Several years ago, during one of the countless discussions here regarding the fate of the Dwemer, I posted a theory regarding their current state that strung together references throughout the lore, as to what exactly happened at Red Mountain when Kagrenac decided to play a wicked god's-heart solo during the Battle of Red Mountain, posted under the name of Gleb. I intended to formally write it up as an FSG report (Is that even still a thing? I haven't been here in a long time), but, due to a sudden plot twist in my life, I had to focus on more pressing concerns, and gradually forgot about the whole thing. A few weeks ago, a conversation w/a friend held over several pints of homebrewed mead (FYI: anybody who's played Skyrim and wondered how mead tastes, the answer is usually "delicious") reminded me of the whole Numidium business. Didn't think much of it at the time, but decided the other day to see what's been up on the lore forums. Apparently "where da dwarfs at?" is still a popular topic of discussion. While my old, much better-written and more-detailed writeup was destroyed when college ate my hard drive, I still remember the rough gist of the argument, and the realization that I never actually posted a proper write-up irked me enough to decide to come back to the Lore Forums. I'd love to write up a full, nice and official-y article, but it's very late and I've spent most of the past 48 hours driving and none of them sleeping. Also, I got kinda lazy over the years. So, my b, but no quotes or anything, and others seem to have reached similar conclusions, from a cursory glance at the last thread discussing the Dwemer fate.

Rough Gist: Kagrenac knew exactly (or close enough) what he was doing at Red Mountain, though I doubt he was as prepared as he'd have liked, and was certainly not working under the conditions he'd liked. I guess the hordes bearing down on Red Mountain kinda threw a cutting-globe in the whole plan. Why is Yagrum Bagarn the last living Dwemer? It's not coincidence, that was ALWAYS the plan. He was in an outer dimension (IIRC, it was mentioned somewhere that these are outer dimensions in the sense they don't exist in the normal structure of the Wheel) because that's the only way he'd be able to survive the race-wide metamorphosis into Numidium. When he shows up at Red Mountain after the battle, Bagarn finds that, lo and behold, the battle was lost. One thing that always troubled me was the mention of Orsimer mercenaries at Red Mountain; the Orsimer are descended from the followers of Trinimac, meaning the orcs of Nerevar's day likely hated the Chimer something fierce, and were probably also extremely hostile to the Nords as well. Why would the Nords and Orcs cooperate, when the Orsimer were followers of Trinimac/Malacath? My theory is the Orcs showed up not to back up the Nords as mercenaries, but to back up the Dwemer. How else would Bagarn have been able to come back and access Kagrenac's tools post-Red Mountain, if the entire force keeping the Chimer and Nords away from the Heart had been transformed into a dormant robo-god? If this were the case, the Orsimer obviously had quite the epic fail, and if not, Kagrenac left a rather glaring hole in his plan, which I find unbelievable considering Bagarn remarked to the Nerevarine that Kagrenac was more or less one of the most brilliant minds of his day.

Regardless of the pork-mer's involvement, Yagrum Bagarn comes home, and finds the battle lost, the tools nowhere to be found, the world around him crawling with his mortal enemies. While probably looking for the tools around Red Mountain, he catches Corprus and begins degenerating into the sore-covered vomit-inducer we see beneath Tel Fyr. Might even be possible he caught Corprus from Dagoth Ur himself trying to access the Heart Chamber. As can clearly be seen from playing Morrowind, Corprus apparently wreaks havoc on your mental capacities, meaning Bagarn probably just forgot what he was supposed to be doing, only remembering after the (presumed) destruction of Dagoth Ur and the end of Corprus. Hence a statement afterwards (out of game) from Divayth Fyr that Yagrum Bagarn became more and more lucid post-Nerevarine. Then Bagarn remembers he's several thousand years late to finish his mission, and now has to hunt down those tools and go find the Heart of Lorkhan again. With the framework of Numidium already apparently complete and only lacking the power source, finding the Heart of Lorkhan may be the only thing Bagarn needs to do.

