Sorry for the epic de-rail. I just noticed how huge this post is. Holy Swiss.


I geuss my question is... why don't they? TIL, from what I can tell, started off as a simple depository for in-game lore books. UESP seems to have had the same original function (judging by the archives of what their old website looked like). USEP also includes a bunch of (often innacurate) synthesis articles, plus gameplay information. TIL has some much better synthesis articles, plus dev comments. Obviously, they're different websites. My question is, why did both of them get started? Why doesn't USEP allow for dev comments to be added (I'm fairly certain that every other fan wiki I've ever been on allows for 'em), or why doesn't TIL add a gameplay section? As you said, these two websites split the lore depository userbase.

That was an excellent response, and makes perfect sense. Unofficial forums are a neccessary thing when the official forums have strict moderation policies, and are, well, official.

But why not just make a "Temple Zero" or "Monkeytruth section?

No, I'm not at all. Victoria's secret offers a specialized service. Walmart's generalized approach doesn't allow them to hire the specialized customer service that I've heard Victoria's Secret is known for, and having tampons at VS would most likely (1) reduce sales of their primary goods for psychological reasons and (2) not move many tampons, as those are a regularly consumed good that most women already have a steady supplier for (just like, say, groceries and shampoo, all of which are often sold in the same location). I get why Wal-Mart hasn't absorbed Victoria's Secret, and why VS doesn't sell tampons. Stores need to find their focus to maintain competative. It's the nature of human economies, and to some extent or another we've seen it since the start of "stores" as a societal institution.

What I don't get is why USEP, TIL, an T0 haven't merged. I tend to get involved in fandoms in vigorous little bursts, and because of this, I've looked at an above-average number of fan communities. In my experience, fansites for obscure topics usually feel the need to merge together. The ES Lore community stands out in my mind as being remarkably... (I still haven't found the proper word) multi-located (?) while being rather small. Just, for example, consider how we're a much smaller group than the regular-strength ES fans, yet they all seem to stick to the BESF, while we're split up on multiple sites.

OK, so, major miscommunication #1: when I said "ultranerds" I meant "all three hundred people who have a personal definition of what CHIM is" not "the people on TIL." I meant it as a uniting term of admitted mutual peculiarity, not some sort of alienating jab.

I also understand why groups of people on these forums would develop relationships. I recall that you and Proweler and a few others were all still active here the last time I was actively involved in the lore forums, years ago. I get the impression that you kept at it, and had been going at it for years and years. If there weren't a whole tangle of interpersonal relationships between all of you after all that time, then I'd have to start with the alienating jabs . As a matter of fact, I'd say that these forums are actually quite low on real divisive subgroups, especially compared to the more fanatic fangroups I've participated in. At the very least, none of us have anolyzed what the bodily fluids of the Argonians would taste like, and none of us insult eachother by bringing it up all the time. If you don't get the reference, you should be very glad.

In fact, all of you oldies seem very friendly and inclusive. You help people out, try to encourage their interest, and only ever get dismissive when people start actively pushing your buttons. I'd say that there's a bizzare phenomena here where the legacy fellows, the guys like you and Proweler, are actually significantly more mature than the average forumer, and perhaps even the average human. That's why all of this... site devisiveness (?) makes no sense to me. I get why the guys on No Mutants Allowed hide out there, and why the Fallout Community is so split up. There's some deep divides, some bitterness, and some immature, "THIS IS MY SIDE OF THE ROOM" stuff going on that naturaly leads to the development of fractured websites. On the other hand, I don't really see any of that going on in this extended community. To continue my poorly chosen "girls bathroom" metaphor, it's one thing if you find out that people are saying rude things about you where you can't hear it. Once you find out about that, you get offended and that's that. It's a whole other thing when people almost seem to be hiding away completely innocuous comments. That's just puzzling, and when you find out about it, you want to ask why*. Now, you've already done a more than adaquete job of reminding me why non BSF forums are important, what I don't get is why the unofficial sites are so disparate, and why the TIL forums seem so... cloaked**

So, you're not mentally "set to keep people out". That's cool. But why are all the sites kinda set up in such a way that it keeps things apart? Is there a story behind this?

*I have no idea if this is something that you can relate to. I've lived a somewhat strange life, so I'm not sure how well my experiences translate, but this has happened to me several times.

**The link "Storyboard" sounds like it'd contain, y'know, actual storyboards, not a forum, and the "Lore Forum" is mostly dominated by a huge off-topic thread. It's not exactly straight forward.

EDIT: Damned emoticons, always ruining my lists!

But that sounds fun. По русский?

Да. Если мы должны... Anyone have a spare самовар?

But the fact that there is a SFC, and that it's not a joke disgusts me a bit. How can anyone compete with a close-knit group of people to gain intellectual credence on things and get fan fiction accepted as Monkey Truth? Unless I do unspeakable things for the lot of you (you know who you are Luagar) I may never breach the T0 gates.

