User blog comment:Zippertrain85/The reasons why Serana is not from the First Era./@comment-26474238-20130514055034/@comment-3217145-20130514233209

Who would have built it in the Second or Third Era?

Your explanation doesn't solve anything. What do they have now to transport those materials to an island in the middle of the Sea of Ghosts? Ox-drawn wagons and ships. What did they have in the Merethic Era? The same thing. If it was impossible then, it would be impossible now. Saying that those building materials didn't exist in Skyrim also implies that someone must have dragged them over the Jerall Mountains by wagon, across all of Skyrim to the northwestern-most corner, and then across the water. If dragons or something didn't help with this, it would be an incredibly difficult and wasteful undertaking in any time period. If anything, the most likely explanations would be ancient elves with lots of human slaves or advanced magic, or dragons carrying the stuff over the water, or the material just existing readily. Or, someone just magicked it into existence for the exclusive use of the vampires.

It's already been established regardless that there's no reason to think the Nords or the dragons built it, and that it doesn't matter what materials or techniques they did or didn't have available. You speak like you have a census of everyone in Tamriel for the durations of the Merethic and First Eras, and it's just impossible for a group or individual not specifically mentioned in history to do anything. Let alone a group or individual who clearly wants to stay hidden, or they wouldn't be making a castle on an island a mile from the coast.

Let's put it this way. The buildings in the Soul Cairn. Do you think someone transported a lot of stone and mortar into an empty plain to build the random fragments of buildings and towers around there? Or was it just magicked into existence that way? It's a fairy tale world. Buildings of all kinds have existed since the beginning of time, and they only look a certain way because it fits their purpose or aesthetic. They don't require a readily explicable source within Nirn, especially things with magical ties (like vampires, who were created by Molag Bal because he's a jerk and likes screwing with our world).