The Nerevarine is conveniently sent on a "secret mission" to Akavir not long after, presumably still bearing Lorkhan's tools. Yagrum Bagarn suddenly regains his wits, and realizes what he needs to do. Nota Bene: Yagrum Bagarn was specifically chosen to carry out the final steps of Kagrenac's plan. Dumac might've been king and Kagrenac might've been the most brilliant of the tonal architects, but to be chosen for that duty, Yagrum Bagarn couldn't have been some random grunt. No, Yagrum Bagarn is/was likely Kagrenac's equal or close second in terms of talent. This is the guy who knows how to finish Numidium and is hellbent on doing so, and the Nerevarine is the poor fool standing in his way. The whole "we're going to will ourselves out of existence back to the origin of things" seems to have a lot of similarities with the beliefs of the Thalmor... Wondering what happened to the Nerevarine? As the last living member of a terrifyingly powerful and brilliant race, and almost certainly one of the greatest minds of his day, Yagrum Bagarn would definitely have followed the Nerevarine to Akavir the second he caught word of that (For a "secret mission", it seems an awful lot of people in the Empire know the Nerevarine went to Akavir) and probably left him/her dead in a rice patty after taking a cutting-globe to his/her skull (which sounds like a totally awesome showdown: the God-Killer vs. the God-Maker), took the tools, and... What? Where's Bagarn now, 200 years later? There's no reason to believe the third-most powerful Dwemer of his day would be incapable of living as long as he pleased. He's hunting for the Heart of Lorkhan with Kagrenac's tools in tow.

I think the story of the Dwemer and their agenda is far from finished.

If one were interested in opposing the Thalmor's agenda (Which, like the Dwemeri agenda, almost certainly spells disastrous consequences for everybody else), they'd best make sure they find Bagarn and skin him like a netch, trap his soul, cremate his body and bury that soul gem before those two parties make contact.

Again, it's been a long, long time since I've actively read the old lore, so I might've made some errors here and there, but I'm pretty sure that more or less sums everything up. Thoughts, questions, frothy declarations of rabid hate?

I have to admit, I like your theory. However, Skyrim kind of threw it off course when you consider that you can obtain Keening yourself, and it was merely imported in. Yagrum Bagarn would not likely give them up so easily. Additionally, I doubt Yagrum would have to kill the Nerevarine to get the Tools. They were most likely friends, after all (at least, mine was friends with him.)

I'm very much looking forward to the Fifth Era when Numidium is supposed to return, and I do hope that Yagrum Bagarn is still alive and kicking and will play a role when the Brass God takes center stage once more.

I do hate rabits... Which is surprisingly similiar yet completely different.

Anyway it's an interesting theory but I have a few problems with it.

1.) How is it possible for a Dwemer stuck in the position (stupid Dwemer chair thing) Yagrum is in to sneak up and kill the Nerevarine?
2.) Keening has apparantly been found in Skyrim, now I'm not entirely sure it's the real deal, most people here seem to think so however, and if it is this entire theory would fall apart.
3.) The entire idea operates under the believe that Yagrum was an insanely powerful or intelligent Dwemer, now I'm not disputing that as a possibility, but I do wonder how come we never hear from him, and how come Fyr seems to not know him. After all he was around during the time of the Dwemer right?
4.) If you go to Yagrum to translate some Dwemer books,he mentions that Kragnec is dead and his theories should die with him... Which seems like a rather strong thing to say, and which leads me to believe that he still has at least some memory of Kragnec and formed an opinion on the man.

