Hi, I have question.. How Dark Anchors (ESO) actually works from lore perspective, how this mechanism is working, what purpose of 5 pinions, why they showed up only when we kill cultists, why they need souls to open, what we do with them when they open (activate or destroy), what happens when all 5 “used” (in anchor mechanism), and why daedra are starting to fall from the sky and disintegrating when anchor destroyed???

Well I don't know anything on pinions, besides the guess that the bind the anchors to the ground with Magicka. And when you deactivate them the magicka disperses and I suppose you absorb it, which gives you the buff "Power of the Deadra". But I do remember reading a book written by a Daedra describing how they powered the anchors. They tested a few things, but what they eventually used were Storm Atronachs. Apparently binding them to power an Anchor was the most efficient way to power one.

Now the cultists activate the power of a Dark Anchor by, as they have yelled at us countless times, spilling the blood of an innocent. I think the whole innocent thing is just for effect and insane cultist mumbo-jumbo. It probably just needs to be a mortal.

Now they do not appear when we kill cultists. Cultists appear, activate Anchor, we kill them, and Daedra drop. I really only think Daedra drop because the anchor is being attacked. They don't need daedra to be on the ground. They just need an anchor pulling the two worlds closer.

And the daedra dropping and disintegrating could be that there's instantly, when an anchor is activated, a waiting list of Daedra prepared to defend it. When the anchor is destroyed all the waiting Daedra are already stuck and just blow up.

Now most of this I don't know as fact, it's just my way of explaining Dark Anchors (minus the storm atronachs). I don't really care about Anchors lore wise, they really don't matter to much. Well I mean yes they matter, they're merging Mundus and Oblivion for gods sake. But the whole five pinions and daedra dropping, meh.

I think about this interpretation, pinions are some kind energy storages for holding mechanism of anchor, when threat for anchor showed up, they appeared on surface (maybe switching gate to deploying(not devouring) mode) and creat stabilize zone(or maybe become "anchor" point for defending daedra) allowing defenders to manifest them self in material form, when we kill them, their energy or soul automatically send to clothest pinion (because they created to devour soul energy, some kind soul gem, or because they are bound stone for daedra), after some amount of energi they overcharged and theirs cores opened for some sort of culling mechanism, allowing us to stole this energy, after that pinion deactivated and open 1 lock from holding mechanism, after all 5 holding mechanism release lock and anchor by devouring force crush in gate, gate start to crumble under its own force and collapse inside itself. But some daedra that were inside gates at this time still crushed on earth, but without stabilize field from pinions they can't hold material form and disintegrate. Something like that=)