> I'm not sure this conclusion is correct, because --batch implies -q.
> There's a difference between -q and -Q, so are you saying that
> emacs-ess is loaded from a site-init file in your case?

Yes, that's right. Fedora has a "/usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/site-start.d/ess-init.el" , which contains the single line, "(require 'ess-site)". Indeed as you said.