First up, hi! first post! Long time lurker, first time poster, here.

Second up, yes, I made an account specifically to ask this question.


The question is thus: if The Elder Scrolls series takes place - universally - in a period spanning over a 1000 years ("Online" being set the furthest back in time, "Skyrim" being the latest) then how come... nothing ever bloody well changes!?

Now, don't get me wrong. Stuff happens, granted. Empires rise and fall, wars are fought, won, and lost. Mountains erupt, cities are built and destroyed and so on and so forth... We've even had entire races fall off the face of the planet.

But every game looks like it's set in the same time period!

I'm unable to post links or images, however, go look at the trailer for The Elder Scrolls Online. You'll notice, at some parts, you get to see Skyrim.

Now, go look at some trailers or gameplay from TES: V. Skyrim. Looks familiar, right? I mean, of course it does! It's the same landmass, same country, no wonder it looks the same..

Only... Online is set over a thousand years before the events of Skyrim... Why hasn't the place changed one damn bit!?

1000 years ago, in the real world, we were still using swords and bows. Now days, we have iPhones and cars and you get the basic picture. History, innovation and progress goes a long way in 1000 years. Hell, in the 14th century, we were still knights in shining armour, but 200 years later (the time difference between, say, Oblivion and Skyrim) we had guns! 200 years after that, it was all top hats and factories and pressed suits!

So how come, in such a long time span, nothing changes on Nirn? How come we're still wearing the same kinds of armour, using the same kinds of magic and weapons, living in the same buildings, speaking the same languages?

Where is the progression? Where is the innovation? I mean, the Dwemer had the right idea, and when they vanished they left all their stuff behind! So why are all those fancy robots and explosives and suchlike still rotting under mountains instead of being reinvented? Where are the factories? Where is the expansion? Why aren't there Wood Elf environmentalists lobbying the Imperials to stop cutting down their forests for the industrial expansion? Why aren't there well-dressed, snobby High Elves with enchanted flintlocks, riding around in their converted dwemer-tech auto carriages? Why are we still running around wearing rags and leathers like a bunch of cavemen? Why aren't there any Khajiit outlaws wandering around Elsweyr with ten-gallon hats and six-shooters?

I love this series, I've been on a huge Skyrim binge lately. But no matter how much I try to ignore it, I can't. My mind cannot accept that a society advanced to about the medieval era some 1000 years ago, then stopped and said "right, let's just stay here, then."

When I first heard they were making Elder Scrolls V, before it became apparent that it was called "Skyrim" or anything, I heard it was going to be set "200 years after Oblivion" and I got all excited for a colonial fantasy experience! But instead, we got Skyrim, which while a fantastic game in of itself, feels like it's set 200 years before Oblivion. I mean, come on! In Oblivion the Imperials had sweet looking plate armour and a huge, towering white city! But now they're a bunch of Roman legionaries living in a 13th century keep? If the game is set so far into the future, why does it feel like the past?

Sorry that this is, basically, just a huge rant. But this has been bugging me for a long time and I needed to get it off my chest. Apologies if it's been raised before. I just feel like Bethesda is missing some great opportunities to do some cool "past/future fantasy" stuff.

To put it shortly: Nirn =/= Earth.

The Elder Scrolls isn't a simulation of Human existence on Earth. Not only that, but technological advances over our lifetimes has far exceeded that of previous generations. There are periods of Human history where nothing really progresses for thousands of years.

You do realize that humanity existed for helluva long time with very long periods of little to no progress before the industrial revolution, right? Even the comparatively advanced civilizations that predate ours were nowhere near our current technological level.

Either way, we shouldn't judge a fictional universe by our real world standards. There is a lot of technological progress; you probably just don't recognize it as such, since it a) is nothing like the steampunk-y inventions of the Dwemer and 2) does not adhere to real life science; to be more precise, magic and science are inseparable in TES. Most importantly, the more advanced stuff is limited to the rich, the aristocracy and those with magical ability, not lowly Skyrim peasants.

Did you know that mages have their very own magic internet which they can access by tuning their minds to the realm where souls are recycled after death? Did you know that the moons have been colonized since the days of Reman? Did you know that in the Ninth Era they have magical mining robots that harvest raw Thu'um from Kynareth's plane(t)?