I've seen people talk about the Loveletter a lot recently, due to the events in the new book. I've been reading up on it in the Imperial Library, but I'm still confused. First off, it was written by some guy on a forum, and is considered unnoficial lore. So why are people treating it like official lore? What makes it so special? And I don't really get the love letter itself. I get that it's from the future, but my knowledge of lore isn't extensive enough to know what it's talking about.

If someone would be so kind as to write a "Loveletter for dummies" explanation, it would be much appreciated.

Edit: And for people who don't know what I'm talking about, I'm talking about http://www.imperial-library.info/obscure_text/5th_era_loveletter.shtml.

It was written by MK, and there seems to be a lot of Loveletterness in the novel, so by most accounts it's acceptable lore.

Who's MK, and why does his writing it make it lore?

Michael Kirkbride (MK) an ex-beth employee that now write on and off TES lore. He wrote a good portion of the lore surrounding Pelinal and things KotN related recently. In addition, he was one of the MW developers, and is often uses Vivec as his persona or something like that. He pretty much made Vivec Vivec

Hmm... but if he's an ex-beth employee, then I don't see how what he says can be considered lore. I mean, sure, when he was still working there and writing for the games, what he wrote would be lore, but now it's just fanfiction.

Generally what he writes ends up being lore anyway. Not trying to be a MK fan or anything, but that's pretty much the gist of things. Someone else may be able to explain better than me, because I'm a bit tired and I have finals in a week.

Most of the conclusions in MK's Obscure Texts work can be discerned from his in-game work. As a limited example: The Many-Headed Talos attributes Cyrodiil's divine retcon to Talos achieving CHIM. The same concept can be unearthed with a bit more work from the Commentaries on the Mysterium Xarxes. Most other things can be prised out of the 36 Lessons of Vivec with a bit of work.

Suffice to say that almost all of the lore added from Redguard on (making the Dwemer the non-dwarf non-generic race, huge chunks of Morrowind religion and culture, and most of the higher concepts discussed around here) come from him.

Though it is true in a technical sense that Obscure Texts (not just MK's work) are not actual canon because they are not actually in the game, they are close enough and written by those with direct knowledge and shaping influence of ES lore to be grandfathered in as canon. And then there's things like the Imperial Census of Daedra Lords. It was originally meant to go into the 3rd edition Pocket Guide to the Empire, but due to printing constraints or some-such, it was cut. So it ended up as an obscure text by a technicality. Is it then any less canon simply because it got the axe for non-content reasons?

And it's not quite accurate that MK is an ex-dev. He still is contracted out for work; he wrote most of the Knights of the Nine literature in Oblivion and will more than likely be contracted again for future ES titles.

I'm still kind of skeptical... he may know a whole lot about lore (considering he wrote a lot of it), but something like the Loveletter can be proven false any time a book or game comes out. If the Loveletter was made after he left Beth, anything he says about future TES events is nothing more than a prediction...

Edit: Well, even if I believed that the Loveletter was lore, I still really don't know what it was talking about. Can anyone explain it to me, or link me to an explanation?

I can try to provide an interpretation, though I can only state the barest of concepts explored with any degree of certainty.

The barest concepts:
The letter, from the 5th Era, is a warning to those just transitioning into the 4th Era about the dangers of Landfall. The Landfall is Baar Dau (the Ministry of Truth moon) finally fulfilling the mission it was tricked into doing and catastrophically smashing into Vivec City. The destruction from this event is implied to have utterly destroyed Morrowind; the survivors (likely miners) now live an almost complete subterranean existence, as the surface is inhospitable. The letter further accents the importance of love, and its role in preventing said catastrophe. "Know love to avoid the Landfall."

There's also the phrase, "I am and I are all we," which ties into the Godhead and the whole universe and every being contained within being one of countless multiple personalities of a fractured, schizophrenic dreaming god-mind.



Now, to enter things of a more shaky explanatory nature:
We are given a written account of the progress of creation, highlighting a pattern of gradients or subcreation; echoes, if you will.
Void to Aurbis, naught to pattern.
Aurbis to Aetherius, possibility to maintenance by time.

And so on, and so forth. All of these progressing gradients form a continuing pattern of sorts (subcreation must continue) that lead to the centerpoint of Mundus:
C0DA translation: if all previous gradients continue along this path, especially given that there is now a centerpoint, impossible Mundus, the process of continuation can be pre-figured.
And a continuation of that pattern: Mundus to Mortal Death: centerpoint to the soon recycled.

