Dawn's Beauty is a Daedric realm, but not Dagon's birthright. There are Aedra, but they were never fellows of the Daedra Princes. They are the people and divines of Tamriel, mortalized once-daedra that embody change (they can even change into Gods, and maybe a new Daedric Prince, if blessed by the Duality). The Daedra Princes are fellows of the dead/changed Daedric Prince of Change, Lorkhan, all of whom are planned, splintered facets of the Anu-Magnus/Padomay-Akatosh duality, immortal creation Magic and temporal destruction Entropy, whose reality-churning conflict powers the universe.

Lorkhan cut the cord binding his creations, his lieutenants (all the various divines) and the mortal races of Tamriel, to the Wells of Oblivion, drastically shortening their lives and accelerating the rate at which they, and Tamriel, change. The only way he could do this was to cut his own cord, which he did by instigating his own murder (willing-suicide, like Neil Gaiman's Sandman) by his divines. They inherited rulership (like the new Sheogorath) but could not restore Dawn's Beauty to be like the other Daedric planes, since that power resides only with the Duality, which gave their Princes free rein to construct and run each plane.

Change rules Lorkhan's realm, Dawn's Beauty. To keep this stable, and make it last any time at all, the divine lieutenants created the Towers through the mortal races, but they too change and fall, and when the last one changes the Realm of Dawn's Beauty will pull the ultimate change, cease to be coherent, and so, in this zero-sum way, be again an "unchanging" plane of Oblivion... until Magnus/Akatosh returns a mortal, instilled with the power of a Daedric Prince, to Dawn's Beauty to restart the mythic cycle.*

Mortal-useable controls on the rate of change are the doomstones, which accelerate (birthstones shock the system by changing a mortal's fate) and temper (daedric stones pull stabilizing power from other planes) change (as Sheogorath's Madness is tempered by the crystals of order).

Dagon figures that he can take over Dawn's Beauty since there is no Prince to oppose him, but Akatosh always steps in to preserve Lorkhan's Plan. Dagon can't change his own Plan, so he'll never stop, however many times he's banished.

* There are those who say that if anyone figures out this ultimate question, the universe will be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. Others maintain this already happened, multiple times.

Naah, Dagon just wants to Leap again. He is an addict desperatly trying to get his fix.

Other than that, I will leave this to those who know more than I.

You are making one very flawed assumption: You are acting as if the term "Daedra" is accurate and useful. It is a stupid term with no bearing in metaphysical TES concepts. The first step to get your idea taken seriously is to stop using that term.

Why does Akatosh prevent Dagon intruding on "Lorhkan's Realm" when Akatosh is one of the Divines who instigated Lorkhan's death in the first place?

Why is it inaccurate? What do you propose they should be called?
Or did I misunderstand something?

He's talking about the elven connotation of Aedra and Daedra which signifies their ancestors. It's pretty accurate except when you apply it to Lorkhan as he did participate in creation like the other Aedra but no Altmer would consider Lorkhan to be one of his ancestors.

Works fine, just not for Lorkhan.

From the OP's point of view, Lorkhan was a Daedric Prince, but made himself the first divine by causing his own (and therefore his creation's) binding to the wells to be severed.

Daedra specifies those who are still bound to the Wells of Oblivion (souls created in other Princes' realms), divines/aedra refer to those who were but are now not (Lorkhan's lieutenants, and their descendents the mer), and truly mortal refers to those who never were (men). The aedra of the mer descend from the divines, and like the divines remember (racially) and hate their diminishment, and very much hate their own Prince, Lorkhan, for his role in it. (spoiler) Umaril was aedra till he bound himself to the Wells, at which point he became daedra, and fulfilled one goal of the mer. All the various people try to become gods to restore their immortality: stolen, from a certain point of view; just part of Lorkhan's Plan for his creation, from another. But since the Plan was change, all types of change are allowed.

Well, in the OP's cosmology, Akatosh isn't just a divine/aedra, he's part of the central Duality, and like Magnus always stood apart from the diminished lieutenants. That's why he still exists and has such power, when (spoiler) it takes all the divines' help to unseat daedric Umaril.

By expelling Dagon, Akatosh is keeping the order of all the various Planes.

