Is CHANGE = CHAOS? Are they separate forces or just faces of the same thing? Is CHAOS = SITHIS?

Is everything (love, life, the four elements...) related to CHAOS? Maybe anything related to STASIS would never change and thus be STASIS itself.

If so then CHAOS would be the most powerful force of all.

In my opinion CHANGE is not CHAOS. That's somehow different. Seems like CHANGE is mixed between CHAOS and order, could be said ordered CHAOS. Weird, I begin feeling headache here.

And I agree LOVE should be one of those forces.

CHIM? Dunno, for me CHIM is rather like a status or condition, not the force to move the things.

HOPE? Mmm... no idea. Just suddenly I remember old quote from Dragonlance, "Hope is denial of reality." Haha...

So far we have:
CHANGE
STASIS
LOVE
...perhaps CHAOS

Probably not, but I'll try.

Along with guessing, I think we should concentrate on what we know [for certain?] about the ten unknown forces: "...change is the most sacred of the Eleven Forces. Change is the force without focus or origin." I read this as: Unlike the other forces that have focus and/or origin, CHANGE is sacred because it doesn't.

In other words: the forces we're looking for have a focus and/or an origin.

If we judge the few candidates we have so far on those grounds, STASIS could be eliminated because I don't see how it could have an origin or a focus. LOVE on the other hand qualifies beautifully.

Vivec always struck me as a guy who was driven mad by the power of the Heart of Lorkhan. But unlike Dagoth Ur, his madness took a more benign approach.

Starkest madness is divinest sense.

Ur wasn't evil either.

I think STASIS should be there. Just some anology in the real life. When some people hesitate to do things or change something, that's when the force of STASIS worked. Lot's of example.

I didn't say evil, but he was certainly malevolent. And quite mad, like Vivec.

I'm not a "smart lore guy", but Lady Olivia suggested a good approach. Can't it be argued that stasis has the focus of keeping things constant, or an origin in bringing things to their comfortable medium? Balance?

And why is it that Change has no origin or focus? Is it the "change of things without reason" kind of change? Maybe I don't understand the meaning properly, but things usually stay the same or change because other things work to make it so. Unless you want to call change "chaos", but I like to think of it as "progress" also. Progress usually has focused goal though, and an origin in wanting to reach that goal. A necessity is the mother of invention kind of thing. Is this "change" different from that? If so, how is it different from Chaos?

I'm not sure I like the idea of "love" being a force. I'm in the "don't believe Vivec" camp - so anything coming from him is gobbledigoo to me. If love can be a force, then why not hunger too? Or fear? Hatred? Those have origins - and you could argue that they give the "afflicted" a certain "focus".

Is the "origin" and "focus" of the other forces "change" itself, which is why "change" is sacred (it makes the others)? This can allow for "change" to lack origin and focus (seperating it from both Chaos and Progress), while giving the other froces these two qualities. However, that means that all the others come from "change". Is this interpretation possible?

I think the reason Change is so important is because it got Stasis to DO something, allowing for Creation to come to fore.

To me, Stasis in TES means less about Balance and more along the lines of a boring Status Quo.

sup Psijic?

Also you've got the right idea about Stasis. The balance between the two is the Mundus

I wanna make a quick comment on the whole is Change actually Chaos.

See, from how I interpret it, Change is not Chaos. Rather, Change begot Chaos. As in Padomay (Who is Change) begot Sithis (Who is Chaos, nothing, ect ect). It was this act that got Anu to DO something, resulting in the creation of Anuiel, the Soul of Anu, who filled the void (Sithis) of nothing and started Creation.

I dunno, maybe you can put Creation on the list as the last one. I would really think they go in a descending order, with Change being the most holy.

Damn, this is confusing. The Eleven forces are maybe the things that makes up Creation....

What if, instead of a force, STASIS just is, maybe the forces affect it, including CHANGE?

The Godhead would be the thing that just is, with nothing before it. Stasis and Change are two opposing forces that are constantly working against each other, and from their battles, the other forces become evident, ending in the Mundus, IE Balance.

^ I can buy that interpretation, and what you said earlier. So then....the other forces came from Change, and potentially involve either "focus" or "origin", if not both? Can other dieties be equated to "forces" as you did with Sithis and Padomey?

An excellent observation and idea!

Ah, trust a member of the old guard to produce the best topic we've had in the past month or two.

Given ES's penchant for duality, might I suggest that what we have here are five pairs of forces and then CHANGE which is the eleventh and unfettered?

Also, could the four elements mentioned in http://www.imperial-library.info/obbooks/magic_sky.shtml be used; Earth, Water, Air, and Light/Fire?

I think ELEMENTS are not FORCES. Perhaps I am wrong dunno...

So far we have:
CHANGE
STASIS
LOVE
HOPE
CHAOS
ELEMENTS

Come... let's discuss.

So it is working in a descending order. Well, if CHAOS (Sithis) is up there, then you need to put up the opposite of Sithis, Anuiel, who is Creation.

I dunno, LOVE and HOPE don't seem to be forces. They seem more like emotions. I mean, yeah, LOVE is more agape than romantic, but that is still an emotion.

HOPE, I don't know I just put it there. I am collecting the possible forces first and then we discuss again each.

On LOVE, I do think this is one of the forces. MK (or Vehk?) talked about this LOVE so many time. So I think it's one of the forces.

Perhaps, we need to discuss what is the FORCE first. The definition, I mean. For me "it is something that move thing to form or do something."

What you guys think?

BOTH MK and Vehk talked about them alot from what I've seen.

And LOVE is a force to me too.

Perhaps CONFLICT could go up there.

I was thinking WAR but CONFLICT could make more sense.

I agree, love is a force that bounds together two entities (like Anu and Padomay, which is the origin) and results into creation (like Aurbis, which is the focus).

Force is something that causes change.

Anu and Padomay don't seem to have LOVE for each other. They seem to dislike each other, very much.


Then Change wouldn't be a force. Forces seem to be more things that form the basics of Mundus in a descending order as they come from the Godhead. You have STASIS which is affected by CHANGE which causes CONFLICT which makes CREATION...and I lost it.

On CHANGE and CHAOS. Correct me if I am mistaken, but if CHANGE is the domain of Padomay and CHAOS of Sithis, then CHAOS is a kind of subgradient of CHANGE rather than a force of equal fundamentality, no?

On STASIS. It goes against my immediate logic that STASIS could be a force, for what could possibly STASIS do? But I can accept that it is "active" in keeping [its focus] from changing. And since it's a binary situation, whatever "it" is, it's either changing or it's not, then all reality, everything in existence is affected by those two; there can be nothing outside their range. In other words, all creation is an interplay of Anu and Padomay. Duh.

On DUALITY. Would it be too obvious to promote duality itself into a fundamental force? Or the ENANTIOMORPH, the imperfect duality. Do these stand opposed? Or can one be viewed as a subgradient of the other as in CHANGE/CHAOS?

On LOVE and HOPE. I like the idea of LOVE; it seems whacky enough to fit. But I find HOPE to be a weak concept among the other candidates. Too Disney for my taste.

ELEMENTS are not forces. They are the material for the forces to act on. Reality = forces + elements? A bit batw, perhaps. I'd say TIME and SPACE are also not forces; they would be the playground.

CREATION is interesting. Could be seen as an aspect of CHANGE, though.

WAR or CONFLICT. Too obvious, I think. We should avoid the principles already embodied in Aedra and Daedra. Or not?



Finally, I'd like to nominate MYTH or NARRATION.