Nu-Mantia Intercept, letter #3 notes that it was a bunch of Dagon cultists that manipulated the events to deactivate Red Tower, as seen here

Hellouth: Thank you for pointing that out. I've read it, but never really THOUGHT about it.

It was said somewhere else (can't remember exactly where, I'll try some searching on TIL) that, more or less, all Mer, except the Dunmer, believe Lorkhan to be bad and wrong, whereas all men, except the Yokudans/Redguard, believe Lorkhan to be awesome for the creation of the Mortal Plane. Also, to me, it seems the Dunmeri fondness of Lorkhan is for a different reason than that of the Men: they like him because of how his actions have revealed the path to CHIM, but the Men like him just for bringing the Mortal Plane together, if I'm understand things right.

Edit: Can't find where that exact quote came from, but there's some information about the positiveness Chimeri/Dunmeri view of Lorkhan in the http://www.imperial-library.info/content/interviews-skeleton-man (particularly the interview with Dres Molagi). (The Redguard's negative stance on Lorkhan (or Sep, as they call him) is talked about in the http://www.imperial-library.info/content/morrowind-monomyth-yokudan-satakal-worldskin, among other places.)

I was being basic, gawl. As for the Redguard, I'd say they view both Lorkhan and Akatosh in very unfavorable light.

But everyone knows oversimplifications are [NUMINIT].

Well, sometimes I don't feel like having to go into specifics, mainly because I then have to explain it even further due to their confusion or misunderstanding.

Sounds like they need Fortify Intelligence potions!

No fanatics like the mythic dawn opening the gates? Doesn't it take someone in mundus to help open the gate. I feel like that guy from the cave in paradise said that he opened the gate at Kvatch.

A mortal in mundus is needed to complete the ritual for opening an oblivion gate. Under normal circumstances, the gate will be open for seconds to minutes, but during the Oblivion crisis, they could be open indefinitely.

I do not know to much about TES lore so feel free to ignore my post if I am totally wrong here, but could it be that when Martin unleashes the power of the amulet it is not Akatosh himself that fights Dagon, but a mesh of Martin and Akatosh. Kind of like an echo from Akatosh that empowers Martin who then takes the form of a dragon and defeats Dagon. Then as the stored energy in the amulet returns to Akatosh it leaves Martins dragon form a cold stone reminder.

This would mean that Akatosh himself never helped, although now that I am thinking it over again it is much more interesting if he was being deceitful.

perhaps the aedra were spirits or forms of pure thought, but their physical manifestations are planets and the like

And even if it had been Martin in full control, borrowing Akatosh's power to defeat Dagon, the fact that Akatosh had convinced him to allow the amulet and his own body to be broken in order to save Tamriel could still be deceitful. If the pact is really a binding deal for Akatosh (dragon-blood emperor wearing the amulet of kings) then until that pact is broken Akatosh is unable to harm man, and unable to free himself from this mortal realm and prison. So I'm assuming that he and the other divines (with the exception of Talos, a form of Lorkhan) would desire to be free of a trapped existence on Nirn, and would require the world's utter destruction in order to escape. If Alduin and Akatosh really are one and the same, then it seems to make a lot of sense. The Nordic views and Cyrodiilic views are fairly similar, except that the Nords believe Akatosh will begin creation again after 'eating' the world.

Perhaps the Nords are right, and he will begin a new world. Perhaps the creation stories are right, and Akatosh would prefer to escape linear time forever. Either way, it's bad news for the current mortals.

heh - I don't mind about world-destroying provided the world is to be reborn and I can survive that process - to play Elder Scrolls VI

Soon it seemed that Lorkhan had a dominion of his own, with slaves and everlasting imperfections, and he seemed, for all the world, like an Aedra. His sleek and silver vessel became a spike into the changing earth and the glimmerwinds of its impact warned any spirit that entered aura with it would become recorded.* Thus did he present himself as such to the demon Anui-El and the Eight Givers: as a friend.

* :whistling:

Books Sithis and Nu-mantia mixed and chopped. Great! I get just mess out of it. Long multiple thoughts across various bridges which are ready to collapse once my thought steps over it... In another words: A ***** mess.