It goes like this: Anu/Padomay create everything, but it's boring, bursts of magic fading instantly. To make things more interesting, they create 17 Daedric Princes: the 16 that still live, and Lorkhan. To communicate with the Princes, the Duality of Anu/Padomay takes the forms of Magnus and Akatosh. Each Prince is the archetype and embodiment of a concept, and creates a realm according to a Plan, which promotes that concept. Lorkhan's concept is change, and his Plan was to create a plane, Dawn's Beauty or Tamriel, in which the widest possible changes could occur. As a daedric (bound to the Wells of Oblivion) prince, Lorkhan created lieutenants for himself (daedra at this time), and arranged to have himself killed to mortalize (make aedra) of everything in his Plane. He did this to increase the rate of change, viz. the other daedric planes. The divines didn't like Lorkhan "stealing" their immortality one bit (nor do their descendents the mer), and did everything they could to slow the rate of change in Dawn's Beauty (earthbones, Towers (which also keep Realms separate), etc.) Men were a separate creation, were never divine, so their racial memory glorifies Lorkhan for creating them.

Where are you getting this all from?

My own synthesis of all the lore I've read, shocked into place and crystallized in this form by what Mankar said in the Oblivion endgame. Not from the developers. This is the first theory I've read that, to me, makes more sense the more lore I read, and can explain all sorts of other things to me. If course, I came up with it, so that's kind of expected. I appreciate people trying to poke holes in it, it just makes it stronger.

*clap*clap*clap*clap*clap*clap*clap*clap*


(has nothing else to say because he didn't listen enough to camoran's rambleings)

...What a devine domonstration of knowlegde. May I ask, are you CHIM?

you got one thing right, it certainly mkes things alot more clear. I'd like to see if someone can cripple this theory, (no offence, but if there is a flaw I'd like to know what) thanks for clearlign up the whole foggy buisness of Lorkhan, the divines and daedric princes.

Well you have the basics down, but you're slipping up in lots of small ways. I can't point them all out and allot of them are about nuances, but here are the major points.

In your first post you mention that the Doom Stones control change, but there is nothing to suggest that is what they do. As far as we know they're enchanted rocks.

In your second post you mention that Lorkhan was a Daedric Prince. The difference between Aedra and Daedra however is typically defined by their part or absence in the creation of Mundus. I assume that you are confusing it with alignment to Anu and Padomay.

There also is no such thing as 'the wells of Oblivion'. Only the the Seducers and Saints have these wellsprings because Sheogorath created them and they act like a beacon, not so much as a point of origin.
The idea that they (and Umaril) are connected to a Daedra isn't that far out though.

You also mention that all people try to become gods to restore their immortality, however there is a distinction in this. It's described in 'Spirit of Nirn' and comes down to the point that Man and Mer have different idea's about the world. While both might entail immortality, both are radically different goals.

In your third post you mix up on the creation. Anu and Padomay create the Aurbis, but it wasn't boring. Things were coming into existence and dying all the time. Much like the mortal world is now and Vehks teachings actually note that this is what Lorkhan yearned to return too.

Then Akatosh/Auri-El came about and created time. This caused the et'Ada to be immortal and as a result the et'Ada could life long enough to split the Auribis into realms made of Void and realms made of Magic. Occasionally they destroyed a few on each side, but this is what Lorkhan thought of as boring.

edit:

anolysis of your previous purchases at Lore.com have shown that you might also like:

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=732348&st=40&p=10627645&hl=Aedra%20%20%20lairs&#entry10627645
http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=646953&st=0&p=9388991&hl=Aedra%20%20%20lairs&#entry9388991
http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=714862&st=0&p=10316539&#entry10316539

I thought the Void was the magic? You know..Aetherius

Where did you read that?

hold on a sec, let me look it up. I'll post the link.

I'm aware that I'm redefining some things here, since the point is to establish a slightly different creation story which explains a bit better what's going on in the present. I'm bound to step on a few toes of established creation lore, but my hope is that this new story rings truer and reconciles more disparate elements than any established one. Since I'm not a loremaster by far, I might fail at this. But since the devs probably welcome variety over dictating "this is how it happened", at the very least this could be the equivalent of another book gathering dust in the library of the Ysmir Collective.

In http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=820329, I'm thinking of making this the worldview of the Falmer before they were exterminated, interbred, and lost their culture and civilization. I'll probably just hint at this by a few almost indecipherable inscriptions. I agree with another post around here: having a bunch of Falmer ruins on the surface of Skyrim would be absurd, given the history of genocide between the Nords and Falmer, and the Nord attitude of wiping them out even after death in Fall of the Snow Prince.



Agreed, the Arcane University lectures seem to say they're pre-road waypoints. I was inspired by the crystals in the Shivering Isles to connect them to a deeper purpose. In any event, this isn't key to the theory.



