Did the ever-living Emperor (blessed be!) die when the blood of his holy blood was spilled at White-Gold to beat back the hell-clawed ravagers of the dark (whose gnashing lord walks among us)? The Temple will not speak to it yet, we think.

But surely this question can be readily addressed. The Shezzar has made this sacrifice before - and will make it again - so that his spilt blood may nourish the fruits of the Actual. It is not a question of 'would' but a question of 'when.'

Okay, then why would Wulf advocate a chain of events that would get Emperor Actual dead?

I'm pretty sure its right there in that post - "so that his spilt blood may nourish the fruits of the Actual." Consider what Vehk's Teachings say about the death of Lorkhan as well.

I'm not sure you're rephrasing of your question is justified as a response to that post, which I don't think suggests any distinction between Wulf and the Emperor.

Right, as the enantiomorph, which can be... echoed. You keep ignoring he is the "Many-Headed," and that he has been killed before. For instance, when V'vek gave him the Numidium, he set the heads of Talos and the Underking to war.


Sure it does, and that Empire's dead.


The more things change, the things stay the same.



That's irrelevant. Forgive me, if I implied we were returning to the Common Era. I noted some parallelisms. The throne is empty; there are no sons of Talos, to make him real. No one is alive, to bear the turning Wheel upon their brow. Only this Dovahkiin stands to stop the fighting.

Wulf being agent of Dagonites and part of their trickery. Maybe. As far as i can tell (which isn't that far, he-he) Wulf = Talos is just a guess, educated guess, but guess.

If Vivec is correct (he used Water-mask at that instance) that Lorkhan himself decided at his free will to fail at his attempt to achieve CHIM. Lorkhan died so that Mundus could live on. Maybe this should be seen in same light with Talos.

Oh me, oh me, oh me.

Ok, let's make my meaning absolutely clear. I used the name Wulf to evoke the avatar at the end of Morrowind and show that he endorsed the series of events that caused Red Tower to power down, the hordes of Oblivion to let loose, and the Empire to die out. His reasoning: "But maybe it's time for a change. Time for something young and new. What? No idea. Because I'm old. Old dog doesn't get new ideas. But maybe young folks like you should try some new ideas. I don't know. Could be messy. But change is never pretty." Now, if his efforts and actions are all to glorify the Empire, like you folks are suggesting, then why would he want something "young and new"? You guys are arguing that Talos is the God of the Empire. I'm arguing that he is the God of the Endeavors of Man, which include but is not limited to the Empire. If his essence and being is so wrapped up into the fate of the Empire that he is the Empire, then he wouldn't gamble and throw it all away and possibly cede superiority to the Elves. He'd take after his Mantle and devise a clever trap that might sacrifice some glory for the Empire in return for larger glory down the road. Now it's 200 years down the line. This new Empire is weak and can just barely keep the Thalmor from overwhelming them and oh look, the Emperor just died. This is some mighty long nourishing. It'd better be one heck of a plant.

Frankly I don't see how it's relevant. I'm fully aware that Talos is Tiber, Zurin, Ysmir, Wulfharth, and Hjalti, to name a few. Yeah, he's reenacted Lorkhan a couple times before. But unless one of his heads includes Mankar Cameron (to which I'd leave this argument right now if you suggested it), what event in the whole dissolution of the Empire had an aspect of Talos reenacting Lorkhan's death? Since he occupies the role of Shor, in order for him to die, he has to die like Shor. So point me to the event when he dies like him.

See above.

So why is it that we keep getting different actors every Kalpa? You would think that we would hear something about how every single iteration is exactly like the last and there's never any hope for things to substantially change. But that'd be counter to the spirit of Man, wouldn't it?

And I noticed some parallelisms with the fate of the Dunmer too. No fixed home, gods forsaken, etc. Doesn't mean it's right. I'm only saying you can't truly put the cat back in the bag. No matter how many people you have mantling the cat or the bag. And that's a really bad metaphor, but I hope you'll forgive me on that.

"I told the Oracle about my encounter with the old Imperial veteran, the lucky coin he gave me, and the mark of good fortune -- the luck of the Emperor -- I have felt ever since. The Oracle thinks I have been visited by an aspect of Tiber Septim. She takes this as a sign of a great doom laid upon me by the gods." That's a Morrowind Journal Entry. Might as well be gospel.
Your point is made, even if Tiber at least managed to achieve CHIM. I'm not arguing that he hasn't before. Heck, his corpse is presumably in Sancre Tor. I'm simply saying that you're setting yourself up for disappointment if you think Talos will be absent by the time of Skyrim, nor will he have disappeared in any of the intervening time.

Now that's a really interesting post for its words to output ratio alone.

What I would say is that while I don't personally figure Talos died in Oblivion, I think his death is inevitable and that a case could be easily made for various points at which he died before Skyrim takes place. Death and removal from the pantheon are very different things.

