Well, yesterday I knew nearly nothing about the Lore of TES, and now I understand large parts of the creation of everything, the gods and Sithis. Thank you so much! This forums part is a blessing.

Anyway, what I learned about Sithis made me rethink my worship of Sithis and my membership of the dark brotherhood. I now understand that the Dark Brotherhood doesn't understand Sithis at all and totally misinterprets it. And I don't see any reason anymore why I should remain a member of them. I alwa ys asked myself what is behind the whole Dark Brotherhood Religion and now I understand I was a fool to believe in their "religion".

And now I also understand the Aedra and the Daedra. I never thought about who the "Nine Divines" actually were and I tended to be satisfied in just believing they are some kind of "gods". But now I actually understand that they were the most active Aedra in the creation of Nirn and are therefore somehow the creator of the mortal world and so the "real" gods of Tamriel. But during this process they were very weakened to nearly dead and aren't able to interfere with the world anymore except through small blessings in chapels or through a mortal avatar.

Talking about the Nine Divines, I don't really understand the being of "Talos". Tiber Septim ascended to a god. I didn't really understand how he did it, but why doesn't he interfere with the mortal world? I know he is able to, as he did a bit during KotN Questline when he gave the blessing to the Crusader. But why not more? Why can't he function as the representative of the Nine Divines?

And another question about the recycling of souls in the Dreamsleeve: When the souls are purged and send back to Nirn, aren't the beings of Nirn also kind of "immortal"? Only their experiences and their knowledge dies, but their consciousness is still there, isn't it?

Hey, you don't have to leave the Dark Brotherhood just because you don't worship Sithis. I mean, they do hold the monopoly of assassinations, and do go after rival organizations that pop up and those who fund/employ them. Also, they work for anyone and everyone.

As for your questions, Talos is not an aedra. He's Tiber/Zurin/Wulf ascended as the placeholder for Shezarr (Lorkhan). Now, unlike the mer (particularly altmer), men honor Lorkhan as a being who created Mundus as an act of divine mercy, as opposed to trickery. For the nords, they call him Shor, who is a bloodthirsty warrior and king who despises elves. Shezarr is Shor-lite, in that they took away his extreme hatred and bloodthirstiness and made him more of a god of, more of less, human achievement.

For the Dreamsleeve, think of it this way. The soul is an http://static.neatorama.com/images/uploads/2007/etchasketch_jordan.JPG. As a person lives their life, they accumulate many experiences, knowledge, personalities, and so on, like how the harder and longer you work on an Etch A Sketch, it becomes more complex. When a person dies, their soul is wiped clean to a blank slate, like how a person will shake an Etch A Sketch.

Do they lose their memories from the dreamsleeve or do they lose their memories because when they're reborn, they're placed in a vessel initially incapable of retaining them?

I'd say the former than the latter

Not quite. True, they gave up their immortality, but they still are conscious and the like. They don't interfere with the world because it's not in their nature. They are not really creatures of Change, they are creatures of Stasis. They still interact with the world, but on a static basis. Akatosh is time. You look around at nature and you see Kynarath. You say something is beautiful and that is Dibella at work. Sure it's less noticeable than the Daedra or mortal doings, but that doesn't mean they still aren't ridiculously powerful.

But many only have effect if there is a person performing an activity. They're only relevant if someone is pursuing that activity at the moment, like Zenithar only kicks in when someone has commerce going. Julianos would be much rarer in the life of a citizen of Tamriel, Stendarr would almost never apply.

By the way, Nature isn't Kynareth. She is the goddess of the heavens, the air, and the unseen spirits of the air. Mara is the patron of the bountiful earth in the nature/harvest sense.

So are you saying that the Dreamsleeve is, in essence, the Mundane equivalent to the Waters of Oblivion? I really do need to read more into the Dreamsleeve, but I've always been hesitant to, as I've thought of it to be a sort of Pandora's Box of confusion.

Sounds about right.

So how does one talk though it?

Dream taps a universal subconscious. Conversation takes place in sleep, prayer, or meditation. The protocols are MK-isms, so the uninitiated sleeper can't eavesdrop.

So during the convening of the Elder Council in which Nu-Hatta contacted them, they were in meditation.

