Lore:Ocato of Firsthold

,  was the Imperial Battlemage of Tamriel and Lord High Chancellor of the Elder Council to Emperor Uriel Septim VII. Ocato later took on the title of Potentate uring the Stormcrown Interregnum, after the fall of the Septim Dynasty, therein serving as the de facto ruler of the Third Empire until his assassination in  .  

History
thumb|right|Ocato (Daggerfall)|150px
Early Life
Ocato aboriginally hails from Firsthold on the Isle of Auridon (second biggest landmass of the Summersets). 

Elder Council and Imperial Battlemage
Eventually, Ocato would come to serve the Septim Empire as an Elder on the Elder Council. He had done this for a notably long time before his promotion to Imperial Battlemage of Tamriel and High Chancellor in the times following the Imperial Simulacrum. Ocato alone had earned the Emperor's confidence, and so was made Uriel Septim VII's chief advisor. 

Ocato was present in the Emperor's audience chamber when Emperor Uriel VII sent The Agent to quell a potential uprising in the royal court of Daggerfall (an event precipitating the  ).   

Later, Imperial Battlemage Ocato would send order to Vvardenfell for the current Archmagister of the Mages Guild to retire, and have the   take up the station.  

Oblivion Crisis
Ocato's performance during and after the Oblivion Crisis became the subject of much debate. While the majority of the Counts and Countesses of Cyrodiil applauded his efforts in holding the Empire together and commiserated with the difficult situations he faced, some felt he used the crisis as a means of securing more power for himself and that he was inordinately concerned with other provinces even as gates leading to Oblivion began to open across Cyrodiil's landscape.  However, by all accounts, he performed capably as the Empire's de facto ruler, despite the limited resources available to deal with such a massive crisis.  And despite the concerns of these counts, Ocato apparently abandoned Morrowind altogether during the crisis, pulling Imperial forces there back to better protect Cyrodiil, a betrayal the Dunmer would not soon forget.  However, Ocato himself stated that he couldn't pull any forces from the other provinces for Cyrodiil, due to the Imperial army already being entirely committed and because a withdrawal of forces would result in a political crisis.  When   finally came forward as heir to the Dragon Throne, Ocato was quick to convene the Elder Council and recognize him as Emperor, inaugurating what would become the shortest but most widely respected reign in the history of the Empire.   Ocato helped protect Martin during the massive attack on the   that immediately followed the coronation, and was with the new Emperor up until Martin entered the   to face his destiny. After   was defeated, the Hero of Kvatch informed Ocato of Martin's fate, and that he was once again the Empire's de facto ruler. Ocato's first act was to grant the hero the highest rank in the  , becoming the seventh Champion of Cyrodiil in history. 

Potentate of the Third Empire
While the Oblivion Crisis certainly did have the effect of giving Ocato vastly greater power and authority, by all accounts he took on the position as Potentate in accordance with the Elder Council Charter, after he had exhausted alternatives, and with appropriate reluctance, as he knew better than anyone that there were "troubled times ahead".   Following the end of the  , Ocato steered the Empire through the opening days of the   and the secession of  , and was reportedly making significant progress at healing Tamriel when the events of the   brought new, devastating rounds of crises for Ocato to deal with during the last years of his life. 

Ocato took the reemergence of the Thalmor as a dominant political force in the Summerset Isles more seriously than most. Thanks to his heritage as an Altmer of Summerset and his extensive experience with the governance of the Empire, he was familiar with the Thalmor's history as a radical and anti-Imperial group, and he seemed uniquely well-suited to recognize and respond to the threat they posed. To the Thalmor, Ocato was no doubt a primary obstacle to their plans to reform the  . In  , Ocato was assassinated, and the course of Tamrielic history in the Fourth Era and beyond was changed forever as the Stormcrown Interregnum began. Within twenty years, the Dominion would be successfully reborn, and the stage for the Great War was set.  

Notes
Letter to Mother, written by Brother Piner in TES IV: Oblivion, suggests that by 3E 433, Ocato and the Council had been the ones really "running the Empire" for fifteen years.
As the Gray Fox, Count Corvus Umbranox of Anvil once pickpocketed a key to the   from Ocato in order to arrange for an   to be stolen from the  . 

See Also
For game-specific information, see the Oblivion article.

References