I'm too lazy to cite all the resources I've read from at the moment, but even so, I'm confused as to if it's been determined how exactly Malacath came to be. I've read that Boethiah ate Trinimac and his remains became Malacath, I've also read that Boethiah ate Trinimac and "pooped" Malacath out. I've also read that, quite simply, Trinimac was directly turned into Malacath. So what's the deal?

More important question, why does it matter?

Why is it you only seem to use this sort of logic on my posts? How about, because I'm curious? How about, because it would be interesting to know about a particular instance where an Aedra was turned into a Daedra, if that were the case? How about, if you don't feel like contributing, don't?

The notion that Trinimac "became" Malacath is a fallacy. Malacath and Trinimac are others, the same but different, universal counterweights too keep things at zero. Boethiah didn't "transform" Trinimac, he just dishonored him, making Malcath active. This is uch like the Jyg/sheo relationship.

all of those are the same thing.

Aphotic:

Not those hows. When talking about Myths, stories passed on from generation to generation as a form of oral history, it's important to realize that people will think of things differently, stress some aspects more then others or completely misinterpret it. http://www.imperial-library.info/mwbooks/monomyth.shtml and http://www.imperial-library.info/mwbooks/varietiesoffaith.shtml are prime examples of all these behaviors.

So when each story echoes the general message, that Trinimac and his followers set out to stop the Chimer lead by Boethia, but failed and literally fell from grace. Thus setting the Chimer truly apart from the Altmer.

So again, why does it matter which story is true? They can all be traced back to the same event.

At the start of the Fourth Era, it's also interesting to see how the Orcish king Gortwog is attempting to change his people's mindset.

The only troubling sign for Orsinium is a religious conflict that has brewed over the last ten years. Traditionally, the Orcs have worshipped the Daedra Malacath (Mauloch) as their patron deity. Gortwog, however, has established a new priesthood devoted to the worship of Trinimac, the ancient hero of the Orcs, who legend has it was devoured by Boethia and became the Daedra Malacath. The Orc King's belief that Trinimac still lives and that Malacath is a separate entity, a demon whose aim was to keep the Orsimer pariah folk forever, is the official position of the shaman priests of Orsinium. A minority of traditionalists within the territory, and the majority of Orcs without, view this as heresy. There is fear among those who support Gortwog and Orsinium that turning their back on the Daedric Prince of the Bloody Oath is dangerous policy indeed. (From the PGE 3rd)

Sorry, I shouldn't have jumped down your throat like that. But you could have just said that (in bold).

Syronj's post was also incredibly informative.

EDIT: What this is, isn't just to get a question answered, but just to have my own facts straight, and because I was unable to find any cohesive source, I find it worthwhile to ask about the topic here.

Don't worry, I've had sharper cutlery at my throat today then hasty words.

I posed that question so you'd realize that all for yourself, because while I could tell you straight up everything there is, it wouldn't make you understand how the world sticks together.

You're well on your way though. You won't find a single cohesive source, so what you'll have to do is take the various sources and lay them next to each other. See where they match and where they don't. It should basically be History classes 101 again.

But it could have been a case of miscommunication simply between people posting this information; I got two of the explanations from uesp.

uesp is horrid for lore. Great for gameplay, horrid for lore.

Well, let me introduce you to http://www.imperial-library.info/dfbooks/b084_betony_daggerfall.shtml and http://www.imperial-library.info/dfbooks/b083_betony_sentinel.shtml.

Less obvious are the texts in http://www.imperial-library.info/mwbooks/monomyth.shtml and the descriptions in http://www.imperial-library.info/mwbooks/varietiesoffaith.shtml but the same principle applies. There are many different stories about the same event and many different views of what amounts to the same thing.

Interesting, because in theory their myths can give them a seperate Trinimac.

And originally, Malacath could have pretended to be Trinimac and waited for the myths generated from such trickery to shape Trinimac as such.

I don't mean in-game discrepencies. I mean people in real life telling different stories.

This isn't real life, just pointing out.
There isn't much else then in-game if we speak about lore and similar topics.

Alright, let me rephrase what I meant so that it can't me misconstrued. Person A plays The Elder Scrolls, reads or hears or whatever about Malacath, several different ways of his coming to be. Person A puts this on uesp.net, but he words it differently. All of a sudden there is an additional telling of how he came to be, but all because Person A stated something differently -- meaning the multiple tellings aren't all a result of actual in-game events. What I meant when I replied to proweler is this simply could have been a possibility, and that if it had, it would have been more significant in getting my facts straight than had any explanations otherwise come from in-game.

You can always go to the source material, to ensure you aren't getting a poor opinion from A.

Unfortunately uesp.net doesn't list references, so I don't know the source material until I post on here.

Check the Imperial Library as well and cross read if you would like to make it a bit more correct.