The Ministry of Truth and the Covenant

Post » Mon Nov 29, 2010 4:11 pm

So the Covenant protects Nirn from daedric threats - Yet a popular theory is that Sheogorath(or another daedra lord) hurled the MoT at Vivec...Did a emperor die at that exact time?Doesn't the covenant cover falling moons?If not,I imagine the daedra lords could do alot of damage to Nirn.

Also,
Spoiler
while it could be explained due to Martin not sacrificing himself yet - How did Sheogorath get it to rain dogs in Border Watch?Sure,it wasn't a threat to Nirn per se,but if did that to the whole of Tamriel mostly everyone there could go crazy (I would anyway)

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Charlotte X
 
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Post » Mon Nov 29, 2010 8:43 am

Sheogorath didn't necessarily throw the moon, just altered its path so it hurdled towards Vivec City. As for the dogs, it was likely something similar to his method of execution in the Shivering Isles. Now, at the same time, I believe his power on Nirn isn't limitless.
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James Hate
 
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Post » Mon Nov 29, 2010 6:15 pm

The dragonfires covenant business is one big hunk of Imperial propaganda, and little else. No emperor sat on the throne for 1000+ years of the first era and all of the second, and yet Tamriel was not overrun by Daedric hordes. In other words, the convention does not protect Tamriel from Daedric intervention all by its lonesome. Other factors - namely, the towers - are in play. The reason Dagon was able to launch such a large scale invasion was the fall of Red Mountain (banishment of its stone, the Heart of Lorkhan) earlier, coupled with the murder of the emperor, and a bunch of complex rituals by the Dagonites.

There is further explanation on the issue in this http://imperial-library.info/forum_archive/AmuletofKings.htm.

There is also this http://www.imperial-library.info/content/morrowind-thirty-six-lessons-vivec-sermon-thirty-three of the Ministry of Truth (i.e. Lie Rock) to consider.
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J.P loves
 
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Post » Mon Nov 29, 2010 6:38 am

The dragonfires covenant business is one big hunk of Imperial propaganda, and little else. No emperor sat on the throne for 1000+ years of the first era and all of the second, and yet Tamriel was not overrun by Daedric hordes. In other words, the convention does not protect Tamriel from Daedric intervention all by its lonesome. Other factors - namely, the towers - are in play. The reason Dagon was able to launch such a large scale invasion was the fall of Red Mountain (banishment of its stone, the Heart of Lorkhan) earlier, coupled with the murder of the emperor, and a bunch of complex rituals by the Dagonites.

There is further explanation on the issue in this http://imperial-library.info/forum_archive/AmuletofKings.htm.

There is also this http://www.imperial-library.info/content/morrowind-thirty-six-lessons-vivec-sermon-thirty-three of the Ministry of Truth (i.e. Lie Rock) to consider.

But the Dragonfires preceded Red Tower, assuming it was the Dwemer who caused its activation (sure, the heart was there for some time but as shown with White Gold Tower a tower can be inactive even when the stone is inside it and active even when the stone is outside of it, so activation is more complicated than just sticking the stone in the structure). Dumac lived near the end of the Alessian Empire, so Red Tower seems to have been activated around the time White Gold Tower went inactive.
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Lizs
 
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Post » Mon Nov 29, 2010 10:53 am

The Red Tower has been active since the Dawn (Merethic?), when Lorkhan's heart was short into the ground and made a giant volcano. A tower is built as a replica of the mythic Adamantine - and, in the case of the White Gold, an echo of the world wheel - not just as a pretty building which later gains significance. All merish towers were built during the Merethic, preceding the Alessian empire by ages.The Chim-el Adabal was its stone long before it was the Amulet of Kings.
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Nauty
 
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Post » Mon Nov 29, 2010 9:39 am

The Red Tower has been active since the Dawn (Merethic?), when Lorkhan's heart was short into the ground and made a giant volcano. A tower is built as a replica of the mythic Adamantine - and, in the case of the White Gold, an echo of the world wheel - not just as a pretty building which later gains significance. All merish towers were built during the Merethic, preceding the Alessian empire by ages.

You'll forgive me if I'm a bit skeptical of the idea that Red Tower was active from the beginning. Aside from Mankar Camoran's remark of the joining of Oblivion and Tamriel as the "Mythic Age reborn", I don't see it as unreasonable to believe Red Tower was activated by the Dwemer, just like White Gold Tower was activated by whoever wore the Amulet of Kings. I mean, the Amulet of Kings, the Stone of White Gold Tower, never showed the need to actually be located in its tower to work, so why would displacing the Heart deactivate Red Tower unless it was something else that caused it to turn off? If not the heart disappearing, perhaps it was due to the enchantments being dispelled. As I recall, Sun's Death took place around the time of the War of the First Council; I wonder if it could have been due to Dwemer manipulation of the Tower. A tower need not be activated at the time of its creation.
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Campbell
 
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Post » Mon Nov 29, 2010 6:29 am

Aldmeris bore witness and built the remaining towers during the Merethic: White-Gold, Crystal-like-Law, Orichalc, Green-Sap, Walk-Brass, Snow Throat, and on and on, "aad semblio impera."

