#tes metaphysics

[gronglegrowth]

The planes of The Elder Scrolls: An overlap of layers

You might've heard that the Planes exist in a structure of layers, where, say, Oblivion is on the outside of Nirn. This is true but, all the planes are infinite. So, how can one infinite mass exist within another? It's simple, or maybe not. Each plane occupies the same physical space insofar as an infinite thing can occupy a space, which means all planes are in the same location. When you're on Nirn, and if you go to Mehrunes Dagon's plane Deadlands (iirc) through an Oblivion Gate you'll end up in the same place every time. Where you enter a plane directly corresponds to where you appear on/in that plane, and to take this further?

Let's say you can traverse the planes at will without any need for gates or voidships or anything except your own Belief. You will still need to go to a point where you are at least near to where you want to be on your destination plane. For an example? You want to go to Sovngarde, which is (or should be) somewhere in Aetherius. To get there, you'd first need to go to the location on Nirn where, on Aetherius, Sovngarde is, then you could simply Believe yourself there.

Now, let's look at void travel.

Void travel is the act of traversing the Void, or Oblivion (they are one and the same and by Oblivion I'm not talking about its sixteen major planes and countless minor ones), and to do this, you'll need something to propel you through it. A voidship. Travel through the Void is possible without one, as I've written about before, however having one is easier than not. For an overview of my thoughts on Voidships and void travel see my addition to this post.

Building on both of these concepts, void travel is the act of going to a place on your current plane (or rather lack thereof because the Void... is complicated), and once there you Believe yourself on another plane. It's that simple. Or possibly not.

TL;DR: planes exist in the same space and you can switch between them at will if your Belief is strong enough.

I hope this explanation isn't too confusing; I'm not the best at laying out my thoughts in a clear way.

[iosaturnalia]

I just woke up and I might expand on this later when I’ve taken my Adderall but somehow I don’t see Lorkhan and Auri-El as being strictly Padomaic or Anuic.

I think they’re subgradients of those entities but the waters between P/A get muddied and blended the deeper you go into subgradients. Once you go from purely divine to semi-divine and then into mortal, white and black don’t exist - it’s all shades of gray. And once you’ve introduced that gray, you cannot go back to being purely white or black.

My ultimate take on Lorkhan is that his creation of Mundus was an attempt at becoming Amaranth, which is to my understanding a force similar to Anu; he failed in this, and created a plane that is inherently Padomaic because of its constantly-changing nature. BUT the way that Mundus is described in the Love Letter from the Fifth Era sounds much more Anuic in its structure and order:

“We begin to see the first inkling of emergence, which by its nature requires the merging of two-fold powers. Inevitably, this leads to another gradient, but this time by forceful process: the Trap of the Lunar God. The Aedra are Named at this time, having lent their hands to what was to be the arena of the eternally impossible: Mundus, or Exactness. Oblivion to Mundus: debris of all possibility to anchor of all things.”

Aetherius existed before Oblivion, which existed before Mundus. Perhaps Lorkhan was attempting to restore an Anuic nature to the universe but failed - in the same way that it is impossible to create a purely white color on a canvas with a brush that already has gray paint on it. This is the tragedy of Lorkhan.

And then there’s the question: if the Sharmat and Hortator are opposing but complimentary forces (exclusion/integration vs. inclusion/diversity), it’s very interesting that the more Anuic entity of these two is the evil one and the Padomaic entity is the benevolent one. This is why I have to tie everything back to an Khajiiti understanding of mythology to make my musings work.

Idk. I really need to take a hero dose of shrooms soon and then maybe I’ll be able to articulate it. 😂

[gronglegrowth]

The Eight Towers

Where they are and when they deactivated

Ada-Mantia (High Rock): Active. Its stone is the Zero Stone.

Red Tower (Vvardenfell): Inactive as of 3E 427. Its stone was the Heart of Lorkhan.

White-Gold (Cyrodiil): Inactive as of the Great War. Its stone was Chim-el Adabal, or the Amulet of Kings.

Snow-Throat (Skyrim): Debatable. Its stone is the Cave.

Green-Sap (Valenwood): Inactive, date unknown. Its stone is a fruit.

Orichalc (Yokuda): Inactive as of the sinking of Yokuda. Its stone was a sword.

Crystal-Like-Law (Alinor): Inactive as of the Oblivion Crisis. Its stone was a person.

Walk-Brass (Unknown): Inactive as of the Warp in the West. Its stone was first the Heart of Lorkhan, then the Mantella.

Source.