I agree, it's to keep it in the consumer view, while at the same time being interesting and entertaining in it's own right. Quite clever.


Read the books and dialog of Morrowind. They all but explicitly stated that the moon was gonna fall (and then the loveletter did explicitly say it). So don't think all this was just pulled out of Keyes' ass, Bethesda had every event in the book planned, they just got a moderately famous and pretty good fantasy author to write it down in book form. Even if they hadn't, there would have been in-game books in TESV (not to mention actual in-game areas, I'll bet) that are/were effected by the book's events and therefore the events would be canon book or no.

One could not pay me enough to give personal opinions that I do not hold. And on that note, I am a volunteer here and am not paid at all. Believe me, when I disagree with something Bethesda does in a game, I squeak as loud as the next person. I happen to have really enjoyed the book despite it's rather drop off ending and very much look forward to the next book to have a proper ending and even more so to the next game.

The book handled the lore with much care and was interesting. I'm not sure why expressing my approval of it and my excitement for the next one and the game would make anyone accuse one of being paid to say it. In fact I find the accusation rather insulting. :shrug:

I also have to say my only "problem," such as it is with the book was that it had no ending. Like Lord of the Rings, it seems to have been originally one book that was cut into parts for publication. Likely to keep TES in the public eye until (hopefully) the next game is announced.

And I know it's not my business, but I also find the "There's no way someone would have a different opinion than me unless they were paid to" fallacy a bit of a wall banger. And even if moderators weren't volunteer, doesn't Bethesda have a "no defense" rule?

I just dislike that almost the whole province of Morrowind was destroyed. It was my favorite province. I understand that it is bad to let a story stagnate, but I think they could have established that the Empire was falling apart without destroying Morrowind.

Again, NOT destroying it would have been worse being it would have killed the series' magnificent internal consistency. They said in Morrowind the province would soon be destroyed. They were right. Go figure.

This not specifically about the books, but thats a really sad view you have there. It reminds me of a Star Wars forum where people don't do much more then argue about what is canon and what not. Because eventually every argument comes down to that. Did I have the real officially sanctioned experience? Yet the lore is playground for ideas, ideas that go beyond books and games, so in that play ground canon should be irrelevant.

Well, he has a point though. Lore is a playground for ideas and that's fun and all, but either way, it doesn't matter how many people cry "ruined FOREVER!" after Morrowind was destroyed, it's still destroyed and it's destruction will be a part of future titles. People can write all the "fix fics" where Morrowind survives and the Argonians all svck it, but that won't change what happened.

Argument from futility? Like I said this isn't about the books specifically, it's about the way people argue what is the "true and approved" experience and what isn't. It just forgoes the whole point of a fantasy setting, to imagine.

So rather then telling people to effectively svck it up or get lost, you should ask why people don't like the destruction of Morrowind. It's indeed an argument about taste that can't be won, but again if that is the point, it's all kinda sad.

It's actually rather emotional to play Morrowind now. My character will be standing there, staring up at the ministry of truth, when I take a second to imagine all of Vivec gone and there being nothing but rubble and a boiling sea.

Yes, it's lore.

I'm not sure how many of you have back issues of Game Informer, but I think it was issue #199 (October or November) where there was a feature on lore that was a good read. Included in the feature was Kurt from our office and how we worked with Greg Keyes to make sure that the book stayed within the bounds of TES' existing lore.

maybe not payed, but atleast very protective of the company whose forums they are employed to police, well, maybe not all, but some of them.

but, anyway, i hope i dont have to see a flying city waking up stiffs in the next game.

It is a bit, but Morrowind is still there as I understand it, just not as it was. And I am so glad I knew it and adventured there when it was whole.

I'm not sure I'm understanding what you're trying to say. I'm saying that, generally, any core event in the games or books (so Staff of Chaos, Mantella, Red Mountain, Oblivion Crisis, Red Year and Umbriel, basically) are out and out "factual" in the context of the story, and everything else is the endlessly debatable fuzzy stuff.

I would agree with you that all those things happened. But that's not the point. I'm not making argument about lore. Rather this is an argument about arguments.

Canon is a collection of works endorsed as valid by some authority. The implications of something being canon or not depend very much on the context. For the Elder Scrolls there aren't that many implications. As you said, the big events are fairly certain and everything gets a bit misty beyond that. Personally I think this is a good property that should be retained.

