A good point. Another thing to consider is that the process of opening Oblivion Gates was already known and performable by the Conjurers prior to the Oblivion Crisis, it's just that the gates weren't sustainable and would fail in time. (only seconds to minutes) So the Amulet of Kings and white gold can't be a required part of the process of forging the Gates, but rather they would be relevant to what prevented Oblivion Gates from being sustainable, which is the barrier.

It says it right there in the text, "the Ayleids harvested castaway creatia from Oblivion by entering a pact with the masters of the Void, the Princes of Misrule." Especially given the context of an impending invasion from Oblivion - both for the real audience and the fictional one - Nu-Hatta's invocation of the Princes of Misrule can only be interpreted one way.



Ah, but I said I was interpreting the Nu-Mantia Intercepts, not Oblivion. They're different works.

But we need to reconcile them, you might protest. In an interview with TIL, Greg Keyes says he was instructed that "We are to imagine the world of TES to be a real place, of which the games are merely representations. My book represents that world in another way." Just as the games present a variety of histories for the events that precede them, they are themselves a representation, like the fiction that surrounds them, of a fictional world that we obviously do not have access to.

To extend the titular metaphor perhaps too far, all these versions of history are recorded in the Elder Scrolls, and it is the duty of the reader to sort through them. Now you can try to determine what is 'true' (though I would say, "both equally, pick your preference") behind all these deviations, but the idea that the Towers beyond Red and White-Gold have anything to do with the opening of the Oblivion gates is not supported by any media that I am aware of.

I don't think the Dagonites needed have the amulet to open the gates, they just needed it to not be worn (active?) by an emperor.

It's just better that they held onto it, away from potential emperors.

It's possible that Mankar Camoran had plans for White-Gold Tower post-invasion.

No argue with that.

Well, but I was arguing about the Amulet not the Towers (not that I agree with you, I just have nothing to add to that part of discussion). I don't think that the Dagonites needed the Amulet to open the gates, they only needed to disable the White-Gold Tower.

Agreed. As I quoted previously, opening the gates is entirely dependent on one's ability to obtain and prepare an exotic Morpholith, get a Daedra Lord to inscribe it with it's sigil, and then activate it.

Apologies for jumping back in, but I have been following the discussion, if not posting. From what I think I've deduced since posting, Ada-mantia (the Zero Tower, right?) was created by the gods in order to help create (do we have any more details on what they were creating with the tower?). All of the other towers (besides Red Tower) were created by the Elves in imitation of this in their attempts to create stuff (what, exactly?). Red Tower's purpose was to...what, maintain the structural integrity of Mundus after the gods departed to the Aetherius?

Reading the Nu-Mantia Intercept, letter #8 Says:
(emphasis added).

So, there's something special about White-Gold Tower and the way in which it was meant to interact with the Princes of Misrule (daedric princes). That's as far as I can figure out. Obviously, the Amulet of Kings has something to do with this, but at this point I have to lay down the lore books and say, "What?" Perhaps the more experienced lore-masters can aid this poor apprentice.

The Intercepts must be understood in the context they were published. Oblivion was not yet released, and we did not know (and the author may not have known) the exact details of its plot. Ignoring completely what occurs during the game, a very clear narrative of how the opening of the gates to Oblivion is occurring can be read in Nu-Mantia; the problem is, of course, that its terribly inconsistent with the narrative presented in Oblivion.

Ada-mantia was the 'vessel' in which Akatosh arrived on Nirn, bringing the concept of Time with him and enforcing its linearity on the world and its spirits. Actually, the world was synonymous with its spirits and could not exist without it. The first Tower was meant to resolve this state of affairs by allowing Nirn to sit in the void without being constantly buoyed by the presence of the divine.
http://imperial-library.info/content/nu-mantia-intercept-letter-4


The Void of Oblivion consists of corrosive, chaotic nothingness. In order to exist within that void, you be something, have an identity. The Gods are beings that exist. They are spherical bubbles of something within nothing. We see them as planets.

Nirn is a fractured mishmash of dead gods and their squabbling, disorderly mortal descendants. Nirn has no unitary identity. It is, as MK once said (roughly), "an impossible, doomed world." It can exist because the Tower fortify reality. Akatosh planted his (in Freudian fashion), and imposed his will that time be linear on Nirn. The elves build theirs for the same reason. Each one they build is a monument to their culture and shared philosophy and worldview. The gods built Nirn from on high, and it is formed of little pieces of them that get smaller all the time. To build a Tower is to do the reverse. It's the construction of a collective ideal on the nature of existence, and it inserts your identity into the Mundus' metaphysical DNA. As a side effect, it strengthen's Nirn's bid to exist and keeps the Void (or Mehrunes Dagon) from seeping in.

I'm not sure Red Tower had a purpose. Lorkhan's Heart was ripped from his body and shot from a bow. But Lorkhan loved his creation and wanted it to continue to exist. Maybe Red Tower is his gift to us, maybe it is his last stranglehold on the mortal plane, from which he influences the course of history as he does. It had to be created, really. Nirn is nothing without its architect. He conceived of the project in the first place, even though other provided their substance while his dead flesh floats in the sky. (Masser and Secunda)

Reading the Nu-Mantia Intercept, letter #8 Says:
(emphasis added).


