To begin let’s review some things.

WHAT WAS KAGRENAC TRYING TO ACCOMPLISH?

Toesock, from the Epithalamium thread, “Life is inherently empty and unsatisfying, exacerbated by their medium aware knowledge that they are not real, just an invented race in the Elder Scrolls (If anyone in Tamriel was capable of understanding that, it was the Dwemer). They are full of wanting and drive, but are acutely aware of the painful pointlessness of it. Yet they keep on living, driven by the "Ever Method", the urge to keep on living despite the unrelenting dissatisfaction… Here is Kagrenac's experiment - to end the dissatisfaction of the Dwemer by erasing them. To understand this, you need to understand Arimatha's assertion that consciousness is defined as the nothingness which is aware of absence. Therefore, that longing and dissatisfaction - that emptiness - is a fundamental part of consciousness and Kagrenac's solution is to release his people from this by erasing them. Hence ‘amnesia’.” [1]

All of which is to say the Dwemer wanted to forget that they don’t really exist (letters on an Elder Scroll which is the dream of an uncaring Godhead). You might also say they wanted to be rid of Memory.

To accomplish this they created Numidium.

DID IT WORK?

No. Dinmenel says, “The Dwemer share the fate of their smaller-scale anti-creations and of all subgradient echoes of Godhead: orbit around the crux of their conjugation and combined identity within its shattered remnants. The Dwemer no longer exist as such (excepting Yagrum), but the Animunculi produced from the shattering of the god their race's souls created within Numidium still orbit the Divine Skin as remnant micro -plane(t)s and -timelines; "It's not the Brass God that wrecks everything so much as it is all the plane(t)s and timelines that orbit it, singing world-refusals." [3] (Note that 'world-refusal' was a characteristic of the Dwemer people.)” [2]

This requires some exegeting. There is some disagreement amongst loremasters – some think the Dwemer became the “skin” of Numidium, some that they were shattered into “animunculi” or the “plane(t)s and timelines that orbit it [Numidium], singing world-refusals.” The important part here is that the Dwemer – in whatever way they exist or un-exist – are bound to Numidium.

UNFINISHED BUSINESS

Which brings us to the problem of C0DA and this conversation:

*

JUBAL-LUN-SUL – I mean, really, and I'm really, really asking because no one ever has been, I think, brave enough: do you have some kind of unfinished business?

NUMIDIUM – MAYBE.

JUBAL-LUN-SUL – Don't you dare do that! That's the magic word and we promised no tricks!

NUMIDIUM – GREY AREA. GREY MAYBE.

JUBAL-LUN-SUL – I KNEW IT!

NUMIDIUM – (SPEECH BALLOON EMPTY)

JUBAL-LUN-SUL – YOU JUST WANTED TO WIN!

NUMIDIUM – (SPEECH BALLOON EMPTY)

NUMIDIUM – YES.

JUBAL-LUN-SUL – ...finally. Thank you. And I'm sorry. Don't you get it? Your people tried to run, but couldn't. My people have to run, and I needed to hear the way out. We're finally talking the same language.

*

What does Numidium mean by “Gray Maybe”? And why does it desire it?

GREY AREA, GRAY MAYBE

Consider this quote from Sithis, “Sithis sundered the nothing and mutated the parts, fashioning from them a myriad of possibilities. These ideas ebbed and flowed and faded away and this is how it should have been.” [3]

From the Monomyth, “Note that Tamriel and the Mortal Plane do not exist yet. The Gray Maybe is still the playground of the Original Spirits. Some are more bound to Anu's light, others to the unknowable void. Their constant flux and interplay increase their number, and their personalities take long to congeal. When Akatosh forms, Time begins, and it becomes easier for some spirits to realize themselves as beings with a past and a future.” [4]

Caveat: rampant speculation inbound.

