Sure, he created the environment to which most of your memories are relevant, but if you're going by "current incarnation" as your definition of "self" I think you should really give old mom & dad a whole lot more credit than Shez

I completely agree. That seems like a completely objective fact, which doesn't seem all that relevant to the discussion I think I'm having.

Ah, OK. Still, the fact that Alduin went into the domain of his sworn enemy and started eating his sworn enemy's sworn swords doesn't seem to in any way imply that mortals don't have divine souls.

Yeah, he melted them all down to make a big stompy robot which (as far as we can tell) is more powerful than any of the Aedra and laughs at petty concepts like "causality" and "linear time." The Altmer aren't shooting quite that high. They're content with being far weaker than Auri-El.


Huh? Whatchyootalkin'bout?

That your immortal soul doesn't like the Mundus is pretty clearly in support of the Altmeri view.

That's a contended point.

He created the world that allows people to exist in there current selves. Removing Lorkhan is like removing your ancestors and expecting to remain. Or, more accurately, the situation that lead to your ancestral greatX3434 grandmother and grandfather meeting.

My point on Sovngarde is that it's transcendence (I had to have this pointed out to me, sadly). Only time is linear, and you get to keep your current self. And why would the Mer wish transcendence but to escape suffering?

I never understood how "one of us" could agree with the Thalmor world view. Besides why do you think creation won't happen again? According to your view we were all Original Spirits once. We didn't like it enough to stay that way.

I'm not saying that people don't have souls. The mannish idea, that mortals are creations of the Divines' sacrifice, works fine with the existence of souls. The most mannish and manly of the man races look forward to being dead. But Alduin can devour these souls to empower himself. The exact opposite of creation. As things stand, there's more evidence that in devouring the world, he won't free the souls of the mortals, but devour them.

As for Numidium, I'd contend that at best it'd be on par with the pre-creation Divines, or at most Lorkhan, rather than above them. It's the culmination of the Dwemer's attempts to reverse the Death of the Earthbones.

It was destroyed twice. Furthermore it can be disassembled. How would one accomplish this with an Aedra besides channeling the Aurbis? It's not like the Underking did anything fantastical like dancing upon the Tower to blow apart Numidium.

Or perhaps that it could be destroyed proved it wasn't the uber god that it's seen as. It was a golem with divine skin, powered by not the Heart of Lorkhan, but the Mantella, the heart of the Underking. Even http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:The_Arcturian_Heresy says it wasn't the god that Tiber Septim hoped for. Looking more closely, it seems it was only a shadow of Lorkhan.

In all truth, Anumidium probably would've been a whole lot worse, given that if it went operational it would've been powered by the real deal.

Also who knows what the true power of Numidium was? Perhaps Tiber was only using 1% of its true power. Maybe if the Battle of Red Mountain never happened, the Dwemer would have succeeded in creating a perfect simulacrum of Lorkhan which when activated would have simply flown up to fill his space. It had his Heart, and that's the part that mattered.

I like the idea of science and technology quantifying matters of the divine though. The Dwemer built Numidium so they could have a god worth worshiping as they believed the Daedra and the Aedra to be nothing more than higher beings. Did they truly not believe the Aedra were gods though? What were their views on the Earth Bones? They mention them enough, so they have to be a matter of some importance.

Furthermore, you mentioned the Earth Bones were dead. What did you mean by that? I thought the Earth Bones were just a misnomer to represent the mythic bits of each Aedra that were sacrificed to build Nirn. Are there actual, physical things referred to as Earth Bones within Nirn? like a sort of wire frame?

Who wants to live as their current self? In small ways, we all want to destroy ourselves and replace ourself with something similar. The situation that created "me as I am right now" includes having never replied to this thread (which I consider to be a minor mental exercise), never having run all the distance I plan on running today, and never having read the chapters in Summer Knight I plan on reading today. I'm (probably) going to change all of that, and replace my current self with a different, slightly better self.

