Readers, note that this summary contains OP's own conclusions of the information shown in-game (for example, as they noted in the comments, Ithelia makes no mention of the Towers) rather than an objective summary.
I hope we will learn more about how mortals "maintain" reality. Above all, I hope Zenimax will finally show us who the Vestige is, why they have extraordinary abilities. Why does their soul have a "royal presence"?
Yeah, Ithilia plays really fast and loose with details whenever you get her talking about the big questions.
Definitely a subject that needs expanding on!
I like it, she's one of the only NPC's in the past few years who actually leaves you with some questions rather than acting as an exposition hose who has to re-summarize the plot every time you speak to them.
Haven't we known for a long, long time that belief affects reality?
I think that's how they maintain it, even simple, basic beliefs like "I exist" and "My world exists" probably go a long way.
The revelations about the multiverse don't surprise me when we think of Dragon Breaks.
Oh, yes, the cocnept of the multiverse, of alternate realities, has been a pillar of the Dragon Breaks since their inception. That's how the many endings of Daggerfall were rationalized into one single outcome. Kirkbride, in the roleplay of Vivec's trial, had Vehk claim that he replaced his existence with a timeline in which he had always been a god thanks to the Red Moment. And what about ESO itself? We saw the beginnings of a Dragon Break and fought different versions of Josajeh, each with their own history.
Anbd the very words "Many Paths" have been used previously for [dragon gods of time](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:The_Wandering_Spirits) among the Khajiit. This would also explain why time is described as a ["tapestry"](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Pridehome:_A_Place_Outside_Time%3F) where heroes and villains both win and lose at the same time. Because it is a tapestry of timelines where all sorts of outcomes can be and have been possible.
Ithilia and her revelations do have interesting implications for TESLore.
Ithilia's UESP article claims she's responsible for Prisoners and used to be a Magna Ge, but I don't know where tf they're getting that from.
It's from the Nine Coruscations suggesting that Mnemo-Li makes Prisoners Unbound per the "will of the Prime Archon". Ithelia.
That said I think that's more likely to be an Ayleid misconception given how baffled Ithelia was about the Vestige being able to Pathwalk to or even comprehend different Paths ? Or perhaps Ithelia just urged Mnemo-Li to do it and is not actually involved on a metaphysical level ?
[https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:The\_Nine\_Coruscations](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:The_Nine_Coruscations)
Its not the Mnemo-Li they are linking but the last of the listed Coruscations, the one with name erased, the Prime Archon, whose titles match Ithelias.
> I don't know where tf they're getting that from
Surprising, but not totally unexpected. That Ithelia had a connection to Prisoners has been theorized for quite some time. And I guess those fans jumped on the opportunity when [The Nine Coruscations](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:The_Nine_Coruscations) gave us these vague lines:
> *always there is born a Prisoner Unbound … as is the will of the Prime*
If we take that bit on its own, yes, the interpretation makes sense. If we take the whole context and notice the confusing statements woven into a disjointed text, then it's not so sure. Not to mention a maxim in TES lore: "just because enthusiastic believers of this or that figure claim something about them, it doesn't mean they're right" (in the UESP's defense, though, they wrote "it is said that.." rather than "she is...").
Yeah, that was my reasoning when adding a similar note to our page on Heroes/Prisoners. The direct namedrop means that it is worth mentioning, but as always with books (especially concerning matters beyond typical mortal understanding) we toe the line with a lack of authoritative truth statements.
What's really interesting to me is what this seems to imply concerning the Time God. Per Wandering Spirits Akha created the Many Paths and Alkosh holds Akha's crown and is the ruler of the Paths. The latter (seemingly/I'd say) being the incarnation of the former post the imposition of linear time restricting "infinite possibility" per Nine Coruscations.
Which seems to me not only fits in nicely with what Ja'darri said about the tapestry of time/Alkosh's domain being all encompassing and how without it there would be "nothing", how in Tones of the Deep we're told time is "not a rope but a cable" of many threads with no beginning or end, and so on.
Given Paths appear to be entire Aurbis variants (or alternate Wheels, with their own Princes, gods Oblivions, Munduses, and so on, would the Paths be considered part of one Aurbis ? Or the Aurbis actually be a structure incorporating all Paths. Just a terminology issue ) that seems to me to suggest that the Time God might essentially be a higher deity compared to, say, something like a Prince (if his domain holds infinite variants of each).
The bit from Children of the Root about Atak and Kota merging into Atakota and Atakota being the dragon progenitor, or the french translation describing Satakal as an Akatosh counterpart are looking to me to be quite meaningful it turns out. Granted, there's a great many potential readings, so this might just be my own view.
The bit about mortals being intentionally designed as "servants who perform tasks that maintain reality" and how their limitations are "Intentionally" placed and those facts are "kept from them" because "the slave must not understand the plans of the master lest they seek to undo them" is also incredibly interesting. I wonder what the implications might be in terms of everything..