But never the less i shall continue:

those two texts describes of early setting of conflict between Auriel and Lorhkan, Anui-El and Sithis. After Lorkhan's "death" and covenant [or first Dragon Break by Selectives] bounding Auriel into Akatosh we could "safely" assume that this setting is again at stalemate. Right now we possibly seeing rise of Auriel while Lorkhan might still be "dead". Which isn't anymore tempting picture of future than opposite. This is what mundane mind would conclude.

But.

Infact is it far fetched to claim that Towers are which holds Aedra and Mundus in place and keeps it from going too much into Sithis? So collapse of Towers in fact would hurt Auriel while making Lorkhan's position stronger. As book Sithis could be read. Lorkhan's heart is ever lasting so Auriel and his lot can't get back to what they were before... Which they might not like to do in the first place, which book Sithis seems to suggest. They have their kingdom which they can rule as fit. And this would turn setting i told in previous chapter up-side down. Each Tower going off weakens them. This is what Dagon and Lorkhan (and player) have been doing.



More Nu-Mantia. My english is not advanced enough to be certain what this implies, but i'd assume that this might imply that Auriel is trying to press reset button, everything is recorded and there is default setting to which Mundus can return. Is Aluri-El/Alduin trying to reset whole thing? He's now free from Covenant to which he was tricked, and Dagon and Lorkhan has been able to roam around and shut down Towers.

Am i even close? Probably not.

Ps. Small Morrowindian bit of lore: Why would Lorkhanine Underking (Ysmir) fight against Dagon with Almalexia? The one and only Almalexia who has defended Heart of Lorkhan against Lorkhan himself.

I'll be honest, I haven't read this whole thread, but I just thought of something and wanted to post it.

There is a bit of foreshadowing that I've always wondered about and I think it can partially explain something for this thread.

When Alessia was given the Amulet of Kings, it was a blessing from Akatosh to help her fight back against the Ayleids. Now here is the thing that gets me, Why would Akatosh honestly care about helping Alessia if he hated humanity. Here is what I think the answer is, The Ayleids worshipped Meridia, The Daedric goddess of life. So in a way...Akatosh wanted Alessia to kill the worshippers of life.

So, I think Akatosh doesn't so much hate people...as he does all of life.

Anyway, I just kinda pieced that together, and I have no idea if it's right or wrong. Just something to chew on, I guess.

I'm not sure if it's hatred of life or jealousy of Mortals. Mortals can change, adapt, and think for themselves. gods are bound by divine pacts and by monolithic natures. Dagon doesn't choose to destroy, Anduin does not choose to devour any more than blue chooses to be blue. But humans can chose to go right or left, to stay at home or have an adventure, to bow to convention or to follow their dreams. Most of all, he hates Lorkhan, as himself and not himself, who tricked him into making the world.

To note, what Tengen Toppa described is a mannish and Vivec's train of thought. Then of course you have the mer who whine about not being super awesome gods because of mean ol' Lorkhan making Mundus because he's a jerk.

I feel more inclined to agree with men than some whiny, haughty, nose in the air, fart smelling altmer. Also, I have no freaking idea what MK said in that new thread he made, so if I was incorrect on something due to new info, please tell.

My thoughts exactly. Although the elves have the same story casting in reverse, with Auriel as the protagonist and Lorkhan as the antagonist, instead of a heroic Shor and villainous Alduin.

Akatosh is insane, remember?

And is Alduin not the Serpent?

(sorry for the length of this)

I may be coming out of left field with this but I thought this was a very appropriate place to bring this up rather then a new thread. I just finished reading the King Edward series tonight. If you haven't already I highly recommend it. It has a lot of information about Akatosh and dragons in general, not to mention some great humor and is a probably my new favorite entry in lore so far:
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:King_Edward

Now I don't really know much about this book series, where it's from (besides being around since Daggerfall), but the version of Akatosh we see is VERY interesting. In his original meeting the main characters we see him as a traditional dragon in other fantasy series, he's lying on a pile of gold and protecting his treasure from theives. Though instead of instantly devouring the intruders he randomly asks for help from Moraelyn with a toothache. Moraelyn and his friends are very hesitant but end up helping him. We see that they end up allies and even something along the lines of friends. Akatosh helps Moraelyn kidnap King Edward and in fact we hear it said several times that it was Akatosh's idea (though that could have been a joke).