That's what I'll accomplish in a day. Reasonably, in the next few years I plan on getting a higher education, completing at least a bachelors degree program. I'll be broadening my horizons, and by the time I'm done, I'll probably live in an entirely different (subjective) world than I did before. The simplistic version of reality (I perceived) will be replaced by a deeper, more meaningful world. My old, ignorant self will be replaced by a marginally less ignorant version of me.

On a grander scale, I'd love to change the world, though I recognize that I probably won't. If I could, I'd end all war that included non-willing participants (aka all war). I'd cure the diseases that killed my grandparents, and those that plague my friends, and every damn last non-cool one (I'm fine with some people having blue skin from silver toxicity). I'd eliminate illiteracy, and educate everyone on important social issues, such as religious, six, race, gender, sixual orientation, sixuality, height, and hobby tolerance. I'd create semi-miraculous programs and drugs so that anyone who wanted to end their addictions could. I really doubt any of these stances are exactly controversial. If I did all of this, the world that created me would be gone.

The Altmer just want to scale that up even more, because they just might be able to. You (I assume) want to end war & treat disease? They want to end death. They're going to the root, and hope to bring about radical change.


I'm weird, and proud of it, especially in this way. I don't just root for whoever I'm more superficially similar to.
This is in no way meant to imply that any of you are just rooting for humans because they have round ears or something. I'm sure all of your opinions are based primarily on reason, and not some weird elf-hate. This statement, of course, does not apply to Helmouth

The Et'Ada clearly had problems. That doesn't mean they knowingly signed away their immortality and spiritieness. We don't know how it is that Lorkhan sold the other Et'Ada on the idea of the mundus. Hell, maybe it was meant to be a torture device used on the Aedra / Magna-Ge's enemies. Maybe it was advertised as an overly-elaborate popcorn popper. We also don't know what it is that the Thalmor mean by "erase man from the pattern of possibility" but they seem to be at least aware of the fact that eliminating man-actual isn't enough, and they need to worry about mankind popping up again.

If the Thalmor succeeded with destroying the mundus, they might just end up moving on to solving whatever problem the Magna-Ge and Aedra were lead to believe the mundus would solve. Progress never ends.

Well, yeah, the Thalmor aren't big fans of Alduin, or his plan. You'll notice that Alduin is the nord-tinged mirror-brother of Auri-El, and not Auri-El himself, and also that the Thalmor plan never seems to have involved summoning a giant dragon to eat a bunch of souls.

The time-dragon is the most powerful of the et'ada. Maybe he's not very smart, but he's powerful. Lorkhan had to sneak around him, and trick him, turn his power against himself, in order to overcome him. The Brass-Walk just openly defies (overpowers) him every time it's turned on. This isn't even some isolated one-time event like it was with the Tribunal (who, aside from that one time, have obeyed causality & linear time). Now, maybe this was only possible because of the Time Dragon's "death," but I'm not certain of that.

Unfortunately, I have no idea where I got the source for this, but I could have sworn that I read somewhere that the Dwemer weren't just trying to reverse the death of the Aedra (who they didn't even worship) but instead were trying to reverse the more general tendency of the universe to sub-divide.


It was a bit of a rush job, and yeah, it's battery isn't very well secured, but just because the all-mighty mecha can be turned off, that doesn't mean it isn't super-powerful when turned on. Besides, it's still siegeing Alinor.

So you reckon when the Moot chooses a High King/Queen he/she has to make a pilgramage to Kovanjund? Pretty cool idea.

I would guess that the regalia as a visualization of... well, the regality of the regent is only needed when that regality can be questioned. I.e, when a High King or Queen is chosen by the moot, everyone is already in agreement who the leader is and the crown will not be needed to convince anyone.

