The Adamantine Tower is supposedly the site of the original convention which defined the world as we know it, and it was at that convention that the heart was separated from Lorkhan. Today, of course, the Adamantine Tower is little more than a haunted site that recently served as the prison of Medora Direnni. I have also heard talk of a "Zero Tower" and a "Zero Stone" Is Adamantine the Zero Tower? If so, what's the Zero Stone? If not, what is Adamantine's stone?

I am working on a project that requires I disentangle this concept as best is possible.

I don't know if I've ever heard anything beyond a throwaway refrence. I'm not sure at this point in the series it's ever been directly stated what the Stone of Zero Tower is. I hope I'm wrong here, since I was always interested in Adamantine Tower.

Zero Tower is it's own tower and stone. It's both in one.

That would explain a bit...

Actually, the Convention itself is the Zero Stone. http://www.imperial-library.info/obscure_text/nu-hatta_nu-mantia.shtml#4

'The Impossipoint of the Convention.'

The ineffable moment when things became real, Year 0 that never existed, or the pre- Big Bang particle, I don't know. Wierd actually said something useful about it once. Also referenced in MK's post about Numidium's destructive siege of Alinor.

The convention was the stone; the tower (or vessel), the tower? And perhaps the departure of the Gods from the World represented the departure of the Stone from the Tower. A stone was still needed to anchor reality, so Lorkhan's Heart was planted in its place?

It's difficult to pin down the exact "history" of the creation of the various towers. I'm starting to get the impression that Tamriel is the origin of all the races, and is the actual identity of the supposedly lost continents. The coming together of the Gods means the coming together of the Worlds, which were doomed as a result of this coming together... but could the (twelve?) worlds have been twelve version of Tamriel, each on their own timeline, which were abandoned as everybody streamed onto one Tamriel, and subsequently tried to craft their own corner into a version that resembles the whole of their former, isolated world?

But, of course, this totally conflicts with the scholastically accepted timelines.

This doesn't look right, either. But it's the best description of the image in my head I can come up with at present.

A strange feature to the geography of Tamriel: The two original towers, and the one crafted to mimic the first one as closely as possible, lie on the periphery of the continent, while the one most removed from the original purpose of the first tower lies at the heart. Suddenly I find myself with an image of a massively mythic continental drift rearranging the towers to push that of Akatosh and his closest imitators to the periphery, and that of the daedra-dealing Ayleids to the center, caused by the padomaic Maruhkti... echoing the removal of Lorkhan's heart, but in reverse.

God, lore is bizarre!

By god, http://www.imperial-library.info/obscure_text/nu-hatta_nu-mantia.shtml#5

By god, the boy's a genius!

I've read Nu-Hatta, and I just re-read the Monomyth yet again, and realized something. Is it just me, or are the Convention and the Ehlnofex Wars the same events, told in different ways?

(Next stop: The Tscaeci Creation Myth, an at least partial understanding of which is necessary to my project...)

It's not just you.

Tarvok,

I like it. What exactly is this project of yours? It sounds most fascinating indeed.

I kinda' got that feeling myself. Nice to know that we're not crazy for thinking that.

Now, you've just got to wonder what the Aedra had that made the Daedra so envious...

Thanks for starting this thread Tavrok - I feel I have understood some things better through reading this. Forgive my repeating bits to get at something more.

A sequence of odd things that have been niggling at me start with this passage:
It sort of rings a bell with the 'disappearance' of the Dwemer.

And this bit too: Basically it seems to say that the 'Gods' are not Gods ... we knew they could die - but this implies a lot more - I suppose you might say they are diminished - as Vivec described his fate when discussing options with the Nerevarine.

This next bit has some real bite too: so knowing that those that remained would no longer be Gods or Divine as stated they had to replace the Divine - and that makes me think that the death of Lorkhan aka Shor was a ritual sacrifice rather than simple murder. But this makes a nonsense of an oft (here on the forums) stated mer position that they wish to undo the towers - because the mer built them:


Therefore the mer that want to destroy the Towers are renegade - and always were.