But what subcreation follows mortal death? The Loveletter cites many examples of attempts to reach it:
You in the Fourth Era have already witnessed many of the attempts at reaching the final subgradient of all AE, that state that exists beyond mortal death. The Numidium. The Endeavor. The Prolix Tower. CHIM. The Enantiomorph. The Scarab that Transforms into the New Man.

Why did Lorkhan fail CHIM? “The Lunar God failed by his own devices, to show the new progeny how they might not.”

The last and final subcreation, then, can be described as follows: Those who do not fail become the New Men: an individual beyond all AE, unerased and all-being. Jumping beyond the last bridge of all existence is the Last Existence, The Eternal I. As Vehk's Teachings put it,
The loveletter is not just a warning to the 4th Era about the catastrophic effects of the Landfall. It's also Vehk's scripture of Love, and it introduces a fundamental shift of the way the inhabitants think about the universe which they reside in.

There's also Lunar Currency, but I know way too little of it to even attempt a proper explanation.

Thanks a lot for the explanation. I don't like it when fictional stories explain everything as it all "being a dream," or in this case, a delusion, but I guess the Loveletter didn't say for sure that that's what is really happening, so I'm fine with it as long as it stays an idea.

Eh, I too do generally loathe the "And then I woke up" dreaming-the-story stereotype that any fiction-writer would tell you never to do, but in this case, the dream-philosophy circumvents the general problems that the story occurring in a dream-state represent. Kinda like Hemingway writing in fragments, because he circumvented the underlying problems of fragments.

The root of the dream problem is that, when the dreamer wakes up, the story ends by undercutting any character growth or impact the story might have had. However, it's unclear if the Godhead will ever actually "wake up." It's further taken away from cliche by the idea that it's God dreaming, not just the protagonist. And besides, the whole point of CHIM and the final gradient is to recognize that one is a fractured schizophrenic delusion in the mind of God and thus completely ripping away the illusion of individualism (I are all we), and yet in the face of that realization, still being able to say "I," to assert individualism. Essentially discovering that an agent does not actually exist of itself, and then that agent willing itself to exist with itself as its foundation.

So even if the whole thing is taking place in a dream, it's God's dream, and the dreaming itself does not udercut the world and the growth of it's people.

Yeah, good point. Though, if the last game ends with him "waking up," I'll probably break the disc in two.

Also, I noticed the line "The Digitals say we come from another star, but so many have forgotten." To me, this sounds like The Digitals are aliens... am I interpreting that wrong?

I've never been able to quite parse out the "another star" line either. Perhaps it refers to the 12 worlds of creation before they were all conglomerated into one?

Eh. :shrug: But the digitals themselves are described as follows in this passage: "This is the advent of the first Digitals: mantellian, mnemolia, the aetherial realm of the etada. The Head of this order is Magnus, but he is not its Ward, for even he was subcreated by the birth of Akatosh." So the digitals appear to be et'ada.

Ah, well I hope that the writer isn't an alien then, if that's what the "another star" line really means. I don't see how aliens could even exist in the TES world, considering their creation myth. :shrug:

Thanks again for explaining everything ThatOneGuy.

Because this isn't Star Trek (or whatever).

Bethesda don't have a 'lore policy' and there isn't an 'official canon' heirarchy.

What? You're not making any sense. If there wasn't "official canon,' then there'd be no reason for http://www.imperial-library.info/ to exist.

I can't just say "Orcs are a result of an Imperial interbreeding with a troll," and expect it to be official lore, just like what an ex-bethesda employee says can't be considered official lore. Regardless, The Loveletter is apparently considered canon, so there's no point in arguing about it.

The games and other published material (which includes things MK has posted) contradict each other.

But there's no Star Trek (or other fandom) style rule for resolving this. It's not like the games superceed the in-game books, which supercedes on-line stuff etc.

That's what I meant by there being no canon policy (or heirarchy).

What you have to do instead is look at all of it (which includes MKs posts) and see what makes sense out of it all (if there is any sense to find). There's no "official canon" which you can arrive at by ranking everything according to hard and fast rules.

Right, you can't say that and expect it to be official lore. But imagine you had designed three games all with the intent of that becoming lore. Now imagine you told us that ina cryptic hidden message we managed to figure out. Now imagine the next game came out and, oh hey! you were right.

