I wonder about this every so often after doing the Lifting the Vale quest. You see and talk to the ghost of the Akaviri Commander, and he has the model of an Imperial male. There are also skeletons around resembling humans Obviously the Akaviri aren't Imperials, but I was wondering what you guys think the Akaviri ghosts and skeletons of Akaviri soldiers imply, if anything? Do you think the Akaviri are actually human? Maybe they just have a similar appearance to humans but actually have serpent-like features we couldn't see in the ghosts and skeletons? Is it just Bethesda not implementing a specific character model for the Tsaesci and thus it is just for gameplay purposes that they resemble Imperials (probably the case, but it's no fun to think this way)? Some other explanation entirely?

Meh, I think it′s just a case of laziness here to be honest

I guess you could come up with a lore explanation if you want, but in reality I think they didn′t bother making a Tsaesci model just for the ghosts.

Oh, I'm sure that's the case. But it is more fun to try to explain it through lore.

My understanding is that the term Akaviri is used for the human inhabitants of Akavir, and the Tsaesci were another race that also lived on Akavir. Yes, there should have been other races among the invaders, but it's reasonable that a particular regiment would all be the same race. The humans were subordinate to the Tsaesci, so the commander might have been one if that needed a high enough rank, but he's probably just an NCO, not an officer.

And they took the easy choice for the game.