the hist made argonians, so they are neither, khajiit are changed elves, so mer(?), the other beast races are a bit unclear on their creation

Dunno if this was mentioned but the Argonians are one of the only races not related to the elhnofey. They were created by the Hist and the Hist was around at the same time as the elhnofey.

oops double post

Thanx, I actually did not know that. I thought they were Elhnofey that were altered by the Hist.

Nope. As far as Khajiits go though it is touch and go on their origins. They may be evolved elves or they may just be elhnofey that became Khajiit. I favor the latter opinion even though there are Ohmes-raht(?) which are very Bosmer looking Khajiit. Then again there are many different types of Khajiit.

You got it backward, actually. The only thing that the Father can modify is the appearance. The rest is determined by the Mother.

And with Khajiit... I don't think the males are compatible with non-Khajiit females. The females, on the other hand... As the appearance of a Khajiit is determined by the phase of the moon, instead of parental genetics, even if a non-khajiit were to impregnate one, there'd be absolutely no way to tell the difference between one fathered by a Non-khajiit, and one fathered by a Khajiit. And the cats are reputedly promiscuous enough that it's likely that she found a male at some point anyway.

On the other hand, while the Khajiit may have originated from the Elhnofey, they are equally descended from the Great Cats of Elsweyr, mixed by the power of Azura, and turned into a completely different species... making them as incompatible with Humans as Dogs and Horses are.

Argonians have no connection to the Elnohfey at all, so they are infertile with non-Argonians as well.

Ummm... Bretons? Moms were all human from what I understand, unless men were [censored] by elven women lol.

Edit:
Really that word is censored??? FINE! They were “ravaged” by elven women. If it sensors that I am gona need to log off for a few hours.

Bretons are a special case. Altmer Male + Nordic Female = Nord, not Breton.
Likewise, Nordic Male + Altmer Female = Altmer, not Breton.

However, centuries of interbreeding the offspring of the offspring of the offspring of Elf/Man combinations created a "new" race, and because Humans have a much faster reproduction rate, they are the dominant factor. A Breton's ~30% Aldmer, 70%Nede

You are labeling the only time mer/men mating was performed on a massive scale as a special case? I would use them is the ultimate example instead.

Example of what? What makes them a "Special Case" is that there has not been any such intermingling of races anywhere else ever since, so that the basics of Racial Phylogeny are considered "True" for all intents and purposes. The difference between an Imperial-fathered Imperial and an Altmer-fathered Imperial is so minuscule as to be irrelevant.

Interesting topic I'm studying evolutionary biology at the moment, so this post could be a long one... I'm also not a lore buff so will disregard much of it (the horror!) It's all legend and hearsay anyway, and this is a purely scientific explanation of what may have happened.

Firstly, a species is a group of organisms capable of interbreeding to produce fertile young. Lore states that the Bretons arose from the interbreeding of man and mer, which would suggest they are of the same species. This seems unlikely, so perhaps it is possible that an ancestor of the elves and an ancestor of the men, two subspecies of one common ancestor, who have began the process of speciation (evolving into separate species) but not so much as to actually be incapable of breeding together. Are men and mer still capable of reproduction? Are there any cases in the modern world of this?

The Grey Prince. We're told he has both Imperial and Orc parentage. However, this does not necessarily make them the same species. He has no children of his own so it's entirely possible that men and mer are capable of breeding to produce infertile young, much as a horse and a donkey may produce a mule, which is incapable of having it's own young.

So, we have these nine humanoid races in Tamriel (I'm not including the others because I don't know enough about them) made of up (up to) four species. Men, mer, Argonians, and Khajiits. Argonians seem to be the least closely related to the other species - what exactly they are is hard to say. Reptiles? Amphibians? Even plants, due to their strange relationship with the Hist? I'm not sure. Anyway it seems unlikely they share a common ancestor with the other humanoid races (or at least, not for billions of years back) and so it would seem their relatively similar appearance to the other races (two arms, two legs, bilateral symmetrical etc) is a result of convergent evolution rather than sharing a humanoid ancestor.

The other species are clearly mammals, descended from the Ehlnofey, also likely mammalian. I would guess Khajiits were the first to diverge from the others due to their differing physiology. Men and Elves are clearly very similar. Assuming that Azura's curse on the Dunmer is just a creationist-style myth, the darkened skin of the Dunmer is possibly similar to the darkened skin of the redguards and can be explained by their habitat. Black skin developed in humans as an adaptation to protect against intense UV radiation. Perhaps the presence of the volcanic Red Mountain led to disruptions in Nirns O-zone layer (if it even has one), and the Dunmer developed darkened skin as a necessary defence against it the resulting radiation. Another possible explanation is that it developed as camouflage, helping them blend in with the rock and ash of Morrowind.

Yes, I just scientifically anolysed Tamriel... call me what you like And I realize much of what I say is probably nullified by lore, or just not relevent to Nirn since it's not Earth. It just happens that these are two subjects I find pretty interesting.

Its a very interesting read, but you have to rememer that Tamriel differs from Earth in a major way.
It is a mythical universe, the kind of universe our ancestors believed in before we had the tools to figure out physics and the like.
Its geocentric, meaning everything revolves around Nirn, even the sun and stars.
Its a small universe, really only consisting of one 'solar system', the stars are holes in the veil unto Aetherius.
Its also very young, roughly 6500 years have passed since the Dawn Era.

Its a universe where gods are manifestly real and meddle in day-to-day affairs of mortals.
You can postulate that the Dunmer adapted to their habitat, but when as close as 200 years ago there were still survivors of the event that changed them from golden-skinned to ashen its hard to argue with the sudden and divine origins of the change.

