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Introduction

CBR JGWRR

Lt. General
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Aug 22, 2021
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  • Stellaris: Megacorp
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Needless to say, quite a bit of development to go here, and with the exception of the referred to events of the series to date, none of this is any kind of canon.

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The arena of Tamriel has seen many principalities, kingdoms and empires founded on the slashing of swords and the shedding of blood. Violent conflicts abound. The strangeness of the Dawn gave way to the rivalries of elves, then the revolutions of man, then the lost era, then peace at the price of the usage of the bronze god. The cycle renewed is the absence of Dragonborn rulers as yet another war raged between Elf and Man.

Only one was founded on love - the Union of Nirn.

The ashes of the Great War left the Aldmeri Dominion recuperating, and the Empire split on the identity of it's greatest hero. That split led to what it had always been planned to cause, and a war of brother against brother saw the black wings unfurl.

Into the maelstrom came a woman.

Specifically, a Thalmor operative, assigned to support the Third Emissary. She was at Helgen in the guard entourage, when the World-Eater struck. Separated from her allies, fate led her to escaping with Ralof of Riverwood, and in a few days to a discovery that changed the life of this young woman forever when a night battle with a lesser dragon ended. Jennifere Oleryis - although much more well known by the name of her future husband - was summoned to High Hrothgar, and proclaimed the Dragon of the North.

It was a couple of weeks before she could return to Elenwen to debrief on the events since Helgen, but the Thalmor did not need much convincing to see the value of the Dragonborn at their command - Jennifere was given freedom to operate undercover to build her reputation as the Last Dragonborn. And for a time, she complied, carefully arranging a truce that favoured neither party to give her the opportunity she needed.

As her own power grew, along with her hatred of the Daedric, she realised that she could bring an end to the conflict of the ages, and obtained Elenwen's permission for a dangerous yet disguised hope; faced with four choices - he could kill her and spark civil unrest, send her away and have the status quo, expose her as a Thalmor operative and start the Second War, or accept her proposal and marry the Dragonborn of song and legend - Ulfric Stormcloak chose the fourth, and the Thalmor were delighted to have their operative the co-regnal High Queen; while Ulfric alone did not have the Jarl's support, no one would refuse the Dragonborn, and Skyrim was freed.

The Empire was loathe to have war in north and south, and capitulated to the two Stormcloaks in the wake of a favour for an honourable man.

The Thalmor, realising Jennifere's true gambit, were forced into an early Second War to prevent her attaining even more power. But faced with an Aspect of Auri'El, adorned with his bow, shield and nature, the Diadem of Ayrenn on her brow and proclaiming the return of the kings and queens of Summerset, the Dominion surrendered, and the Union of Tamriel was formed.


The two co-regents then embarked on a series of major reforms to restore Tamriel, with the three most important being the introduction of education for every child in all the schools of magic, in reading, writing and numeracy, and in smithing, alchemy and enchanting, with a focus on developing the aspirations to live for more than conflict, the incorporation of the Mage-Engineers Guild to recover and reutilise lost forms of magic and technologies, and most importantly, the Restoration of the Enholfey - mainly through the encouraging of Elven-Human couples.

The early stage of the latter was followed by the public knowledge of Jennifere's draining her Elven lifespan to extend Ulfric's much shorter Human lifespan, and later the publicising of Jennifere's research into magical techniques to recombine Elven and Human natures into one, kept secret because the depth went to any level that did not require Daedric assistance; even long abandoned schools of magic, or ones associated with darkness, got utilised to make her dream reality.

Jennifere and Ulfric were the first volunteers to test the new ritual; Jennifere being willing to sacrifice even her life for her belief in the equality of Elf and Man, and Ulfric inspired to live for more by her waking dreams. The success of them led to hundreds of Elf-Human couples following, and the Restored Enholfey became a people in one day.

