Lore talk:Stormhold

UOL Source for Time Period

I have gone through and added a UOL reference to various lore pages to pinpoint the time period of Stormhold and Dawnstar as being " roughly around the time Morrowind was set" according to this interview. This is the first time we have been given an approximate time period for the events of these games. However, I believe this addition is entirely uncontroversial, as we have effectively been placing these events in this chronological order on the wiki for years. The reasoning for this as I understood it was that the games were obviously set at some point in the Third Era (based on e.g. Legion uniform and Imperial rule) and the most sensible place to place the info was around the time of Morrowind since that was when these spinoffs were released. However, we have been mostly meticulous in keeping all mention of a possible time period off the articles, and this placement was simply convention.

With this latest 2020 interview of a developer who worked on the games, I think we can now safely throw caution to the wind and list this approximate time period directly on the relevant pages. This is not a chronological change to how the articles were previously written but is simply a clarification for readers of something we have long suspected and which has now been confirmed. —⁠Legoless (talk) 14:58, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

"Around" the time of Morrowind could mean many things, and I think its inclusion in lore in any way faithful to the original statement would raise more questions than it answers. Plus, in the context of the interview, it's prefaced that there was no consensus between either team, so he likely only speaks for himself. I think that there enough layers of "iffy" to warrant not including it in prose in the Lorespace. I think it's best used in gamespace as a "fun fact" and to inform the ordering of paragraphs. (ie Placing the events of Dawnstar on Lore:Dawnstar in a place that could imply that it's placed around Morrowind, but without explicitly stating a date.) As much as I want epic Travels lore, those are my suggestions on this matter. -Dcsg (talk) 18:06, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

Around the time of Morrowind means late Third Era, which matches what we already see in-game. This was already non-controversial and a developer interview is a perfectly valid UOL to provide confirmation of same. —⁠Legoless (talk) 19:43, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

By the late Third Era, Dawnstar is a city-state and not a garrison town (Appearance in Arena). We can't blindly take a UOL source, especially using it as specifically as "in the late Third Era circa 3E 427," especially when the claim in the source is an "I don't know, probably." It's ambiguous and that should be reflected in how it is mentioned in the lorespace. -Dcsg (talk) 21:10, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

I think we can say Third Era as fine, idk about specifying late but 3e def seems to be it based off other evidence. Interregnum or pre-septim empire time periods seem highly unlikely The Rim of the Sky (talk) 03:26, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Dawnstar's political situation in Arena is highly specific to the shattered nature of the Empire during the Simulacrum and doesn't reflect the city's status after that point. I'd be fine with keeping it vague and simply mentioning late Third Era. —⁠Legoless (talk) 08:58, 12 February 2021 (UTC)