Recently I have been very into the lore of the Elder Scrolls universe and what I understand is 2 primal forces Anu, who brings order and Padomay/Sithis brings chaos. These two created The Etaedra which consists of Daedra and Aedra, Daedra being The beings of change and Aedra being the creators of Mundus and gave parts of themselves so that Nirn can be created. During Nirns creation Magnus, decided not to carry on his part of the creation and left for Aetherius where magic comes from. At some point Lorkhans heart was pulled out to be used as the life-force for Nirn and life then started to develop.

I just have a few questions about all of this;

Aetherius is where souls go to after you die is it the opposite of oblivion, so possible the creation of Anu?

After the creation of Mundus Aedra lost there immortality. So who created the Daedric princes Planes of oblivion if they're only capable of change? and why didn't they lose there immortality?

Could Aedra originally of came from Aetherius?

Mer where about before men, where these the creations smaller Aedra who gave themselves completely?

I'm sorry it's quite long and if any of it is wrong, and any mistakes could you correct me instead of being immature, thanks.

There is no maturity here, but I'll endeavor to help.

Thanks for all the help cleared a lot of things up. Just one more thing, but it is a spoiler for Skyrims main plot line if its okay to ask?

This being the lore forum, spoilers are inherent. Ask away.

Yeah a general rule of thumb is that spoilers are always okay down here. This is where you go when you know the hows but want the whys.

Oh okay well, Alduin has the ability to pass in and out of Sovangarde (which resides in Aetherius) to eat the souls of dead Nords to regain his strength, does this mean that he was probably the only being to fully understand what it is? Being the only one gifted with this power?

Alduin is an aedra (more or less). He should be able to pass through to Aetherius basically in this matter.

Odahviing did say something about Alduin keeping Sovngarde as his personal lunchbox jealously, so that might imply that he might not be the only one being able to do so.

Well, first of all, I'm not sure that we're sure that Sovngarde is in Aetherius. All that I'm sure of is that Sovngarde is not a manifestation of the Dream Sleeve.

Second, are you asking if Alduin is the only being to fully understand Sovngarde - or Aetherius - because he can access it? Well, it depends on what you mean by fully understand. He certainly has the power and know-how to get there without being invited. This speaks of him as a higher being than an "ordinary dragon" as some here on the forums have chosen to label him. I have no idea how he created a portal to Sovngarde. The difficulty of the task really depending upon where it is located. If Sovngarde is just on Masser or Secunda, that'd be considerably easier than say Aetherius.

I think you ought to move away from the Aetherius angle. Aetherius is only important as the place where magic comes from so far.

Sovngarde is Shor's world, but more on that in a second. Alduin can pass in and out because of the nigh-unbreakable mythic links between Lorkhan and Akatosh. Otherwise, how can they fight each other?

As for what I mean by "Shor's world," I'm going to backpedal. The generally accepted theory here for a long time was that when a person dies in TES their soul is re-integrated into this massive oversoul called the Dreamsleeve (which is also used to skype on Altmer spaceships, apparently). However, there are seemingly living people in Shivering isles and in Bloodmoon a ghost made reference to Sovngarde as an afterlife (an idea which was rediscovered during the events of the expansion and had spread across Skyrim in the intervening centuries). This led to two camps, one of which I am firmly in: That all afterlives are hallucinogenic interpretations of the un-understandable Dreamsleeve (which I doubt) is the first. The second was that there were multiple afterlives, but now there seems a middle path: Daedra and Shor can interrupt re-integration until Alduin wins and the world starts over. That's what I think. So werewolves live forever with Hircine until time ends, then they, too, begin anew in the dreamsleeve and are eventually spat back out anew and different.

Sorry about my less of knowledge on the series, what I haven't read in books I have gotten from UESP so its just a jumbled lot of mess to be honest, with all the different gods. Got any advice on where to really start about reading all this lore? I'm really interested in it and want to read more.

http://www.imperial-library.info/ has all the books and some handy fan-made guides, and avoid UESP for lore stuff.

EDIT: Also I'm proud of you. I brought up Altmer space-skype and not so much as a double take.

Imperial library http://www.imperial-library.info/

Not Skype on the spaceships.

It's more like the internet

But it is used to transmit communications from Altmer spaceships (because regular letters are too slow).

And yes...there is space travel in TES.

UESP is superb for gameplay stuff. It's not too bad for lore, but TIL is better because it has more direct sources.

I like to call it space skype. It's basically the same idea, long-range instantaneous communications.

EDIT: IN SPACE.

Try Lady Nerevar's http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1112211-how-to-become-a-lore-buff/ first.

I've heard about this before and I've noticed it in MK's writing a lot. A lot of posters also use it in their tok-talk. Is it referenced in any in-game sources?

Not really.

Battlespire if I remember it correctly mentions it in passing.

I must skipped right past you putting that so High elves have space ships in which they communicate through skype, my head imploded


Cheers for the link, seems like a great thread to get everything off

TES has little sprinkles of sci-fi.

Imperials have spaceships as well...Vivec might too, but that's dependent on how serious Kirkbride was when writing in character.

Same goes for Prof. Numinatus, who is TES's version of Dr. Who.

Battlespire is so far the only game to directly tackle the "Oblivion is Tamriel's Space" angle. It's present but not important elsewhere (mananauts in the Pocket Guide, for example, means that the idea was present up to and including Oblivion).

Wait so they've mastered space travel but not how to make toilets? I wonder how they launch into space... I imagine something involving rubber bands,

Part of it is that you need to abandon most preconceptions of Reality As You Know It in order to really get what the ES universe is about. For instance - space travel is not achieved via technological means. It's magic and myth bent into a shape roughly anologous to technology, at least as the Altmer do it. If you're less aesthetically inclined, you can make some modifications to a regular sailing ship and explore space.

Beyond that, the Aedric realm isn't at all like what we understand it to be. The stars you look up at in the night sky aren't balls of fusion shedding light, nor are the nebulae gas floating in space - they're rips and tears in the outer extent of infinite Oblivion leading into Aetherius, from when Magnus and his children/followers fled from Convention. There are a grand total of nine planets in Mundus (I think Mundus is the right term. The Aurbis is everything, all three realms, right?) and each one aside from Nirn (on which you find Tamriel) is also a God or Goddess - the Earthbones or Aedra.

So mastering spaceflight isn't a matter of technological advancement like it was for us here in the real world governed by immutable physical laws. It was a matter of magic (in order to facilitate the flight itself) and I believe mythic understanding/emulation (the first space vessel was the Time Dragon God's - Ada-Mantium, on which Convention took place). I'm not too certain about that last one though - after all, Cyrus was able to fly by strapping (Sloads? Something related to them?) to the side of his pirate ship and poking them with sticks.

Sorry if this just opens up more questions than it answers, but that's kind of how TES is.

It's a question of reverse-engineering, I tend to believe (personal opinion, ho!) since the gods have magical spaceships but, to the best of our knowledge, do not pass waste there were magical spaceships like Adamantine Tower to reverse-engineer but no toilets. Which is why in Skyrim forts you find the toilet-buckets in quiet corners.

In my head canon, the altmer don't poop, because it's a lesser mannish function. Or something like that.

Orcs worship poop (Malacath is the god of crap).