The mass-movement of people utterly transformed by the reopening of teleportation and levitation magics, road networks overhauled by Dwemer steam engines into rail and road and airship, while attempts to reach Aetherius through Magicka resumed. Focuses on improved food and improved education led to the average child being as clever as a court wizard from the era before. Exploration fleets charted the seas and opened trade networks with distant regions. In just a few generations from the two Stormcloaks, the ability to open supra-luminal access points to Lesser Aetherius led to the development of magicka-drive Aetherial Ships, and the Union of Nirn turned interplanetary.
 
Wow, you're soon rivalling me in number of AARs in a year! :D
 
The Union of Nirn
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The Union of Nirn differs greatly from almost any other empire. While Ulfric Stormcloak was quite content to continue the old pattern of rulers, Jennifere Stormcloak - who had to start from nothing but the armour on her back as part of building her alibi in the Dragonborn - envisioned a totally different order. If Socrates asked "What if the leaders were Philosopher Kings?" Jennifere asked "What if the people were Philosopher Kings?"; to her, the first government was each person's command of self, with all dynamics based on self-sovereign individuals working together. And therefore, her education policy was designed on the assumption that the resulting person would be able to do just about anything she could do that wasn't a direct attribute from being an aspect of a god.

As a result, dynamics were at most systems of temporary contracts based on liege-lord relationships, if they were defined at all; Jennifere's system in principle held no one in ranks of authority as she was merely first among equals. She expected nothing more than the same self-mastery she possessed, and the few orders she gave were never given as orders, but as explanations of her ideas being offered for people to consider and evaluate and debate. To her, she did not command; she led. In fact, anyone was free to leave what heriarchy did exist at any time, as Jennifere wouldn't want anyone working for her unless they wanted to.

The result was therefore, an extremely strange form of anarcho-egalitarian cooperatives under a dyadic monarchy; taxes were forbidden from being levied, because to Jennifere, they were parasitic on the people - to her, the state was responsible for the construction of infrastructure and defence of the realm, and to Jennifere, largely only the first as Tamriel was simply such a dangerous region all it's citizens were defacto citizen levies, particularly after her education reforms made advanced magic manipulation accessible to all. And infrastructure only got invested in if it would improve trade or the lives of the people, as Jennifere defined victory in terms of improving quality of life for everyone - schools and restoration magic were available to everyone, and physical disability was made a thing of the past as the Mage-Engineers figured out how to make Dwemer automata that could substitute for missing limbs.

As the infrastructure projects got too big for her to fund, she realised that the fundamental concept of coinage was flawed; people's time was the true limit, not their resources. and commodity money could only decrease in value as population increased and prosperity grew. She then explained her concept of reshaping society by using food as currency instead of metal; the use of food necessarily caused an investment feedback loop. Investment of capital to obtain money led to increased food, which ultimately had to be invested into more people otherwise it could only be wasted; food could not be stored for lifetimes the way coinage could be, as it spoiled, and therefore new food production meant more people were needed in order for the investor to prosper, turning employment from a liability into an asset. With the education overhaul of course, new people represented a substantial expense of time and resources, which contributed to a slowing down of growth as many couples opted to maximise the strengths of a few children.

The result was that the Restored Enholfey had a society that grew steadily, but consistently. By the Fifth Era, under Aluraie (pictured) and Vladimar Stormcloak, space offered opportunities to grow exponentially.

---------------


Unfortunately, Stellaris has the wrong shade of skin tone and no facial hair for the Elven race; you'll have to imagine Human skin tones with beards for men. Midnight now, so this is it for tonight.
 
Haven't played Elder Scrolls and am only very passingly familiar with it. This is interesting, though, so I'll subscribe anyway.
 
So, this is still at the "getting stuff together and testing to see what breaks" stage of development before the story really begins.

But to give an outline:

While the Union of Nirn adequately represents a broad picture of Tamrielic Human+Altmeri cultures and the advancement through to space, Redguards, Altmeri nationalists and Thalmor holdouts, Bosmeri, Khajiit, Argonians, Orsimeri, Dunmeri aren't, and will have their own civilisations.