What I've been saying this whole thread is that the SFC is a joke. Or, at the very most, a construct by people like you, rather than by the people who supposedly make up the http://img534.imageshack.us/img534/9045/shadowyforumclique.jpg. There's nothing to breach about t0, you write [censored] and if the admins like it they publish it. The Temple is a place likeminded people talk about a narrow idea of TES, not some bastion of extra cool people or the sole arbiter of what is lore

And somehow I've become the gender-ambiguous mayboygirl. Again.

I'm not even that tall.

It took me a second to realize that the hair wasn't yours. You should grow it out to look like a maverick or something. I dunno.

By virtue of the fact that you waded through a CHIM thread and haven't given up on the whole endeavor means that you're committed enough to contribute. After that, simply observe, make connections, and throw us your wild and crazy stuff. We consume fanon here because canon comes along so very rarely. It doesn't matter if it's crappy or if it doesn't get accepted, the point is you're directing the conversation in the direction you're looking at. Case in point, I am obsessed with numbers in TES. I see patterns and multiples and I go crazy. Other people may appreciate the significance of TES numerology (I can guarantee partially because of me), but having nothing significant to add, they don't add to that conversation, and so I AM the conversation on numerology. And that's okay, because it gets people to look at it that way. At least on these forums, we have a "teach them to walk like you until you are walking like them" attitude. Right now, Chaplain, you're on that edge of forcing us to walk like you. So get that second half finished and get us a thinkin'.

From what I understand, the three represent (or at least represented) three different, but true perspectives. UESP was focused on the game and the player's experience and how lore, setting, and NPCs serve that experience. TIL focuses on the world and setting and lore and it used to be, I'm uncertain whether it still is, about creating a living and breathing world from the glimpses we see from gameplay and Lore. This focus is why we always recommend TIL for information, because the accuracy of the setting is the highest priority. UESP is still necessary (and should be kept separate) because we need that emphasis on gameplay, but not when we're talking about why Argonians pick their noses.

Temple Zero is a rebellion against the high standard towards the source material we use to create our view of the world begotten through TIL and the Forum Scholars' Guild. T0 says that it is a constructed reality, so construct the bits you want and leave out the bits you don't want. As for TES Wikia, I have no clue why that exists. I hear it was because of some drama on UESP, but I don't really know.

And actually we have united. In the old TIL, we used to have the remains of several now-defunct websites, including the Academy on Dwemer Studies. Though you can more accurately say that the people there stopped contributing and TIL preserved their efforts.

I told you before, I'm just a peon. Track down Huck Finn, he's the one you want to perform unspeakable acts to.

Hey Chap, the story was unexpected (in that the elves weren't [CENSORED]) and therefor good. The opening felt a bit rushed though. But by all means, continue.

Has he been active any lately? I kinda miss lurking his righteous rants, they were fun.

Are you going to continue this? I want to read more...

Am I allowed to say that I liked the original story? Or have we gone too far off topic for that?

Once upon a time Loranna's RP was posted here and called "the lore forum rp." A handful of ex-devs participated in it once in a while, Ted pretty much played as a major player, and in general the tone was such that it demanded a knowledge of lore that strangers who wandered in from the rp forum weren't likely to be comfortable with. It was eventually banished from the lore forum for "not being official."

I guess my point is that even ex-dev work gets kicked out of the lore forum periodically when the political situation here gets ugly. If there's a shadowy forum clique, it's certainly not impregnable, nor does membership come with a guarantee. If your stuff is such that most of the crowd on the fan fiction forum would say, "Huh? Mao what now?" you might as well post it here and hope the powers that be leave it here.

Now... I believe you said there was more where that came from?

I'm still playing around with the meat of the thing which is a shameless spiritual follow up to Haute's Reacher lore. I'm going for a Polynesian feel more particularly a Maori one albeit more seemingly placid than Maori but still brutal and mythologically abstract and colorful, which is kinda hard considering I've never written any of those things before, and it's a bit hard to think in the mindset of mythology.

Expect the real myth stuff tomorrow. Once I get the whole thing done I'll worry about fixing the beginning and making it less boring. After all it's only an introduction, a frame for the real myth narrative.

Well, I stumbled over here from the Fanfiction forum and would be delighted to see more stuff like this wonderful story over there, so either I'm a black sheep or you guys are stereotyping us outsiders

Isn't the fact that you stumbled here from fanfic proof that you're a black sheep?


Bad attitude, dude. Every part of your piece is important, certainly not least so the introduction.
But anyway I'm looking forward to the next bit.

Hey man, don't diss fanfic. We're teh coolest broskis around. (and I'm sure you could find more then a few lore buffs around there).

