Okay, so big bad Alduin wants to eat the world. We're to stop him. Oversimplified, but okay. Those of us that are lore-learned can figure out some of the more nuanced goings-on with this.

But... what would the ramifications of this be? For those not in the know, Alduin the World Eater is how the Nords regard the divine entity that the Cyrodiils call Akatosh, and the one the Elves call Auri-El. Those two regard this divine entity as the essence of linear time personified, and the chief among their pantheons.

Bad things have happened in the past when people started screwing around with the power that A/A/A personifies.. The Marukhati Selectives, a leftover of the Alessian Inqusition, wanted to purge all remnants of Elvishness from their god Akatosh, and ended up causing a 1000-year Dragon Break, which essentially meant that linear time didn't exist. Tomorrow was yesterday, you aged -i years in the space of pi seconds, you were born before your father, etc. Nice job breaking time, ya zealots. The only way they know it was 1000 years is because the Khajiit were more aware of the lunar cycles than most were, and determined time from that.

It happened again when Tiber Septim carted off his tribute from the Tribunal, the dwemeri-made brass tower-golem Numidium, back in the nascent days of his empire. The mages he assigned to tinker with it managed to make a temporal toxic waste dump fiddling with Numidium trying to power it (yea thanks Tribunal for not giving me the batteries... ya punks).

And again, in Daggerfall, the retcon to explain all the varying endings of that game essentially was another dragon break, the Warp in The West. And again caused by Numidium, thanks to the Dwarves being good at futzing around with the under-the-hood workings of reality. All the endings happened, despite their mutual exclusiveness, thanks to the reality-breaking power of Numidium.


Soooo.... what will happen when we "defeat" Alduin/Akatosh/Auri-El this time? Will we get another total time-screw?

All we can agree on at this point is that it will have major ramifications for the series as a whole..

Maybe the challenge of figuring out how to kill Alduin without breaking linear time will be a major goal in the plot? A reason we can't just walk up to Alduin and smash his face in (beyond the obvious, "he's a god and would crush you")

Perhaps Bethesda thinks it's time for another Dragon Break? :shrug:

Honestly, unless this screws up the future Elder Scrolls games (which it didn't seem to do after Daggerfall), then I don't see a problem with this.

Though I am thinking there might be a part of the main quest that has you prevent this from fully happening or something. Maybe even have you experience said Dragon Break while you try to find a way to reverse it.

Alduin/Akatosh is essentially time personified. If there is time, Alduin/Akatosh is there.

I have a feeling the main quest will revolve around setting up another covenent, like Alessia originally did with Akatosh to get the Amulet of Kings. Make Alduin back off from eating the world, and we leave him alone.

Maybe we'll succeed where the Marukhati failed (sort of) and excise the Alduin persona from the Time God plane. Sort of like the plot of Shivering Isles, but not quite the same.

Time-manipulating mechanics tied to the main quest, please.