In addition, it would be interesting to have splinter factions and representatives of certain Daedric Princes.

Also got to figure out how to incorporate magic more series-appropriately.
 
So, still setting this up; real life getting in the way as usual.

Plus, the old issue of scope creep is still involved - had ideas for an Aetherial subdivision of the East Empire Company and the rediscovery of the Dwemeri.

Hopefully I'll start by the weekend, can't guarantee it though.
 
So, still setting this up; real life getting in the way as usual.

Plus, the old issue of scope creep is still involved - had ideas for an Aetherial subdivision of the East Empire Company and the rediscovery of the Dwemeri.

Hopefully I'll start by the weekend, can't guarantee it though.
So...

As is often the case, real life is getting in the way. Most relevantly - although it's actually only one of several issues - is that the dog ate the USB stick where all the files for Stellaris were located. Which is frustrating...
 
So...

As is often the case, real life is getting in the way. Most relevantly - although it's actually only one of several issues - is that the dog ate the USB stick where all the files for Stellaris were located. Which is frustrating...
That is what happens some times. Good luck next time (I hope there is a next time)!
 
Vladimir looked at her; Aluraie Stormcloak, granddaughter of the founding couple. Her golden hair cascading past her shoulders, windswept before the currents of the supra-luminal bridge between the arrivals lounge and the Aetherial vessels above. The Mage-Engineers had tried magicka rockets and chemical rockets, but they needed immense energies or materials respectively - the luminal bridges however, you took the step through and you were on the ship. Of course, there were range issues - just like the teleportation spells they were derived from the range was only the width of a province. But it was still enough to get to Lesser Aetherius, you just needed ships to reach out beyond low orbit.

Things had progressed rapidly since the first chemical rocket successfully made orbit. The spells needed an anchor point to focus the link to, and you definitely didn't want to get scattered into Lesser Aetherius from making a mistake. But those early teething issues were dealt with; the Aetherial vessels could be resupplied with ease, as well as crewed. And with the first materials being extracted from Masser and Secunda for the beginning of construction in Lesser Aetherius, the prospects for growth had never seemed so vast.

He walked beside her.

"What do you think the ancestors would say if they knew we were walking on Masser and Secunda?"

His wife smiled. "Worried about Divine retribution?"

"Sometimes I do wonder."

"I don't worry about it. If the Divines didn't want us doing this, they'd stop us."

Vladimir snorted. "There's plenty who'd have your grandmother join them."

"Which she refused."

"True. But there's cults worshipping her anyway."

Aluraie stopped smiling. "It would have frustrated her immensely."

"Most in her position would have loved to have cults following them."

"Yes. It was never about people following her, but about people leading themselves."

He rubbed her shoulders gently. "It makes you think about our legacy."

"Well, so far our legacy is that Restored Enholfey now dwell upon three planes in Lesser Aetherius."

He pulled her into his embrace. "You are thinking of much more?"

"Yes. I have a theory, borne out by our measurments of planes surrounding distant stars."

"What if we aren't alone?"

"Well, that's part of my theory."

"What is it then?"

"We've always believed that the different planes of Oblivion are located in tangential planes, yes?"

"Broadly."

"What if they aren't."

"You mean, what if we can travel to them via Lesser Aetherius?"

"And what if we only saw a tiny fraction of the various planes?"

"Yes, exactly. We are starting to document that there are many worlds beyond Nirn. And we now have conclusive proof that the planes we once thought were the representations of the bodies of dead gods are actually magicka-infused rocks that we can touch, feel, smell, even taste. It stands to think then that we have to re-evaluate the old understanding."

"I'm more worried about something coming from the beyond to us."

"I have a theory about that too."

"Other residents of Oblivion?"

"Yes. In the past we called them Daedra, but perhaps they are truly residents of different planes like our Nirn."

