A Tract by Uther Orandus
Local dunmer practices must be observed if the Empire is to profit from egg mining in Morrowind. As you may know, kwama eggs are a staple food of the dunmer. Their large size, thick shells, and long shelf-life make them ideal eggs for exporting. With increased production, we could soon make them available to other Imperial nations.
First of all, I propose to the Emperor’s council that killing a kwama queen be made illegal, punishable by severe fines and long jail sentences. The kwama queen is the heart of the colony, and there have been several cases of terrorism targeted against them. Members of the dunmer Great Houses have taken to killing kwama queens in enemy mines to halt their production. Attacks on Imperial mines are surely in the coming. If we make the penalties harsh, we may quell this form of economic warfare before it gets out of hand.
Controlling Kwama Populations and Disease
Blight diseases are constantly infiltrating our mines. When blight gets out of control, our miners are forced to halt production and abandon the mines. We must make efforts to cure the infected queens and to put down the other disease carriers.
The kwama forager has become the worst enemy of the mines. This creature spends it time outside scouting for new territory, and is often the source of blight being brought into the mines. Their population must be controlled. Kill them all and harvest them for their cuttle, I say.
Blighted and otherwise diseased kwama workers must be put down immediately before they spread disease to the rest of the population. As essential as the workers are to egg production, those that are diseased must be sacrificed to spare the rest of the colony. It is not cost effective to cure them.
Blighted scribs must be treated similarly. Those harmless little scribs aren’t so harmless when they’re carrying disease into the mines. There will always be plenty scribs to go around, so kill the few problem ones and harvest them for their jelly.
On the Hiring and Practices of Miners
Our head office insists on shuffling miners from one mine to another, and this has got to stop. I don’t know who got the stupid idea of rotating miners from mine to mine, but it has been detrimental to egg production. This is likely due to silly quill-pushing administrators running the lot, and not knowing a damn thing about the practice of egg mining. I’ll lay it out for you people here.
Kwama recognize each other by smell. Over time they get used to the smell of the miners and accept them into the colony. When there are strangers in the mine, kwama workers get nervous, and when the workers are nervous, they don’t work. Unfamiliar miners also have to spend their time fending off attacks from kwama warriors and foragers, and that’s not just bad for production, it’s bad for morale.
There is a practice in the mines when a new hire is getting acclimatized: he smothers himself in scrib jelly to disguise his smell until the kwama get used to him. This man is called a “scrib” by the other miners, and he stinks – constantly. Even an experienced miner has to do this if he is moved to another mine, and though he knows damn well he has to do it, it is an insult to his experience.
When morale is low, production is low. You people have been shuffling miners around like game pieces, uprooting them from their homes, and turning experienced miners into scribs, and you don’t think there’s a morale problem?
The dunmer don’t shuffle their miners around. They work in the same mine their whole lives. This isn’t some barbarian practice, it just makes sense to do things that way. They’ve been mining eggs for years, so why should you bloody quill pushers think you know any better?
That is all I have to say on the subject. Imperial mine production has been under quota for years and I’m telling you people how to fix things. It’s just as simple as I say it is, so either take my advice, or disappoint the Emperor. It’s your choice.