a fairly large amount: probably most of the population of the Imperial city and surrounding areas noticed a giant flaming dragon fighting a four-armed monster. The way New Yorkers watched in horror as the skyline changed on 9/11, They would probably be looking at Dagon.

Your not reading or interpreting it wrong, you simply don't have the whole truth. The Heart (also know as the "Heart Stone"), is not an actual heart of flesh and blood. It is the "heart" of Lorkan that was ripped from him as punishment for causing the creation of the mortal plane. By "power source" that you refered to in your post, you must be talking about how the Heart is the power source of http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Akulakhan. You could also be refering to the Heart as the "power source" of the Red Tower (Red Mountain), one of two towers (The other one being the mystical White Tower that physically manifest itself as the http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:White_Gold_Tower and it's power source is the combination of the http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Amulet_of_Kings and a Crowned Emperor, because without an Emperor, the amulet alone with powerless) that maintain the barrier between the Mortal Plane and the http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Plane_of_Oblivion.

I hope I this cleared a few questions.

there are a lot more than those 2 towers. Adamantium is one, High Hrothgar, the Numiduim itsef, crystal tower, Orcanish (in Yokuda) etc.

Well, fantasy is the hardest genre for those poor unfortunates called "right-brained people" to suspend their disbelief in.

One major point I'd do is avoid thinking in terms of only Greek Mythology. There are plenty of other mythologies in the real world people tend to ignore (Norse, Hindu, Aztec, etc.) and a lot of the plot and symbolism is ripped clean from those and grafted to others, so if you tried to force all of TES lore into the shape of any one itself you'd just go nuts. The other is to simply read everything in the games you can find, not just for the lore value but for their own sake, since they're very well written.

Yes, but I was refering to the two tower that hold the barrier between the mortal plane and oblivion. Without the power source, the towers would lose it's barrier and the space between oblivion and the mortal plane would no longer exist, making it possible to create portals to both sides. You can clearly see that in The Elder Scolls IV: Oblivion.

It's not any two specific Towers which hold the barrier up. It's all of them working together at once. But if it falls below a bare minimum of five or six functioning towers, the barrier between Oblivion and Mundus becomes very wuzzy until it's no longer stable. An anchoring stone from another realm such as a Daedric Prince appearing on Mundus would completely merge the realms beyond repair. This is what happened when Dagon appeared. The only way to put the barrier back up was to destroy his physical form and to erect a replacement Tower for White Gold. Akatosh/Lorkhan/Martin managed to do both these things.

Either that or it's a symbol of Akatosh's commitment to hold the barriers up himself, which has all sorts of unfortunate implications of overcoming time itself in order to pierce into Oblivion.

A question I often ask myself is whether that was actually Akatosh, or Lorkhan in the form of a dragon..or perhaps some synthesis of both.

He definitely can't materialize for very long, and quickly turned to stone. And it took both his blood and the blood of Martin to appear at all.

I thought he turned to stone because Dagon had 'killed' him during the battle (Aedra are mortal) and Akatosh only finally died once Dagon died (you normally have a little bit of time to act after your definatley going to die but before your heart stops.) This means very little besides for a short dragon break while Alduin goes through the dreemsleeve.

To me, the most important thing about TES lore is the realization that the lore is not infallible, that things that are said and written in-universe aren't always necessarily true. That's what I like, that it isn't written in stone, that I can make my own observations.

Thanks for the advice. After writing this forum post and thread and reading your post I began to realize that perhaps not as many people are as disposed to building a framework for the universe as I and my peers in real life are. I would actually discuss this with them, but they are not interested in fantasy in the slightest (especially a videogame)

We do not know if the universe will expand infinitely yet (I don't believe), but I personally subscribe to the idea that it may. In any case, the discoveries in quantum physics really imply that the universe seems to be infinite in just about any direction we look (which is disturbing to the the evident framework of how things seem to be. I have had to rework my thoughts on how the universe works several times thanks to quantum physics.) It may be true that no matter where we look, reality may be infinite* in every direction and there is no fundamental object (although I was hoping there would be). But I am getting off topic...



