I think as this is a Lore Forum what we should discuss here is mostly the Lore aspect - nothing loathe:

Maybe the Divayth comment can be read in several ways.

Divayth is about to die? - so it would be impossible fo rhim to do this - that would be an event to rock Morrowind and the entire Elder Council!

Morrowind is passed makes it impossible ... ??? nonsense.

Divayth does not have the knowledge = impossible ... see below

Divayth would have to do a lot of extra research = highly unlikely???? I do not think so.

What would Divayth's incentive be? = it might be highly unlikely given all the new troubles that as an advisory to the Elder Council he will be wrapped up in.

Azura might get very upset with him = highly unlikely ... my reading is that they get on well and understand each other's natures ...

please add one-liners if you see more impossibles/unlikelys


The Nerevarine's 'cure' has been rumoured to be a one off, unrepeatable - anyone know for sure? Anyways = irrelevant

Azura owes Divayth for his transmutation of the effects of coprus on the Nerevarine - an important step in her stated plans

Divayth Fyr is an avid researcher! Just try and stop him if Yagrum desires this ... or if Divayth gets interested himself ...

Divayth Fyr is not only fascinated by Bagrum, Bagrum is a friend.

Divayth's clones do not share his memories.

There are 2 kinds of evolution:

Darwinian is the physical kind - the other Lamarkian is cultural evolution ...

Cultural
Proweller - I'm sure you know perfectly well that little Dwemer grow up to be big Dwemer by learning from other Dwemer - and Bagrum is a Dwemer.

I'm perfectly certain that between them Divayth, Bagrum and the 4 wives are quite capable of teaching little Dwemer about being good Dwemer and that the little Dwemer are entirely capable of inventing ways to become bad Dwemer without any help from anyone (even you). So please be sensible in your arguments. Cargo children are what happens to children brought up in a situation where they are denied healthy stimulous and education.

Bagrum may not entirely be his former self but he is perfectly able to remember his entire search for other Dwemer and speculate most interestingly about Kagrenac etc = he remembers so much about his people - that's part of what keeps him relatively sane. he built his walker when the physical effects of the Coprus became overwhelming. He remembers enough to teach a bunch of kids thankin you.

You might ask would Bagrum himself want to do this? Talk to Bagrum himself - he desperately misses his people - surely no one is insensitive to that fact?

Divayth started his clones as an experiment - but clearly has become quite fond of them and they of him ... would he want to do this for his old friend?

Would Azura permit Bagrum to live if she did not hold him to blame? No. Therefore if she holds Bagum to be innocent/punished enough - then if it is possible for Dwemer to be cloned from him they are free of her ire provided they do not mess with stuff that she finds repulsive she is unlikely to object. Caring, clemency, love and nurturing are part of her expressed nature.

I've been given a very hard time for suggesting that SF is out of order learn about Pelinal - however I find Dwemer 'science' appropriate.

And finally I think an overwhelming number of Morrowind fans would find such a new beginning utterly poignant and romantic.


If the devs believe it will not fit their current plans then you are perfectly free to MOD IT!

To which I'd say, if American civilisation were wiped from the planet, would some slightly insane scientist, say, Carl Sagan, brain rattled from being displaced from his time period, be able to "recreate" it with a collection of his clones and some old relics? While living in a hole in the ground? Could you recreate American culture alone? Could we recreate the ancient Egyptians with a pharaoh and some of his offspring? If your answer to any of these questions is yes, then it makes me despair. It takes a whole village to raise a child, but a culture, we can do that with one remnant? That the greatest and most important cultural unit is the individual could itself be considered a mistaken cultural belief.

I've been talked through your enthusiasm for science enough, so what happens when an experiment isn't just subject to observer-expectancy effect, but its results are dictated by it? This is where the "historical recreationist fallacy" I mentioned earlier comes from. Because no matter how much you know about the middle ages, and how much you enjoy swinging swords, you're never going to have the same perspective as someone from the middle ages. Yes, even if a displaced knight dundles you on hisknee and "teaches culture" to you. Same goes for Dwemer. No matter how you you try to project your own recreationist enthusiasm onto a few babies and a sole survivor of that dead civilisation, the result would be a model family built around implied Dwemer cultural supremacy and the experiences of one individual divorced from his own relevancy. Which would be eery and off in a way that deserves its own story. This is imitation held up as authenticity. Baudrillard stuff.

As far as whether they're Altmer or Dwemer, it's to the same end. What made them Dwemer was psychology, not biology, which at the time wasn't radically different from the Aldmer from which they both split, and whose physiological ideal the Altmer have struggled to retain.


Nah, I'm not entirely convinced they wanted to break the Aurbis so much as remove themselves entirely from it. Whether breaking it was a requirement, I don't know.

If you make the whole thing into a horror story then that's what it will feel like to people reading your post then they will feel that your post is a horror story, but that does not mean that they will not continue to see a new dwemer start as a step towards the future.

The nature of civilisation and life itself is change. Being dog in the manger and denying any opportunity for change won't make much impression.

