The world may be different, but TES III made it very clear that the Tribunal relied on deceit, not through metaphysical retcons. Else the truth would have been much more difficult to get out. That the Ashlanders always knew that they were false gods who murdered Nerevar, as well as the Temple's approach towards them and the Dissident Priests, demonstrates the mundane means of which the Tribunal had rewritten history. Just because many things are different doesn't mean that the most complicated and far-fetched theory should be considered the most plausible one.

Edit: Hmm, after reviewing what Vivec said to the Nerevarine, I'm wondering if the Sermons could be a veiled confession to his crimes, truths hidden between the lines of half-truths, yet remaining over the heads of Almalexia and the rest of the Temple.

The sermons are, among other things, a justification for the murder of Nerevar: this is why we killed you.

Also from the Trial of Vivec:



This is rather explicit, the "one red moment" being the moment when Vehk the mortal became Vehk the God. This was the only point where the two timelines intersected.

Vivec cannot lie with his Water-Face: he both did and did not murder Nerevar. Sounds like a Dragon Broke to me (as usually happens when a mortal undergoes apotheosis). While deceit is certainly a part of TES III, what greater deceit could there be than not just figuratively but literally rewriting history to your liking?

It would have, but if they were looking to change the past they failed, because Dagoth Ur and the Ashlanders knew all along that was a false god who killed Nerevar. Besides, doesn't the Sermon secret message say that he wasn't born a god?

In your edit you're coming to the same conclusion I was going to tell you. If What Really Happened never completely disappeared, perhaps that is how the Tribunal (and certainly Vivec) wanted it. They are capable of and were subject to dreadful remorse.

In the passage from the Trial I http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1175664-vivecs-sermons/page__p__17372122#entry17372122 above, Vivec explains not only that the timeline split, but also why the timeline was left how it was. He explains why the truth was always made available for those who searched for it.

(Guess my prediction was correct.)

Why did I leave the Nerevarine two accounts of his death, one that I could have easily erased from the minds of my own people? Because he is Hortator, GHARTOK PADHOME AE ALTADOON DUNMERI, my lord and king in this world and the last, and as Vehk and Vehk I murdered him, then raised him, then taught to him to know, and so would I have it when he came to me at last that he decide. I give you this as Vivec.

I think it's an interesting question. I suspect Vivec is bluffing about his abilities. Rather then implicitly admitting he could not, he claims he did not change it because desired it to remain unchanged.

He could not change it because the story of the Tribunal wouldn't be half as interesting without their mortal past, but poses a problem in terms of divinity which is generally understood to be eternal. Anything less creates the impression of being merely powerful, which does not garner the same respect.

---

@Dumbkid, why the snide?

Because judging from the way discussions of the 36 Lessons usually go, I wonder how many people have actually read them.

Sorry, I can back off.

Okay, I'll rephrase. A lot of the discussion of the 36 Lessons disappoints me, because the way they're discussed tends to be contrary to the way I read them, and beside the point of what attracts me to them. People ask whether the 36 Lessons are historically accurate, or how honest Vivec is being about his relationship with Indoril Nerevar, and so forth. I think that if you use caution you can tease out historical details about the politics of early Resdayn, and I think that's a worthwhile endeavor. Others ask about the mythical-metaphorical meaning of the 36 Lessons. I think this is a worthwhile endeavor too. But to primarily focus discussion on either or both of those issues seems wrong-headed to me. My opinion of the 36 Lessons (whether considered from an out of game or in-game perspective) is parallel to Wittgenstein's view on the Christian gospels:



The 36 Lessons are like little tidbits of history and myth written in dewdrops on the petals of a flower. You can investigate the history, the myth, and the metaphor -- I even encourage it. But stop stepping on the flower.

Now I'm curious. You appreciate something about the Sermons that does not depend on their accuracy as historical texts or some universal truths ingrained in them. Yet it is very much dependent on the way other people talk about the sermons. But you don't described what that which fascinates you actually is. Is it faith?

I've seen your posts go all the way back to '02, and as to the best of my recollection you've always treated the meaning of the sermons as self evident without ever elaborating. Do you think that putting the meaning to words lessens it's value?

I can't speak for Dumbkid, but maybe we risk losing the poetry in MK's works if we overanolyze them. When I first started playing "Morrowind", I thought the Sermons and other game books were just made up by the priests to con the faithful, or were based on misunderstandings; but after reading the Lore forum and Loranna's RP, I took a more literalist position -- that all the events were true. Now I'm less certain about what's historically true and what's metaphor, but I still appreciate the poetry in the Sermons and other in-game books.

As a side note, I don't like to call the Tribunal "false gods". In the Elder Scrolls universe, they're gods as much as any, though not in the same league as the Aedra.

