I've been replaying the Clockwork City ESO content on the heels of a recent Morrowind playthrough, and I have lots of thoughts to share, but tonight I'm thinking really specifically about all the oil. Inordinately long post incoming.
This might seem like kind of a specific hangup, but the fact that almost all the naturally occurring liquid (so to speak) in ESO's Clockwork City is oil bothers me. Because obviously, Sotha Sil is isolated and out of touch. The tension between his compassion and utilitarianism; between his desire to protect the world and his being out of touch with the people who live in it; these things are central to his character, and in general I actually think ESO does a decent job portraying this. But I also think that sometimes the narrative drives home how out of touch and irresponsible he is in a way that loses sight of how he's still a fundamentally pragmatic and utilitarian character.
They portray this well through the general pattern of him leaving behind a trail of projects that his Apostles must struggle to maintain so the realm doesn't implode. It reflects his drive for innovation and his irresponsibility without undermining his utilitarianism or personal competence. The issues arise from him leaving his followers to struggle without guidance, and not from short-sighted, obvious flaws in the groundwork he lays for them.
They portray this way less well with the Halls of Regulation -- by having almost all of the water in the realm start out as oil that has to go through an extremely complicated filtering and refinement process before it can be remotely potable. Having a machine-regulated water cycle makes sense for the setting, but the oil... The ubiquity of oil/absence of water reads to me as a wildly impractical thing that Sotha Sil could have (and, imo, would have) avoided, because the extremely complicated operation and maintenance of the Halls of Regulation is a huge resource sink and an easily exploitable weakpoint that the survival of his realm depends on, at least as long as there are people in it.
And, of course, it begs the question: if he can create a pocket realm where there’s oil all over the place, what stopped him from including water? I could come up with some answers for that, and you could too, but it’s kind of beside the point. I think that the writing regarding the water/oil cycle leaned too far in the direction of critiquing the clunkiness of bureaucracy without considering how that would manifest specifically in the context of Sotha Sil.
Sotha Sil making all organic life dependent on the Halls of Regulation seems contrary to his mission, because, unlike Vivec keeping Baar Dau suspended over his city to make a point about how the people can’t live without his love, Sotha Sil seems more interested in creating something that can outlive him. I think a good explanation for this discrepancy (and everything else I've said) is simply that Sotha Sil's long-term plan was for the Halls of Regulation to eventually become obsolete due to all life in the Clockwork City being fabricated. It was never really meant to support organic life, which is why things like fresh food and water seem like afterthoughts.
The thing about this explanation that I find dissatisfying, though (aside from my personal opinion that Sotha Sil is a compassionate utilitarian who cares about his people in his own way), is that there IS a lot of water in the Clockwork City as depicted in Morrowind. I think the opposite progression – water in the second era and oil in the third – would make more sense, indicating that he started by creating something more hospitable to Tamrielic life and veered more and more in the direction of an entirely mechanical, self-sustaining world as he became increasingly out of touch and disillusioned. Of course, they weren’t planning for this when they were developing Tribunal in 2002, but I think it makes the lack of water in ESO less compelling because it makes me think the decision was less grounded in lore and existing material.
I have lots of other thoughts but this post is very long. I am interested in what other people think.
