User blog comment:Zippertrain85/The reasons why Serana is not from the First Era./@comment-3217145-20130507120605

First, I want to point out that these are good points. Your previous blog asked if Bethesda was being lazy with Harkon's backstory, and while these aren't "writing errors," it's still lazy writing to make a story so convoluted and mention nothing about it in-game. My guess is that they wanted to put the Volkihars' origin at a time when nothing they said could be proven true or false, so they wouldn't have to worry about tripping themselves up. It's possible that separate writers came up with the different bits of dialog without checking with each other, or without doing a lot of research about what they were referencing.

And, second. In this blog and the last one, most of what you're bringing up are basically arguments from incredulity. Just saying "that seems unlikely" doesn't actually mean anything without some specific evidence about that matter at hand, because without information, we have no way of judging whether something is likely or not. None of these things are "writing errors," since they can all be justified in lore-friendly ways.

So.

First: Fair enough. I've never seen anything else get modernized unless it was previously destroyed. However, that doesn't prove that it never happened. We have no idea what Solitude's history is. Just because it's connected to the Empire now doesn't mean it always was. The mere fact that Serana has heard of Solitude doesn't tell us anything about what it was like at the time.

Second: If no record of something exists, that means we don't know what the answer is; we have no idea what it isn't. We have no clue how old the Moth Priests are. The Elder Scrolls themselves exist "outside of time," meaning they've been around for the entire lifespan of the universe, so there's no reason to assume that a way to read them is a recent invention. They're the "Ancestor Moth Cult," not the "Imperial Office of Scrying and Prophecy," so it's just as likely they're like the Greybeards and organized themselves at first. Remember that Serana was buried with an Elder Scroll; why would she be protecting it if no there was no one in the world who knew what it was or how to read it? Given the fact that Moth Priests eventually go blind and they're trying to collect UNTHINKABLY valuable artifacts, maybe they sought the Empire to protect them, or maybe the Empire offered protection themselves so that they could control the scrolls. They're also called "ancestor" moths for some reason, maybe it has something to do with them being ancient. It's impossible to know.

I will concede that it would otherwise seem more likely they came later on, but we have NOTHING to base that on. Serana talking about them is the only piece of information we have, and since there's no prior lore to conflict, we have to assume it's canon.

Third: first, knowing who Serana is doesn't necessarily mean they knew her personally. I don't remember what the actual dialog is, but anyone in the court could just have heard of her from Harkon, and they would know that he's been searching for her forever and HATES her mother. That doesn't tell us how old any specific vampire is. IIRC, the doorman recognizes her face, then he says "Serana's back," so anyone there could go "omg Serana, it's that chick, I've heard of her," without having met her before.

Second, does Garan says he's older than everyone else, or just that he's "old?" If he was turned when he was already old (in mortal terms, plus he's an elf, so that could make him several hundred years old already), that's the kind of personality he would have. He's certainly older than the Dragonborn, so he has every right to talk that way to them. He also says he's "tired of the political intrigue" or something like that; maybe he just has more experience with that kind of junk, whereas the other inhabitants seem to have been turned when they were much younger and probably never experienced high court politics. Or, maybe they've been vampires so long that they just don't pay attention to it anymore, and they only think about hunting and getting more power, while the "younger" Garan still remembers all the headaches he put up with as a mortal. I can't say much about this though, as I don't know what specific quotes he uses.

Fourth: since we've never seen the First Era, we have absolutely no idea what kind of clothes people wore. The Ayleids were active in the Merethic Era, and built all the Ayleid ruins and the White Gold Tower found in Oblivion. Dwemer operated around this time, too. Tools and knowledge for advanced architecture existed and apparently were common, if you weren't an early Atmoran barbarian. The clothes and architecture don't match ancient Nord standards, but it's a vampire cult formed of various races, so there's no reason for them to hold to those standards. Harkon also claims to have found the castle, not built it, IIRC, so it wouldn't even matter. The Skyforge has no source either. Some even earlier group, contemporary with or part of the other elves, could have made it, then Harkon took over later. Harkon's predecessor could be non-Nord and have access to better architecture, and he took over their underlings and thralls. Mehrunes Dagon could have made it and taught his vampire cult the magic or method to make things like it themselves (Winterhold was supposedly built using magic).

And yes, Dimhollow Crypt could very well be from the Merethic Era. Nords had been coming to Tamriel from Atmora for centuries before Ysgramor arrived during the Merethic Era. Saarthal is an example of one city these Nords built, and it has the same architectural style and complexity as Dimhollow Crypt (not counting the stuff added later, mentioned in the note). The Nords living in Saarthal (and anywhere else in Skyrim) were massacred by the Snow Elves, returned to Atmora, then came back and beat them, all before the First Era began. Dimhollow is also fairly close to Dawnstar, which puts it as close to the Nords' original landing point as Windhelm, and even closer than Whiterun, both of which are from the Merethic Era.

And my own point:

Fifth: you're dismissing direct, deliberate dialog evidence as "writing errors," in favor of some extrapolations and probability statements based on a lack of evidence. That isn't a sound argument. I'll keep the other blog's topic separate, but I responded to it at well, and Harkon's backstory isn't patently "ridiculous" either. I found possible answers to most of the problems you posed by trolling around the wiki. If you have some more hard evidence (like Garan saying he's older than the people who used to know Serana), that would be much more convincing.