This establishes the creation of the towers during the Merethic. Is a tower really a tower if its inactive? They gain power (are active) solely by the power of mimesis - if they were not built in the image of the first tower and the zero-stone they would just be mountains/trees/volcanos/high buildings. The White Gold mimics not only Adamantia (by being a tower) but also the cosmic wheel (by having the tower as its axis and eight surrounding towers), which makes it doubly powerful and important.

The powers also created Red Tower and the First Stone. This allowed the Mundus to exist without the full presence of the divine.

Now we get to Dagoth Ur. Here we see that the creation of Ur gave it power, allowing for the existence of Mundus. If it were not yet active, as you claim, it would hold no power and hence would not be able to stabilize Mundus. The removal of the Heart is not simply a matter of taking it out of the tower - you remark correctly that this has been done with the Amulet plenty of times - it is a matter of removing it from Mundus and returning it to Lorkhan. The tower is destroyed because its stone no longer exists. In the same way, the Amulet of Kings was destroyed at the end of Oblivion, either being replaced with the Martin statue or leaving the tower inactive (most believe the former, I like the later).

The Tower of White-Gold, whose Stone is Chim-el Adabal, Amulet of Kings, whose masters are returning. I speak of course of the Ayleids, for which "sometimes" was not good enough. [...]

White-Gold Tower is a conduit of creatia, aad sembia sembio, built to bring about a reversal of the congealing spiritual bleed caused by the Convention. In other words, it was a focus point for (re-)reaching the divine.

This affirms that the White Gold was made by the Ayleids and that its stone was Chim-el Adabal. Now, since its built by the Ayleids for the sole purpose of "(re-)reaching the divine," why would it not be active until Alessia usurped it and supposedly used it for a totally different purpose? It was built and used back in the Merethic, hundreds (if not thousands) of years prior to her birth.

In summary: towers are active as soon as they are created because an inactive tower is not a tower at all.
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Emma
 
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Post » Mon Nov 29, 2010 1:22 pm

This establishes the creation of the towers during the Merethic. Is a tower really a tower if its inactive? They gain power (are active) solely by the power of mimesis - if they were not built in the image of the first tower and the zero-stone they would just be mountains/trees/volcanos/high buildings. The White Gold mimics not only Adamantia (by being a tower) but also the cosmic wheel (by having the tower as its axis and eight surrounding towers), which makes it doubly powerful and important.

Is an electronic device an electronic device if it's turned off? Yes it is. I use the same idea with towers. Lorkhan's heart was thrown into what would become Red Mountain to banish the undying heart of a foe, not to create a tower, why else would the Heart be abandoned and forgotten? That Red Tower was a tall structure with a powerful magical item in it made it a tower, albeit one that wasn't necessarily active at its creation.

Now we get to Dagoth Ur. Here we see that the creation of Ur gave it power, allowing for the existence of Mundus. If it were not yet active, as you claim, it would hold no power and hence would not be able to stabilize Mundus. The removal of the Heart is not simply a matter of taking it out of the tower - you remark correctly that this has been done with the Amulet plenty of times - it is a matter of removing it from Mundus and returning it to Lorkhan. The tower is destroyed because its stone no longer exists. In the same way, the Amulet of Kings was destroyed at the end of Oblivion, either being replaced with the Martin statue or leaving the tower inactive (most believe the former, I like the later).

Why would it be needed to stabilize Mundus? Nirn was created by Lorkhan, it was possibly even his realm before the Divine Pact. We've seen it's stable enough with only Adamantine functioning in TES IV. And wh would displacing the Heart deactivate the Tower? Displacing the Amulet never deactivated White Gold Tower.

By the way, what exactly do you mean by Mundus? Are you referring to Nirn, the Aedric Planets, the Moons, and Magnus, or just Nirn? Because I can't imagine returning the Heart to Lorkhan would be removing it from the Mortal Plane.

This affirms that the White Gold was made by the Ayleids and that its stone was Chim-el Adabal. Now, since its built by the Ayleids for the sole purpose of "(re-)reaching the divine," why would it not be active until Alessia usurped it and supposedly used it for a totally different purpose? It was built and used back in the Merethic, hundreds (if not thousands) of years prior to her birth.

