Were you talking to me or him/her?

You, Trillid.

I can understand sometimes where I was being unclear about something. But sometimes it feels like you're not responding out of genuine misinterpretation but rather deliberately twisting what I have to say to further your own argument. I hope its not the latter.


I said it depends on what you consider elves to be. I would consider them elves because of the line of thought Clan Mother Ahnissi puts forward. The fact that many Khajiit look like just like elves also strengthen that line of thought. But many in Tamriel, who may even be aware of this connection, might consider them too altered to actually be labeled elves.


I don't? Didn't I say "He may not consider them close enough relatives to the Dwemer to matter," ?

What this implies is that he was presumably aware of their [the Khajiit's] connection to Bosmer, but has judged them to be elves regardless. Perhaps he knows something we don't. But until we do know what he knows about identifying elves, I'd put them into the elf catagory. To be specific, we need a good definition on what constitutes an elf in order to make a judgement call. Right now, our definition is largely "the elves are the descendants of the Old Elhnofey". Given the evidence, they apparently fit into that category, so I'd consider them elves until we know more.

The Falmer are another example. Whether or not you still consider them elves completely depends on your definition of what elves are. Septimus clearly considered them elves. What makes these goblin-esqe monsters closer to being elves than the civilized, intelligible Khajiit? Makes you wonder, doesn't it?


Whoah, hold on there bright eyes, since when did I say Topal was mentally handicapped? He's not handicapped. He's a explorer with a persepective and an agenda. That's all.


You say that like its a known fact.

There are plenty of sources that are wrong about the pre-settlement years of Tamriel. Not only are several wrong about Orcs inhabiting Tamriel before the arrival of elves and men, but they're also wrong that mankind was not present on Tamriel before the arrival of Nords. All I was suggesting was that they might be wrong about the elves too. Remember, the Pocket Guides to Empire are propaganda, Trillid. They have a agenda to push. An agenda that requires us to see the history of Tamriel in a "certain way" that is not necessarily correct.


You say that like its a known fact.

You didn't get the right impression of the word "possibly" in italics. Let me spell it out: Its possible that they're descended from Elhnofey. Highly unlikely, given the sources we have on the Argonians, but not impossible. Every once in a while someone brings it up whenever discussing the origins of that race. Its an alternate, though not very popular theory.

The creation myths might be wrong, you know. What about the Tang Mo, Kamal, Sload, Ka Po Tun, and other beast races? Surely they can't all be related to just the Ehlnofey and Hist.

In a recent post MK mentioned something called the "Jillians." Do these come from Nirn or elsewhere? They might be an original race that just wasn't accounted for in the known creation myths.

The Jillians were Jills. The Hist were fighting time.

Jills are Aedric dragons that work for Akatosh and make sure time stays linear.

They could be wrong, but with all of them looking to be a story told from a different perspective, just saying "they're wrong" is not the way to go. Also, a lack of evidence on the contrary only just says your argument is only that of pure speculation.

Until evidence to the contrary comes forth, I'm sticking to that all the major races on Tamriel, save for the Saxhleel, come from a common lineage.

And Jillians are female time dragons that fix the dragon of time when he breaks.

My argument is simply to consider the alternatives. I'm not saying the alternatives are necessarily right or even more probable than what we know now.

Ah, thanks for clearing that up. Nonetheless, my point still stands; the Jills (or more broadly speaking, the Dragons) are not related to the Hist or the Ehlnofey in anyway. Is this evidence in favor of the idea that more than two races survived the process of creation, or were the Dragons created before or after "The Creation" and thus do not count as an "original race?"

I assumed Khajiit weren't elves because they changed while they were still Ehlnofey. Ehlnofey are the common ancestor of Mer and Man, and Khajiit would thus be classified as close cousins to Elves rather than Elves.

Also note that Pelinal regarded them as not-elves, since he genocided quite a few of them until he realized it.

I just read something interesting. The in-game description for the Khajiit in The Elder Scrolls Travels: Shadowkey says that they were "native to Tamriel long before the arrival of the humans and elves." AFAIK this denies the possibility that the Khajiit are in anyway related to the Bosmer.

Thoughts?

Technically, this is true, as they were the first race to become stabilized. Then Y'ffre came along, and made it so people and things would maintain a constant form, instead of constantly warping into other races. Then again, all known major races were descended from the Ehlnofey, save for the Hist.

