I know CHIM means I AM, but what is the advantage of being I AM? It really doesn't make sense that someone knowing I AM would be powerful, or wiser?


Please, shoot me down.

It's exactly like lucid dreaming. If you realise that you're dreaming, you have the power to shape the dream itself.

CHIM is lucid waking.

The ability to shape the world and make yourself the most important thing?

I can see why you'd want it.

Right, in this post I'm assuming Vivec got CHIM,

Why didn't he drive the N'wah out of Morrowind?, Why didn't he destroy Dagoth Ur and blight?

If I could control the fabric of the Universe and I was Vivec, thats what I would do.

dammit, you read my mind.
I was about to ask the same thing

Well it's not being "I am" -- oh, horribly overquoted intellectual buzzwords --, because that would imply you are still something, rather than simply being (="existing") in the existential meaning of the word. The concept of CHIM is often and easily connected to a notion of (destructive) power, though this is in my opinion false thinking.

A person with CHIM would have the ability to do all kinds of things (or perhaps more accurately, "every kind of thing"). I loathe these comparisons, but imagine that the character you are playing in the game finds out that it can open up the save/load menu by yelling "Esc".

Because he doesn't want to? After all, he's the one who welcomed Tiber Septim and gave him the weapon with which to conquer Summerset.

He didn't? He did. He wrote a Plan to Defeat Dagoth Ur and explained to the Nerevarine everything he needed to know.

If you mean directly, by simply wishing Dagoth out of existence, that's not as simple. The Aurbis is not just a vivid hallucination, it's one that is fueled by stories. Too simple and undramatic a resolution couldn't have worked, because the rest of the Godhead would be thinking, "nah, it's too simple, it couldn't have happened this way, Dagoth Ur will be back" and Dagoth Ur would be back.

That's a good way to explain it, I think.

It seems that all gods have weighed off to a tea that sublime ability to cause others to do whatever they want, even if the thing in question is completely within their control and ability.

Vivec doesn't have CHIM anymore and he only had it for a short time. And some people will still disagree on that. Only the hero of Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind and Oblivon had CHIM officially. They didn't even get it, they always had it. In the end they lose it tho, that's the way of CHIM. It's loss is related to food, shopping, and lack of resources to go on.

Officially the heroes had CHIM?

Simple answer: Because it would be kind of contradictory to the whole point of the game. :shrug:

Vivec didn't *always* have CHIM. In fact, attaining CHIM is not really a matter of "attaining" it at all... it's a matter of "attaining" it and maintaining it. Recognising oneself as the Universe itself and as an individual simultaneously is counterintuitive, and requires one to escape the bounds of logic, which is an enormous feat of concentration.



In a way, CHIM could be seen as the ultimate state of denial. "I am myself, but I am also everything and nothing". You kind of have to work at it.

In fact, the phrase "I have achieved CHIM" is kind of nonsensical, when you think about it. As soon as you recognise yourself as a person that did NOT have CHIM at a certain point in time, you contradict the state of having CHIM and you lose it. Witness MK's post in http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?s=&showtopic=548893&view=findpost&p=7906414.

No, no. CHIM is the realization and the process of knowing. Once one has achieved CHIM, they can then reach the final subgradient which then allows them to do all kinds of things. There are other ways at reaching the final subgradient; like the Nu-man or the entiomorph etc etc

For example, Talos never achived CHIM, but is on par with Vivec in power beacuse becoming an entiomorph also allows one to reach the final subgradient.

Because if you find out what the [censored] the truth is, you disappear if you can't retain that thought of self, and have the will to remain who you are.

Methinks you are confusing Chim and the Psijic Endevour. The Psijic Endevour is "a process of glorious apotheosis" which results in a state called Chim which is "a shape that is always new" but also "the essence to hold that 'dawning' together".

Otherwise, agreed. According to the Loveletter the Psijic Endevour is but one of the ways to reach the final subgradient. Tiber Septim used another one from Vivec.

Putting any word after the Am.

So, any Psijic, Fyr for example, would leap at the chance to emulate the "glorious apotheosis" in the model of the Tribunal?

Just a question. What other ways are there to do so? Without winning the lottery of fate or causing mayhem in a nuclear troika?

Well, I'd assume that naturally he might. One does infer from Sotha Sil's letters to Fyr that he did have an interest in at least obtaining the tools even if it may have just been for "research."

So CHIM is being able to shape the Future, while making sure you can, for lack of a better word, contain yourself?

Sorry, If this is extremely simple, but I'm new to Lore etc.

CHIM has been compared to Lucid Dreaming in this thread, and while the comparison works... I tend to think of it more in this situation:

You're asleep and dreaming. One of the characters in your dream realizes that it is a part of your dream but somehow manages to maintain some form of self and has the ability to shape the dream.

Of course, when I say it like that it just sounds like someone with Multiple Personalities lucidly dreaming. Go figure.

Of couse, the multiple personalities lucidly dreaming is probably the most apt comparison. I like your way of explaining.


The Psijics don't actually follow the Psijic endeavor, weirdly. The follow the Old Ways and are the height of the Altmer's wishing of a time before the Dawn.
Davith Fyr might, as he has broken away from the Psijics and follows the steps of the Dwemer, something he calls the New Ways. He might lepa on a chance to Apotheosis.

The reason the Psijic Endeavor is called that is because it is named after the same thing the Psijic Order is named after; the Psijic Endeavor is not named for the Psijic Order.

The words "Psijic" pertains to the word "PSJJJJ", the Ehlonofex word for the first brush of Anu and Padomay. Both the words "Psijic" and "Sithis" are derivations of the word PSJJJJ.

So following the "Psijic Endeavor" means to aspire to a state of existence similar to the Universe before the existence of the Aurbis.

Very, very nice.

CHIM is [whatever].

Nu-mantia is [CHIM] in a new world of your own making.

(Don't stick around here!!)


___TWM

I have a theory. Unfortunately, it involves breaking the fourth wall.

Zero-Sum is realizing it's all just a game and should be doing something else in life. CHIM is when are able to save, load, and use the console, because playing TES is more fun than anything else that you could be doing at the moment.

I know what CHIM is, I never actually said what it was in my post as that question seemed pretty much answered. Both CHIM and the psijic endeavor are states of mind, not the actual state of being. For example, Molag Bal knew of CHIM, and thus had it. However, since he never applied it, he never achieved the final subgradient and thus had nothing but a pocket full of fun facts.

Knowing CHIM (and thus reaching it) is much different then applying it. Its like knowing the answers to a test, but if you never actually take the test, you have jack-squat.

But yeah, this whole confusion between CHIM and the final subgradient really bugs me. People don't seem to get they are two different (though related) things.

Vivec and the other two never really reached CHIM. They reached an approximation of it, because they didn't realize you have to mess with the other stones too (which the Dwemer ended up finding out).