No, it isn't official. Orichalc, as the other towers, has never been activated, and had it been... must it even be said? If the explosion was caused by the tower, would you think elven accounts of its power exagerated?

Again, what says it was never activated? What does its "never been activated" even mean? Does it being built not imply that it is or was active, afterall, why build a defunct tower, or build one and never activate it? I don't think I'm off-base to simply assume that since it was built that it was (and possibly is) active. And what says that it was related in any fashion to the explosion? Perhaps I'm just rusty on my source material, but I don't recall us having any information on Orichalc apart from its name and general location.

:turtle:

Well, I only played Oblivion this one time, but towers are pretty cool, you guys! We may not need them, but they look rad and remind us of the human capacity for great things beyond their own forms. Plus they are historical monuments! WTH do you need the Eiffel tower for, anyway?

First of all, it seems a lot more plausible that a continent gets destroyed as a result of the destruction of a tower than from an obscure racial ability. Second, there need not be any explosions, it could simply sink into the ocean.

First of all, there is nothing to suggest that it was the result of the destruction of a tower while there is stuff to suggest that it was from an obscure racial ability. Second, there need always be explosions, for out of explosions come awesomeness...

:turtle:

I'm going in ellipses now (not quite circles) but I find it a bit hard to believe that a mortal racial ability could sink a continent. The only mortals that have even been shown to come close to that kind of power are the Tribunal. If you can call them mortals.

The Tribunal stole their power, so by ritual, don't you think the Yoku could steal the power to sink their home? I linked to the monkeytruth, because I wanted you to see what sort of method was behind the sword's power. Of course a sword didn't sink the continent, their hightened awareness of mythic symbolism did.

We don't really know what happened. Most of Yokuda's inhabitants likely died when it sank. And such power among Redguards was never seen again. Unlike the Tribunal, who have demonstrated their powers many times, all we have on the Redguards' abilities are just from legends. And things in legends tend to become larger than life as they're passed down.

We know little, but we know the greater truths. We know mortals are apt to steal mythic power, and this has a price. The continent is sunk, and Orichalc wasn't activated, because Mundus stands; we know the Yoku believe they did it. We also have a perfectly acceptable monkeytruth explaination of the sword method used to topple the tower, which may be erroneous (indeed, monkeytruth isn't monkeytruth if its just truth), nevertheless it offers a picture of power the Yoku may have possesed. You questioned how the Yoku might, and that wasn't good enough, so I'll just end it with this:

Indeed, you'll come to see that sometimes stories that aren't necessarily true can still sometimes win the day.

Why does it matter if they were mortals? If humans really wanted we could wipe out life on the face of the earth, but we're mortals, and we don't even have magic.

Its not that the Ansei were uber-powerful, its that they found a really cool glitch for exploiting the universe to really destructive ends.

For the nth time, who says that the tower wasn't active and who says that the tower was ever toppled (apart from maybe the assumption that it fell due to the destruction, which is not the same thing as saying the destruction occurred because it fell).

:turtle:

I'm not so sure, Earth has been through a lot since life has been around. somewhere in the first billion years the world went through the first Ice age, and literally the entire planet froze over for a couple thousand years; however, here we are three billion years later.

Jesus. Because if it was active, Mundus wouldn't be. The target of the Yoku magic was the Tower, they didn't sink their continent for [censored] and giggles, they sunk it stop the Left-Handers' tower.

Damn left-handed people and their towers! Forcing us righties to use nukes

heh - please hold that declaration!!!! ...

Using nukes implies necleonics - and atoms - and Einsteinian theory

If it is a racial ability the user of that power may not have a 'theory' to explain how it is done - but the physics has to be there!!! So now we can say there is an earth-like physics there!

Most interesting

I never heard any of that. Where did you get this information?

You keep saying that Mr Penguin, but surely you must know that simply restating your thesis time and again does not prove its validity. :nod:

Why does the tower being active mean that Mundus wouldn't be? General tower theory implies the opposite, that a tower being active helps Mundus stay active. Does White-Gold being active meant that Mundus isn't? You haven't explained your reasoning at all, you just keep repeating that the tower being active means that Mundus wouldn't be.

And again, who says that the target of the Yoku magic was the tower. Of course they sunk the continent to get rid of the elves, but why do you feel compelled to add the tower into the equation instead of just saying that they used nuclear sword-tricks and thus it sunk. This is a simple question that you've yet to provide a response to, why include the tower?