Divayth has already created a family of his own using clones - why would he not create a small Dwemer community by the same process and for similar reasons? In the eyes of those clones Bagrum would not be a monster and he would not be alone - I am sure that Divayth would make an excellent teacher as he was well acquainted with Dwemer culture ... you seem to be unnecessarily overdramatising the issue.

I don't see where you're getting the horror from. I'm saying getting that authentic dwemer feeling would be as fake as the authentic Mexican experience of Taco Bell. Nothing here is monstrous so much as it's phony. Supplied with a handful of biologically suitable clones, no one is fit to recreate a society. Especially not scholars, who have their own biases. It's like thinking you can be Chinese by learning feng shui, wearing a changshan and knowing Romance of the Three Kingdoms by heart.

In other words, the experiment is based on the idea there is such a thing as a True Scotsmen. And an expert on True Scotsmen is going to know how to bring up little Scotsmen to be True Scotsmen. In Barbados.

I ask again; "if American civilisation were wiped from the planet, would some slightly insane scientist, say, Carl Sagan, brain rattled from being displaced from his time period, be able to "recreate" it with a collection of his clones and some old relics?"

The distinction you focus on between impossible and unlikely is irrelevant. Both point out it's not going to happen because if he's not incapable of recreating the Dwemer, he has no will to perform such an act.

Divayth created his 'doughters' to help him with his research and the upkeep of Tel Fyr, I assume. I don't think Divayth or Yagrum would even suggest trying to clone a dwemer race. Yagrum wants to find his people, not recreate them, and Divayth is just going to try to help his friend. At this point Yagrum will not want to stop his search. I also believe that Yagrum will die searching for his people, and so will any hope of cloning the dwarven race.

I'm glad you agree but I think it's a bit foolish to realize your argument is sloppy and then continue to argue it.

The dwemer ghost in the ruins below mournhold retains his original identity, if somewhat aloof. (Then again, being aloof is one of the defining characteristics of the culture.) The only evidence that all dwemer specters dont have a similar condition is the fact that they try to roast your face off on sight. Like I mentioned, this could either be because they couldnt handle their revenant status, or it could be because they are seriously pissed off by people storming into "their old haunts" and tearing [censored] up.

Assuming they have retained their identities and culture even in death, then they will have retained the habits of daily life.

I am not suggesting putting only 1 or 2 ghosts into animunculus bodies... I mean, more on the scale of 500+ in animunculus bodies, before attempting to (re)create a dwemer settlement, and using kidnapping as a form of procreation to restart a biological society.

Granted, living in a bunker below ground will adversely effect the end product. This could only be done above ground.



The idea you have of "Brain in a jar tries to recreate America" is not the slant I was going. I am well aware that it takes a village to raise a child into a culture, because the child has to see the interactions of many many other people in order to learn how to operate within that society. Thus, in order to recreate the society, the society must already be "Alive"-- I would accomplish that by re-gifting as many dwemer ghosts with artificial bodies as was inhumanly possible, possibly getting the newly embodied dwemer themselves to assist in the effort, until a fully functional (if reproductively impaired) society is bustling with activity.

THEN the baby snatching occurs.

If you mean repopulating the race as a species than I'd say impossible, baring some serious devine intervention. If you mean repopulating th race as a culture than still impossible, again baring divine intervention.

As it seems most dwemer ghosts have sunk pretty far below sanity, I doubt putting them into some kind of physical body would result in more than having them attcking on sight with these physcal bodies rather than like they did as ghosts.

And with such a reduced sample, there's only the slimmest chance you can get a complete enough sample of dwemer culture and knowledge to recreate them.

Why do you think so? A society is a collection of individual people living and working together with a shared set of ideals, and thoughts on how one should live their lives, and what is important in life (and even death.)

That is the basis of culture, custom, and ceremony.

We have a unique opportunity, because the culture itself is NOT fully dead. It lives on in sentient apparitions, who are remorseful that what once was now lies in ruins, they are powerless to change that.

Giving them bodies would give them the opportunity to invoke that change. that is how you rebuild the society-- By giving them a second chance.

What comes out of it, is ultimately their decision. that's how I would proceed.




As for the ghosts being insane? The only basis we have for that is the fact that they try to roast your face off.. I have given several very good reasons why even a sane ghost would want to do that. Namely, people (adventurers over the course of 2 millenia) constantly bust into their homes, and take their stuff! Wouldn't YOU try to roast their faces off too!?

Ah, I think I follow you now. If given living bodies to inhabit than it would be possible to repopulate the Dwemer. Wierder things have happened in TES lore so its not outside the realm possiblity, though they'd need the intervention of another agency be it mortal or devine or both. Though I have doubts on how they'd function in modern society, which would distrust them. Plus there's the fact that the Dwemer have every reason to distrust those very same people back.

And I never said the Dwemer were insane, I found them to be a kindred spirit. And them roasting your face off when you go into their homes? Thats not because any perceived offense they have at your 'trespass' but very bad game mechanics. Could you imagine the Ghosts appealing to you for aid in getting new bodies? That would've made for a kick-ass storyline.

Spirits that linger too long in the mortal world become mad.

Really? that ghost under mournhold seems quite salient. He is every bit as old as the other specters.