"Maybe the Dwemer aren't so gone."

"It's a possibility. Falion of Morthal claimed to meet them."

"He was always mistrusted though."

"Yes, but he did sort out Jennifere's vampire problem after she had to become one to get into the Soul Cairn. She trusted him."

"What do you think they would be like?"

"Well, the Daedra we have encountered seem to barely exceed our developments. I'd wager we are powerful enough to launch offensives against some of the Daedric Princes. So, I believe they will be at our level, for the most part."

"Well, we've got magic."

"True. But they may use technological means to achieve the same goals."

"Which is better though?"

"Hopefully we won't find out the hard way. But if we do, we will be much better off by continuing the developments we are doing now - if we can master both methods of advancement, then we will be the best."

"Or have devoted half our efforts to the losing side."

She pulled away, and walked to the bridge; Vladimir felt her desire for him to join her. "Then we must be the best."
 
What a pleasant surprise! :)
 
Did they just theorize the existence of other dimensions? Or of the Shroud?
 
Travelling to other dimensions is a merethic era concept, if not earlier in TES. Attempting to reach Aetherius through magical means predates the Union by at least four millennia.

The Shroud entities are/will be understood as Daedric Princes; while obviously the Shroud entities are inspired by WH40k, there are sufficient analogues to make the identity obvious in setting.

And being Daedric, the Union founded as it is by a Dragonborn who loathed the Daedric Lords and considered them beneath her, the Union will have very little regard for them.

Other factions leaving Nirn may have different perspectives of course.
 
"So, what you are telling me is at the edge of the system are regions of space that allow for rapid accessibility to other star systems?"

"It's more that being that far from the gravitational well allows for free manipulation of the space-time-energy gradient in a way that can't easily be done inside the system."

"Only it's stuck to certain paths?"

"Yes. We think that it comes to a measure of travelledness."

"By who?"

"By what, more accurately. We've tracked several types of space-fairing lifeform travelling these node-access lines. We are wondering if they are maintaining the network."

"How long does it take to travel them?"

"It should cut the travel time between star systems to just a few weeks."

"Let me think it over, I will get back to you."

Aluraie placed the communicator on the table, before walking down the long stone corridor of the living quarters of the Palace of Kings. Dating to Ysgramor, but the observatory - rebuilt as it was from the original Dwemer construct beneath Mzark - had been built only a few centuries ago, as Jennifere wanted it to be made more accessible. It had been insight from an Elder Scroll that led to the discovery of the lines, realising that a Moth Priest had been given the paths used by members of the Magna-Ge to head out to their respective places. What hadn't been as anticipated was that far from being the most powerful as long thought, Magnus' remnant of the sun was actually only a minor star, but the interconnection was there; someone had punched holes through to enable travel between stars, and other beings had been holding it open. It made sense, at least as far as anything in Mundus made sense.

It seemed obvious that people were going to have to go to the stars now. If there were other star systems like their own, then it's not unreasonable that other worlds could also have life like Nirn. The very oldest legends outright stated that. She looked at her son, Ralof. He sat on the balcony, looking up at the stars.

Why wouldn't he though? Was it not what she had wanted of him, to dream of stars?

Questions flooded Aluraie. The expansion of the Engineers section of the Mage-Engineers Guild had been done on the assumption of magicka being unavailable outside their home system, but if that wasn't the case, then it opened all sorts of possibilities.

She had thought it would take generations to go to the stars. But what if it wouldn't? She sprinted for her communicatior. "Put a ship together for a test, lets see what happens."
 
Hyperspace is discovered!

Are the Nirn Spiritualist, by the way? What are their traits?
 
Minus nintely? That won’t make it hard at all. :p
 
Correct, Governing Ethics Attraction is a dump stat in Stellaris, it doesn't matter.

In any event, the zeitgeist of the Reformed Enholfey was defined by a woman who largely lived life by her own will, so Anarchic is appropriate. What kind of government can you have when all could be their own king?