Board Thread:Lore Discussion/@comment-67.242.90.204-20130908163603/@comment-13446185-20151030210949

Platinum Luffy wrote: Confirmed by the devs? No it's not. It's a theory in the lore, just like the view of the Mer. As far as i know. If it isn't then show me how it's confirmed by the devs. I'll explain it in a more in-depth manner, attuned to the lore.

First off, an important note, Aldmeris also goes by the name "Old Ehlnofey". This is mentioned in many sources, but I'm not going to fill this post up with their quotes so here's a list of them if you want to see for yourself.

(Before the Ages of Man, PGE 3 Eras, PGE 3 Summerset, Emperor's Guide)

The reason I say this is because the term "Old Ehlnofey" is often used in place of "Aldmeris" in important quotes.

But let's start off with the only known description of Aldmeris we have which comes from Pocket Guide to the Empire, Third Edition: Other Lands.


 * Translation from the ancient tapestries and texts in the Crystal Tower of Summerset have yielded only the barest of sketches of a beautiful but very strange land. In no representation of Aldmeris are there any trees or life but the Aldmer themselves. It appears always as an endless city, built upon itself over and over again, until no nature remains at all

Note how strange and mythical these ancient tapestries make Aldmeris out to be. A land that is somehow an infinite city, completely devoid of all life save for the Aldmer themselves. Here is another important quote from that same text, in reference to the disappearance of Aldmeris.


 * Others claim that the elven homeland has left Mundus, and will only return when the races of mer are united as one.

This quote is the most important piece of the puzzle, the hope that Aldmeris will return when the races of Mer become unified, much like as they began, the Aldmer. This is in reference to the idea that Aldmeris was sundered, shown in the quotes below, and the ramifications of such a split in Elven unity.


 * They were chased south and east to Old Ehlnofey, and Lorkhan was close behind. He shattered that land into many
 * The Monomyth

Aldmeris is said to be shattered.


 * This war reshaped the face of Nirn, sinking much of the land beneath new oceans, and leaving the lands as we know them (Tamriel, Akavir, Atmora, and Yokuda). The Old Ehlnofey realm, although ruined, became Tamriel
 * The Annotated Anuad

This quote flat out states that Aldmeris became Tamriel as we know it, and thus, isn't going to be found traveling the seas, though I'll elaborate on this later. Now comes the more blatant information.


 * Aldmeris split during the Dawn, but as in all things then, these fractures enjoyed quasi-temporal amendments. Sometimes the Island of Start was with us, othertimes not or not of a whole, close as it was to spirit actual.
 * Nu-Mantia Intercept, Letter 4

This quote may seem kind of strange, but here is what is basically being said: 'because of the opaque and incomprehensible timelessness of the Dawn Era, Aldmeris is often inherently remembered as a physical land that was with the Elves when the Merethic Era began (As Before the Ages of Man would have you believe), but was in actuality a much more spiritual state shared by the Elves, being there before Nirn could really be considered something that actually existed. Next and most important quote:


 * This sundering of purpose is the myth of the "destruction of Aldmeris." Outside of the Dawn, and even then only in the dreamtime of its landscape, there was never a terrestrial homeland of the Elves. "Old Ehlnofey" is a magical ideal of mixed memories of the Dawn
 * All mortal life started on the starry heart of Dawn's beauty, Tamriel.
 * Nu-Mantia Intercept, Letter 5

In other words, Aldmeris was never a continent. It is the product of the spiritual anguish and cloudy unintelligible memories that remained within the original Aldmer-spirits when they were ripped from the surreal-dreamlike Dawn Era. A heavenly state of mind and singular unity shared by the Aldmer that they believed they lived their lives through, but was in truth a fabrication of their sundered and traumatized subconscious.

Legends state that Aldmeris became Tamriel, but in truth, the land in which all life came into being was always Tamriel. Its 'shattering' and destruction was in truth the shattering of Aldmeri unity and the fragmentation of the Elves into various races. This is why some believe that unifying all elves into a single race would bring back Aldmeris, because in a general sense, that is exactly what Aldmeris is (subtract the Dawn Era and other living beings). From what can be seen, the end goal of the Thalmor is to bring back this state.