Yes, they do. But, how a spirit that maintains his sanity depends on the willpower and the circumstances it was bound. Usually, spirits become mad. It's all in http://www.imperial-library.info/mwbooks/ancestor.shtml.

Given the large number of ghosts, I am quite sure that one could find a sufficient number of non-mentally challenged ones.


Also, the ghosts that this book describes are ones that have had access to the dreaming sleeve, which is 'Soft, warm, nice, and comforting.' The dwemer ghosts apparently have never had access to such a thing. Likely this connection to Mundus's recycling center was severed by Kagrenac when he created Numidium-- the connection being substituted with a connection to the numidium, a connection which now leads nowhere, since the numidium is destroyed/inoperable.

The best anolog to the situation is with the revenants found the Battlespire. Many are indeed quite mad. Others, not so much. Just in extreme discomfort.

Personally, I don't believe it's important whether they had access to the Dreamsleeve or not as all spirits know deep down they don't belong in Mundus or that they shouldn't stay too long.



I never played Battlespire. Sorry.

http://www.imperial-library.info/tsobs/part03.shtml

More revealing into the affairs of ghosts. True, these ones are also mad, but are so by the power of necromancy enthralling their minds. Not all of them are fully bonkers.

Re: whathisfaceinMournhold and others; you are forgetting the law of plot convenience. The same thing that justifies Yagram's continued existence.

But incarnating a bunch of 4,000 year old vengeful and mad spirits in living bodies to restore a dead race? Sounds foolproof.

Postscript: I'd point out a similar sort of idea - and accompanying existential crisis - occurs in M John Harrison's Viriconium, where it's probably some form of attack on the SF trope of the ancient and powerful civilisation but: 1, I don't think anyone's going to actually pick it up despite my recommendations; 2, those that do will probably hate it; 3, my repeated affirmations of Harrison's genius are becoming tiresome even to me.

Read Viriconium - decades ago ... and Harrison wrote a lot of books I liked.

The Dwemer Specter that talks sensibly might have done so simply because you actually had business with it.

When they died the Dwemer were at war with other races and in addition to trespass that might also have something to do with their attitude.

Kagrenac had to know what the effect of his creation would be on his race - so he was a total hokerr - unsurprising that the people he kidnapped and extinguished would be generally angry.

It's a sensible point about the nature of the visitors generally being thieves, bandits and looters ... how many players failed to loot Dwemer artifacts?

Why is it normal for ghosts in Tombs to attack people and not for Dwemer Specters to do the same?

and clearly the Devs could not be bothered to add more conversation for a bunch of dead beings - plus they did not intend to make understanding the fate of the Dwemer clear ...



The sense of Bagrum's desire to find them and his strength of commitment regarding that is well made.

But if events conspired to offer new opportunities why would he not change his mind. Time heals many things and offers new hope. I believe it can be argued either way and therefore the arguments that are solely against are fundamentally subborned by subjective preference. It's ok by me if you don't like the idea ... not so sure that trying to overwhelm the arguments of others that do like the idea is quite so reasonable when your arguments are based on personal preferance/prejudice.

Dwemer like underground habitats - turning their wonderful 'caverns' into 'holes' in the mind of the reader bespeaks a wish to prejudice = 'horror story' - that's what that statement means.

Singled out from a post much longer than I originally intended, it bespeaks nothing. I was referring to Yagrum's current whereabouts, which, last I recall, was more or less a hole. Hole, in the context, was intended bespeak unpalatable surrounds and isolation from the cultural institutions informing the long gone Dwemer. If I wanted to paint a picture of horror, hole barely cuts it as an emotive word.

As for personal preferences, that's baffling, considering I spoke largely on the authenticity of the recreation. I'm not capable of "overwhelming the arguments of others" when those others have hands with which to justify their ideas.

Edit: That's not to say that I don't find the topic the distasteful pursuit to justify fanwank, which in such cases, I find worth asking not "can we" but "should we". Hence the orientalism comparisons.

You were seriously suggesting that anyone thought a group of clones would be brought up in the Coprusarium? :facepalm:

How about Bagrum and Fyr create a brand new Dwemer dwelling with no doubt the eager assistance of a certain Telvanni Master who is absolutely fascinated by all things Dwemer?

Not sure what your new word in the last para there means actually ... unless it's any group of people who have enthusiastic ideas that diverge from yours ...

Face it - some people like the idea of a restart to the Dwemer - for various reasons and they see it as having strong Lore compatibility for more reasons.

You might have strong reasons for opposing it, but in this case you have not been persuasive in your rebuttal.

Dwemer specters are not cognizant of their existence. All specters do are attack outsiders. That you are able to talk to one of them is nice, but most definitely a plot-enabled novelty.

As for getting this "Dwemer settlement" started... What makes anyone think, that by somehow putting the specters into (animuculi) bodies will remove or cure their insanity? After 4000 years as spirits in such states, I don't think they can be cured.

Just for your information :dance: : http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FanWank
If that is what you meant.

I don't think so.

And why? Because they've existed in ruins for thousands of years alongside animunculi and never once seemed to use them as bodies. So, it seems it can't be done. Maybe becuase the spirits are, in fact, mad.