Also, Nirn used to be Pangaea, but some people went a little overboard and sundered the lands into what is now Atmora, Tamriel, Yokuda, that southern continent ([censored] its spelling), and Akavir.

Pyandonea?

My point is not "Khajiit are elves" exactly, my point is "elf is a useless term because it's paraphyletic". The fact that a greater intelligence (Azura) was responsible for the schism between the Khajiit and the Mer doesn't invalidate the fact that they still belong in the clade "creatures whose ancestors are elves" whatever name one chooses to give it, regardless of morphology and tradition (the only reasons Khajiit are not considered Mer) just as the interference of a more intelligent life-form (humans) doesn't somehow make dogs no longer count as canines, nor does the drastically different morphology of a cetacean make it not properly a member of the clade artiodactyla... the only reason they are excluded from that clade is tradition, just as aves had once been excluded from reptilita.

Indeed. People are just going to throw it out though.

That's the place, I could never remember it.

Out of hand? No. I'll address it: this is only contradictory if we assume the sequence of events is Aldmer -> Move to Tamriel -> Azura changes them to Khajiit while others go on to become Bosmer. It could very well go Aldmer -> Azura changes them to Khajiit while others go on to become Bosmer -> Move to Tamriel.

I don't see the contradiction. We don't have anything like a clear timeline for the really early stuff.

The quote says that the Khajiit were "native to Tamriel" indicating that they didn't move there from anywhere else but had their beginnings there, so the real question is, do you believe the term "Khajiit" only applies to those people after Azura supposedly changed them? Or, have they always been Khajiit?

And AFAIK, no one can say for sure.

If the Jillians come from the Aedra (Akatosh), then they are Ehlnofey.
The downward spiral of creation began because the Aedric spirits needed to find ways to strenghten the Wheel, they needed to survive by creating the (mortal) world because it was too late to pull out like Magnus had done.
This is Ada-Mantia.

I have proposed once that unlike other Ehlnofey, dragons found a trick that allowed them to not become smaller and more fragmented. That they do not die, are ageless and do not get born is a part of that, but I think its possible that the absorbtion of mortal souls in Sovngarde by Alduin also plays a part.

On the nature of Khajiit, I believe that there are texts that indicate they are Ehlnofey, or a subgradiation thereof, not elves, that made a pact with Azura. The accounts of Topal the Pilot point to that, as he saw 'cat-demons' before any Aldmer exodus, and there are other texts.

"And Fadomai said, "When Nirni is filled with her children, take one of them and change them. Make the fastest, cleverest, most beautiful people, and call them Khajiit."

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Words_of_Clan_Mother_Ahnissi

Interesting, I don't remember that being the definition for Ehlnofey. I think I'd better spend some time refreshing my memory...

"When Magic (Magnus), architect of the plans for the mortal world, decided to terminate the project, the Gods convened at the Adamantine Tower [Direnni Tower, the oldest known structure in Tamriel] and decided what to do. Most left when Magic did. Others sacrificed themselves into other forms so that they might Stay (the Ehlnofey). Lorkhan was condemned by the Gods to exile in the mortal realms, and his heart was torn out and cast from the Tower. Where it landed, a Volcano formed. With Magic (in the Mythic Sense) gone, the Cosmos stabilized. Elven history, finally linear, began"

http://www.imperial-library.info/content/ages-man

Very interesting. But where did the Hist come from? Are they then also technically Ehlnofey, or...?

Ehlnofey? Well, no. Not from our current understanding of lore, anyway. Standing lore makes it clear that they were distinguished from the Ehlnofey, but for what reasons we don't know. It's possible they've come from one of the past worlds, or come from another, unknown realm. Lord of Souls seems to have hinted at much. In any case, they shared Nirn with the Ehlnofey until the former destroyed most of what the Hist called home. Its a popular history that the Argonians were created by the Hist, or are even descended from them in some way. In any case, Blackmarsh is one of the most intriguing and mysterious places in the fiction.



Regarding the Khajiit:

Hmm. Point made. If the Khajiit are descend from the Elhnofey before the Old Elhnofey and Wandering Elhnofey schism, then I wouldn't call them elves. If they were created after the schism, however, I'd think I'd recognize them as elves. That is, if Azura approached the Old Elhnofey rather than the Wandering Elhnofey.

Yeah, I don't/didn't think the Hist are/were related to the Ehlnofey. Everything I have read so far (including the novels) has suggested otherwise, but as long as I was being corrected by Merari I figured that I may as well help myself by asking all the stupid questions.