I am curious, is there any name or lore-related concept for the extraordinary ability of beings such as the Nerevarine, Champion of Cyrodil, Eternal Champion, or Cyrus to save his progress, and then if a mistake is made or he is killed, the ability to revert reality to those saved states with him alive?

Wyre Mash?

Are you talking gameplay wise? Or RP wise?

*Zurin Arctus quote coming in ten... five... four...*

EACH EVENT IS PRECEDED BY PROPHECY BUT WITHOUT THE HERO THERE IS NO EVENT

There. Got that out of our collective system.

For about five seconds. Feh.


Not a chance.

I'm not sure if that answers my question. Would that mighty PC power have any name, or is there no name for it?

What exactly are you talking about?

Some people are heroes. Therein is power.

The ES Travels games probably have save points instead of manual saving. That should be answer enough.

Although Vivec had the ability to restore himself like a saved game, I don't know if it was ever indicated that the player character could. Maybe the Nerevarine was merely the most all-around competent choice for the position. Or fated to be that.

The term you are looking for is 'Ruling King'. Reread http://www.imperial-library.info/mwbooks/lessons.shtml#11 but ignore any of Qwertys commentary. The specific passage you want is this one:

"The ruling king is armored head to toe in brilliant flame. He is redeemed by each act he undertakes. His death is only a diagram back to the waking world. He sleeps the second way. The Sharmat is his double, and therefore you wonder if you rule nothing."

If you consider your question a little more, then the answer becomes obvious. Of course there's a name for this. It's called "oops, that never happened, ok?".

You see, when you restore a saved game, everything goes back to the way it was before you saved it. It's not respawning, it's loading a saved game. Therefore, it's more like a retcon than anything actually happening in game to revive your character. Therefore, you character never died.

There truly is no in game name for this power, since it doesn't exist. Nor is there an in game name for your ability, as the player, to turn off your system, restart it, play something else, or even purchase or sell video games. This is simply game mechanics meeting real life mechanics, and not lore. If you created a lore-explanation for this, you'd have to create an explanation as to why Solstheim isn't on the map until you purchase and install the bloodmoon expansion, unless your playing the GOTY MW, of course.

In other words, you ability to save your game and restore it comes from the fact that TES games are LOOOOONG and the creaters of the games are gracious enough to allow you to take breaks. As far as dying and restoring a saved game goes, it would be quite sadistic of Bethesda to create a TES game in which death is final. Without a hero there is no prophecy, but without a player there is no game. No one would play a game that made you start all over after putting in around 60 hours on a character that you accidentally let fall out of the sky because your levitation spell wore off.

CHIM and Dragon Breaks come to mind.

However, I have the tendency to bring up CHIM and Dragon Breaks in nearly every lore discussion I'm involved in.

Maybe, if you save your game, there's a Dragon Break, creating the timeline after you save, the one after you reload the second time, the third time, etc...

Amen.

This is far too long for something that should easily be summed up as; "this is a silly, silly question. Stop overthinking game-related concepts. Silly. Silly. Silly."

That's what I was thinking. It's cool to question and think about crap like that...but not crap like THIS. The writers put a lot of meaning into many concepts of the game...but it MIGHT be safe to say that saving isn't one of them.

Keyword: MIGHT. I could be extremely wrong...but I doubt it.

edit: Thought admittedly, that was a pretty good explanation, The Dude. Lol

Right on spot.


Not a silly question at all. Imho, it's one of the smartest questions that has been asked in quite some time here.
See Nazz's answer. There's a lot mor of this kind of things in the Sermons than that though. Spiked Waters anyone? Or "candles" on the "untrue side", the "scenic path of her cameo"?

To be perfectly honest I would think it was a silly question too, if not for that passage in the sermons.

Easter egg funnies. Even if the 36 Sermons fleetingly addresses it, it's still a silly question, the answer of which is still the same if you just substitute "ruling king" for "player".

You just made me have a terrible ruben sandwich enhanced nightmare vision.

ElderScrolls Dragonbreak-- the MMORPG that everyone whined and complained about, and finally got! Witness the world of tamriel suffer the ravages of a dragon broke as thousands of player characters muddle about, causing utter chaos!

Perhaps the main characters all have CHIM, leading to the idea the CHIM and Zero-Sum are knowing that it's all a game.

I (kinda) hate that idea SO much. I'm not necessarily knocking it, but that almost feels cliche when it's said like that.

To me, it feels like it belittles the whole "Anu-Padomay stasis-change, yada yada" thing. Eh, that's just me though, and I'm an idiot.

Ever wondered why the 36 Sermons are labeled "lessons". Maybe Vehk is trying to teach you something?

perhaps it's irrevelant,, but for example in God of War(action game set in Greek mythology setting) when you save your progress message appears 'Zeus has granted you the ability to save your progress'. Perhaps in TES, Akatosh can give you this ability. Although CHIM theory sounds more : 1)interesting 2)realistic.

Weren't the 36 Sermons lessons from Vivec to the Original Nerevar? (Hehe, that was funny)?

No. They were adressed to a single person (the person who really matters).