Imperial Entrepreneurs and Trade Companies (Like the EEC)

[Gnomey]

Rather than making this a straight East Empire Company faction thread, I figured I'd give it a somewhat broader topic. I believe several places, such as Helnim and Cormar, have been suggested as belonging to either the EEC or a smaller trade company, in the vein of the Caldera Mining Company. There may be other locations I'm forgetting as well.

Figuring out the extent of EEC operations is fairly important, as I wouldn't want them to be limited to New Ebonheart and Solstheim. However, smaller Imperial enterprises are also worth noting and keeping track of, while not necessarily warranting their own threads.

[klep]

Concerning faction relationships, or NPC reactions towards members of other factions.

In [url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?p=326454#326454]another thread[/url] I started drawing a table to determine faction relationships with other factions, which has changed a few times since the first sketch. The table shows NPC reactions towards members of different factions. The table should be read by finding the source faction on the left hand column, and matching it with a faction from the top row. See the table in the spoiler below.

First of all, in those graphs, I think the vertical columns are really the most important. They show how the opinions of members of factions change upon the player joining a certain faction.
Always remember that faction relations are inherently player-centric. The player will probably never join Her Hands, for instance, so figuring out what other factions would think of Her Hands would mostly be a waste of time. Figuring out what Her Hands thinks (if anything) of other factions is, however, very important.
Truth be told, I think it might be more reasonable to just figure out the vertical columns in the individual faction threads. This would split the task into bite-sized portions, allowing for proper discussion, and it would be rather easy to then go through the faction threads and gather the results.

Per Gnomey’s advice I am now splitting this up through the faction threads. Please discuss in this thread the reactions of other factions towards Imperial Trade Companies to keep things organised.
[spoiler][/spoiler]
The Trade Companies are Imperial, but where money is involved people tend to refrain from holding grudges. As different companies have different businesses it’s hard to say how much the Imperial Trade Companies are liked on Morrowind in general, but I’d say the hate towards outlanders is slightly stifled when money plays a role.

That being said, a company secretly hustlin’ slaves and moon sugar would make some nice quests. The idea is slightly derived from the [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_West_India_Company]Dutch West India Company[/url] which made most of its profits, besides from gold, with the trade of slaves and sugar.

[Gnomey]

Note that the only actual faction in game-play terms to discuss here would be the East Empire Company. There is no 'Caldera Mining Company' faction in the base game, for instance. Entities discussed here aside from the East Empire Company would not be actual factions, and as such would have no faction relations.

[RyanS]

What sort of business would the Cormaris company be? Fishing? Mining? Perhaps they would be pulling riches from the bay? All three activities have been discussed in various (old) threads, though they were being based on the town as a whole. Seeing that fishing would bring in little profit, and how mining is a bit overdone, I am most enthusiastic on the latter idea.

[Gnomey]

Keep in mind that that is only one idea for what we could end up doing with Cormaris, and not necessarily the one we will go with. That aside, though, lumber is an obvious choice for Uld Vraech, while pearl diving and the like might suit the particular situation of the town better.

[klep]

There's timber, there's water, let us build boats!

[Gnomey]

Shipbuilding could work quite well; it could also link up nicely with the scenario I presented for the mainland Blades network.

A certain amount of strategy might be worthwhile for these groups; while random luxury goods like precious stones would no doubt be exploited, I think there could be some potential for a rather subtle Empire-subsidized and large-scale operation of building up an industry in Morrowind to support the local Imperial forces; so ship-building, iron extraction and the production of weapons, perhaps even a limited amount of agriculture.
Various factions may get wise to this and try to counter-act it, or in other cases the operations would end up getting involved in local conflicts; the Camonna Tong might attack operations within (generally) Hlaalu territory, the Morag Tong might be hired to carry out hits on certain powerful figures involved in the operations, Cormaris and Caldera draw the ire of House Redoran, and perhaps Helnim will be drawn into the conflict between the Duchess of Firewatch and House Telvanni, if we keep that idea.

[klep]

I very much like your thinking. I might have some ideas, but I'll elaborate only on the agriculture for now as atm I am one of those who lead the sober in the right direction...

