I was watching a let's play of the game Radiant Historia (a very charming RPG, by the way), and a particular episode featured a very simplistic, but quite appealing description and example of the concept of chi as a life energy/power source with many applications in the kind of battles TES myths often feature. Then I read this post:


So you've got your basic magicks, and then there's thu'um and sword-singing and Redguard reality-bending bladery and whatever else. And it occured to me that there might be precedent, somewhere, for a variety of ability not unlike chi as a subtle inner power. The obvious possible origin would be Akavir (if not Yokuda), maybe nasty life-eating monastic powers certain Tsaesci or other Akaviri might wield.

Is there any reason to believe the equivalent of this sort of ability/power exists (or existed) in TES? I can't think of anything specific that even hints at it, but I haven't read everything either.

I wouldn't discount it as a possibility. Who knows, Aetherius could be entirely made up of a chi-like energy.

I got the sense from talking to Arngeir that Thu'um derives its power from within the practitioners themselves. It's their own breath, which is essential what chi/qi/ki is.

While the devs maybe didn't use that word exactly when they were describing it, it does chase after the same idea, so sure.

Yes. I think Thu'um and Sword Singing all manifest from a TES version of Chi. It has to.

Just don't expect any energy blasts coming out of one's butt. That's what magic is for.

Magic and Science.

Oh, that actually makes a lot of sense. I was too busy looking at the trees to see the wood.

And yes, no energy blasts. I was just thinking that it could theoretically manifest as unique/heroic abilities which wouldn't fit neatly into any established category (I'm thinking of Nerevar and the Tribunal's exploits, and the like).

@XxChaplainxX, this is what I was trying to get at with my "motivational speaker/AA meeting" stuff in your thread about thu'um and swordsinging.

thu'um seems alot like chi, inner power effecting outward world.

Except cooler

Well, when you consider that in the real world, chi is nothing more than a pro-modern society's explanation of cellular respiration - that's not really saying much.

I know, but I'm referring to the whole mystic stuff people associate with it, even though it was nothing more than an explanation for something people didn't understand back then, but still believe it to be some mystic force or w/e.

And the evidence of the forumites watching Dragon Ball, Z, and GT crops its head in the Lore forums.

MOTO response.

Is it not also possible that they all come from the same basic source of magic? The only difference is in how it is expressed, man and mer magic uses the inner reserves of magicka as not all people have the same affinity or quantity of magicka, just as certain dragons have a stronger thu'um then others, yet they lack hands, a primary source of focus used by man and mer that dragons lack so they developed their own way to use magic with their voice by a force of will and focused into a shout. They picture burning in their minds and focus their thoughts on burning stuff before they use Yol to empower it, while man and mer concentrate a great deal on manipulating the magicka and using their hands to guide it. Sword singing is not much different then either of these two, few show greater appititude then others and some can perform feats others can't but in the end all thats really different between them is their perception of how to manipulate the magic, and magic could be just a translation of chi, or the hundreds of other names its had in games, tv, movies. Power, Mana, Magicka, Haun, Aura, Spirit Pressure, Chi, The Force.

A common view of chi in real life is that it is simply the synaptic current in our vast nervous system and manipulating it in certain ways can make the human body work in ways that seem almost mystical, such as when you have a muscle spasm the muscles can work in ways you couldn't force them to do under normal circumstances, or dampen them to feel less pain then normal and that acupucture is an art form of stimulating specific points of the nervous system to accelerate certain body parts or functions.
Its all very scientific, but in a fantasy world the idea of a power contained within a human body, an untapped power well make it almost mystical and fantastic.

It's possible. Magicka is basically pure potential energy.

Wouldn't want to deal with the casting time of those spirit ball spells.