Bethesda's magnum opus The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is one of the most modded, dissected, and reinvented games ever made, if not the most. There's one glaring oversight that none of the province's jarls have ever taken steps to fix, though: there's no public transit.
If you live in Riften and want to go visit your cousin in Whiterun, for instance, you're basically out of luck unless you're willing to hoof it across the tundra yourself, either on foot or on horseback, whereupon you will be immediately jumped by the approximately thirty bandit camps along the way. If you're some kind of high-and-mighty thane who makes more than a hundred septims a year, you could hire a wagon, but these are slow-moving, uncovered carts staffed by a single driver and so unsafe they might even be in league with the bandits.
Even nobles from fancy southern Cyrodiil seem to travel exclusively on foot when visiting Skyrim, as if carriages just magically disappear at the border crossing.
Skyrim needs better public transit, and I think it'd be a strong platform for the next hopeful High King to campaign on. Fortunately for us all, someone much more into trains than I am has broken down what a high-speed rail network held to modern standards might look like in Skyrim, complete with cute little names for the lines. It's surprisingly charming for such an ordinarily dry topic.
None of this applies to the Dragonborn, who can just summon fell beasts from Atmoran myth to ride around. Being a hero of prophecy is a position of privilege and we need to talk about it.
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