Board Thread:Lore Discussion/@comment-71.226.242.68-20131113201112/@comment-121511-20150305180929

TiberCaesarAndRepublicOfTamriel wrote: -AR- wrote:

TiberCaesarAndRepublicOfTamriel wrote: Akatosh could kill them. He's the God of Time. He kicked Dagon's behind no problem. Wasn't even a fight. He would dominate the entire Daedric pantheon. Akatosh did not kill Dagon, as Dagon cannot be killed. He banished him to Oblivion. If Vivec with CHIM, which alters the very nature of the Dream, cannot kill a Daedric Prince, a Daedric Prince cannot be killed. That said, it is beyond the ability of the Aedra to act on their own: the very fact that they are bound to Mundus limits their ability to apply their power of their own accord. They do not have self-agency: it was not so much Akatosh that defeated Mehrunes Dagon, it was Martin Septim channeling Akatosh's power. The Aedra can act on their own, they just choose not too. They "gave too much of themselves"...poppycock. I don't believe it. The lore will evolve as time goes on and will eventually have to explain why the Aedra interfere in the mortal world on a daily basis.

We all know the Adera interfere, we've played the games. They offer their blessings to their followers and cure them of diseases, they can be summoned to defeat evil Daedra but not to commit evil acts on behalf of the Daedra, and yes they answer mortal's prayers more indirectly but that's because they're not demonic mischief makers seeking petty glory and insignificant control over mortal lives.

CHIM and the great dreamer, that's all based on Vivec's interperation of his godhood and our understanding of how Talos managed to achieve divinity. Divinity is a complicated subject and the idea of a "great dreamer" might just be a poetic way to describe the big bang, or the start and end of the universe. The ignorant and backward denizens of Skyrim  have had steam power for thousands of years, buried right under their noses! They study industrial machinery and explore the dwemer caves yet still can't figure out how to throw down a simple railroad track. I don't believe anything that doesn't come straight from a Dwemer's mouth, and even Dwemer books are so old they could have been changed and adapted over time.

We all saw a small piece of Akatosh fly into the world at the behest of Martin Septim and crush Dagon, Dagon barely put up a fight. You're telling me Akatosh can't kill that fool? Pffft. I'll never believe it. The Aedra are dead or comatose, the distinction irrelevant as the point is that they lack self-agency. In the act of Creation they became Mundus: they didn't give their power in making the world, they gave their ability to control their own actions. Thus, the Eight do not and cannot act on Nirn of their own accord. Their Aspects, those deities that were mythopoeically shed from their corpses, are not them, but are of them; ultimately, however, even the Aspects still have some of the shackles that were placed on the original Eight. They cannot act as freely as the Daedra, who are completely unbound, can. Further, Aspects are bound by another shackle entirely: the shackle of mortal belief. Their actions are determined by what their worshipers believe their actions will be. That is the nature of mythopoeia. Those who worship Akatosh do not believe that he intervenes in mortal affairs on a daily basis, and thus he does not, and cannot. He is equivalent to the idea of him held by all those that subscribe to the Imperial Cult.

And no, the Godhead, the Dream, the Aurbis, CHIM, none of that is metaphor: it's the nature of the universe in which The Elder Scrolls is set. CHIM comes about as a result of balancing the two truths, I AM and I AM NOT: it allows for the achiever to change the nature of the Dream by virtue of the fact that they understand that they are all and all are them. This is all very well established lore, not just something to be interpreted. And further, Dwemer technology is not simple steam power, it is Tonal Architecture: the Aurbis is music, and the Dwemer learned to manipulate that music to achieve otherwise impossible feats. The Thu'um is also Tonal Architecture, if different in method of function.