In the first book you encounter in Morrowind, Firmaments, it is said that there is no month during which the sign of the serpent is dominant. So how the hell can one be born under that sign?
http://www.imperial-library.info/obbooks/ffoulke_firmament.shtml

It's magic

I recall proweler stating that you're born under the Serpent when it's "attacking" another constellation and you're born under that constellation's season.

I bet luck. A very bad luck at it.

I mean, maybe the person was about to be born in a given month of the sign but instead, out of no where, like a sneaky bastard, got bitten in the ass by that Serpent; now cursed with a pathetic power.

Anyways, here a linky for read about the http://www.imperial-library.info/astro/#A6.

Maybe luck, magic, destiny or anything like that is involved.
I'm guessing a person doesn't have to be born in a month of a particular sign to be under it, only some people are blessed or cursed with birth signs.
Suppose the serpent has no particular month but can appear unexpectedly at any time and it will be your birth sign.

http://www.imperial-library.info/astro/.

Basically, the entire Birthsigns group is based around the concept that there are three guardian constellations: The Mage, the Warrior, and The Thief. Each is there to protect it's three wards from the Serpent during a particular season, which moves through the sky to attack .

The Story of Redguard has a quest pertaining to the Serpent sign. Cyrus is trying to help a Yokudan woman guide someone's soul back to Aetherius.

- http://www.imperial-library.info/tsorg/part03.shtml

EDIT: when it threatens the constellation, that's when you are born under the sign.

Yeah, but that doesn't answer the OP's question....

Say a person is born under the month that would normally be awarded to the Lord. However, if the Serpent is currently threatening the Lord when said person is born (basically the Serpent constellation would also be present, and I do believe it'd be present near the other constellation in question), then that individual will be considered to be born under the Serpent, rather than being born under the Lord.

At least, IIRC, that's how it works.

Can I just say, that the Elderscrolls is probably one of the best games ever because you can devote a whole topic to the discussion of a SINGLE constellation, for which there are numerous references throughout several games?

Just pisses me off about Oblivion more, however, because it really hasn't added a single thing of worth to the series, except for sales, who's profits were than invested in buying up other companies and producing games like WET instead of an actual Elder Scrolls.

I don't think you should be that pissed. Oblivion did bring a lot of people, myself included, to TES. If it wasn't for Oblivion, I would never found out about a really great game called Daggerfall

Yah i learned of TES becuase oblivion looked incredible ( graphics ) then i realized that despite graphics the older games like morrowind are at least 10x beter then OB

I got into OB, just because it looked to have been the only good and worthwhile RPG out on the market that utilized the 360. While I found the graphics nice and shiny, I wanted to play a role play game. Play pretend on a video game medium.

I apologize, 1st for hijacking the thread, and 2nd for forgetting that Oblivion did attract a lot of people who love a solid action RPG, and I would say Oblivion is hands down the best one that's come out since Morrowind, I just wish they had tried harder to maintain that flavor and complexity, which many fans of Oblivion do prefer.*

*statistics taken from my poll in the General Discussion forum.

Allow me to attempt a rehijack.

So, why exactly is it that the serpent is capable of moving across the celestial sphere? What makes the lights of this constellation different from the millions of other holes in oblivion?

And while we're at it, can anybody explain the sun and it's funky heliocentric path when it should by rights be painted on the celestial sphere?

Well, to "answer" your questions in reverse order: Maybe it is fixed and Nirn spins? Or who ever said that holes to Aetherius have to stay in one place? I seem to recall that all of the constellations, to some degree or another, move according to the month.

As for the serpent's nature: Aetherius is such an unexplored place, I wouldn't be surprised that each cluster of stars, each constellation, possibly each individual star leads to a different realm of Aetherius, like Oblivion. And that there are some corners of Aetherius that try to disrupt the stability of Nirn and/or its fate in a passive, Anuic kind of way.

Unfortunately, in order to get a better grasp on this, we would have to know how it is that these stars hold such a sway over fate, fortune, and the people of Nirn when the general 'backwash' of Oblivion doesn't seem to have that great an effect.

Well, the constellations echo the Thief, Mage, Warrior symbolism present on Nirn. Too bad there are only 8 known Aedra, otherwise I'd think they were the holes left when the et'Ada made Nirn, and continue to echo and shape the repeating destinies of the powerful. The Serpent, of course, would be Lorkhan, since he's the Wanderer. :shrug: Possibly a flawed logic on my part.

Below post has a good link.

We had an http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=753471&hl= about this about two years ago.

The Serpent is made of unstars. That is, it isn't made of stars. So it doesn't need to behave like other constellations.


I'll explain: the sun doesn't have a heliocentric "path" because "heliocentric" means relative to the sun. In other words, the sun doesn't move relative to itself, nothing funky there.

What I suppose you meant to ask is why the sun moves in a nirn-centric path (relative to Nirn, duh) when it's pinned to the celestial sphere. Being pinned to the celestial sphere only makes it "funky" for objects in the sky to move relative to each other, like the Serpent does relative to the stars, questioning its state of pinness. There's nothing in lore (nor in common sense) that demands that Nirn should also be pinned to the sky so that the sky, sun and stars shouldn't move relative to it.

Nirn is the hub (or axle) of a wheel. Of course stuff spins.

Nirn is a lazy axle, not a drive axle. It's the other wheel doing the work.

But the sun changes its position to other stars, or not? How else would the people of Tamriel determine under which constellation are they born?

Yes, the annual change of the night sky scenery tells us that the sun is indeed not pinned to the celestial sphere, which is rather contrary to lore. Which is why I generally object bringing real life science, scientific terms and scientific logic into lore discussions.

Why can't the 'hole' be a mobile, spherical portal?

For that matter, is the sun seen from the Shivering Isles also Magnus?