Perhaps I am not understanding completely what you mean by concepts here. The way that the "Gods" exist in TES have evidence of existence don't they? I know of a few that do. It is one thing to conceive of something like a perfect state of being, and another for there to be a real person who is absolutely perfect.



So some things that are non-sensible are perhaps anthropomorphism manifest?



First let me say thanks for your contribution. Very helpful.

To define finite and being infinite or almighty might be good to further clear things up.

Even though everything in the universe is made up of the same base elements, who we are and the power we wield is finite. To be finite is relative to our existence, which should always be defined as the sum of our parts. We exist as humans, and the concept and boundaries of what it is to be human are self evident and are not something we need to learn. Assuming the universe is infinite and that we are a part of it, just because it is made up of the same elements doesn't put it as an extension of our person (an example a left-brained friend of mine gave me once, was that our existence as a human can be likened to the water arch that you see when you spray water out of a hose. You recognize the arch and can identify it, however the water that is constantly moving through it is changing while the appearance remains the same. When we eat food and digest it, constantly moving particles and elements through us while we keep moving through the universe we change. Yet we are defined by remaining in this shape and existence as self evident humans. We are the sum of our parts.) The same could be said of this "Godhead" you mentioned. He may apportion some part of himself to make a creature (conceptually) but that creature's existence isn't part of the "Godhead" anymore than my existence is part of the whole universe. I am defined by the sum of my parts, and my existence is finite defined by my boundaries as a human.

An almighty being isn't necessarily infinite in power, just someone who posses all available power. It seems that he may choose for himself how it will be used, whether to be omniscient or omnipresent or to not be any of those things. This is the interesting thing about the one with all power, and further defines his person.

An immortal being would be one who's definition of existence cannot be threatened to change. In fact, an immortal being is unchangeable.

A mortal being can change and also are not guaranteed an eternal existence. The "sum of their parts" are either constantly changing or can be changed by others, where the immortal being does not have this existence.

There are other more refined definitions but this will suffice for our discussion.



I use machine loosely as I consider most anything that has a function a machine. Meaning that if you could actually comprehend how it works it would be as good as a machine. Humans are complex machines, for instance.

It is interesting that the "beliefs of mortals" should impact the actual nature of gods. I would want to explore what that means much more. There are certain observations in quantum physics that seem to indicate that perhaps the universe as we see it bends to our consciousness, but that is a bit "spooky"



It does thank you.

So between the answers I have seen, it seems this figurative heart of Lorkhan, who wanted to create a "mortal" plane which I will believe to mean it will contain finite creatures was punished somehow by having his heart removed from him (figuratively?) and then it has become manifest in a real place in space/time as a sort of reality metaphor? Is that about correct? That is a much better understanding than the one I started with, so thank you for your help.

The question I would have now is who is actually interested in making an anthropomorphic heart in the "mortal plane" and how it has a power source. If anything, since this was to represent an actual figurative heart that a "god" had once possessed, it would seem that the heart's power wasn't in strength but in ambition and idea (as that is what the figurative heart often means in literature). It should grant the person who can use it the ambition and idea of Lorkhan, whatever that implies.



I am unfortunately plagued with this birthright. I have some friends who are the exact opposite, very left brained and I try to feed off their ability as much as I am able. I cannot permanently sustain a left brained mind on my own, but I try.


