I'm late, but I'd just like to point out - both systems are methods to impose will on the world. The aetherial scheme just uses magicka as a lever instead of however it is thu'um works; presumably using Kyne as a lever. As for Oblivion - Tiber used thu'um in Oblivion in the Sword Meeting, right?

No model in-universe that I know of, but I don't think the Cosmology model doesn't stand up too well given the observations that can be made in the planes of Oblivion. The Shivering Isles has a sun similar too Magnus, yet the arrangements of the stars in the night sky are completely different. The Deadlands, on the other hand, have either no sun at all or a black sun (given it seems to have what should be a sun in their editor, but it's black). Oblivion isn't another dimension, it is the TES equivalent of outer space, beyond the Mortal Plane. Hence why I avoid using the model and instead piece together information from observation and lore (including MK's out-of-game work, which gives some good information regarding Oblivion).

according to Cosmology the void of oblivion behaves similarly to a planet in that it's spherical and looking up into the sky is looking to the inside wall of the sphere where the tears leading to aetherius are. it plainly says that all tears are equidistant from mundus, and magnus appears as the largest because it is just that. but it also says that the planets and oblivion are both infinite and the spherical shapes are due to mortal mental stress. so maybe it's just a paradox and both are true, or maybe i should take Cosmology with a grain of salt considering its claim that you can see stars through the dark parts of the moons is blatantly contradictory to what we see in the games.




Cosmology does have some good ideas and i like to think that it's still a valid way of looking at the aurbis despite getting that detail about the moons wrong, but i suppose i should refer to other sources first when talking about the cosmos.

i don't remember there being anything that looks like a sun in the deadlands. it could be because they used an overlay on the existing skybox and you can kinda see the original sun through all the red and clouds. or we could say it's a moon or one of the unstars that Cosmology mentions is part of the serpent constellation.

i think if we take the "infinities within infinities" approach to how planes work then we could say that different planes (infinite but represented as spheres) float through the void and act as planets, but when looking into the sky from that plane(t) we see the void represented on a flat surface because of the barriers between dimensions. that way things would behave like irl planets and explain how they can have different skies while also explaining how they are infinite and why heavenly bodies are equidistant to the planet. and it would justify the model put forth by Cosmology to an extent. the void of oblivion is said to surround the planes of oblivion and mundus, but this could just be a relative way of saying that the void is what the door to the next gradient leads to, and any physical representation of this is just the best that a mortal can come up with. it's still paradoxical, but that's OK because magic. i think.

if Nirn is a plane that is precieved as a planet, I tend to think that while all the holes are equidistant you get to some faster because they're closer. And equidistant. Oh, they're also spherical instead of flat, but they are still holes. Duuuuuude.....

Dragonrend on a Daedra? Well, it depends on the Daedra I guess. The more powerful, the worse the effect. The most devastating would be using it on a Daedric Prince, since they are less used to going to the waters of Oblivion and thus less close to mortality. Combine that with a 'Nymic and you MIGHT be able to kill them.

Of course Dragonrend works on Daedra, we've seen it in action.

... well that's certainly an interesting insight into the nature of Dragonrend. It was inevitable, from the start, that dragons would feel the bite of mortality, as the echoes of their forefather's fate shuddered through the Mundus; the tortured shrieks of Auriel in his snake-ribbed prison, each Shout a subgradient re-enactment of the mythical tragedy. And perhaps a dragon's carnal death implies a permanent (interference notwithstanding) imprisonment within the Wheel - thus the Dragonborn's feast. Or when slain by a normal mortal, adsorption to Auriel's unwilling temporal role - from which Alduin, the Unbound, is able to free them.

Which lends even more intrigue to the events of Alduin's banishment, in both instances. Two weapons the Nords brought to bear: imprisonment and emancipation from time; Dragonrend and Elder Scroll, each successful in a separate case. The Elder Scroll loosened Alduin's connection from the Wheel too much for him to manifest; the Drabonborn's dragonrend and death blow bound him, perhaps finally, to the greater Time Dragon from which heaven had him shed.

Perhaps that's all Alduin ever really was: the fragment of Auriel who escaped imprisonment.

This is poetic and thrice as beautiful.