Really? That's kind of disappointing if it's the real deal, I feel like Kagrenac's tools are a bit too epic to just have pop up as a random quest reward or dungeon loot. And wasn't Keening impossible to use without some sort of awful side-effect if you didn't have Wraithguard? Or was that Sunder/both? Either way, I did like the idea of the Nerevarine having the last of the dwarves as a friend (somehow it seemed better to me when I first played through Morrowind that the only person not manipulating the Nerevarine would be a Dwemer, seeing how Nerevar was tight with Dumac), though, but Divayth Fyr's comments regarding Sotha Sil's last words (And details about Yagrum's recovery therein) made me wonder if Yagrum had maybe forgotten via time and corprus exactly what those tools were for and what was supposed to be done with them. And maybe what he was in that outer dimension. http://www.imperial-library.info/content/sotha-sils-last-words

Ha, try eating them.

Hm, I feel it'd be best to address those a bit out of order, I hope my reasons why present themselves with my responses. To answer 3 for starters: Well... traveling dimensions doesn't really seem to be in the average spell book. Even getting to Oblivion seems to be quite the chore, to say nothing of what (IIRC) was determined to be a realm outside the wheel, and the fact that he's familiar enough with Kagrenac's theories and the tools (Didn't you need him to fix Wraithguard or something?) all seems to suggest to me somebody with a good deal of influence/importance and intelligence. I feel like having tools used for tinkering with the laws of reality is the kind of thing the Dwemer might've kept a national secret of sorts, but I'll admit that's a bit of speculation. And quite frankly, I've never read a better explanation for what he could have been doing in an outer realm/another dimension than waiting for the aftermath of Kagrenac's work so he could show up and finish the job. As for how Fyr didn't know him, I've always wondered what Fyr was doing during Red Mountain. He's supposed to be about 4,000 years old, correct, and a contemporary of the Tribunal? A guy who supposedly lived during their day didn't seem to have too much first-hand knowledge of them, more knowledge gathered after the fact. In fact, reading his words from Sotha Sil's Last Words, quite frankly, it doesn't seem to me as though Fyr has a lot of answers regarding the Dwemer, more well-developed questions and theories of a powerful wizard who's spent a long time researching them. The last thing I have to wonder about that: Vivec says to the Nere something along the lines that he's never perceived them in any outer realms or the timeless god-realm he talks about going to meditate in. Which to me, suggests Yaggy was the only dwarf in another realm when Red Mountain went down, an oddly specific person and place to be. Aren't there also a few references to Kagrenac in the accounts of Red Mountain having him tell Nerevar to F off when the latter confronted Dumac? That'd suggest a person of political importance who'd probably be well-known at the time, and during the immediate aftermath, while Kagrenac's assistants or rivals (Assuming YB thought K was a fool prior to BoRM) may not have been as well known, especially considering the Dwemer seem to have been pretty secretive and hostile towards non-Dwemer.

As for number 1, who said anything about sneaking? If the dude's powerful enough to travel to another dimension and return (sounds hard), and competent enough to apparently work with both Kagrenac's tools and the Heart (according to Yagrum's own words) I'd like to think that as he recovers from corprus, he's able to make himself a bit more intimidating than what looks like a slightly more tech-savvy version of an obese guy on a scooter at Walmart.

2) It could put holes in the hull and sink the theory, or maybe not. With 200 years of no word of the tools, Bagarn or the Nerevarine, no real way to explain how Keening would wind up in Skyrim if the Nerevarine did actually go to Akavir. Was there ever any actual confirmation of that, or was it just a rumor making its way around the Empire at the time of Oblivion? Maybe they had a showdown in Akavir, maybe the N lost them or just handed them over, maybe they were stolen.

4) That's a damn good point, I'd forgotten about that. And from reading quotes of and about Yaggy from Morrowind and out-of-game, he does mention not all Dwemer were of like mind, though where exactly he stood during BoRM may be impossible to know for sure. And the whole thing about traveling to another realm, no matter how powerful Yaggy was/is or wasn't/isn't, seems like the kind of thing you'd need a good deal of help and resources with, and even with supposedly divided minds, the Dwemer seemed to have more or less been working towards a single purpose, else wouldn't they have splintered into different groups of mer? It seems like the thing that most often caused changes in the races of mer was changes in their mythic beliefs. I don't think there was much argument about whether the goal the Dwemer were shooting for was the right goal, so much as whether Kagrenac's ideas were the right way to go about doing it. I think, though, that perhaps Yagrum condemns Kagrenac and his theories because, having forgotten he's the final step in the dwemer plan, simply concludes Kagrenac failed and thinks, "Wow, what a dike." Remembers later, "Oops I was supposed to get on that lol", asks Fyr about Kagrenac's tools and becomes "quite upset" to learn the Nerevarine had taken them. Which is a vague term that could mean he's sad the tools are still being used by someone, or that he's upset that now he knows he's supposed to get those tools back and finish the job. Ha, it'd only make a better story in my eyes if it was both and he had to go kill his friend to get the tools.