Now the original poster is asking if the Infernal City is canon because he's shocked to find out what happened with Morrowind. He's basically asking if it really happened because he doesn't like it and rather wished it never happened. Telling him it is canon won't change that. He might stop talking about it since it won't change anything, but I don't think it make him like it.

Now any argument about canon will come down to something like this. People will like or dislike some part of the world and because of this they feel it should be included or excluded. When this happens, there is usually a debate about canonical state of the part. This is essentially a debate about whether or not people have the "officially approved" experience. For some reason this is important. Yet this is sheer idiocy. As an experience there is no such thing as a valid experience. None one will ever experience things in the same way. The argument about something being part of the official experience is pointless. There can be no such thing. As such, what we should be discussing is why we think Moon crash is good or not.

Now of course, to discuss anything we have to agree on some scope of the material to discuss. But this little to do with canon, it's an agreement between you and me about which material we accept for the discussion. One example of this the difference between the UESP and TIL. The people on the UESP mostly likes to stick with the in game sources. People on TIL on the other hand also take the obscure texts into account. Going even further a place like T0 takes a rather strict set of works with which have quality. Yet on Fanfiction.net people will take just about anything.

Your actions in Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind don't save the province - you save the entire world. Dagoth Ur and the abomination of a birthing god housed in Red Mountain were a threat to all of Nirn. Indeed, to save the world you have to take an active role in helping destroy Morrowind - as it was only because of the divine gifts that Vivec stole that enabled him to stop the meteor in the first place. Once that power was removed...the meteor had nowhere to go but down.


Not everyone gets a happy ending.

Oooooh... okay, I get it. Now I guess I at least have nothing to say on this thread anymore.

I don't get the feeling we'll see Umbriel in TES V. More likely the aftermath decades or generations later. If I had to guess, I'd say the provinces will remain independent and the Empire will still be scarcely larger than Cyrodiil. The Mede dynasty may still be in power, though apparently without the "mandate of heaven" that the Septims had. The Dunmer people in diaspora will have built new lives for themselves, less insular than when they had a homeland, but may be starting to resettle Morrowind.

That's assuming Dagoth could turn it on, and that a different power source wouldn't have stopped it.

Or, my choice, let the ministry fall to take out Dagoth before he can turn on the machine. Get Vivic or someone to move the ministry up that way, and boom.

He was building it around the Heart of Lorkhan - which itself had the power to turn him into a god to match the Tribunal. As for another power source that could have stopped it...take into account that, working against the nature of the Heart of Lorkhan, the Tribunal had powers to best Daedric Princes and even flood the entire land of Vvardenfell, all the while keeping the population intact.

Also keep in mind that this creature was a duplicate of the one seen in Daggerfall - whose activation lead to the Warp of the West. Power Source to stop it? Be thankful there were only two power sources that could power it.



Vivec didn't have the power to move it. Between keeping it stationary and maintaining the Ghostfence, his powers were stretched to the limit since it'd been centuries since he last renewed his connection to the Heart of Lorkhan - also the fact he was doing good with those powers, thus constantly getting weaker.

Seeing as how difficult it was to simply maintain it after Vivec vanished, I doubt it could have been moved.

I just don't get why the inhabitants of Morrowind didn't flee as soon as they realised Vivec was gone? They knew he was the one holding up the MoT, and that it would destroy Vvardenfell if it fell.

Personally, I first hated the fact that it happened, but now, I think it could actuallly interesting, especially if the next game is set in Skyrim. A new bond between the Nords and Dumner growing in strength. Another game set in Morrowind could also be pretty good. (Mainland) Seeing the aftermath of it directly, and being able to look at the wastes of northen Morrowind, and seeing what happens to the tribunal tempe. Will they continue to try to get members? Or will they realise it isn't going to work, and disband thier faith?

Remember, generations of Dunmer have grown up around Vivec with the Ministry of Truth just hanging in the sky. The vast majority of them likely never even considered the possibility that one day, it might drop from the sky despite the numerous warnings that state otherwise (Look at how distraught the player base is that it fell, despite all the information we have saying it was going to fall.



If I remember correctly, the Temple reverted back to traditional Dunmer Ancestor Worship after the fall of the Tribunal. Though I'm sure there are still fanatical holdouts to the Tribunal.