I hope not. But here's the wikipedia article on it, which compares it to Arizona instead: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nix_Olympica

Hrmm, anyone know how large Vvardenfel is? Not in-game-wise, but lore-wise

EDIT: Nevermind, did my own rough estimation. The island itself is ~650 kilometers on the widest section. The thinnest (and middle) section is ~500 km. Red mountain has a ~150 km radius, and the island is ~700 km assuming this http://www.imperial-library.info/maps/n-enc-tamr-map01.gif is accurate

For a RL comparison, Mt. St. Helens has a radius of ~6km at its base, and Nix Olympica has a length of 600 kilometers across its base. In short, Red Mountain is only roughly half the radius of Nix Olympica.

I haven't really sat down and thought about it. But honestly I agree everyone on Vvardenfell was wiped out in minutes, except Telvanni Mage Lords capable of teleportation. But thats beside the point. But I don't think as many people were wiped out on the Mainland as people are thinking. The tidal waves would've destroyed costal cities and the like, and sure the ash would've certainly been very detrimental to the young, sick and elderly, but I doubt healthy Dunmer would be very much effected by it.

While the actual shockwaves of MoT would have certainly obliterated much of Vvardenfell, I feel that the only thing that would've really gone wrong on the Mainland, aside from the Argonians is the ash and the tidal waves, which would've been horrible and killed a good bit of people, but not absolute destruction. Until the Argonians showed up of course, but thats more or less a war, and as Khajiit Thief mentioned, there would be more survivors from war then from a natural disaster.

http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm34/ChaoticEnforcer/map.jpg?t=1274729861
The Black represents "completely pwned by volcano and MoT" no survivors except wizards capable of teleport
The Blue would be Tidal Waves, no survivors. (If the mainland would be effected at all by the volcano/shockwaves of MoT/Red Mountain, I don't think the effects would go farther than the blue anyway.
The Brown would be where I think the Southern prevailing winds would take the ash. I think only the young, elderly and sick would die from this anyway. The Dunmer gotta be used to ash by now.
And The Green would be pwnage by form of lizard. Obviously they killed a lot of people, but I'm sure they had to have missed some Dunmer, and some certainly would have fled up north. So I'll say the Argonians wiped out a good 75% percent of people living in Southern Morrowind. I don't believe the Argonians would go anymore North than the Inner Sea anyway, but I could be wrong, and even if they did I'm sure even the shattered Redoran and the mostly intact Telvanni would've pushed them back.

So this leads me to think, maybe not as many Dunmer died as people think, but maybe some Dunmer stayed in Morrowind and didn't leave to Solstheim. I'm sure the more hardy Redorans would have stayed in their homeland, and I'd think the isolationist Telvanni wouldn't leave their North Eastern homeland either, especially if it remained intact like I think it would.

Thats all my thoughts, feel free to pick away at me and tell me how stupid I am. Etc.

In fact, the base is THE ISLAND OF VVARDENFELL.

Vvardenfell looks weird with both 'v's capitalized.

Cyrodiil is bigger in game than morrowind. :read:
Its just you can see more of Cyrodiil while morrowind is obstructed by fog.

I said Morrowind, not Vvardenfel.

If the games were literal, there would be obvious discrepencies, like Morrowind (Vvardenfell+the mainland) being larger than Cyrodiil (Oblivion). The Illiac bay (Daggerfall) dwarfing both. That was your point, correct?

Yes, which is part of my argument that game mechanics =/= lore, unless stated otherwise (usually it's a tongue in cheek joke, see http://www.imperial-library.info/mwbooks/lessons.shtml#17.)

I think that some people are misunderstanding or miscontruing the points I made in my last point, so i'd like to clarify a few things.

I'm not saying that the majority of people on Vvardenfell survived after the MoT fell and the volcano erupted. I'm not even saying that many people necessarily survived. What I am saying is that I think more people survived than a lot of people might think.

Going through several threads on the Lore forums (this one included), i'm seeing a lot of people who are upset because they believe that everyone on Vvardenfell died when the MoT fell and that the Dunmer race as a whole is now near extinction. I don't believe the Dunmer or near extinction at all. Furthermore, I don't think that everyone on Vvardenfell died in the disaster that took place there. I won't repeat the reasons I believe this as they are all presented at length in my last post. I do believe that a majority of Vvardenfell's population died after the MoT fell; however, I think that many people managed to get out either during or immediately after the crash and ensuing eruption. I'm not sure what Vvardenfell's population is, but i'm willing to say that at least a few thousand managed to survive everything that occured. Certainly not a majority, but also not a complete annihalation, either.

People survive natural disasters all the time in real life. There were people in Haiti that were right at the epicenter of the earthquake that hit in January, but some of them survived. When Thailand had that massive tsunami in 2004 that was caused by an earthquake in the Indian Ocean, there were survivors from that, too. My point is, even at the immediate point of impact/eruption/epicenter/etc., there will still most likely be survivors; probably not many, of course, but there will be some nonetheless.

I realize that TES is a world of magic, and Red Mountain is a much larger volcano than any volcano found on our world. But I believe that my point is still valid, as we can still draw some real-world parallels in these cases.