The Ehlnofey who were the predecessors of everyone but the Hist (and the Argonians) differ from present day mortals in 'size'.
Size of soul, size of mystic power. The dragons you see in Skyrim are likely original Ehlnofey, a species that found a trick or balance that allowed them to keep that size without having to resort to reproduction and mortality just to survive.
Note that Skyrim states dragons are not born, nor do they reproduce or can they die in the normal sense.

Interestingly enough your scientific explanation states that Khajiit probably diverged early, and that is exactly what the Khajiit say.
The Ehlnofey changed and wandered and the Khajiit were shown their mystery by Azura, which is how they got their sugar and became Khajiit.
The mannish races and merish races came from different tribes of Ehlnofey, those that wandered (mostly) became the mannish races and those that stayed the merish.
Those that went to Yokuda became the Redguards, and those that went to Atmora became the Nedes.
When the Nedes returned to Tamriel divergence and interbreeding produced the Nords, Cyrods and Bretons.
(Some of) those that stayed on Tamriel became the Aldmer, from who all elven races come.

Probably interfertility on Tamriel is guided by very different factors than on Earth.
It likely has more to do with sentience and mythical influences than anything strictly biological.
Even when something like evolution can be identified there are still magical influences and even a conscious effort discernible.

I agree it is all very interesting and if this was not a mythical universe but a scientific one I would applaud your article, but on Tamriel you need to wear a different hat than the scientist one in order to make sense of what is going on.
Which is why I find it all so much fun. You dont often get to toy with the mystical and metaphysical in the real world and doing so on Tamriel has the added bonus there is very little chance of getting the Spanish inquisition after you.

Here are some books you might find interesting:
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Racial_Phylogeny
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:The_Nirnoot_Missive
http://www.imperial-library.info/content/cosmology

The Argonians and Khajiit are not worthless men nor glorious mer. They are even greater, they are beasts. Azura once took a stock of wood elves, and brought the feline features upon them. The Argonians have always been, always will be. The hist, it shall guide us all.
AE HERMA MORA ALTADOON PADHOME LKHAN AE AI.

Padron the insanity there.

To my knowledge Khajiit's were made from wood elves by Azura. Argonians? I think they used to be some form of hist. They have cave paintings of Argonians with root legs.
Anyways, Khajiits and Argonians are not men nor mer. They fall under "Beast", as do the Sload and Imga.

They were actually made from the Forest People, who had no stable form. Azura turned them into Khajiit, and gave them different forms for different tasks. Y'ffer became jealous and took the rest of the Forest People, turning them into Wood Elves.
Khajiit actually came before Wood Elves.

Really now? Well the more you learn.

Fascinating reads, thanks very much! I was aware as I wrote my previous post that what is correct in regards to an earth like ours is not necessarily how things work on Nirn, but that didn't make it any less fun to write Thanks for the feedback, always good to learn more about the Elder Scrolls lore!

However, how do we know what lore we can take as fact? The stars, for example. They're said in the third book you linked to be 'holes on the inside surface of space.' Is that a known fact, or just common belief? Has anyone been to the stars? Is it not possible that they are in fact other suns, much as they are in our universe, and that the Elder Scrolls universe is more like ours than it may be presented? I'm sure even on earth you could find plenty of texts which describe the stars as something they are not.

I would say that what is written in Cosmology is 'canon fact' as much as anything can be in TES.
Its always open to reinterpretation or a change of perspective.
But for instance the orrery in Oblivion follows this geocentric model and one can expect the magi of Tamriel to be equivalent to the scientists of our age, they have a lot of tools at their disposal even though theirs are based on magic instead of physics.
They are actually quite advanced over there, capable of constructing and maintaining for instance an artificial pocket dimension that housed the Imperial Battlemages, the Battlespire from the game of the same name.

There is lore that talks about people travelling to the moon(s), Aetherius, Oblivion or just 'outer realms' in general and these also seem to confirm this view of Tamriel's cosmos, the Aurbis.

Given the multitude of lore that talks about this subject in more or less the same way and given that Tamriel is manifestly a mythical place where gods walk the world and magic works, I would say the view presented in Cosmology is more likely than, lets say, they are in a sort of dark ages of understanding and believe all these things while in reality they live in a similar universe to our own. Like how we used to believe in a flat Earth.

Personally, I also find it a lot more interesting a perspective.
It is a universe of concepts, of philosophy, theosophy and psychology rather than one of mathematics and physics and as such a better reflection of the human mind. I find great statisfaction in making sense of TES lore, because it is a construct that allows for introspection as well as to provide better insight in humanity.

I also get great statisfaction from understanding the world we live in better through science, but for different reasons.
The difference between looking within or outside I suppose, but I use other things than TES to statisfy that curiosity.

Nirn is to Earth as non-Euclidean geometry is to regular Euclidean. There are rules in each, but they're not the same rules. Nirn has magicka to affect the way things work, and there's a lot of that replacing our evolution in the development of the races.

I'm unclear as to which direction the Hist are changing the Argonians, whether it's towards or away from the man/mer model. Are they lizards that are being made more like the other races, or the opposite? I can understand a motivation for the former, as it gets the Hist better positioned to influence the "alien" society. but the latter seems to be just re-creation of Tsaesci by another route. Anyway, they either were, or will be, compatible with man/mer depending on which direction they're going.

I've always assumed that Khajiiti were compatible with the other races, but less likely to do so for social and other reasons. E.g. male barbs, female seasonality (and claws when passionate!)