It's been a while and I don't remember everything so well. But White-Gold Tower reaches up into Oblivion and harvests divine matter from Aetherius: pure magic and the stuff of creation. Everything on Mundus is always degrading and splintering, traveling father and farther from its divine origin The Ayleids, being elves, do everything in their power to impede or reverse that process.

My imperfect understanding is that White-Gold is important because of its place at the center of the wheel of Nirn, just as Nirn is the center of the wheel of the Aurbis. This symbolic placement grants it power over the object of its imitation.

Red Mountain fell, enabling Oblivion to invade when White-Gold fell as a consequence of Uriel's death. Thus both natural and mer-made (:P) towers uphold a barrier of sorts.

Oblivion has been reconciled with Nu-Mantia. You just have to filter out the idiocy of MQ dialog and books.

It's not inconsistent if you interpret it the "right way". By that I mean the way it's usually interpreted (the Towers reinforce the barrier and when to many of them is disabled it allows the gates to open). As you have said the reader needs to sort through these different versions of history and this is the best way in my opinion.

Okay, sure. If you want to make things up that are completely unlike the narrative that each source provides and then pretend they're consistent, then yeah, I guess you can do that. It's almost as fun as ignoring the argument of the posts you're replying to. :rolleyes:

The events of TES IV are history, even if the lore is junk. Those events have bearing on Nu-Mantia, an imperfect document explaining perfectly verifiable in-game phenomena.

There's not really an important difference between the highly inconvenient idea that the Dagonites harnessed the power of White-Gold to let Dagon in, versus simply breaking the Covenant and rendering the Tower impotent, pulling off an attack on the symbolic heart of Mundus. Nu-Mantia can work with either, especially if you take into account the nature of White-Gold under human dominion.

What's more, Nu-Mantia speaks of the harnessing of the Tower by returning Ayleids who exist outside of conventional time because of its power, not devotees of Dagon letting in their master to end the world. That's not the sort of relationship that the Ayleids had with Oblivion. Nu-Mantia does not refer directly to Oblivion's plot. It seems closer to Umaril's return, and I don't think we can deduce Mankar Camoran's plan of attack from it.



Nu-Mantia does not solidly describe the Dagonites' plan. It does describe the role of White-Gold, the Tower that has power over the others with their various roles. I haven't read Nu-Mantia in around two years, and I think you may be right that the outer Mer Towers do not contribute to any Barrier. But the Barrier fell because White-Gold came under attack. Oblivion is the deciding factor in uncertainty here, and in the end it is newer lore. You seem to suggest that the fall of the Barrier isn't the issue, but rather the hijacking of one component of the Barrier. I don't think Nu-Mantia can justify that with any degree of certainty.


This is not "very clear" nor "straightforward," as you say. It is a very vague reference. We don't know the nature of the pact. Any use of that pact to invite Dagon in would obviously have nothing to do with harvesting creatia, the purpose of said pact.You say you're dismissing the events of Oblivion, but you're actually reconciling just as hard as anyone else. Nothing Mankar Camoran does involves bringing back the Ayleids, unless you put more stock in his pocket dimension theme park than is really right.

It's what we call a "plot hole". They happen a lot in this series.

Which is a big part of the reason why I'd consider the explanation that the Towers created the barrier keeping Oblivion out better than the Dragonfires one. With the latter, there is no such plot hole.

Alessia received the Amulet of Kings when she made the Covenant with Akatosh/Shezarr. But she's dead. The Dragonfires are the ritualistic, symbolic method by which the brats of Reman and Septim qualify themselves as Dragonborn worthy of wearing the Amulet. And the Amulet is the Stone of the Tower.

Oblivion just svcks at explaining it/tried to [censored] the lore but we won't let them. So no plotholes!

Hold up. I got bored and decided to play through Oblivion again, and some of Jauffre's dialogue when you first meet him (this bit is triggered by asking him "how can Oblivion threaten us, then?") caught my eye.

"I'm not sure. Only the Emperors truly understand the meaning behind the rituals of coronation. ... It may be that the Dragonfires protected us from a threat that only the Emperor was aware of."
So not even the Grandmaster of the Blades is completely certain that there is actually a link between the Dragonfires and the barrier. The only person who would have known for sure that that was the Dragonfires' function, or, if not, what they are really for, conveniently died.

Assuming that the widely-held beliefs expressed in "The Trials of St. Alessia" are false, perhaps Imperial propaganda, then?

Probably because the writers are equally clueless.

That or a very misguided belief.

Nowhere does Trials of St Alessia explicitly refer to biological heirs of Alessia. Anyone with the slightest education would be quite aware that neither Reman nor Talos were part of any Cyrodilic dynasty linked to the Slave-Queen.

The bit about Akatosh explicitly mentioning the Gates of Oblivion is clearly just aimed at the MQ. Keeping Oblivion out was just a minor side effect of the Covenant.

Whoever said that only Septims can wear the Amulet is obviously mistaken. Yet since the Alessian and Reman lines are extinguished, it is a true statement that only the heirs of the current ruling dynasty are permitted to wear it. That others are capable is not necessarily known and would undermine the religious legitimacy of the Septims.

Hrol made love to the mound of the Mother of Cyrod, Alessia, and she subsequently birthed Reman.

http://www.imperial-library.info/content/oblivion-remanada-1

I suppose my education isn't slight enough, because I seem to have discovered a story which strongly indicated Reman is an offspring of Alessia.