Normally, I would not want to be so explicit, because this sort of thing you should figure on yourself, but since you're so lost inside it, here it goes. The Shezzarine figure dies, and does so intentionally, so that he might be succeeded by a more perfect antecedent. On and on it goes until it all ends.

No ad hominems please. It's just not classy.

Death is death. Lorkhan can't act because he is dead. His actions are through those that mantle him, but once they are dead, they can't act either. I thought that would be obvious. So while death and removal from pantheon are different, they might as well be the same thing, if you can't act anymore. Yeah, ok Lorkhan's still important even after he's dead, but in the context of Talos still being able to act, he might as well not exist anymore. Now if you can give me an event when Talos dies, then I'll cede the point. And it should be an obvious event with massive repercussions for Man because it's the death of the God of Man. But right now all you've done is just folded interpretation on top of interpretation, called it fact and then drew conclusions from that. I understand that that's what MK does, but you don't have the right to do it because you don't write the material.

That's on a Kalpic scale. Within an isolated Kalpa, time is linear. Those mantling Shor don't often do it to guide creation towards perfection. Pelinal didn't do that, the Elves wouldn't go anywhere near that (they wouldn't mantle Lorkhan unless they were reenacting Anuiel's victory over him), nor did Ysmir really. They did it to make themselves or their people better at the expense of the others around them. The rebel wants to see the king cast down and himself raised up. Enantiomorph gets them that.

So you have missed the underlying point in all that history. Gotcha.

No i don't think he will be absent at Skyrim. For this to happen, something very drastic must happen, like end of whole imperial culture and belief-system. Maybe even whole human race so that there is no-one willing to mantle Lorkhan anymore.

Why he would have let Empire to crumble? I'm not wiling to throw any guesses. He's divine while while i'm just village idiot with several deceases.

As for Wulf not being Talos. I threw it as alternative theory which has amused me for some time: "The fall of Red Tower should not be seen as the suave conquest of Cyrodiil's agencies, for we have been tricked again by the Dagonites." stated in Nu-Mantia Intercept, Letter #3 . Would mighty Talos/Wulf fall for this trick? As you said Oracle thinks he was aspect of Talos.

Perhaps he allowed it to happen for the sake of something greater, as Lorkhan allowed himself to fail at CHIM to create Mundus.

Was Dagoth Ur an aspiring Shezzarine in your opinion? He gladly took up the moniker of Sharmat, a title of Shor Who Goes Missing.

Well let's see there's that, plus he was building the Akulakhan, plus his godliness came from his association with Lorkhan's heart, plus the symbol of House Dagoth is a Scarab...

A Shezzarine yes, though certainly walking a path into doom, because it had hatred in its foundation, not love.

So he failed, just like Lorkhan did? Or did Lorkhan fail? Vivec seems to believe so, but that it had a purpose.

The biggest difference I see between Dagoth Ur and Shor, is that Shor failed purposely and out of mercy. Dagoth was a bitter, angry loser, who didn't want to fail.

I prefer to remember him as the guy who pleaded desperately with Nerevar to destroy the profane tools. He died that day. What remained was a ghastly shadow of a thought of a memory of Voryn Dagoth.

What Vivec actually says is much more interesting: The world you stand on is said to be the first attempt at chim. It is also admittedly the most famous. That it was choreographed by Lorkhan and ultimately failed is well-documented, but whether or not this failure was intentional is still disputed.

Vivec doesn't "believe" that Lorkhan failed, he claims that Lorkhan's failure is a well-established fact. What Vivec believes is that Lorkhan's failure was intentional so you might know how not to.

So yes, they both failed, but probably in different ways. Dagoth Ur's the enemy in Morrowind, so its no surprise that he's portrayed as pretty angry and spiteful. The Loveletter makes it pretty clear that without love, it all comes out to nothing. And I'm not sure I am unduly applying my own moral viewpoint to Michael Kirkbride's works to say that all attempts have ultimately failed, because any attempt not built in universal love, and so encompassing every spirit, is in the end a failure.

E: Hellmouth's post is the first two paragraphs of this one, stated more succinctly.

Dagoth Ur is all sorts of messed up. In essence, yeah, what remained of Voryn Dagoth is nothing more than a twisted dream of a dead dreamer who cannot wake up. I do believe he was close to the dwemer, but closer to Nerevar. Plus, Vivec did say in the Trial, that it was Vivec the mortal who killed Nerevar. I'd say that clear's Dagoth's name for being a suspect, but that doesn't excuse him for trying to created a false Numidium and turn everyone into Lovecrafian messes.

EDIT: Well, I'm the person who likes to keep it simple and no so eloquent. Laziness, and that I'm not much of a fluff person hinders many posts when it comes to the nature of these things. Also, I trust most people here know what I'm trying to say.