I hope I'm not the only person noticing this, but yesterday I finally read the Legend of Red Eagle in-game book. Does anyone else see a bit of the inspiration for this from Caesar's Gallic Wars?
Another thing is the Thrassian Plague, I find it to be similar to the Black Death because it wiped out half of Tamriel's population, where the real life Black Death Plague wiped out a third of human population.
Am I just being stupid with this stuff? Are there other events that may be based in Real World history?
I think that High Rock before the Warp in the West is also inspired from real world history. I believe at some point in 1700-1850 that Japan (like High Rock) was split up into several different states and was not wholly unified. The same goes to Britain in the Middle ages and most likely many areas in Europe where there was no true ruler.
My info is probably a little inaccurate.
I don't think it's stupid, per se, but well... it's easy to draw connections that are inherent in the biases of the observer.
What I mean is, for example, a devastating plague is a devastating plague. There are many in the history of the real world to draw connections to: the plague that caused Athens to lose the Peloponnesian War, the Justinian Plague that crippled the Byzantine Empire and killed at least 100 million, or the smallpox plague that was outright apocalyptic to the Aztecs and other Native Americans (killing as much as 90% of North and Central America's native population). Or what about the Spanish Flu from 1917-18 which current estimates say also may have killed 100 million worldwide.
My point is that the Black Death wasn't singular, and we - Westerners - only tend to think of it because it is, for us, the proto-typical 'plague'. There's no reason to presume that the Thrassian Plague was 'based on' the Black Death instead of just being a 'generic' plague.
Wars and empires tend to fit a limited number of archetypes, too. The political situation of the Empire as presented in Skyrim is a pretty typical example of a core-periphery empire collapsing due to shedding the periphery. I could compare it just as easily to the collapse of Byzantine unity after Manzikert as I could the breakup of the USSR or the way the subject peoples turned on the Aztecs once Cortez showed up.
Likewise, the Stormcloak Uprising is a great example of an ethnic secessionist war, and could be compared as easily to the Scots Wars of Independence as to Kosovo. What example you think the developers were drawing on says more about you than about them.
And all my examples above are drawn from general history as presented by a Western education and have a Western bias. You can find similar parallels from Chinese, or Japanese, or African, or any history, because the same patterns and archetypes of political organization repeat themselves all over the place. Tamriel is no different, and likely couldn't be.
I'm not thinking about it that deeply man. I enjoy history, and I like to see things in games that I find similar to real world history...
I'd also like to point out Bethesda is a company that produces games for a Western audience..
I don't state the plague as being "based" on the black death, I just simply find it similar in numbers compared to the Thrassian one.
There is a clear undeniable basis on the Romans when we look at the Imperials. Comparing them to the real world Roman empire is just what people are likely to do...
I just think you're over thinking this..
Barely thinking about it at all, actually. International Relations and Political Philosophy education, this stuff is like breathing air to me.
Ah... Imperial = Roman. If you said Legion = Roman, I would whole-heartedly agree, but remember the structure of the Legion was adopted from the Tsaesci, it's not native. The Imperials themselves - the Colovians and the Nibenese - don't seem very Roman. The Nibenese seem more like Hellenistic Greeks and the Colovians more like Germans or Gauls. Both major parts, culturally, of a "Roman" Empire, but still lacking actual Romans.
The organization and administration of the Empire isn't very Roman, either. The amount of autonomy left to the provinces makes it operate much more like a confederation than a centralized empire. In that sense, it's much more like the Holy Roman Empire than the Roman Empire.
That's what I've decided I like most about the Elder Scrolls, the world has depth and what you first think you see is rarely what's beneath the surface.
Except for the Khajiit. Someone just took a cat-burglar joke too far with them. Still love them, though.