If we're just willy-nilly throwing aspects into the equation that have no backing I'd much prefer to say that the Ansei cut the mythos of the left-handers out from the fabric of the universe, thus eliminating them. If you want to say that they did this through toppling the tower, that's fine, but at least say if your just throwing in ideas for fun; otherwise if you have a legit source, say so. :lightbulb:

Na, it only implies that is akin to what we know as nukes, not that it operates under the exact same principles. One could simply say that the Shehai cuts through the fabric or mythos of the universe thus causing catastrophic damage in the same manner as a nuke. Cutting the atomos, the un-cuttable, doesn't mean of necessity cutting atoms, afterall the philisophical idea of the atomos was around long before the scientific idea of the atom as such. :nuke:

That's what I've been asking ever since I joined this thread. :talk:

:turtle:

"Like all of the polydox constructs of the earliest Aldmer-- whatever their abnegaurbic creed-- 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. ..."

no more creatia bleed for mundus = no more gray

yeah, that remark was typical of me, sorry about that

Ok, so "they sunk it stop the Left-Handers' tower" from activating, because only its activation can topple mundus, which is what they want. Remember, the ayleids were going to return to fulfill their creation, because it wasn't yet complete. Same holds true for the others, they are not yet complete. Numidium wasn't either. None have been.

Interesting theory but I don't see how it's got any backing to it.

the backing is right there in the text. "Re-reaching the divine" means returning to the state of existence when all were gods. this was before Mundus. Hence, returning to divinity means killing mundus.

I understand that, but why build towers in the image of Adamantine? Why not just try to destroy Adamantine Tower? Either way I don't think the Left-Handed Elves and the Ayleids were somehow conspiring to destroy Mundus, if anything their building towers almost appears as more of a god-complex issue where they are using the Towers to mimic the gods, thus setting themselves up as the gods they claim to be. Only the Dwemer delved into the process of reversing creation.

"The Aldmer began to split along cultural lines, on how best to spread creation and their parts in it. Each Tower that was built exemplified a separate accordance."

The towers are designed to spread and control creatia, to give control over the world. You say that the rereaching of the divine is an attempt to attain pre-Mundus status. I'd say that rereaching of the divine is an attempt to attain pre-Convention status, when the gods walked and molded the world as they desired. This is what the towers let the elves do. Everybody wasn't a god before Mundus, the only time everybody was a god is between the creation of Mundus and its solidification with the Convention. As to why not just destroy Adamantine Tower; to destroy that tower would destroy Mundus, which is not the goal.

If the goal was pre-Mundus then Crimson Paladin would be right and all they'd need to do is destroy Adamantine, that they don't do this naturally suggests that pre-Mundus is not their goal. They're reversing the congealing bleed of the Convention. Congealing suggests solidifying. Solidifying of what? of the rules and land, of creatia. The towers are overtly designed to spread and mold creatia. They're not designed to reverse Mundus, just the congealing of creatia in the aftermath of the Convention while simultaneously providing stability to the overall world by sustaining the boundary against Oblivion and Aetherius.

:turtle:

Why is the spread of creation necessary for Mundus' destruction? Why must the congealed spiritual bleed be reversed? The convention was trap of Lorkhan's device, and the Altmeri creation myth is clear, this is not the place the Altmer wish a return to. Rather, they desire a return to the Aetherial sequence of creation, where "[w]ith time, various aspects of the Aurbis began to understand their natures and limitations. They took names..." The process of spreading creation, is the proliferation of creatia/magicka, which is indicative of the aldmeri compulsion for the Aetherial. The towers are efforts to craft Mundus as a likeness of Aetherius, using Aetherial refuse, thereby destroying Mundus.

Each group had their own ideas of what to do, to shape where they lived. The Left-Handed Elves, Ayleids, Dwemer, and Altmer all had their own takes on it. The Ayleids in particular had a pretty interesting solution; instead of drawing on Aetherial matter, they drew on creatia from Oblivion. Given that most Ayleids worshipped the Aedra and that there were Ayleids who fought alongside the Nedes in the fall of White-Gold Tower, it seems even among the Ayleids there were disagreements regarding creation. That's why the elves split and built different towers (or in the Altmer's case just try to slow the degradation of elder magic), because they disagreed on what to do and how to do it.

Crimson, all towers are copies of ada-mant, they don't disagree "on what to do", just the method.

How is the convention a part of lorkhan's trap? Wasn't it during the convention that Lorkhan was killed, and during the convention that they could have left but didn't.