The rest of the story progresses and we don't really hear much about Akatosh for a while until closer to the end of the story where Moraelyn, King Edward and the other companions on their journey to Morrowind stop for the night. They seem to be in or close to Skyrim in a Dragon city. The group asks Akatosh about what the purpose of this city is and start asking about why it has not received a proper name. This is what Akatosh says:



It's never really clearly stated why the dragons were setting up this village or why dragons are being moved to this area in the book (feel free to explain that if you can). The only hint I see is where Akatosh explains that it is his Queen that gave him permission to do this:



This brings up two things to me, first why have we heard everything about Akatosh/Alduin and nothing of Ma-Tylda the Dragon Queen for Skyrim. I am assuming this book takes place before dragons were driven from Tamriel long ago but still I have never even heard of her until this book. I always assumed Akatosh was the ruler of the Dragons instead of just a warrior under a queen. I am also unsure of how he eventually went from this very real living creature to the god-like status we have in human religions (again feel free to explain that to me!). The second thing interesting here is the name he is fond of, I may be going out on a limb here but his "in-joke" may be that this is not the only section of dragon cities he was establishing...perhaps it's a dragon base of sorts. One of many. Another thing that re-enfources this idea is when Akatosh is met by another dragon. He later explains:



It almost seems like the Dragon race are building an army in Skyrim. This is not the focus of the King Edward story but the details are all inset there. The most haunting bit is the way the book ends, with My-Tylda coming into view of the companions as their conversation ends...



Ok so My-Tylda seems even more imposing then Akatosh...would this mean Alduin might be NOTHING compared to her. Again she's not been mention at all so I have no idea if she exists in any other form in the lore at all.

The other note of interest in this story is when they start discussing the nature of gods, daedra, and dragons. It's my feeling from reading this that Akatosh has a hatred for the worship of gods and daedra and seeks to at least learn what these mortals with him think of such. He hears many of their ideas why almost trying to show that Gods may not be all powerful beings as men and mer hold them up to be. He at the time of this story either doesn't seem to be all-knowing about gods and daedra stating many times he is unsure of things about them. I don't know if this would be any sort of motivation for the events that are going to take place in Skyrim but I just thought I would share this. Perhaps this book has been brought up and found to be utterly false or something but I find it very interesting that since Daggerfall we've had something that seems to have some foreshadowing of the events with Alduin.

This took me a couple hours to read all this and put my ideas in to words on here so I would understand if I don't hear instant replies but I would love to hear some thoughts on all this!

*edit*
One more detail that came time mind watching the Skyrim trailer once more. The bit with the dragon embedded in the wall. This struck me as very odd but I may have an explanation. Again when we meet Akatosh he is sitting on top of his hoard of jewels and gold, he later explains that dragons do this to absorb the material into their scales. They don't value wealth but physically use the material to strengthen their scales (which I find awesome! love this!). So why would a dragon be in a wall? Well:

Who does Lorkhan present himself as?

This is very interesting. I remember reading King Edward, but I never thought of it as anything more than an old bit of irrelevant fiction.
I suppose it probably *is* all outdated and retconned out of any veracity by now, but there might be something significant in it anyways.

I agree, I don't think it's anything definitive but it served it's purpose and helped me learn a bit more about dragons and Akatosh. I probably read too far into it but it was interesting none the less. That last bit that I added is what intrigued me the most though, the part about anti-magika minerals found in caves. I would assume dragons would want to absorb that into their scales and basically be super magika resistant if not magika proof. That would put a real damper on my hopes of killing them in Skyrim with my mage based class! heh

If nothing else it's a brilliant story set in the Elder Scrolls universe. If ever they were going to give TES the movie treatment (ala Lord of the Rings) I would hope it would be like that!

*edit*
whoops typos

This has me quite excited about all of the new information we'll be getting about dragons in TESV. It'll be interesting to see how much they keep from these old musty tomes.