If your mod is to address more than the past of this matter then I believe you have to ask 'which tower will next be threatened and by whom or what.

One more detail: It appears that he arrived in a Void/space craft ... and so we must ask is that true of the mer? Are the mer 'space-travellers' and some wish to return to travelling in space?

If this route is followed far enough then we have Star Trek (poor old ship lost far beyond known space) and that old Space Odessy wassitsname TV series where Starbuck, Adama & co seek to return to Earth to find help re-interpreted - with an interesting addit - the mer do not really seem to know which star system or world it was they originally came from. But right now they are stuck in a sort of temporal trap that recycles them and everything else ...

I look at more along the lines of the war being part of the Convention. The Convention begins with the Aedra convening to try and figure out what to do with Nirn, Lorkhan is exiled in the process which then brings on the war. The Aedra defeat Lorkhan, make the second tower and then leave/sacrifice themselves, bringing a close to the Convention.

As the Intercept says:

"After these two acts, which is commonly called the Convention, the gods left the earth."

The "two acts" mentioned are the creation of the two towers (Ada-mantia & Red), the war occurs in between the creation of the towers, so I think it's safe to say that the war occurred within the Convention.

It's basically just saying, regardless of what happens to the spirits after the Convention that their actions there will last.

I'm more inclined to take it as: all those who decided to stay and help out with the Convention, now that time is in place, can no longer return to what they were before (hence, lost all "hold on divinity")...

"They", those that are left, don't replace the divine - the Towers stabilize everything and remove the need for the divine presence.

Also, the mer aren't all of one mindset, and mindsets change over time.

Indeed which is why they build new Towers, they had all different views about it, which is pretty much happening now as we speak in Summurset. Another dividing of the Mer.

I'm inclined to agree with Luagar on the idea that Nu-Hatta was referencing the Gods in that some left (eg. Magnus) while others remained to stabilise the world.
However, I it does spark off my mind to do with the Dwemer's disappearance.
From what I understand of time/Godhood/Dragon Breaks when a mortal achieves Godhood they are in effect a God forever, both forwards and backwards in time, such as Talos and the Worm God.
If I'm not mistaken the events of Red Mountain and the Tribunal's 'ascension' in effect caused a Dragon Break... add the Dwemer's disappearance to this... could it be said that the Dwemer NEVER existed?
I know this doesn't really stand up due to the history books and people's memory etc, but it just crept into my mind as I was reading.

It's certainly a fun idea. Even though the 'remnants' of their culture and the wraiths in their ruins give it the lie I am not totally against it.

Mickymoomoo,

As far as I understand the Dragonbreak phenomenon, it affects time only to change the status of the ascended. It does not eliminate basic facts (such as the Dwemer), but merely reconciles timeliness that were broken by meshing them together. Since the Dwemer never interfered with the Tribunal's apotheosis (moreover they were the cause of it) there would be no cause for them to disappear from the collective consciousness and be uncreated. Their division by zero is certainly enough in my mind.

Hope that makes some sense,
Ayaan-Si

I knew it wouldn't be true, there is of course the very evidence that they DID exist to disprove the theory, but I find it fun never the less. Even the God's who ascended did not lose their history however, there was still an emperor and Mannimarco still existed, yet at the same time Talos as a 'God' has existed forever yet only began in the middle somewhere. In the same way, could it be said the Dwemer, whilst having existed in the historical sense, in the metaphysical sense they never did? I don't know if that makes sense.

http://www.imperial-library.info/tsomw/mw_18.shtml, Vivec revealed to the Nerevarine that: "I have no idea what happened to the Dwemer. I have no sense of them in the timeless divine world outside of mortal time."

The Dwemer left Nirn AND AE in a quick flash, and they either:

A.) Touched the face of the God they hated so much, they longed to be like.

Or

B.) [censored]gasmed out of existence.

Maybe the zeroed out of existance adds up to this: - or the 'face of the god' they touched was Sithis's ... man, that might take an Argonian a long time to say.

Why not? They've been touching his heart for years! Mytheopoeically speaking.