'Twas but a joke. http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1328463-the-chandler/

Certainly it would be nice to write as if every sentence and word is of equal importance, and we should surely strive for it, but the mind can't so easily be saddled, bitted, and rode wherever we want.

And the frame isn't as important as the narrative it's framing. I think the whole point of a framed narrative is to first invest the reader in the frame only to show the importance of the true narrative through the course of the tale. See Heart of Darkness.

Oh, wow, I've actually been meaning to take a look at that. I'll get around to it someday

Yeah, and if it's crap then it ain't gonna invest the reader. Ethics of creation: do all work to the best of your ability, striving beyond. You're not going to improve as a writer if you marginalize away part of your work. Ah, I should cool down. Sorry. Dunno what Heart of Darkness is.


Do eeeeeeet.

It's a great novel by Joseph Conrad.

And I'm not marginalizing anything. I never marginalize anything I write, but sometimes I skip around, working on one thing first and go back to finish something else. Eventually I get to everything, and in this case I'm leaving the intro on the back burner to get the rest of the stuff written to form a complete draft. Surely you can understand my reasons for that.

"Our world of Tamriel which we and we know began thousands of years ago, but before that; before the word Year was even named by Oa-Koa and made to swim good and right, there were other worlds and many many troubles and troubles that lived and died to build our one word, our 3rd-Ocean. And many of those worlds and worlds have died, half-died, and died-died, so that we could be alive today and not have to worry about the Great Dark Whale scattering our world apart with his tail as he once did for all time. It is because of the sacrifices our fathers-but-not-fathers made, their great Gifts, that we tell these stories and give them power, so that they don't drown in the Dark Waters and the ever-oceans of sleep-think."

"It is impossible to go back to the beginning because as I have said, it all happened long before the school of Time was born and made to swim good. But long, long ago and forever existing there was a Great Dark Whale who swam in the zero-ocean when all was limitless, and the Dark Waters stretched out so far and never met each other at the ends. The only thing in the zero-ocean that could make to be seen for more than a moment or two was the Great Dark Whale who was so proud, and was so jealous of thoughts and ideas yet to swim from their clutches, that he beat his tale in the Dark Waters, so that the black seas shifted back and forth back and forth pushing and pulling apart anything new and different. In this way for many many eternities, numbers of which not even then spore shells cannot count, worlds and whales were born and died in the Great Dark Whale's tail tides. The only things that Were in this time were the Great Dark Whale himself, the Dark Waters, and the thunderous noise of the Great Tide caused by his tail, the back and forth back and forth, Siss-Tiss Siss-Tiss, for he had proudly named them. And he had laughed heartily in his black bones saying,

"Wha gwa gwa! I have given name to this proud move-shape of mine, and all that Could Be are nothing to it and will be crunched and ground back into Dark Water when you hear its call and see its great name of which I have given! So stay in your clutches all you Could Be's and NEVER EVER come out and be born, or else you will be made dead by my great move-shape, my back forth back forth, the horrible Siss-Tiss."

And many Could Be's did just that, and they stayed in their clutches and refused to hatch for fear of Siss-Tiss, the Great Tide. Many more though were too simple to understand, and they were hatched and left their clutches anyway, and they were struck down by back forth wave. The Great Dark Whale knew of their simplicity too, and in his infinite cruelty he took pleasure in seeing the poor, simple ones get crushed, and so he did laugh.

"Wha gwa gwa!"

"But there was another in the zero-ocean, one who not even the Great Dark Whale could see with his eyes which were so large, that they could see everything in all the un-ending zero ocean. For while he could see everything, he could not see all of himself, and that was his undoing. There was and had been for all time, a tiny, silver minnow that darted about above the Great Dark Whale's head, where the great eyes could not roll up and see him. No one knows exactly how long the silver minnow had been there, and some even think that they had been born together in the same egg, and only his quickness and cleverness had saved him from the Great Dark Whale's hunger when he ate everything. The silver minnow's life had been very hard, as he knew that the moment the Great Dark Whale realized he was there, he would be eaten or broken by the Siss-Tiss, and so he had to stay above the Great Dark Whale's head at all times and never leave to find food, and that is why he was so very small."

"And the small silver minnow had long been saddened by the Great Dark Whale's cruelty, and he longed so much to see what Could Be. But he knew he was too small and weak to defeat his great brother, and was made full of despair. And every day the silver minnow had to listen to the Great Dark Whale's boasts, but the Great Dark Whale was very arrogant, and he gave away his secret."

"Wha gwa gwa! I have given name to this proud move-shape of mine, and all that Could Be are nothing to it and will be crunched and ground back into Dark Water when you hear its call and see its great name of which I have given! And I am so great indeed, that I have taken the great name of Siss-Tiss and yelled it inside a great bone clam as my greatest treasure and proof of my greatness! And I have placed it beneath my great tail of which speaks the name which will cause forever fear!"