*Somebody mentioned that it was an absolute that since the universe appears to be infinite (and for discussion let's just assume that it is), that Tamriel already will exist in an infinite universe. That is not true. To put it tactfully, the word infinite doesn't equate to infinite possibilities when used in a sentence (like I have a bowl of infinite chicken noodle soup, therefor in my bowl all things possible will take place). It is no more probable that Tamriel will actually exist than a trillion variations of Tamriel will ever exist. The universe as we perceive it doesn't actually bend to abstract concept. For example, let's say that I conceive of a world where people are made of Jello and that they are ruled by a race of string cheese people and their sun is made of blueberries. The universe is infinite, so this has to happen at some point right? It becomes easier to see the fault in that assumption when I put less reasonable abstract into the theory presented. Tamriel and all of it's ideas, concepts and laws are no more probable than the example I have given. The reason for this is because we already have observed constants and laws that are used in the makeup of the universe and they are not likely to change at any given time in the future (seeing as they are constant, and have proven so in the past). These points I bring out should be self evident.

Of course it's not unheard of to postulate strange ideas. Most of the things we have discovered about the universe already would have sounded like quackery to people just a few hundred years ago. But there is no substantial evidence that Tamriel exists now or will ever exist in the future (it sounds about as reasonable as saying that there must be a planet in the shape of a perfect triangle somewhere since there is so much observable space and also an apparently endless source of building elements to make one, if one were so inclined). The elements that would need to exist for a living Elder Scrolls World to be true haven't become manifest, and I don't believe they ever will be.

I mentioned the tenth dimension. too lazy to count how many infinites are multiplied to get there, but I think five or so. Anyway, there is somewhere Tamriel, even if it isn't in our universe (i believe in the multiverse also. If you disagree with any of my physics we can argue on another forum.) I highly dout that everything their could function the way it does in tes (i mean, basic physics would need to be applied) but most things are possible.

You're trying to tackle quite a lot. Maybe that's a good thing. We'll see.

Be careful when speaking of infinity. Infinity in mathematics wasn't formally treated until the late 19th century (thanks to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Cantor), and it isn't clear that our "everyday" talk about infinity really corresponds to the mathematical definition: e.g., according to Cantor there can be infinite sets of different sizes. The standard text on http://www.imperial-library.info/content/cosmology in TES says that the planets are actually infinite, though they appear to be spheres to mortal eyes. I read "infinite" here as meaning "unlimited" but I've never attemtped to give it a precise specification.

Be careful about quantum mechanics too, because its so blatantly misunderstood by the general populace, and because there's a great deal of disagreement among actual physicists on the correct interpretation of the relevant experiments (more importantly, the interpretation which adequately resolves the measurement problem).

Okay, moving on to more TES-specific issues.

Belief impacting the nature of the gods. I don't think this is really too difficult to understand. The idea that the nature of reality is at least partially responsive to facts about us may be false in our world, but it has some precedent. You indicated as much when you referred to the fact that we change quantum states by measuring them. But you can also consider philosophical idealism, or Kant's transcendental idealism. The idea in TES seems to be that the mythic structure of reality (i.e., the gods) changes in response to mortal needs. Which brings us to...

How gods can be concepts. The gods (and Daedra) have associated spheres. Akatosh is the god of time, Arkay is the god of life and death, etc. It's not just that Akatosh is associated with time, however; rather, Akatosh is time. A "dragon break" (Akatosh is depicted as a dragon) is when the linearity of time breaks down. It might help to think of the gods as similar to Platonic forms, only they can change.


Unfortunately this isn't spelled out in great detail in any one place. But one source is contained in http://www.imperial-library.info/content/morrowind-thirty-six-lessons-vivec-sermon-eighteen of the 36 lessons of Vivec:



Side note: there's no good reason to think Tamriel actually exists anymore than to think centaurs actually exist. An infinite universe need not contain infinite things, and even if it did, it could easily contain infinite things but not Tamriel and centaurs. Only a universe which necessarily contains everything must contain Tamriel and centaurs. But an infinite universe is not the same as a universe which contains anything. Besides, if the universe is Riemannian then it can be unbound but finite (a closed curve).

I wanted to add that (if I remember correctly) among the influences on MK when he wrote these Elder Scrolls metaphysics were the ideas of Mircea Eliade (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_Return_(Eliade) and Gnosticism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosticism). You already know about other sources he drew upon, such as Eastern religions.