“These ideas ebbed and flowed and faded away…constant flux and interplay.” Try to imagine this Beginning Place, this Gray Maybe. “Personality” does not exist as such, for it requires Time to “realize” oneself. It might be accurate to suggest that the Original Spirits, wandering that Gray Place, experienced Being Without Identity. I have attempted to suggest this in my “A Thalmor Sonata: The Last War”, “[he] fell through endless spans of time and un-time; through space and un-space; into the sheer vastness of that Beginning Place. He wandered without form, without mind, without Time, until Padomaic necessity dissipated him into ephemeral energies, only to recombine and reform him in perpetual permutation. He wandered without thought in a Merethic bliss of infinite mythogenic echoes.” [5] It is the ultimate Amnesia: Experience Without Memory, Perception Without Identification, Sense Without Cognition. Beyond thought, emotion and regret – this is the ephemeral, primordial Chaos that only Time can shape into Something Else.

For Numidium, “Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.”

WHY?

Because Numidium was designed to escape the “presence of absence”, or the knowledge that “Life is inherently empty and unsatisfying.” But by using the Heart of Lorkhan to bring about this Escape or Amnesia Kagrenac miscalculated. For the true voice of the Heart says, “This Heart is the Heart of the World, for one was made to satisfy the other.” To fuel an escape from the world by that which most fervently desired it…and then to bind to it the shattered, tortured souls that cannot escape or forget…

Numidium is a god whose most fervent desire was to escape or forget the meaninglessness of existence. Bound to the Heart – and its love for creation – it exists in perpetual conflict. The Dwemer, in some fashion, are bound to this conflict – this god they created. And in their dissatisfaction what could that conflict be but the deepest, most excruciating Hell? Hence the “the plane(t)s and timelines that orbit it, singing world-refusals.”

Is it any wonder Numidium destroys everything around it? Imagine listening to the screams of tortured souls for all eternity knowing that your own voice is one of them…and the source of their (and your) pain.

AN END TO PAIN

Does it ever strike you that Numidium gets beat up a lot? Shouldn’t it pretty much annihilate everything? A thousand-foot tall god with the power to zero-sum people with a word…and it keeps getting destroyed.

Maybe Numidium wants to be destroyed.

Numidium, and all the souls screaming in and around it, seek release. They seek the end of Pain, Memory, and Knowledge. They seek to wander without form, without mind, without Time, until Padomaic necessity dissipates them into ephemeral energies, only to recombine and reform them in perpetual permutation, to wander without thought in a Merethic bliss of infinite mythogenic echoes.

They seek the Unknowing, the Unbeing of the Gray Maybe.

JUBAL-LUN-SUL: SAVIOR OR MANTLER

“We're finally talking the same language.”

Which brings us to the question – did Numidium get what it wanted? When Jubal cut off its head, taking it’s armor (skin) as his own, did he release Numidium and its Dwemeri souls…or has he simply mantled a god of suffering? What might Jubal’s dream look like, wearing the Numidium’s golden skin?

So swords sharp and varliance bright – we’ve much to discuss.

SOURCES/CITATIONS

[1] Epithalamium of Arimatha (and discussion) - https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gamesas.com%2Ftopic%2F1468572-the-epithalamium-of-arimatha%2Fpage-3&h=NAQF8FloP&s=1

[2] Dwemer Speculation - http://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gamesas.com%2Ftopic%2F1402722-dwemer-speculation%2Fpage-4%23entry21387707&h=4AQEl4iwr&s=1

[3] Sithis - http://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.uesp.net%2Fwiki%2FLore%3ASithis_%28book%29&h=wAQFXtk1d&s=1

[4] The Monomyth - http://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.uesp.net%2Fwiki%2FLore%3AThe_Monomyth&h=IAQF0ndvX&s=1

[5] A Thalmor Sonata: The Last War - http://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gamesas.com%2Ftopic%2F1506193-a-thalmor-sonata-the-last-war%2F&h=2AQHdSkjZ&s=1

P.S. We haven't even touched on Numidium as a Tower. Or better yet:

1. Wulfharth L

2. Hjalti O

3. Ysmir R

4. Talos K

5. Arctus H

6. Septim A

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