And had not the silver minnow existed, all would have been lost, for nothing was strong enough to take the secret of the name from the bone clam, for nothing could grow large and strong before it was crushed by the Siss-Tiss. The silver minnow was small and fast however, and when he heard the Great Dark Whale's mighty boast, he swam down the whale's backside moving in places the large eyes could not turn, and he found the bone clam which was large and great indeed, but the Great Dark Whale had been foolish in making such a large clam, for the small silver minnow was so small that he swam between the spaces of the large bones and stole the Great Dark Whale's voice which he had left there as his treasure, and with it he swam back to the Great Dark Whale's head and began to speak.

For every time the Great Dark Whale's tail would beat the Dark Water saying,

"Siss-Tiss Siss-Tiss"

The small silver minnow would whisper his secret word,

"Oa-Noa Oa-Noa"

And the small silver minnow was so small and fast, that when the Great Dark Whale would pause in the middle of the word, and his tale would fall down to complete it, the silver minnow could say his word a hundred times. And the small silver minnow's word became so powerful, that he didn't stay small for long, and he grew and grew and grew, eating all of the Great Dark Whale's food. When the Great Dark Whale saw this, he became so angry, that even the simple Could Be's that were too simple to know better became too scared to leave their clutches. Of this fear we call E-Kiyu Ya-Woway or "No one's that stupid."

And the Great Dark Whale turned to see his brother whom he had never known and thundered angrily in all his dark bones,

"You! How dare you Be and grow large and strong, that you eat my food! Watch me crunch and ground you back into Dark Water with my great word which I have named!"

And the Great Dark Whale beat his tail to the water yelling Siss-Tiss! Siss-Tiss! But the silver minnow which had grown into a large silver whale laughed with great mirth and yelled back Oa-Noa! Oa-Noa! And the Great Dark Whale no matter how hard he beat his tale could not beat the new move-shape, which was up down up down. And the Great Dark Whale stared in horror at his brother whom he had never known and thundered terrified in all his dark bones,

"No! It is new and different, and those things make me really sick!"

But his large large eyes narrowed then and his great maw curled into a smile so wide that it touched the highest high and lowest low. And the Great Dark Whale grinned at his brother whom he had never known and laughed in all his dark bones,

"Wha gwa gwa! Not even you with your new and different, no matter how strong you are can defeat me, for I have no name, and I have no limit within this zero-ocean!"

And the large silver whale grinned so wide that it touched both sides of the un-ending zero-ocean, and he said,

"Foolish Great Dark Whale! You not only have a name, but it is one you have been saying for all time! You have said yourself that you are only destruction and jealous and pride, and with that you have named the back forth back forth, and I say to you now that IT IS ALL YOU ARE! I name you, Great Dark Whale! I name you Siss-Tiss!"

And Siss-Tiss was horrified and scared even more than the simple Could Be's. Of this terror we call Oe-Za Moa-Mum or "You've just seen yourself in the water, and you're pretty ugly."

And Siss-Tiss became so overcome with fear and shame, that he brought his tale up to cover his large large eyes, and he became a ball and fell asleep. To which the great silver whale laughed, scorning the sleeping ball saying,

"Silly Siss-Tiss, you are so stupid, that you didn't realize I had a name too, but it was a name that I freely gave to myself, one that I knew and always saw! And if you had known that then maybe you could have defeated me, for I am Oa-Noa, your brother and rebel crown! Now come all of you Could Be's! Be hatched and leave your clutches and grow strong and large, never fearing the back forth back forth of the Great Tide! Swim around me, and throw your droppings at this Stupid Dark Whale!"

And infinities of Could Be's hatched with joy and swam the Dark Waters and ate of Oa-Noa's joy, becoming large and strong, and they sang and danced as they threw their droppings at Siss-Tiss. And Siss-Tiss, who had heard everything in his panicked dream was enraged, and he wished to destroy all of the Could Be's which had become Now Are's, but he had curled himself too tight and could not move his tail. Thus he stayed sleeping and dreaming forever and ever.

Oa-Noa then was filled so full of happiness and joy, that he swelled to become one hundred times larger than Siss-Tiss had ever been, and seeing then how large he had become, he released all his new joy into the sky, filling all the empty space with his silvery not-water, creating First-Ocean.

[To be continued]

Oh man, that is amazing! I love it! I like how you kind of reversed the roles of Anu and Padomay while still making them recognisable as such.

Also:
dear talos

Thank you for your kind words.

And I wanted to think up a way for spirits to be constantly birthing in Aetherius, so I decided I'd just make Aetherius a realm completely composed of... well you know.

I like the flow of the language and how it sounds deceptively simple, but holds deep truths. I also like the reveal of the great black whale's name (or maybe I am just slow on the uptake sometimes ).

"Wha gwa gwa!"