Board Thread:Lore Discussion/@comment-12481512-20130717104617/@comment-121511-20150416154958

Kitsune Inari wrote: My hypothesis is that perhaps the reason Dwemer metal can't be recreated is that Dwemer metal itself is impossible. The Dwemer needed a material that is completely immune to wear and corrosion and time, but that is not possible under Mundus' physics laws. So they pulled a B.S. Johnson and bent the laws of physics to make it anyway. After all their Hat is to be medieval-fantastic mad scientists. If one were to find out how they made the stuff it would be replicable again.

Perhaps when on TES6 the Dwemer come back and invade Tamriel...

You're actually quite close to the truth of it. Dwemer Metal is derived from Tonal Architecture, which is the application or alteration of certain Tones in certain ways or at certain times to alter the perceivable reality in otherwise impossible ways. The Aurbis is Music, and thus producing or changing the Tones that comprise it will affect changes on the universe: thus the Dwemer were able to work their technological miracles, including the creation of their impossible metal, their Animunculi, and of course, Numidium. Thu'um is also a form of Tonal Architecture, albeit relying on the Language of Dragons as a medium to affect changes, rather than the precise tools of the Dwemer.