I think that was all I wanted to say. If I think of something else i'll bring it up later.

Well, just remember, most of the population is in the south, which would have been devastated by the ash and the argonians. They didn't have the quality of relief the Haitians had, either. Rather, they needed to wander pretty far, before reaching it. That needs consideration.

And that they were hit with:
1) A big asteroid
2) Aftershock from the asteroid (educated guess)
3) A super volcano eruption
4) A massive fallout of ash
5) Tidal waves

Most RL countries tend to be hit with 1 or 2 natural disasters to be devastated. Morrowind was hit with 5 of those listed. Survival is really low.

Maybe the reason survivors ended up on Solstheim was that they only happened to be living in the north of Vvardenfell when the disasters hit. They probably left on anything that would float, after the tsunamis had stopped (and maybe the tsunamis didn't reach as far as the north? We don't have enough information yet). I wonder if any Ashlanders survived -- they would be the hardest hit of all groups on Vvardenfell IMO.

I don't think the Dunmer are near extinction, just decimated in numbers and cut off from their roots. I'm reminded of

Well, thanks to the presence of Dunmer populations in Cyrodiil and other places, they probably won't go extinct, but their culture, ooh that's going to get it's face smashed into the ground, skin torn off, and skull pulverized.

Indeed. I hope their culture won't go the way of the Ayleids or the Dwemer (though these latter two deserved their fates, especially the Ayleids). Something would be lost if the Dunmer become humans that happen to have gray skin and pointed ears.

I wonder if some Ashlanders could have survived by fleeing to the Urshilaku Burial Caverns, or would they still have been gassed by the volcano or had the roof cave in on them.

I'd say the Ashlanders are done for. As for everyone else, we're going to see what initiation rituals/hazing the Skaal put them through. $5 says they have to do the polar plunge naked after drinking 20 things of mead at once.

Really only two of those would've even had a major effect on the mainland, the ash and tidal waves. And I highly doubt a group of people known as "ash-born" would really be effected too much by volcanic ash. Sure the elderly, young and sick would probably die, but healthy strong Dunmer would have likely been fine.

Screw working with the stupid Skaal, the Dunmer should just kick em off that island, non of that learn love from your ancient enemy belongs, thats so cliche. The Skaal won't put them through anything if the Dunmer allow them to stay, I'm willing to bet there will be a lot more Dunmer on Solstheim than Nords.

EDIT: My comments were regarding Vvardenfel dunmer, not mainlanders. As for the mainlanders, the tidal waves would have harmed a lot of the inner sea cities (mournhold for example), and ash would have spread. And I highly doubt most can breath when layers upon layers of ash are falling, even if they are the dunmer. A lot are going to get sick, but that's a way to kick out the weak, unlike the other catastrophes.

Also, I bet there were seismic activity going on in the mainland when Lie Rock fell, just not as bad as Vvardenfel.

I don't really imagine much more ash would fall then a typical ash storm, which Dunmer seem to easily live in. But I agree with the tidal wave part, I'd imagine Mournhold would be pretty devastated but its not that close to the coast.

I just don't really see the seismic activity being lethal, sure maybe destructive, but I see it on a Richter Scale as being like a 5.0 while Vvardenfell got like a 10.0 haha.

What does everyone think Northern Morrowind would be like, since not much ash would fall there, mostly intact still except the coasts? I'd imagine the Argonains wouldn't go that far up anyway, seeing as how the Redorans didn't keep many slaves and the Televanni would've just destroyed any Argonian armies that arrived. I kinda imagine that Solstheim wouldn't be the only place the Dunmer fled to, I can see that some of the Redoran and Telvanni lands still intact.

Hmm, Redorans, and Hlaalu and Indoril refugees on the West and Televanni and Dres refugees on the East coast. Would be cool.

The argonians at least got up to Vivec, as it is mentioned that they did use the crater for rituals. Also, Sir-Stabs-Alot, have you even read the book?

Nope, haven't found it in any book stores around here. I don't really have any desire to read it either. Does that mean I'm not allowed to speculate and contribute to discussions? Because I read a summary so I at least know the main points.

I guess I don't really see a problem with any of the points I've made so far, so I don't really understand why you felt compelled to ask if I've read the book in such a brash way.

A summary simply won't compare with a full novel, as so many details are left unaccounted for.

I don't recommend buying the novel at full price, but maybe Sir Stabs-a-Lot could order it from interlibrary loan.

Because a summary isn't good enough, and you are going to miss a lot of small details a summary could not cover. Just rent it or something, it'll only take you a day or two, depending on how fast you read.

EDIT: Whatever, I won't start an argument. I just love how everyone jumps on me for not reading the book and how people just generally have a holier-than-thou attitude.

Excuse me for trying to speculate about what I think happened. That's all anyone can do is speculate. Some people act like their opinion is the absolute concrete fact, and yet its just speculation like everyone elses.

Whatever, I won't participate in the discussion because obviously I'm not "qualified" even though I'm pretty sure from what I've read in this forum that I have a pretty good understanding of the situation at hand.

Not all of us have the book. There's also another factor; the fact that there's much we still don't know.