What are they exactly? Where and when did they first show up?

Lol, the more threads liek this show up, the more I'm sure people will support the idea of a sticky explaining these.

It's when you levitate high enough in the sky that you can see the dragons M'aiq told you about.

...Seriously though, go check out Vehk's Teachings at the TIL to learn about CHIM. Good, thorough amounts of information.

edit: The search function there will tell you alot more, too, if you search the terms.

I agree, there really needs to be a CHIM and Zero-Sum sticky. But who should write it?

Lol, damn near ANYBODY. I honestly doubt it matters.

Honestly thought, it should probably just link to Vehk's Teachings and whatever other texts are more black and white about it instead of texts that explain it but in an obscure way, e.g. 36 Sermons.

I feel FULLY explaining it would take the fun out of it.

What is CHIM and Zero-sum?

Although I agree with 946000 about giving a straight answer taking away all the fun, I will herein attempt to point you in somewhat of a generalized direction:

First, the easy part:
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The roman numeral for "one" is I.

The symbol for zero is 0.

Turn the 0 sideways and you get an I.

Now flip them repeatedly....you get 001101010110101.

What you get is binary code.

You are either "off" (zero-sum) or "on" (CHIM).
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Next, the hard part:
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The Dawn Era (the point of "I", nonlinear time) is a time of Memory, or Mnemoli, the Blue Star.

Amnesia is the two-headed fighting rays that extend from their point of origin (the Tower of I).

Holding the Tower together without disaster (zero sum) is CHIM.
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I hope this helps somewhat, for I remain...



___The Word Merchant of [100010111010]

I know this always comes across as elitest but I think we have established before why it is no fun to have a stickie on what CHIM is.

We should have a stickie on why there is no stickie!! :woot:

LET THEM EAT CAKE! :grad:

Zero-Sum is nothing and CHIM is everything. Case closed.

Lol brilliantly put. That's even helping me understand some other stuff, such as the Loveletter.

Funny how life works like that.

:rock:

Now your just making them hungry. And not for knowledge.

Pretty words don't make right.

Example: Vivec, when the Nerevarine him in the Temple, had no CHIM at all. Per definition of CHIM, which is already there for the wise to find. He ain't zero summed either (simply for the fact that he didn't vaporate). Therefore, I postulate that "You are either "off" (zero-sum) or "on" (CHIM)." is wrong.

What is perhaps more dangerous than I AM NOT? I AM NOT WHAT I THINK I AM.

Not necessarily. After you "figure it out," there's really only two things you can do: Zero-Sum or get CHIM.

But I get what you're saying. But if Vivec had CHIM before AND after TES III...then what the hell was his deal in the game???

CHIM reminds me of Ubermensch concept, and Zero-sum reminds me of Nirvana. Or perhaps, Parinirvana(that comes after death of a Buddha).
Maybe MK or whoever came up with this stuff had some inspiration from these concepts.

When you know what CHIM is, the answer is evident.

Way too many caps there.

To the OP, I never had fun trying to figure out what CHIM first was, didn't struggle for long to grasp it. Whats most difficult are the explanations people give you, you soon find that the concept was much more simple then the way people put it. When you find out what it is you'll slap your face, "The Virtue of little reward" and all that [censored].

Would it be so objectionable to have a CHIM stickie with two explanations: one with the usual crypticness, and one genuinely straightforward one, under spoiler tags? Someone wants a straightforward answer? They can highlight the spoiler. Someone wants to figure it out on their own? They can leave the spoilers black.

I'd like that.

If you can get everyone to agree on a definition, be my guest.

Better not. As with all realizations, they are only appreciated when effort is taken to get sad realization. To appreciate the meaning of CHIM, it is necessary to study it and to think about it. Otherwise, CHIM is worthless. That's why I think even spoiler tags will not serve a purpose. On the other hand, given the recent discussions about CHIM, the danger of posting the wrong thing about CHIM is far too high.

In some ways, putting CHIM in spoiler tags is like exhibiting a loaded weapon for anyone to touch, feel and play with. Someone eventually will come up and get shot.

So, does CHIM "help" you with anything? Or is just knowing u "exist"?

Leave it to Nally to shoot me down. :facepalm: The words were pretty though, weren't they? :wub:

No, the "off" and "on" example is not "right". In fact, it is very, very generalized and nowhere near the "end of the journey" that is correctly understanding the terms.

So, I will agree that the on/off example is not the "correct" answer, but I will proffer that it was not meant to be, not in a final sense. Giving the "right" answer, as we have all agreed, takes the fun out of it for fellow readers.


___TWM

Oh, it helps alright. It HELLA helps.

What does it help? Well, you'd have to know what CHIM specifically is and what it deals with to know that.

I... just can't see any value in forcing people to figure it out for themselves, particularly with how cryptic the lore forum can get at times. I don't even understand why it should matter how somebody came to their understanding of the concept. As long as someone is making intelligent contributions, I don't care how they got their knowledge.

Because technically there is no definitive answer; there IS, and there isn't. By "IS" I mean there is a rough, basic yet relatively consistent meaning with everyone's (correct) interpretation, but there "isn't" because it's actually much deeper than the basic explanation. If someone else explains it for you, then that does no one any good. It's almost stupid, really; someone who outright tells you it COULD be very wrong. You'd also probably feel that way when you'd do some reading of you own and come to a different conclusion than what you were told. That's happened to me with several different subjects; that's why I try to get my own interpretation instead of listening to someone's full blown answer.

In reality, there already is an answer that tells you what CHIM is in the TIL. It's called "Vehk's Teachings" and it practically tells you outright; all you have to have is a basic understanding of the relevant info.

The whole fun of anolyzing the lore is to take the cryptic info and trying to find the definitive, concrete answers out of the obscure. Trust me; most of the time, they DO exist. They either haven't been revealed yet (e.g., what Lorkhan is going to do when and if he gets his body back) or they're historical events with conflicting accounts filled with BS (e.g. what happened to Tiber Septim, Zurin Arctus, and the Underking, and creation myths).