Okay, so here is the trillionth topic on Nirn on this website. I hope it's not too redundant, being only the trillionth one.

Here's a picture I made of the Aurbis and the things contained within. How accurate is it? The black dots on the red circle (oblivion) are the equidistant stars that are the bridges to Aetherius.

http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/5719/lorecopy.jpg


I'm using this as my source since this takes all the 500,000 in-game books and out-of-game texts and combines them into one somewhat-easy to understand explanation.

http://www.imperial-library.info/obscure_text/cosmology.shtml

I don't know where the Mantellan Crux falls in this diagram, though.

I'm not very good with the lore either, or at least when it revolves around the "higher planes" of existence. It seems pretty much right though, perhaps with the exception of Anu and Padomay, for which I am unable to locate any actual description of their location. It makes sense, however.

As for the Mantellan Crux, I do not believe it actually existed in Aetherius - rather, it may have been on the fringe of Aetherius or even a plane of Oblivion. I always assumed the Aetherius to be rather barren, further reinforced by the fact the Aedra do not inhabit it as people once believed. When Zurin Arctus originally destroyed the Numidium, the Mantella was not magically, but rather physically hurled into Aetherius with the golem's destruction.

I don't know what to make of that, but perhaps it exists alongside or even created one of the "stars" when it punctured Oblivion? Just some wild speculation. Bear in mind that Daggerfall flushed out a lot of lore, but still was rather flakey with cosmology. I believe it was simply some miscellaneous alternate dimension at the time, and the games that followed certainly did little to shed more light on its existence.

All in all, I think you've got it nailed.

For a finite 2D depiction of two infinite 3D spaces, that's it. I'd spread the holes to aetherius out among Oblivion for many reasons, but the most relevant being that the different realms don't see the same holes. Hence why the SI has to have nonsourced light for its daylight.

For some reason, I'm thinking that each star (hole) represents a daedra prince. Am I wrong?
What's "SI" stand for?

SI == Shivering Isles.

Each hole is an et'ada who left Mundus for Aetherius, presumably because they were disgusted with the idea of the convention. Magnus, its chief architect, is the biggest of these, making the hole that is the sun. However, they are not Daedra, because while the Daedra didn't chip in for the convention, they stuck around to enjoy its effects.

Convention? As in an agreement or contract? What contract? The Aedra didn't sign any documents.

Convention, like ComicCon. In this case, it was LorkhanCon, and the Aedra were the et'ada who got svckered (?) into making the Mundus.

EDIT: As for representation, I actually sort of go with an actual spokes and wheel sort of gig, what with the spaces between the spokes being Oblivion (???). While it is an anology, what with the way symbols have a real power in TES, I wouldn't be surprised if the physical wheel-set-up isn't actually mirrored in the physical representation of the universe. Only in this case, spokes and spaces in between could stand for multiple dimensions (yay for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M_theory).

:lmao: Win.