Conjecture Regarding the Dwemer Ballistae

Dragonborn introduced us to a new Dwemer automaton: the Ballista. While the device makes its appearance in a Dwemer ruin historically used for mass-production of animunculi (many of which are assumed to be used at The Battle of Red Mountain), the variant seen makes no such appearance in any of the Vvardenfell ruins or the ruins of Bamz-Amschend. This is intriguing seeing as how the platform obviously is capable of spectacular attacks from range, and the application to emplacement defense would be self evident. At the very least, one must be curious as to why they weren’t present at the single most important Dwemer installation in Tamriel; or if they were, why they weren’t operational into the late third era.

To answer this, some analysis can be made of one location from where they first appear: Nchardak. Among being regarded as one of the greatest Dwemer archives in existence and a highly efficient automaton construction workshop, the city itself is a technological marvel capable of submerging itself for long periods of time. The city also contains a great number of innovations as well: mechanical cubes capable of acting like keys to alter current machine operations, doors that can reinforce themselves in order to lock, high capacity water pumps, a lockbox capable of safely containing a book associated with a Daedra who is notoriously indifferent to the concept of time, and untold secrets most likely lost under rubble. One other feature of the city is that it is relatively remote even when compared to some of the Resdayn and Skyrim clans, seeing as how it was constructed on an island occupied solely by superstitious Nord tribes. From here, one large assumption can be made: Nchardak wasn’t a simple city, but rather a research and development installation as well as a weapons foundry. The two other Dwemer sites on the island can probably be explained as being similar, what with Fahlbtharz containing the largest gear mechanisms probably outside of the Clockwork City as well as a unique piece of armor, and Kagrumez appearing to have the dual purpose as a training and weapons testing facility.

Something else that should be taken into account are the automatons seen in Vvardenfell itself. Inside of the ruins we have three working base models for animunculi: the Spider Centurion, the Sphere Centurion, and the Steam Centurion (known in Skyrim simply as the Dwemer- Spider, -Sphere, and -Centurion, respectively). When compared to their Skyrim clan counterparts, the Resdayn clans’ lack of ranged weaponry becomes immediately apparent. Indeed the only instances of ranged units are in Bamz-Amschend, well apart from the island.

The explanation for the Ballista begins to piece itself together; during the assorted conflicts with the Nords and the Chimer, Dwemer battle strategy in Resdayn is composed of using machines to carry the brunt of the melee battle, with ranged humanoid support in the form of crossbowmen and archers. For some battles this would be augmented with chimer bowmen and spellcaster auxiliaries. In the years leading up to the Battle of Red Mountain, engineers and strategists see a potential weakness in placing too much emphasis on melee combat for animunculi to counter Chimer ranged attacks and ambush tactics. This leads to the commissioning of several projects to add variety to automated weapons capabilities, such as the pneumatic dartgun attachment for sphere centurions, flamethrowers, etc.

At Nchardak, the researchers would develop a entirely new weapons platform. Instead of altering the weapon of an existing automaton, they modified an existing weapon into a full-fledged automated and ranged anti-personnel weapon: our Ballista. In this capacity it would work as a ranged compliment to the Steam Centurion, as both would be heavily armored and slow but packing enormous firepower, as well as requiring no crew necessary for its operation. For stability purposes the explosive bolt would be replaced with an armor piercing round to prevent unfortunate accidents during prototyping. The bolt was also scaled down to allow for more ammunition and range. From Nchardak, the weapon would have been tested at Kagrumez and sent to Fahlbtharz for further refinements. After controlled testing, the Ballista model Centurion was sent to select Skyrim clans for field testing before possibly being rolled into massed production for the space-sensitive Resdayn. After time, bolt variants could have been modified for even more flexibility (e.g. explosive bolts, poison gas weapons, etc.). It’s also possible the Skyrim clans would be more eager for an armor-piercing automaton, since dragons were known to exist in Skyrim in large numbers, but in any case the design found limited use in some Skyrim strongholds.

Unfortunately the near completion of Kagrenac’s work on the Heart meant less attention would be spent in military research, meaning the experimental Ballista would be a greater risk than the tried-and-true methods already in use. This would be further hindered by possible urgency to finish work with the Heart before the Chimer could prevent its “profaning”, and funding would be pulled from weapons into that other endeavour. Whether this meant the Ballista Centurion or her sister projects were never exported to Vvardenfel is unclear; while records do show reports of ballistae meeting the Chimer in battle, there is no specifics that distinguish them from the already known mer-operated siege engines of that time. All we can say regarding Vvardenfell’s use of these enigmatic machines is that any presence of these contraptions has been buried under centuries of ash, or dismantled by the looters who’ve plagued the empty ruins ever since their masters’ disappearance.