Since I'm writing a creation story, not parroting or consolidating the ones already out there, I'm redefining what aedra and daedra mean. I don't think I'm too far off though, because (1) Lorkhan's lieutenants did help create and stabilize the very changeable proto-Nirn, and (2) all of who I call aedra (the lieutenants and their descendents the mer) are I think considered aedra, at least by the mer. I do exclude men (and probably hist) from the aedra category, considering men truly mortal. Not sure yet where to put the hist, they'd be very close to aedra, but definitely not divine. Maybe the descendents of one of Lorkhan's lieutenants, a treant archetype instead of a mer archetype.



At this point I'd like to retcon "wells" to "waters". I meant to refer to the place where the souls go when killed or banished, and I understand that the Wells just guide a daedra back to reincarnate in the same place. My point in the story is that the original aedra were daedra who lost the ability to go to the Waters of Oblivion and return. Lorkhan took this radical step all the way (even allowing himself to be dismembered and effectively dead), to make Dawn's Beauty more changeable than any other plane, since he himself would not be around to hold it back with his unchanging nature. (One of the rules of being a Daedric Prince is that *you* can't change your Plan. This still leaves room for the remaining Princes to change it for you (eg, Shivering Isles), if nothing (eg, Akatosh) prevents it.)



I'll have to read this. So far I've heard mer want to whack the world (and especially Lorkhan's men) to transcend it and be divine again in their lost Aldmeris (very consistent with my creation theory, being descended from once-daedra divines). Men just don't want to die and lose their souls, without any special sense of entitlement or racial loss.



The kind of boring I meant was arbitrariness. The flickering electronic snow on a blank arial TV channel is boring, not because there's nothing happening, but because there are no coordinated (if ephemeral) patterns to look at.



This changes a bit. Magnus and Akatosh still show up after the Princes, as manifestations of the Duality. They consult the Princes and split the Auribis by the Plans of the Realms, but all are on equal footing, all a blend of Void and Magic, as is the Duality.



Will read, thanks.

Just bear in minds that all personifications of Anu and Padomay as sentient aren't very literal. Their motives would be allegorical.

And it's Akatosh/Lorkhan for the duality you're looking for. Bear this in mind or you start to go beyond the reach or 'interpretation' and 'reimagining.'

No, no.
Its like classifying life on Earth as "useful" to humans and "not useful". Sure, those terms work, but there are so many more accurate ways of classification. And then there's ther question of which category humans themselves fit in.

And what of the Manga-Ge? Aedra or Daedra? Jyggalag? Shezarr? Malacath? Merdia? The God of Worms? The Tribunal? The fact is that those terms are heavily flawed due to a number of ambiguous factors.

Is there lore on this A/L duality beyond "Eat the Dreamer?" That one short piece strikes me as really random and self-indulgent.

Sure but none of those are relevant right now, aren't they? Right now all that matters are the Sixteen and Eight and One because the others are foot notes to their history. Important foot notes, but not required for the discusion.



Aside from being on every coin. It's in Martin, Priest of Akatosh but heir to Talos (Shezarr), becoming the Avatar of Akatosh in the Temple of Shezarr (Lorkhan) and then all the way back to the creation of the Amulet of Kings - by Shezarr before Oblivion, by Akatosh afterwards.

There was big discussion about this in the past. Et'Ada eat the Dreamer was written afterwards. Basically it's inconsistency made lore, but that's standard procedure around here.

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=422404&st=0
http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=485557&hl=amulet

Would it be horribly inconsistent to see this as Akatosh filling in for dead Lorkhan? I mean, I don't actually see Lorkhan doing much, being dead and all.

So what I get from MK's post is that effectively, Shazarr/Lorkhan and Akatosh are viewed as the same being; opposite sides of a duality (Akatosh=I AM; Lorkhan=I AM NOT, which prolly relates to CHIM somehow); Akatosh killed Lorkhan, not being able to stand I AM NOT; and then Akatosh went mad because he killed part of himself, creating Sheogorath in the process.

To fit this lore into my little cosmology, let's say that as part of Lorkhan's plan, Akatosh kills him (his lieutenants not being actually powerful enough, as much as they'd like their worshippers to think so), and this missing Prince forces Akatosh to occasionally step in where missing the power of the prince causes problems (eg, big stompy 8-armed rampaging fellow Princes).

To all (mortal) appearances, Akatosh and Lorkhan are the same; they aren't really; and it's just that Akatosh has to step in to keep the basic rules of the game intact, and do some things Lorkhan would take care of otherwise. So, if Lorkhan was still around, Oblivion gates and Dagon invading wouldn't be a problem, any more than Dagon goes around invading other Deadric Princes' realms (um, does he?).

Dagon doesn't go stomping into other realms as far as we know, that's sort of Jygy's Niche (and is why he got put into a cell of mad-stuff in the first place).

It's easy to ignore every obscure text ever written by simply refusing to reexamine existing lore with your new persepctive.