That's MK. You can quibble about what he writes not being "official" or whatever, but you must do so under the full realization that, eventually, it will be official. As has been pointed out, "ex" is a misnomer, as he is still an active writer for Bethesda. Hell, I think he has a major role in writing the upcoming game, I believe.

That's more or less the course most (though not all) people on these forums have taken. Acceptance that what MK writes is almost certainly cannon because it will be canon. He's like our own mini lore-prophet!

To add an example to what Robynah said above about lore-hierarchy: the Moth Priests are blind. The lore says that they are blind. Even in-game people say that they are blind. But do the Thieves Guild quests, and you'll find out that they are not, in fact, blind. If you go from "sneak mode" to "standing mode" right in front of them, they will attack you, regardless of whether or not you move. You make no sound going from crouched to standing, and if you're 15 feet away from them, there is no way they heard you, but they know that you're there. Why? Because they can see. Why? Because it is hard to code in blindness. Does that make them not blind, regardless of what every book and in-game source claim? No.

People hit on this issue with the Akaviri skeletons, too. Point being, there is no absolute source of immutable, infallible lore in TES. What MK says is almost certainly going to be lore, in one form or another, so consider the Loverletter and such things as quick glimpses into future lore. It may not be exactly THE WORD on TES lore, but then nothing is. It'll be as reliable as anything else once the next game comes out.

All the loveletter really is an explanation of the 35th sermon of Vivec. On a meta scale it is also a lament about 911 and the state of the world, and an encouragement to love one another. It is a happy birthday wish to Kurt. Its all wrapped in nice 5th Era technobable to make us interested in reading it in the first place.

MK worked on Oblivion, providing lore for KotN and the original game (including the Commentaries and Camoran's final speech - in other words, just about all the high end stuff). His recent posts on this board make it very, very likely that he is contributing to TES5 on a similar level. Furthermore, many of his texts are based on things already in game, or seek to consolidate existing lore (like telling us why cyrodiil's jungle suddenly became a regular forest). And here is the thing: even as a 'ex' employee, he know more lore than most people at bethesda. your average interior maker or QA guy probably doesnt know more than the bare basics.

Speaking of which, I've been trying to find the specific explanation for that for a while now. Can you link me to the explanation in the Imperial Library or just explain it to me?

Let's face it, once a guys "semi-official" work is considered canon enough to be the basis for a major plot point in a full-canon work, it's hard to say otherwise. The easiest way to think about it is actually treating them like Obscure texts, since that's what they are. Documents that exist in the world of Tamriel, but because they are so rare or obscure we don't find them in the games ourselves. Therefore, they can and should be given the same credence as the in-game books. The beliefs of certain characters that are based on what they percieve as true. One good example is the Sword-Meeting, it is framed as a story being told, therefore it's a folktale about Cyrus scaring Vivec [censored]less. Did it happen? Probably most of it did, but some of it may not have been, it could have been inflated or exaggerated, even cleaned up for the implied listener.

I might as well jump on this train since there's one point you're missing.

MK was a high-detail developer during the formative (and tentative) years of the series. Not only did he write and was privy to the lore that Beth doesn't let out of its Filing Cabinet of Doom, but he also has a general sense of where everything was leading. While he might not have known the terminology of Tower/Stone when they were sketching out the early versions of Morrowind (before they even produced Battlespire and Redguard), but you can definitely tell that there was this desire to destablize Tamriel through the actions of previous games until it all came to a head later, what with establishing how Akatosh essentially covers, fixes, and protects Tamriel from anything that might try to break it too hard.

http://www.imperial-library.info/obscure_text/many-headed_talos.shtml

Well said!

Just a few thoughts to add: it's also fun and interesting to read!
Additionally, Michael is practically the only remaining gamesas-affiliated writer who actually posts snippets of lore from time to time (fan service!?) or just adds some comments. A few years ago, this was different, Tedders, Kurt or Doug occasionally fed us hungry lore forumists some morsels, too and each added his own "lore flavour" to the dish. Looking at the lore forum now, it's apparently easy to "identify" a "Cult of MK" from the reactions concerning his posts - but leaves the fact out of account that he's basically the only one who posts at all (not counting the "Lore is what's in the game"-thingy flying around).

Exactly. We consider what MK writes Lore because MK knows where everything is going, and therefore would likely not deliberately write anything against the lore we haven't even learned about yet.

Speaking of MK, I'd like to hear what he thinks about the book. Is it pleasing to him? Does he hate is?