One poster even theorized that Grant Morrison's graphic novel series "The Invisibles" was an influence on MK's work, which I think was confirmed by MK; especially the Barbelith (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbelith).

Nobody created the heart. When it was ripped out of Lorkan, it was thrown it his "creation", The Mortal World. So when the Dwemer found it, it was already a stone heart filled with power. You ask "...and how it has a power source.". Well, the answer to that is simple, It's the heart of a god. If that's not what you meant in the question then I have a different answer: It doesn't have a power source, it IS a power source to the Akulakan. All in all, both answers above are correct, so putting it more simply: The Heart Stone gets it power due to the fact that it's the heart of a god and it was used by the dwemer (and others) as a power source to feed the giant golem Akulakan. You also said "...it would seem that the heart's power wasn't in strength but in ambition and idea (as that is what the figurative heart often means in literature). It should grant the person who can use it the ambition and idea of Lorkhan, whatever that implies."I'm not completly able to understand what your trying to say, but I'm pretty sure that, that is incorrect (again I could be wrong). Basicly, the Dwemer discovered that the Heart Stone was the heart of Lorkan and decided to create Three Tools that would have the capability to manipulate the heart and it's power, but I don't think the dwemer knew what would actually happen if they used the tools on the Heart. The general theary was that they would become immortal and extremely powerful (basicly...gods). But I read that the Dwemer race completly vanished I began thinking that maybe it was the heart. Even though there are many conflicting accounts as to what happened to the Dwemer, all of them have something in commun. Someone at somepoint during the battle used the tools on the Heart (some say it was Nerevar, other say it was Kragenac and others say it was Dumac). This caused the Heart to, sort of, awaken, like turning on a long unused computer, and the Heart, being one of a god, quickly figured out what was happening and decided to simply destroy the Dwemer race, maybe because they were losing the battle or maybe he just didn't like the Dwemer. Putting all of this into a short sentence: Ibelieve that Lorkan wasn't killed, he was simply KO'ed and when he finally woke up he began to manipulate a series of events. One of them could have been when Nerevar asked Dagoth to protect the Tools and when he came back, Dagoth was this madman saying that he couldn't give away the tools because he was told to protect them. Maybe my theory is wrong maybe not. This post was to state what is your favourite topic in the massive TES lore. Well, mine is the Dwemer and everything that has to do with them.

heh - not sure what a lore buff is but it interests me so without intent to quibble but rather get at some underlying stuff, here goes

re Elder Scrolls are not most religions ... you might start by accepting that and allow your love of things fantastical to carry you forward in the spirit in which they are intended. What you might do for yourself is equate the various elements that you come accross to the things they do equate to in your experience rather than looking for the things they contradict. What is not held to be true in one religion may well be accepted practice in another. For example here ES sems to link comfortably into the idea of re-incarnation - and so we are looking at the immortal spirit rather than the immortal body. This is exemplified by 'the Dreamsleeve' - a location, continuum or state in which the spirits of 'mortals' and those aligned with the Aedra generally go when their mortal bodies cease to function. Mortal spirits forget their past life there but immortal spirits are said merely to sleep. So we are talking about immortal memory. However would you expect every writer to define such common knowldge precisely? One can easily imagine that certain aspects of things have been established earlier in other parts of the fragmentary texts you find in-game or are common knowledge not requiring word-by-word explanation outside elementary school texts. And please note that the positions taken by the various writers are in response to real and known factual locations, states etc. Cor that was a long answer to a short note, eh.



Heh - different religions = different ideas of everything ... the word saint is used frequently in ES, especially Morrowind because that was how they defined their special religious people/exemplars. Not remembering the word saint but that may be a valid equivalent for other, earlier spirits - such as the et'ada or some such. Please note that angels can fall

Wow! that 'sustained from an outside source' is a fascinating concept And may be applicable in some way - ref the earthbones who are et'ada or 'gods' who sacrificed themselves to (my roughly anologising) sustain the reality of Tamriel.