I tend to go by the idea that since gods are not bound to Nirn, they therefore aren't bound to time, since that is a part of Akatosh who is part of the world. Therefore, every god that currently exists has always existed unless it is part of their story that they haven't (Sheogorath, but he did exist as Jyggalag before). That means that to be gods, the Tribunal must always have been. However, they were very definitively mortals with a set beginning in time. Neither can be untrue, therefore both are true.

And if Vivec did have the power to change the history so that the Tribunal-Always-Being was the only timeline, did he have the reason to? After all, his every action, good and bad, seems to be put through the filter of "does this help my people?" Having the foresight of a god, he must have realized that without the timeline where he was mortal, the nerevarine would have been doomed to failure as the difference between House and Ashland Dunmer was necessary for his success. So if we believe he could erase the timelines, he knew that the upsets the double-pasts would cause were far preferable to the destruction that forcing one or the other could have resulted in.

I don't think it's a matter of deliberately and actively changing timelines, but rather just an implicit fact of the nature of godhood.
Like you say, he had to have Always Been to be a God, but that doesn't suggest that he controlled his history in any way. I doubt it would be possible to "force" his two histories together except where they touched in that "one red moment", naturally.
Vivec had to exist as a mortal man who became an Eternal God; even if he were capable of altering time consciously, I don't think he could alter that.

I'm not sure "could" is all that important in that anyway. "did not" is a fact, at least, and the fact that he did not, whether or not he could, led to Dagoth Ur being stopped, day being saved, sins redeemed, etc. etc.

So it all came out great in the end, except for the whole falling moon thing.

Yeah.... There's always that.

Another thing that hit me; in TES III we learn that without being able to renew themselves at the Heart, the Tribunal is gradually weakening.

That's debatable. There are posts by devs which suggest that, at this point in time, Talos, the HoonDing, Vivec, Leki, and Reman (if he is not Talos since that post was made), were all more powerful than Auri-El. It helps that most of the Aedra are fractured due to mythopoeic forces.



The formation of Akatosh allowed time throughout the Aurbis. After all, Dibella is an Aedra, why then are there Dark Seducer daedra?

What post are you referring to, regarding Reman?

No, not throughout all the Aurbis. What makes Mundus special is its (relatively) concrete reality and relation to time and space. The Aurbis is the Grey Maybe, but Mundus has "unassailable reality", largely because of the influence of Akatosh and the Aedra.

Time exists all throughout, but definite, linear time is a unique trait of Creation.

Another way to think of it is that Akatosh is the timeline of Nirn. Which is strange because Alduin is as well, since they are the same, only with a different ending. Meanwhile, Mehrunes Dagon is the Deadlands, which means the time-passage there has nothing to do with Akatosh/Nirn Time unless it is binding with Nirn to invade.

Back to the sermons themselves, I had this thought that anyone else of the writer persuasion may like: Vivec is a stand-in for good fantasy writers. He writes pages upon pages of things that are not factually true and in so doing tells a truth that is far more important and fundamental than some petty fact of chronology or spacial arrangement. Compare to the series as a whole. TES is not factually true or realistic by any stretch of the imagination. However, it has the central theme of love as the path to trancendence/true happiness/godliness/what-have-you. That's a touch more important than "does this material weigh that much in real life?"

It doesn't have a lot to do with how this topic started, but I've recently decided to reread the 36 lessons of Vivec. This time I want to try to actually understand them too. I know that the old TIL had this nice version of them with little popups at certain words that referred to something. The current TIL however, seems to only have the plain text version. Is the version with helpers still available somewhere?

I regret not having those comments available. When we moved, the comments couldn't be displayed in the same mouse-over fashion. Xan started making similar comments in other documents displayed as footnotes, but we never got around to doing it with the Sermons. It was a long and tedious process.

Who is MK? Who are the authors for these things, since they are not even mentioned on the credits? What gives?

The ending of all words is Almsivi

Ah, Michael Kirkbride....http://fallingawkwardly.wordpress.com/2010/10/25/the-metaphysics-of-morrowind-part-3/,,,,,I am putting stuff together after years here

Most of those comments were also written very early into Morrowind, when people were just figuring them out. They pointed out inconsistencies with history and other lore. But that given the nature of the Sermons somewhat besides the point.

Aah pitty. Well, at least I know I can stop looking for them. ^_^
I can imagine doing it again for the sermons would be a very tirering proces indeed.


Could be so, but a lot of them were very helpfull. It learned me what ALMSIVI meant for example, a long time ago. I could hit myself on the head, seeing how obivous it was. But anyway, I remember there being some references to Redguard and other earlier games which were explained. (A sea with teeth that reffered to a graphical bug IIRC?) It's mainly for those pre-Morrowind refferences that I needed the comments. Guess I'll just have to use TIL's searchfunction a lot, that should work too.

But yeah, some of the stuff like the ocean's teeth being a reference to a Redguard graphics bug isn't anywhere to be found. The closest thing is "Sermon Seventeen contains a Redguard reference."