We are talking about an area where fresh water and seawater meet. What you get is [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brackish_water]brackish water[/url], which generally means that not many types of flora can survive there. However, it also means that the flora which can survive is usually of some special sort. Most of this flora on earth is of the type that lives in the water, but there are also types that live on the soil around brackish waters. Maybe some special types of plants that only grows in this specific area -- because of the brackish water, but also because the soil here is different from other areas with brackish water in Tamriel -- could be the reason for this, small sized, but higly profitable, agriculture. I have found some information, including photos, [url=http://www.wetwebmedia.com/brackishsubwebindex/bracplants.htm]here[/url] and [url=http://www.wildflowersofireland.net/plant_detail.php?id_flower=580&Wildflower=Water-crowfoot,%20Brackish]here[/url]. They don't look very special at first, but at least it's an idea which can be built upon.

[Ironed Maidens]

I very much like your thinking. I might have some ideas, but I'll elaborate only on the agriculture for now as atm I am one of those who lead the sober in the right direction...

We are talking about an area where fresh water and seawater meet. What you get is [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brackish_water]brackish water[/url], which generally means that not many types of flora can survive there. However, it also means that the flora which can survive is usually of some special sort. Most of this flora on earth is of the type that lives in the water, but there are also types that live on the soil around brackish waters. Maybe some special types of plants that only grows in this specific area -- because of the brackish water, but also because the soil here is different from other areas with brackish water in Tamriel -- could be the reason for this, small sized, but higly profitable, agriculture. I have found some information, including photos, [url=http://www.wetwebmedia.com/brackishsubwebindex/bracplants.htm]here[/url] and [url=http://www.wildflowersofireland.net/plant_detail.php?id_flower=580&Wildflower=Water-crowfoot,%20Brackish]here[/url]. They don't look very special at first, but at least it's an idea which can be built upon.

I think this idea. We can take it a step further and have it be a new unique type of flower that could be exported to neighboring cyrodiil.

Work with me here, but I'm thinking of where the exodus of velothi would have passed by, and about one thing that is never addressed and could be better developed in the area: religious silks. What if the plant that grows only in this area is viewed as holy and places like necrom, vivec, temples in cyrodiil etc etc use it to make special tapestries or robes?

[Gnomey]

With my last post I meant trade companies across Morrowind, not just Cormaris; specifically, I was thinking of Helnim when I said agriculture, as I'm not sure what else it could produce. That being said, it could be there will end up being another resource near Helnim.
Generally I would avoid having several industries in the same place; I think it's best to keep it simple. So for Cormaris wood, perhaps including shipbuilding, and maybe pearls as a secondary industry.

Religious silks are very much a Nibenese thing, and I don't really think there's a niche for them in Dunmer religion. As a more general idea, a plant growing along the route of Veloth's pilgrimage is an interesting idea, but this isn't really the right thread in which to discuss it. I doubt any trade companies would be given land anywhere near Veloth's road.

[Yeti]

Wouldn't Helnim link up with the Telvanni Bug Musk trade network?

Cormaris should be pearls primarily, cause it's more interesting than wood.

[Ironed Maidens]

With my last post I meant trade companies across Morrowind, not just Cormaris; specifically, I was thinking of Helnim when I said agriculture, as I'm not sure what else it could produce. That being said, it could be there will end up being another resource near Helnim.
Generally I would avoid having several industries in the same place; I think it's best to keep it simple. So for Cormaris wood, perhaps including shipbuilding, and maybe pearls as a secondary industry.

Religious silks are very much a Nibenese thing, and I don't really think there's a niche for them in Dunmer religion. As a more general idea, a plant growing along the route of Veloth's pilgrimage is an interesting idea, but this isn't really the right thread in which to discuss it. I doubt any trade companies would be given land anywhere near Veloth's road.

I don't see why exporting any silks would be bad (look at ancient China) though I do think we should roll with the idea of a type of sacramental plant being grown in the area, the Velothian pilgrimage can be justifiably given to Hlaalu via the same type of stuff they pull on Vvardenfell; they may have forged documents about land rights, or even religious text claiming a certain older Hlaalu family owned the land. It could even tie in with future Temple quests where maybe the Temple assigns you to try and re-claim the land that rightfully belongs to House Indoral, or at least they want to claim the plants as property and as such they want due recognition for any types of materials/items made with the plant. This is something that has not been done in vanilla Morrowind really besides Muck plants, and even then that it more for a face-value affliction of humility instead of an actual awesome plant that is sacred to the Dunmer.

It think it opens up avenues for a lot of different mix-n-matching of cultural influences, plus is also adds more depth to Velothi's road, and to boot I think it would add a bit more reason for House Redoran to have conflict in the area.