Board Thread:Lore Discussion/@comment-24.44.141.89-20131113224543/@comment-24358064-20131230165936

http://www.imperial-library.info/content/tsaesci-creation-myth-and-we-ate-it-become-it

"We ate it and become it."

I think we can say the Tsaesci absorbed the Men of Akavir. Maybe the Tsaesci are not even a biological race as such, but a cultural unit. It is worth mentioning how many concepts the (admittedly very confusing) Tsaesci creation myth shares with Sermon 21 of the 36 Lessons of Vivec: The coiling and biting and circles... I think the sermon might describe a "reptilian" view of the world, and maybe the Tsaesci are just people (of different biological races) defined by that teaching. This is hardly unpredecented in TES: *All* Elven peoples are defined by their metaphysical view on the world as well, after all. And it does not mean that the Tsaesci did not literally eat the Men of Akavir: In TES, the metaphorical and the literal are often one and the same, after all.

In any case, there has to have been some human Tsaesci. According to the Pocket Guide to the Empire, First Edition, Rimmen is populated by descendants of Akaviri refugees - and in the context of Tamriel, "Akaviri" means the Tsaesci Reman had allowed to settle on the continent. Yet, the people of Rimmen appear to be human - the name literally is derived from "Rim Men", the men (humans) at the Rim of Elseweyr.

So in conclusion, I think the Tsaesci are defined by metaphysics, not biology, though the two can become one and the same in TES, and that there must have been human Tsaesci.