.

It really depends on how political landscapes go. There's the mage's guild, for instance, which holds a monopoly on practically all scholars and 'advanced technology'. If you wanted something like the rapid technological advancement of the past 500 years in RL, then it would have to be done away with, or its power over magic and scholars rapidly lessened (become something like an accredidation board).

I can't really think of anything else that might affect advancement, but then again, I did just wake up from a nap.

Probably not. Considering how widespread magicka is, they really wouldn't need guns. Also, they have to discover gun powder, which in our world at least was a accident that didn't see weaponization for a significant amount of time. My guess is that enchanted staff weapons will come to prominence, or some other sort of standardized enchanted weapon.

After reading Proweler's answer and MD's, it occurs to me that we might see less advancement in magic at the same time that we don't see technological advancement; it would be like our medieval age, when the Roman advances in sanitation, engineering, and literacy were virtually lost (except for monasteries and the Arabs helping to preserve knowledge and making advances in astronomy, etc).

In other words, if "Oblivion" is to be taken as lore, the Mages Guild is going downhill; staffed by mediocrities at the same time that it's trying to tighten its grip on who can learn magicka. You might have a future where hedge wizards are more numerous, not less, at the same time that the collapsed Empire is in a similar position to medieval Japan's "Sengoku Jidai" period. Every province for itself, basically.

Anyway, sorry for all the speculation.

Nonsense, speculation is the lifeblood of the forum...

Why was the Sentinel army so useless during the War of Betony?

The cannons were too heavy, so all three garbage scows sunk.

http://www.imperial-library.info/dfbooks/b070_jokes.shtml


They already have gunpowder and cannons.

I keep forgetting about that...

The problem is that we haven't seen cannon in "Morrowind" or "Oblivion", so apparently either gunpowder isn't on Vvardenfell or the province of Cyrodiil; or else gunpowder isn't really in TES.

Or there could be a disconnect between the lore and the games; it probably wouldn't be the first time. Could Sentinel be the only place that has gunpowder? Then again, there are the satchel charges in the Dwemer ruin in "Tribunal". I don't know.

Of course we don't know what those satchel charges are made of, and it might not work well as a gunpowder replacement.

edit: crap, I swear I keep forgetting my not's and no's.

Clearly, the satchels are enchanted, tonic I harmonizers created to fracture the chord to bare notes upon application to its root. Blackpowder was invented by the Yoku years later.

It certainly would advance, unless of course any civilization that went and advanced decided to go Dwemer on us again, but I doubt it. The "Advanced but extinct race" concept starts to lose its credibility when it happens too much. But what would it look like after that advancement? It's hard to tell, logic would tell me that mundane arts and sciences would take similar patterns to Earth, as regardless of what people will tell you, Tamriel might not be Earth, but many aspects of it look a lot like Earth, so I would expect the progression of technology to also emulate that of Earth. But Bethesda will probably want to preserve the "swords and sorcery" theme of the game, so they will either avoid answering this question, or have the techniques of making swords improve, but still have people continue to use swords.



Those things happened in the real world due to historical events, however, if history doesn't cause similar things in the Elder Scrolls, one would expect magic and mundane technology both to continue moving forward, it might be slower, depending on what happens, but unless something actually causes knowledge to be lost we certainly can't expect to see anything go backwards.



If magicka was widespread enough to make guns useless, people wouldn't need swords or bows or armor or keys (at least not mundane ones, maybe magical keys for magical locks.) or stairs either, but those things still exist in the Elder Scrolls. Though those who can use magic to replace them do forgo many of those things (like Telvanni just levitating instead of using stairs.). I suspect that magicka is not really quite as widespread as the games would make us think, everyone being able to pick up simple spells and become good at magic with simple training is probably just a game mechanic.

Good points, but in my opinion guns are a bit, overdone. what I'd like to see is beth getting creative with the progression of its ranged weaponry. Semi-automatic mages staff anyone?

As nice as it would be to see more creativity in the advancement of the Elder Scrolls world, that would probably be somewhat difficult without without anything to go on. And I fear any attempt to portray such advancement while keeping the feel might turn out to look a lot like Dwemer civilization was returning to Tamriel, or Sotha Sil's clockwork city.

I don't know whether or not we can consider that cannon remark canon (puntastic pun!). Daggerfall began to lay the groundwork for some basic elements of TES lore, such as the Daedra and the Eight Divines, but I think it wasn't until TES: Redguard that Bethesda began to fully flush out the finer details of each culture. They even said so when discussing the early design of Morrowind...

Quick! Anybody recall any cannons in TES: Redguard?

If by cannons, then you mean mages slinging fireballs surrounded by armored knights on wooden boats, then yes, there were.

(Actually, didn't Lord Richton have a hand pistol?)

more simplified and more handholding?

Of course, in the future compass techniques will advance, allowing the compass to be grafted directly into the lens of the eye, and allowing it to remember more points of interest at once. Imagine, one day not so long from now, when you can simply shout at your eye "speciffic place" and instantly be told where to go for coffee.

On a more serious note, though, I expect there to be a massive loss in the art of necromancy, which is awful, as the loss of necromancy means the loss of all the possible benefits it could have involving the replacement of limbs and other medical issues. Sure, people would still practice it, but the flow of ideas would be more stifled than usual thanks to the Mages guild being able to kill you on the spot with no legal ramifications for practicing this vile, perfectly legal art.

Edit: Also, love letter from the 5th era made it sound like they develop something akin to genetic sequencing.

Secunda moon colonisation. 'nuff said.

But the moons are just rotting away, right? I would think that thought might dissuade any wouldbe colonizers. Exploration, maybe, if you can even get to it.