What do you mean by "real power"? Am I supposed to speculate on this without context?



On this forum 'buffs' have claimed that Daedra are said to be immortal and not die - but Aedra have been said to be immortal until they die - Vivec's chatty bits seem to contradict this - and are more in tune with the stuff I mentioned earlier ref the dreamsleeve. However it appears that each plane(t) of Oblivion is a part of it's ruling Daedric Prince. If this is so then when one of them is defeated he/she does not die - rather only his avatar is destroyed. Presumably then the Prince takes time out to reform his/her avatar - doubless with much grumbling and recrimination attendant ... and woe unto whoever gets in that Prince's way during this process ^^

We have more specific ref to power here so perhaps you are thinking of 'magica' ? That comes from Aetherius - which lies outside the mundus. 'Particulate' magica streams through the sun/stars into the mundus and is absorbed there by whatever can absorb it in quantities that accord with the nature and absorbant capactities thereof. Further it may be noted that just as some things absorbe more or less than others so also different things organise and emit the product of their interaction with magica in differing qualities and states. Naturally everything according to it's nature. One aspect that it seems holds true - as you will have noted when playing the game/s - is that Intelligence is a very powerful determinant in this. So imagine that on a god-like scale ...

lol ... Love your 'mortal with knowledge of living forever (even though they are very powerful)' that is a fine way of looking at it see above re the Dreamsleeve



Think we just covered the measuring part - however it might be that the source of their power is immeasurable and that thier command of it is immeasurable by the standards of and means available to mortals.

Lol re surrealism ... the earthly/mundane 20th/21st century thing seems to be about creative peoples' imaginings of earthly dream-states ... but in any case if your mind just cannot handle does that make it less worthwhile? Perhaps the fact that your mind cannot handle that is as likely an indication that a surreal aspect is a valid and useful part of the game - after all are you the PC intended to be omniscient?

However what you appear to be objecting to in part is paradox ... are you then saying that paradox is not a valid part of religion? Is not the definition of a 'miracle' the performance of the impossible? I hope you will forgive the observation that (as someone noted earlier) it may be that you hae issues with certain 'intuitive' aspects of religion rather than simply with ES ?? Who said religion is logical? Religion is often said to be man's attempt to deal with that which he feels to be illogical or that which he cannot otherwise get his head around ...

Hmmm what if every Daedra is capable of being almighty but that none of them act that way? Again the almighty part might refer to cetain actions on their part that are ineradicable, unalterable or that require almighty power to commit ... some such ... context required please. Try this way - these beings all draw on an almighty source in their own context - each one being greater than their own plane(t)

Heh - otherwise how can an Almighty God have an adversary? ... it is apparently contextual.

How are they ranked? Lol - that presupposes that they are ranked - what if they are not ranked? There is however a structure that is referred to earlier in the Monomyth ... read it please, it really is quite good ^^

We did the source of power with the dreamsleeve and their own Int

'Who do they answer to'? - what a strange question - try autonomous



Complete the Morrowind main quest and you will see it - can touch it etc. If you do not like Greek myths/religion that is your taste. How should I persude you to like what you do not want to like? i suppose I can only commiserate there but that would be difficult for me because I do like the Greek myths and legends - remember that Troy, which was thought by most to be a myth was discovered and that war has been dated to over 3 thousand years ago ... Thing is that with the greek myths what i love is the stories, daring do and even trajedies they encompass ... and withing their own element each Greek god is almighty. the power of their father over them is the nature of his almightyness ... I have no problem with that.

You say you would prefer that gods and demi-gods receive their power from a place that we just do not understand? Well rejoice! That was covered earlier re the ~Aetherius and add in The Monomytrh for their origins ...

If you read the monomyth I suggest that you take a lot of time to understand its implications ... it might just mean what it says and that brings up a whole load more questions and paradoxes. Enjoy ^^ as there is always more stuff and new ways to look at stuff

editing = typos