The Ayleids built White Gold Tower with an intention. The Aldmer were disposing of the last trace of their mortal (no pun intended) enemy.
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Lexy Corpsey
 
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Post » Mon Nov 29, 2010 5:21 pm

Someone let me know if this is off, but as I understand it, it goes more or less like this:

At first, when the world was young and Adamantine Tower was a spaceship and not a building, for the world to remain stable their had to be direct, divine presence. When Lorkhan's heart was torn out and made into the stone of a new Tower, direct intervention was no longer necessary. So the Aedra left (leaving pieces behind, of course). Then the Aldmer made imitation-Towers all over the world. Skip ahead a few thousand years. Red Tower is switched off by having the Stone removed, but there are enough auxiliary Towers at that point that while it shakes things up, it isn't a world-destroying thing. Then by messing with the Dragonfires/removing the Stone of White-Gold Tower, things get unstable enough to attack directly. Then at the end, that big Dragon swoops in.

That's where things get weird. If the Dragon was in fact either Akatosh or Lorkhan (or Talos, even), the there is a direct Divine presence once again, and things are stable.

BUT WAIT, there's more! According to the Sermons, if Vivec had walked the earth with the feet of a god while the Towers were all active, it would have made the world less stable rather than more. I'm guessing it would have been a sort of divinity-overload, but I'm not sure.

So, how's that?
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Cameron Garrod
 
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Post » Mon Nov 29, 2010 1:47 pm

Is an electronic device an electronic device if it's turned off? Yes it is.

No, not quite. Take an American cellphone to Europe some time. It still looks like a cellphone, but you can't use it to make calls, and you can't even charge it since the sockets are different. As such it is no longer really a cellphone but just a bunch of plastic, metal, and wires. Same with an inactive tower. Its still a really tall building, or a volcano in Ur's case, but it doesn't do anything besides stand there. As such, its not a mythical, symbolic, powerful tower but just a tower like any other. What defines it is its power, not its look.

Why would it be needed to stabilize Mundus? Nirn was created by Lorkhan, it was possibly even his realm before the Divine Pact. We've seen it's stable enough with only Adamantine functioning in TES IV. And wh would displacing the Heart deactivate the Tower? Displacing the Amulet never deactivated White Gold Tower.

It needs to stabilize Mundus because the Nu-Mantia intercept said so ( :rolleyes: ). Nirn was never fully Lorkhan's realm: he may have thought of it, but Magnus was its architect and uncountable et'Ada gave their lives to make it. Its his realm in a way, but its not as simple as a Daedric plane where the ruler is the realm. And again, you're not just moving the heart a couple miles away from the mountain (as you did with the Amulet), you're severing the enchantments that bind it to the tower and to the world. It literally goes *poof*

The Ayleids built White Gold Tower with an intention.

Yes, they did. And you expect me to believe that they had the way to achieve their ultimate goal and decided to not use it? "hm, we can try and become gods now, or we can admire the architecture for a few thousand years"

The crux of your argument is that the towers can be inactive. Show me one example where they clearly are (without the stone being destroyed) or one place that talks about them having to be activated.
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Maya Maya
 
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Post » Mon Nov 29, 2010 6:14 am

No, not quite. Take an American cellphone to Europe some time. It still looks like a cellphone, but you can't use it to make calls, and you can't even charge it since the sockets are different. As such it is no longer really a cellphone but just a bunch of plastic, metal, and wires. Same with an inactive tower. Its still a really tall building, or a volcano in Ur's case, but it doesn't do anything besides stand there. As such, its not a mythical, symbolic, powerful tower but just a tower like any other. What defines it is its power, not its look.

I can see right now that we are not going to reach an agreement on this one.

It needs to stabilize Mundus because the Nu-Mantia intercept said so ( :rolleyes: ). Nirn was never fully Lorkhan's realm: he may have thought of it, but Magnus was its architect and uncountable et'Ada gave their lives to make it. Its his realm in a way, but its not as simple as a Daedric plane where the ruler is the realm. And again, you're not just moving the heart a couple miles away from the mountain (as you did with the Amulet), you're severing the enchantments that bind it to the tower and to the world. It literally goes *poof*

I take every piece of lore with a grain of salt, putting more trust in in-game observations. Nu Mantia Intercept is no exception. As I've said, it wasn't made terribly unstable in TES IV when only the original tower was active. And even then Mehrunes Dagon needed his own Towers to link up the two Planes. And as I recall, Mankar Camoran seemed to be under the impression that Lorkhan was once like the Daedra. Again, to be taken with a grain of salt, but given his power and connections, as well as his patron's lack of subtlety, it's not something that can be thrown out the window just because a similarly knowledgeable servant of the Empire said something differently.

And there is other stuff that you mentioned this that I don't fully accept, but those arguments are for another time, in another thread.

