I have a feeling this is a relatively simple question, but why would the Moth priest want to reach Zero-Sum? To me that seems a bit insane, if not nonsensical.

While I do know a decent bit about them, I haven't found anything yet that could directly answer my question. CHIM i could understand, but why Zero Sum? Is it just because they perceive this as the pinnacle of enlightenment? Are they like some people who loath existence (I doubt it honestly)?

Zeron-sum is the act of knowing everything, but losing your individuality. They see it as the pinnacle of enlightenment, because it is. Even in many cultures in RL, this is the ultimate goal.

CHIM is rare, and widely unknown. You have to think that in the entirity of existance, two people have acheived CHIM (Vivec and Tiber Septim) and even a god failed. There has too some extreme arrogance involved to achieve CHIM.

They don't. A zero-sum game is what you get when you don't play well enough. You might notice that in et'Ada, Eight Aedra, Eat the Dreamer, the Moth Priest's thoughts end up becoming a weapon.

Or perhaps an extreme sense of individuality. Or an extreme desire to exist. I'm not sure it has to be arrogance. But what the hell do i know.

Welcome to the world of a Nihilist buddy.



In a world (much like our own) defined by groups and collectivism, individuality is arrogant, and apparently selfish, which is apparently "bad".

The "Society" considers willful individuality "Bad" because individuals are self serving, and mostly self-sufficient. They consume resources that the society could be using, dont require the society, and so dont respect the society as greatly-- and can serve as a catalytic agent to make previously loyal members of the society defect and become individuals as well.

Thus, they are 'Loose cannons', which society finds objectionable, because they can be a severe detrimental factor to the society.


What one needs to consider, is that in the TES universe it could be possible for a strong society to actually be an entity of its own right.

Last time I checked, that attempt failed.

Using the Dunmer and Orcs as examples, we can also see group collectivism has also done more harm then good (horrible disfigurements due to the sins of three and an accident befalling one respectively).

The apparent ultimate form of existence in TES seems to be the perfect balance of the self and the collective (which I still say is physically impossible) and thus I would assume TES writings reflect both a disdain for both pure individuality and pure collectivism, so I guess the point is really moot.

I would say arrogance. See everything in the universe and the truth, but at the same time, think you are important enough to still exist, and not only that, manipulate the truth. Sorry, that was hard to understand, but I can't think of another way to say it at the moment

Just look at the two who have achieved CHIM. Vehk and Tiber Septim. It is hard to be more arrogant than them.

I dunno--- There was the monster "City Face" which was a living city................


There was also the Anumidium...............

Societies can get close enough to being distinct entities to use cultural magics like th'um.
I don't blame anyone favoring ascendence, as it is a means of escape from the level of subgradient you have been typecast in.

And I got the picture that Moth Priests could reveal their greatest Spore-Dreams and revelations by entering a trance that results in Zero-Sum. It sounds like a feat and maybe a goal.

I never heard of the first one, so ?

And of course the second scenario famously failed.



Yes, but individuals hold so much more. Manniamrco wielded demigodly power before he actually became one, and the creator of magic himself was the ultimate individual (he rejected selflessness and group co-operation and left creation as it began).

Afterall, before the Mage's guild came along magic was much more destructive (this was at a time when only isolate hermits were practicing it).

http://www.imperial-library.info/mwbooks/lessons.shtml#30

So much more? Maybe the in the same way the infinite moons are different sizes. I'm seeing more duality.


Although it is funny to regard ascendence as individualism when it is the goal of Altmer society to abolish their own discreet identities, by that very method, in favor of the wholeness of higher subgradient.

City-Face too, was apparently also a doomed concept. Since the sermons are really not literal, this can even be taken to be an example of why the dwarf hive-mind failed.

Cityface only became doomed when the grabbers took it, and made it into a tower without proper knowledge.

Vivec corrected their error, but then also slew city face.


In a universe like the TES universe, an immortial society could mythically retain all its citizens inside itself, and safeguard them from true mortal death, through the collective memory of the society construct.

Which is to say, instead of being distributed into the dreamsleave and digested, the soul could be distributed among those still living inside the society-- a process which continues indefinitely. This would in turn, increase the lunar currency inside the system, and its members would be more mythopoeically potent than its non-members.


I could really see it as a means of escaping mundus some day.

Vivec said, 'No one knows what I am.'

:P I read that as rather weepy. Every now and then I read snippets of the sermons which seem like literal truth, the embroidered memories of a mortal elf.

Being a true individual, makes you lonely. A true individual has no true peer, as noone else is truely like they are.

Citizens of a nation, or a city can take comfort in comraderie--- Vivec only had Ayem and Seht for this, and even among them, he was remarkably different.

Which leads to the CHIM-butchering of the old adage: "If you can't join them, make them join with you."

But Vehk was unique in that he also had himself, as he was a duality, Vehk and Vehk.

Talos also was multiple people in one.

It's kind of weird on who the great individuals are.

So Vivec with CHIM is an even deeper layer of contradiction. He retains a tower which is split already. Can he say 'I' twice?

Vivec is like a coin with the same head on both sides.


Instead of each side of the coin proclaiming its virtues, Vivec proclaims itself as the WHOLE coin.

Well, he had the Sharmat and the Hortator too, but he was too much of a vain piece of work to acknowledge them. I guess Nerver showed him...



Manniamrco was a greater individual then any of them. He was the only real one actually. And the Imperial agent. He didn't die beacuse he got crushed by a giant robot, he died beacuse he was done and he had learned all there was to know.

The imperial agent had mroe CHIM in his pinky finger then Vehk did in both his selves.

And multiple people said one I to become the Red King of Cyrodiil. It seems that CHIM is many times the ultimate contridiction. Can one person way I twice and can multiple people say I together?

The Altmer sure hope so.

"I AM the wind."

Etc--- Many people can say it, but if they are all correct, the only answer is that indeed, they ALL are the wind-- that is to say, they are the embodiment of a timeless ideal or concept.


CHIM is such a conceptual ideal.

"I AM" it is the conceptual embodiment of God--- God is everyone and everything, thus everyone and everything can say it, and it is true.


The POWER comes in UNDERSTANDING what that MEANS.


Imagine:


Thousands of fibers that make up the couch's appolstry, in harmony with the wood in the frame, and the metal in the springs, and the stuffing of the coushons all proclaim "I am the couch!" at once.

One thread by itself is not the couch. But, as a part of the couch, in a way, it indeed IS the couch. It is this knowledge that you are a part of the couch, which gives you the factual power to proclaim this to be so.

I am a US citizen, I can therefor proclaim that I am the united states, and it is true.