What exactly is the timeline of this? I searched the piece but could only find a 3E year __ date. And you had even corrected me on IRC shortly after MK's second big post when I said, "Talos", telling me Tiber wasn't Talos yet. Plus I count Talos the god as post-death Tiber. Didn't Tiber only become Talos after he died? Or after Numidium was destroyed in the 3E and the Oversoul was released?


Yes. I don't see how it could be at all fair if Tiber is shouting at 100%. The moon would split in two and Cy would be shouted from written history. Unless Cy's got some ace in the hole like an Elder Scroll or something.

:] So all Shezarrines are PC's. Who knows what other hijinks Tiber got into before choosing the path he deemed worthy to save in the Tal[OS]. Tiber and Cyrus could tear Mundus apart until it resembled oil spilled in water only for Tiber to reload and use the console to bring them both to a parlor inside a High Rock manse, wearing monocles sipping on tea.

Did I? I count Talos from the moment the Numidium was activated using the Underking's heart as Mantella. Or, at the latest, after his conquest of Summurset. The prerequisites were completed at that point.

On the other hand, I use Tiber to distinguish the physical person from the god Talos. So we're fighting Tiber, but he's already Talos. That may be just me, though.

Actually Loranna pointed this out to me, I don't get to take credit for it. But you see the reload. It's right there, in plain language.

I feel like this whole Talos/Tiber business, the whole "He wasn't a god yet, but he was always a god" idea is intentionally beyond rational thought. It's like H.P. Lovecraft's notion that the names of gods weren't meant to be uttered by human mouths, so no human can ever pronounce it correctly. Like no mortal can correctly explain the point at which Tiber became a god, whether he was born a god, became a god, or ever died at all; see the age he was when he supposedly died. At least I can't figure Talos out.

As far as I can remember I was proposing a theory that Cyrus would join the Talos oversoul, and you said that it wouldn't work because he's fighting Tiber Septim, and not Talos. I believe your rationale was that he hadn't become Talos yet, so it wouldn't be possible to become a non-entity or at least a not-yet-entity.

Concerning Numidium, I thought that the Mantella was the one thing preventing Tiber Septim from becoming Talos, as in Vivec arranged the swap of Numidium knowing full well it would lead to Tiber unintentionally trapping his own soul through betrayal, which he did in fact do; leading Vivec to believe that he killed Tiber (seeing as how Tiber killed Zurin, a part of himself). With Zurin-become-Ysmir (who was already Tiber) trapped in the Mantella, Tiber's soul became half trapped. I imagine a piece of food tied to a string and swallowed, so that it's inside the stomach but also has a connection to the outside. When Tiber the man died a mortal death his soul was still tethered, and only after Numidium was destroyed (Zurin/Ysmir's act but also an unconscious act of Tiber to free his soul) was Talos completely free and able to become the full god.

But yes, by the time the Underking's soul was trapped in the Mantella all the prerequisites for all of them becoming the same were met. Still though that only explains to me how they all became the same. It doesn't explain how they became the godly Talos. I made a thread awhile back asking when and how Tiber Septim became a god, but I never got a straight answer. More specifically I got too many straight answers that weren't the same. Under the incarnation rule, Tiber was born the avatar of a god, and he became the actual god Talos when he died, but some of the things he did in life would suggest he was already a living god. That's the disconnect I've never understood.

Paravania wasn't built in a day, neither was Talos.

Hero-gods don't just come out the womb that way. First they develop renown, which builds into fame, snowballing into legend, before final rude entry into the mythic. In this way, one might consider Tiber's apotheosis to be like a second childhood, or even - dare I say - mythic puberty.

I think he's in the unstable Grey Maybe between his human state and his godhood. His human mind can't handle the power, and until he abandons it for his godly one, he will continue to accidentally shout-giggle his men to death and do that thing with the puppet heads. He also, as the god of Man, still has to integrate the numerous human evils into his mythic personality as it absorbs and subsumes his human one.

Basically, it's giving a cannon a mind of its own, then without warning transforming it into a nuclear supermissile.

So is everyone ignoring Talos-as-Bal?

I don't like talking about things I do not yet understand. Because I don't. When did that happen? How many actions attributed to Talos in this story and others were really the work of Molag Bal as Talos took what, I think, amounts to a vacation from goding? The anachronic order makes it a bit confusing. As it is, I don't know if puppet-head-all-fours Talos is really Bal or if Bal's stolen jewels were really stolen from Talos or what-all. I've been a bit preoccupied this weekend.

Holy [censored], Talos is nuttier than Pelagius in an acorn factory.

He is a god after all. I wouldn't expect a god to be entirely mentally stable... although Vivec doesn't seem TOO crazy.

He wasn't the nicest guy to begin with, but that's really sort of beside the point. At this point he's totally other. People are like paper to him, he walks through them more or less by accident. It's why he can't help liking Cyrus, walking through paper gets boring after a while.

The talk with Bal is currently the last event chronologically, so everything else precedes the pact. If Bal has used Tiber's body, then it's not yet in the story. It could be in lore, somewhere, of course.

I acknowledged my surprise at it... can't really say anything more. I do have to note that Tiber promises ten years in his name, but not in his skin - so it may not be Tiber that Bal impersonates.

[edit] Unless you mean Talos as having the mythical qualities of Bal?

rofl

great post. if I sig'd, I sig this.

The first thing I thought after reading about "ten years under my name, not my body" was Imperial Simulacrum. Though it may be too easy.

The old book The Light and the Dark mentions that Jagar was real deep into the Dark, and Battlespire showed he had dealings with the Daedra.

I'm flattered.

Ooh, actually, that's a good idea. Maybe not the "correct" one, such as that goes, but a good one. Think about that last part, though. Could it only be too easy to lull us into thinking that it isn't true! IT'S ALL A CONSPIRACY! Also, we don't know the relationship between the various Daedra behind the scenes. It could be that Bal and Dagon have some overlap, or Bal traded his ten "Septim Years" to Dagon for a favored plaything.