I'm guessing that dreams are naturally coded so that only certain, trained individuals can access the dreams of others, but Nu-Hatta went a step further by engineering his own messages to be sent directly to others.

I'm still trying to decide if the protocols were meant to ensure that the dreams pass through the dreamsleeve as messages to others or as encryptions to prevent others from accessing the message. When I first read the intercepts, I thought it was the former, but now I'm not too sure.

Obviously the encryption wasn't successful, given that they were interceptions.

I think it's the later.

but...

Any conversation in memospore takes place outside space/time. That's how we have the Loveletter. The protocols may be more like latitude and longitude. You won't find a message in the subconscious, unless you know exactly where to look.

Memospore... what is that? It sounds vaguely familiar, but probably because MK loves to use 'spore' as both a suffix and a prefix.

a memory spore. do you know what a spore is? just apply that to a memory.

The means through which the Nu-mantia intercept was transmitted... and intercepted.

I've always been mildly curious who it was who did the intercepting.

You, and whoever else was there. You were around, right?

Yep, I was. I dunno. Maybe it's just my imagination slipping away from me. Maybe I've been in this game too long with no fresh stuff to argue about. Heck I've started working on a decent theory on why Molag Bal is interested in Nirn and we've got next to nothing on him.

On the other hand, I appreciate this climate to the constant sniping at Oblivion.

Well, his domain is domination of souls, and his realm is a frozen-scorched hell.
...
Nirn as dominatrix, or the relentless grind of life upon fragile hearts. He's the toil of Z'en and contrast of Mara.

I'm talking origin story ala Aldudagga. I haven't refined it yet, so there's plenty to take issue with, but it goes something like this: Bal thought of the Mundus first, Lorkhan stole his idea, he's all like "Dude, wtf. What's with these mortals?" Decides to spite Lorkhan by usurping Mundus from him. Vampires somehow involved. Haven't worked in the King of [censored] thing yet. Haven't figured out the crocodile-man choice of appearance. I keep thinking the Dreamsleeve is somehow involved with him.

Edit: Non-consensual six is on the auto-filter these days? Interesting.

How about Molag Bal is a Prince of the greatest realm in Skyrim. He discovers lust in Nirn, wife of his King. He takes her while she's unattended, in the wives tent, while the King is at war. She remains placid, as he seizes her, because she sees the King has behind him. Rather than kill his own son - "... that I may not lose a child and also die today..." - the King banishes him to Morrowind:

... While the ash bit his skin, he could only lust for Nirn. Molag Bal had not noticed he was in the east devils' home, nor his glass-shred feet. Finally, the palsy took him. The Prince pulled his ears. He pulled his hair like horns. The screaming shook his tongue long. He ground his teeth, until they became sharp. Molag Bal even gnawed his fingers to the sharp bone; his whole body became a spectacle. "I have wolves' teeth," he snarled, nostrils flared long from howling, "to rend and claws unfit for holding! So be it; I will never hold you, gentle Nirn. I will kill you!" The Woman-King of the devils found him lying there...


Monk Pilof, of Arkay's Temple of the Lord of Eventual Progress and a "reformed witch-hunter," had this to say about vampirism: Some living-chaste desire to have the vitality-virginity robbed of them. They think it would be liberating, and the mind is consumed with this, until the disease seizes them. They believe they're "bitten," and they all have dreams and "bites" to prove it. There is no proof. All their poor souls are burning with lust. Those who give to the disease are almost always chaste, young women, who conceal a lust for their fathers. The boys? Many tell me they came from the homes of "overbearing" parents, with most attention on the mother. I make no judgment, either way. They broke away from home, though they knew beforehand leaving would be premature and mean a certain death (Praise Him for the Sleep of Death). The prevalence of the disease in advlts should say something about this society's moral state. The diseased become less than men to survive. They gave into sadism and maschism, rather than be at peace with the Way of Life (Blessed be He for Awakening me). I will shepherd them. Blessed be the Son of Progress, for returning with their wits, from the Lord of the Remorseless Grind (May my Lord Arkay preserve my Blood from Him).

Dreamsleeve? Yes. In fact, the terror of the recycle, while repressed in Nirn, is manifest in dominatrix-Nirn, Molag Bal.

That's pretty interesting. I don't think I want a Nordic perspective though, but I will use what you've given as a jumping off point.