I've got nothing else for now, just insomnia.

I'm going to answer them again in the original sequence just because I like to be annoying

1 & 2: I still have a hard time believing that any Dwemer, no matter how powerful or special could actually pull this off. Even if cured from Corpus the effects on his body should be horrible after such a long time. Still I guess it's possible, if he recovered his body or made an army of Dwemer things he could have killed the Nerevarine.. I just feel it's unlikely. Of course he could have stolen them, or perhaps simply have been given them to guard. Or perhaps the Nerevarine left them in Morrowind with specific guardians for each tool and Yagrum is now working on collecting them all... All in all, the appearance of Keening in Skyrim doesn't have to destroy your theory, it just means that he isn't as far as you believe, or perhaps had a little set back

3: Could be, I guess we don't know that much about the knowledge of Divayth in that time, or the lack of knowledge. Perhaps Yagrum was a spy, and really secretive. One thing though. I think I remember him saying something about being in Hammerfell at the time the Dwemer dissapeared? Now this is done entirely from memorry but if that's the case then it becomes incredibly unlikely as that was a completely different clan. Can you confirm his location at the time of the dissapearance?

4. The Dwemer did actually split into different groups, you had the Dwemer in Morrowind. Which was the biggest and arguably the most powerful group, you had Clan Rourken who split from the Dwemer and possible more clans out there. Though I'm not sure about that. They were probably all working towards the same goal but not neccessarily through the same means, otherwise they would not have left the Heart alone. As for your final explanation, I think it sounds cool.

The problem I have however is that it does assume a lot of things, it does not necessarily mean that it is true, or that it's not. It's just really hard to prove anything alone these lines, as in near impossible. But it is a cool explanation for why Yagrum was out in the outer realm, and it is very likely that Yagrum was an insanely powerful Dwemer for even being able to do that.
Also, you do need him to restore wraithguard. But in game it sounds more like any random Dwemer could do that, you wouldn't necessarily need somebody skilled with the tools in order to do it.

It's an interesting angle, especially the Orsimer part. And I agree that it seems that Yagrum had more in him that was shown. However, I do get the feeling that he might have realized his purpose earlier and changed his mind on it - perhaps.

As far as I remember, there has been no further word on the Nerevarine apart from the rumor in Oblivion.

As for Keening, it does indeed show up, and it seems to be the real thing as it is involved in what seems to be a "successful" emulation of its original purpose.

Sunder and Keening were usable without Wraithguard, but as you said, typically there's an awful side effect. For the Nerevarine, it's death, but Dagoth Ur managed to use them for years without Wraithguard. However, in Skyrim, both the Dragonborn and Arniel Gane are able to wield Keening without any obvious problems, although the game will notify you with the message "Mortal Wound added." when you equip Keening, but it doesn't appear to do anything. Maybe it's the fake Keening Vivec alluded to? But if that were the case, I can't imagine why that quest had the results that it did. Maybe it merely underwent changes gradually after it was used so recklessly on the Heart. Maybe it was intentionally altered, perhaps by Yagrum Bagarn himself.

Again I say, I really like your theory, and I hope that you're right, at least insofar that Yagrum was intentionally in an Outer Realm and now remembers his goals, which include the Tools and the Heart. Yagrum Bagarn is one big open-end that begs an explanation. We can only hope and wait.