The crux of your argument is that the towers can be inactive. Show me one example where they clearly are (without the stone being destroyed) or one place that talks about them having to be activated.

White Gold Tower during the Oblivion Crisis.
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Darren Chandler
 
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Post » Mon Nov 29, 2010 6:44 am

Where does it say that the White Gold was inactive during Oblivion? Or that the other towers weren't, for that matter*? Dagon was able to invade even when the towers were all active (see: 2920), so him being able to enter Tamriel does not mean that any/all of the towers were down. If the White Gold deactivated anytime there was no blood heir to Alessia on the throne Tamriel would have been over run long ago.

*With the exception of Ur and Orichalc

You can't talk about these sorts of towers while ignoring the Intercept, because it is the only substantial source we have on the subject.
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Taylah Haines
 
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Post » Mon Nov 29, 2010 6:57 pm

Where does it say that the White Gold was inactive during Oblivion? Or that the other towers weren't, for that matter*? Dagon was able to invade even when the towers were all active (see: 2920), so him being able to enter Tamriel does not mean that any/all of the towers were down. If the White Gold deactivated anytime there was no blood heir to Alessia on the throne Tamriel would have been over run long ago.

It is true that Mehrunes Dagon has appeared many times, but as I recall, in the 2920 invasion he was summoned by mortals, I think it was a loophole or something of that nature. And he's also fought the Tribunal other times and even been at Kvatch some time ago. And he's been sent packing quite a few times. But he's apparently gotten smarter, and set things up so he could launch a real invasion instead of just stomping around until someone banishes him. Another thing to point out is that the invasion took significant planning; they needed Sigil Towers to open portals as well as plenty of mobilized troops. Plus they needed Mythic Dawn cultists in Tamriel to open the portals.

As I understand it, the Amulet of Kings is White Gold Tower's stone and lighting the Dragonfires activates it. Dragonfires go out, White Gold goes dormant. So they're like the "on" light for the Tower. But between the fall of the Alessian Empire and the death of Uriel Septim, the Dwemer placed the enchantments on the Heart.
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Trey Johnson
 
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Post » Mon Nov 29, 2010 4:51 am

He was summoned by the Mythic Dawn (mortals) in Oblivion, too.
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Kahli St Dennis
 
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Post » Mon Nov 29, 2010 6:04 pm

He was summoned by the Mythic Dawn (mortals) in Oblivion, too.

Was he summoned or did he emerge from an Oblivion Gate?
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jessica breen
 
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Post » Mon Nov 29, 2010 3:54 am

The Mythic Dawn killed the emperor (and helped to fell Red Mountain, if the Intercept is correct), and helped to get the gates open in the first place. I don't recall whether he came out of a gate or was summoned, but it hardly matters in the long run.
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Farrah Barry
 
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Post » Mon Nov 29, 2010 4:03 pm

The (de)activation of a tower is not a concept I've encountered before this thread. It also seems somewhat irrelevant to the mechanics of the barrier. What matter is the strength of the barrier.

In short, the Barrier is weakening, and I know why. Moreso, I have uncovered a conspiracy that stretches back to Dawntime and the split of Aldmeris. Empire Actual is threatened by forces of previous realities, and the Ayleids are not destroyed at all. - Intercept

This portal may only remain open for a brief period of time, depending on the strength of the liminal barrier at the chosen spots, several minutes being the longest ever reported, so the usefulness of such a gate is quite limited. - Liminal Bridges

And Dagon laughed again, saying, "No sh*t, Herkel, but all that bloodletting and fire at Sarthaal was enough for me [to pierce the veil of the oblivion]! All that whispering into elvish ears sure did the trick!" - Aldudladygagga

The Amulet of Kings not being worn obviously weakens the barrier, but this does not say anything about the functioning of White-Gold. It also does not directly correlate with the opening of gates.

Rather gates can be opened and Daedra can enter when the barrier is sufficiently weak. For this we currently have three confirmed ways. 1) Break the stone of Red Tower, 2) Keep the Stone of White Gold from being used, 3) start a destructive revolution.

When Mehrunes appeared in the Imperial City, all three had happened.

---

Now to the OPs question, the barrier that keeps stuff from Oblivion just wandering into Mundus, reinforced by the Convenant or the AoK, or whatever just keeps the Daedra out. Other things, such a big lumps of rock, no problem.

Not going to make a big argument over it. Just a few examples: Sheogorath did it again with his invitation to the Shivering Isles. Bestowing Heroes with items seems to be no problem for Daedra. Liminal bridges uses the words "quickened entity", which suggests what ever is blocked must be active. Creatia seems to pass just fine, ect. So basically, anything but Daedra goes.

---

Now I hear people have opened up another bottle of mede and are going to light a fire. I will end this now lest they burn down the house.
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Tiffany Carter
 
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