But, at least on earth, regalia acts as a link between the divine and the mundane. The one that the god/s allow to hold the orb or sceptre or whatever the symbol might be is the one worthy of leading the nation. That person has been given legitimacy of the god/s (which makes the material choice for this particular crown quite interesting). So in a state of, say, civil war the crown will be needed to convince people - and in effect the world itself in this case - that one side is more worthy of earthly (nirnly?) power than the other.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that as long as the kingdom is unified and the ruler is not questioned, that person does not even have to lay their eyes on the crown in order for them to be its master.

(But a pilgrimage with all that it would mean in terms of zombiefighting and whatnot as a coronation ceremony would still be cool.)

This, or whatever rites elevate a person to the station of High King of Skyrim include something which binds that person as master of the Jagged Crown, regardless of physical proximity to it.


The Draugr wouldn't have been a problem for anyone before--they were dormant until the return of Alduin.

The dragon priests were, but not the rank-and-file draugr. The book http://www.imperial-library.info/content/amongs-draugr and the Nerevarine's excursion to Solstheim are but two tales of prealduinic draugrural activity.

According to Vivec, there was death before Mundus. And suffering, too, as the et'ada destroyed each others creations (which is never defined. Did they create life?) That comes from Vehk's teachings. It just was not constant, so it taught them nothing. Everyone had the mentality of a Daedric prince. They acted like spoiled, violent, destructive, murderous children. Mundus taught them to suffering meaningfully, to be responsible, to give birth to children and watch them grow and then ascend to something greater.

Altmer, considering their society is founded on the idea of on elf being better then another with their very strict caste system, don't really like the idea of something becoming greater than them. They blame others for causing suffering when they cause it to themselves in their obsession with status. Now, humans do this too, but it doesn't seem to be built into their society the same way.

Besides, I doubt apotheosis is the prime goal for your average Altmer. Like humans, daily life is more important for anyone who isn't a priest. I agree with the idea that your average Thalmor soldier really believes this is a quest for a pure Tamriel, rather than an attempt to escape Mundus. Someone would have spilled the beans, otherwise.

wholly agreed.

Suffering without meaning isn't suffering. Of course the Et'Ada acted in ways which seem repulsive to beings native to a world with meaningful suffering. The way I treat books, food, and clothing would horrify my ancestors, to whom all of those items were truly precious things. Imagine what a teenager from the great depression would think of food fights. To us, the loss isn't meaningful. To them, those lost food items would be precious. Giving away clothes just because they have holes in them? A terrifying waste. As things improve, items of constant quality become less meaningful, their loss induces less suffering, and their loss is avoided less. When things improve by an amount approaching infinity, suffering and loss avoidance approach zero. It's a natural (and, to me, non-repulsive) quality of being in an excellent position.

Death before the mundus isn't something I remember hearing about, outside of the whole walkabout-surviving-the-Sakatal thing. Could you point me towards a source? I'd love to read more about this.

Actually, the Altmer absolutely consider themselves inferior to their major dieties, much as even a Brahman must admit to being inferior to, say, Brahma. For example, Auri-El is said to have only ever made one mistake, and to otherwise be completely incapable of making mistakes. That sets him above the high-caste Altmer.
But yeah, the Altmer culture is despicable. I absolutely do not condone caste-systems, infanticide, mass killings, oppression of free speech, et cetera.

While I'm sure it's rare to find someone who really understands the plan, I see no reason for them to actively hide it from their soldiers. In our world, leaders love to shoe-horn in religious motivations for conflicts, even if there really isn't one. "You'll soon ascend to godhood!" seems like a great rallying cry to me.

Ah, but those examples are understandable. But the et'ada's mindset was completely different, and in a negative way. Everyone was a gigantic, murderous bully. It's not something that needs to be returned to.

"For ages the etada grew and shaped and destroyed each other and destroyed each other’s creations." - Vehk's teachings.


Indeed, but this still falls into the caste system of the Altmer. But Auriel was always greater than them. Considering the Altmer kill their children for not being perfect, I doubt the majority of them would be willing to sacrifice for love. Then again, they still have a Mara aspect.

They also seem to be the type that would sacrifice themselves for the Dominion.



Possibily.