I honestly somewhat hate to ask a question like this, but seeing as you travel to Aetherius to recover the Mantella, you see what it looks like (right? I haven't played Daggerfall). It piqued my curiousty even more when reading one of http://www.imperial-library.info/sheogoraths.shtml that describes it as being a place "where logic and reason reign under a xiphoid sky."

I know "xiphoid" can relate to swords; if so... what the hell does that mean? Do you even really GO to Aetherius in Daggerfall?

In Daggerfall it's just the Light in the Sky, according to the King of Worms ascension outro.

Lets see, going by Daggerfall it's red/red-orange filled with switch puzzles and filled with Daedra.

In other words DF is not a good frame of reference.

It looks like the inside of my head but with less boobies:

Red-ish thingy with some enemies and puzzles

What about the sky?

Well, I'll admit the narrator does say that Mannimarco ascended to take his place amongst the gods of Oblivion... So, obviously, DF lore isn't that reliable.

The sky in Daggerfall's Aetherius could have been bright pink for all it mattered to future titles. It's been a very long time since I played Daggerfall but all I really remember Aetherius of was an extended dungeon. I never ended up reaching the end as I abandoned Daggerfall somewhere within that area for stupidly saving while being stuck in the floor or something buggy like that.

Edit: I do not recall the sky being xiphoid, though.


It's where the Mantella is located. I think it was just meant to be some sort of pocket dimension. "http://www.imperial-library.info/tsod/numidium.shtml, both the created and the creator were vanquished: the heart they shared blown out of this reality into the netherworld they call Aetherius..."

Beyond Daggerfall taunting...

Aetherius would look absolutely perfect if you ever saw it.

For what it's worth, there's Ted Peterson's interpretation that he wrote in Loranna's RP around 2005. A Khajiit knight (bastard son of a noble; long story) dies and is seen in Aetherius in a vision. He is in Elysian surroundings, apparently in a form identical to when he was alive.

I had the impression from Ted's post that Aetherius was different for each being who ends up there. Traditionalist Nords would probably be in Sovngarde, and so on. This is only my opinion though; since I joined the RP months later, other forum members could recount this better.

It's from the Mad God's Masque and Bellicose Ball.

"i Myself hAve Never visiTEd aetherius, nor have any of you, but Legend has it that it's a LANd where logiC and Reason reign Under a Xiphoid sky."

I know, I saw the earlier note. But yeah, I can't really remember the sky at all. I'm not sure if there even was a sky or if it was just like any other dungeon in that regard. Shades probably knows, though.

I imagine Aetherius being like the trippy scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey. That one scene with action in it, as opposed to huge vistas of bleak emptiness. You know the one.

Just as each realm of Oblivion is a reflection of its prince, I wonder if Aetherius has different, varied realms for each of the Aedra. Although they gave up part of themselves to create Nirn, I figure that they still have power.

As I belive Aetherius is pretty much like Oblivions realms but more "unstable". Dont really know how to put it in words.

I've always imagined Aetherius to be so full of magic, stored possibility that things don't quite exist in the normal way because magic makes everything possible, but rather by their absence from existence.

Aetherius is like an unwound clock.


It is the epitome of mechanical perfection, but it does nothing. Oblivion is an everwound clockspring, that uncoils, uncoils, and uncoils, but has nothing to interact with.

Grey maybe is where the two come together by design, but also where forces like entropy and decay reign supreme.

No sky, it was just a big red "cave" dungeon.

And by rights, as soon as the unlimited but inert potential of Aetherius comes in contact with the borders of the realm, magicka should explode into being and rush outward, bathing the void in energy.

You can do better then that, Mechanus is one of the lamest dnd planes.

Oh? You want MIND [censored]!? Ok.


http://www.aimath.org/E8/mcmullen.html

It can be plotted out and laid static in all it's insane complexity--- and it can be used to describe everything else (theoretically)---- But yet--- It itself doesnt change.


http://www.aimath.org/E8/e8.html

You're still thinking of order as opposed to the perceived chaos of Oblivion. That's been done to dead, no matter how complex you make it. There might be more interesting stuff to the angle of sensory deprivation versus sensory overload.

The TES cosmology outright states that Aetherius is crystaline order, and Oblivion is chaotic potential.


If you dont like it, I suggest you complain to MK. :icecream:

Batw might make the aedra liars again, who knows.

Last time I checked the Daedra in Oblivion fear to touch the void and nothingness of it so they build realms out of the all magical scraps they can collect from the unlimited potential of Aetherius .

Unlimited potential when stored up might be crystaline, but just as Oblivion isn't devoid of magic, neither can Aetherius be so full of it that everything becomes crystaline.

If anything, on the edge of Oblivion and Aetherius there is going to be a [censored] storm where magic hits the void and the magic is given room to act out it's potential, creating an inferno of random creation. Some bubbles might break of and escape unscathed and form new pocket realms, atleast until all the magicka has been bled out of them by the void, or when they're harvested by the Daedra Lords.

A mortal entering Aetherius without some sort of protective void would instantly die as the stored up potential finds void it needs to act out in relative void of the mortal.

If anything, Oblivion would seem like paradise when compared to Aetherius.

Crystalline order? Call me Captain Obvious, but that sounds a lot like Jyggalag and his modifications to Passwall. And just about everything else that is related to the Prince of Order. I wonder if there is a correlation...


To a living mortal or a daedra, at least.

The believable part is the searing light and the sensual overload and the volatile nature of void/magicka dynamics.

I'm not sure if I can believe this Is the experience of total void really any less fatal as being in a realm of pure magicka?