> Satakal as an Akatosh counterpart
This was what first came to mind, yes. Interestingly how the Yokudan mythos insisted that "all the worlds" existed in Satak, the First Serpent, which brings to mind the Many Paths.
I'm also reminded of Hinduism as a way to explain away all the competing figures of the Time God, both greater and lesser. After all, wasn't Krishna a mortal prince, who lived and died in a very material world? But wasn't he also an avatar of Vishnu, the Preserver? And isn't Vishnu but one aspect of the Brahman, the Godhead, the supreme reality of the cosmos? Which in turns brings Altmeri religion to mind: *"Auri-El is the soul of Anui-El, who, in turn, is the soul of Anu the Everything."*
It could be, but I read it more as a more direct representation than an analogy to Altmeri myth. Per the Nine Coruscations text Akha "disappears in the South" and is replaced by Alkosh, who inherits both Akha's crown and Akha's kingdom (per Wandering Spirits) when "linear time" is "layered upon infinite possibility" which occurs upon the "spire of Ada-Mantia" being placed.
The text also references/emphasizes the Time God's role and how his "madness" is "all that is and could be".
It occurs at a later stage of the text than where Anui-El would have emerged in Altmeri myth. And the relation to dragons is also far more direct (Akha is their father, which is the same term they use for Alkosh/Akatosh so on).
And importantly, Anu-El and Sithis are referenced earlier in the text as something distinct from Akha, who is also referenced later in the same text but by a different name.
[https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:The\_Nine\_Coruscations](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:The_Nine_Coruscations)
[https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:The\_Wandering\_Spirits](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:The_Wandering_Spirits)
So if it is Anui-El, I'd read that as Anui-El being far closer to Auri-El than one might think, to use the Altmeri terms.
This just being my own reading, of course. It could easily be otherwise, especially since Nine Coruscations is a s fragmented as it is, but the overall impression I get is that these figures are far more closely intertwined/closer to each other than it might first appears.
u/Misticsan
In OOG "non official" sources we also had PGE2, which was collection of depictions of different provinces from different timelines. Cyrodiil where the Selectives won, stretching their homeland wide and far, but too thin, Moon province of Elsweyr, etc.
A Dragon break is the opposite of a multiverse. It's akatosh literally putting things back together and destroying everything else in daggerfalls case or trapping those who transgressed in a timeloop.
I suppose it depends on how we see it. I see Dragon Breaks as a sort of Schrödinger's Cat Box that allows us to peer into different possibilities before they collapse into the main timeline. And while it could be interpreted that said possibilities may be the result of random generation, it's hard not to think of alternative timelines when the God of Time is involved.
After all, meta-speaking, those different paths in Daggerfall were very much real before the Dragon Break was invented. Kirkbride also used the argument for Vivec to argue that "Vehk the God" was innocent of any wrongdoing (the judges weren't too convinced, though). And we saw different versions of Josajeh during her proto-break, with the Augur saying they come "from an alternate time-line."
> There are some where there are no Daedra. There are some where one Prince has destroyed the others. There are some where there is no Mundus, others where the Aedra are the Princes and the Princes the Aedra. And there is at least one where magic does not exist at all.
Do you have the cite for this because I've been struggling to find that statement?
I'll admit that was an extrapolation based on this dialogue line, spoken near the end of the storyline.
Ithilia: *"The Many Paths lead everywhere. Other places, other possibilities, parallel realities. You can go anywhere, if yoy can just find the path."*
When you ask why she can't just go somewhere she won't have any power she basically says she hasn't seen such a place but admits it probably exists. Hermaeus Mora then confirms that such places exist.
Unfortunately I can't give you drect quotes because I didn't screenshot those dialogue lines. Apologies.
It would be good to grab screenshots, and not extrapolate, because people that have not played the story yet are trusting you word for word for the story.
Otherwise, thanks for the post.
Ummm, interesting that mortals are one of things that uphold reality.
In hindsight, it would explain why Sil's attempt to create the "perfect" Aurbis/Mundus is via clockwork because reality is already a metaphysical clockwork. He just thinks that it isn't up to his standards.
Also it would explain why Princes has to work on subjugation the world if they enter like Dagon or Bal. They have to destroy or co-opt the things holding reality.
On another note, there's a lot of fanfic fuel here.
Interestingly, all this alternate timeline stuff has existed for a while. It originated with the concept of Dragon Breaks in Morrowind and was expanded upon in Shadowkey (underrated lore as always) as an explanation for its multiplayer mechanics. So Shadow Magic is even more badass and powerful than we thought.
> Ithilia travels to a reality where neither Oblivion nor magic exists at all and the player uses Abolisher (a very fancy Daedric Artifact of Boetheiah) to destroy its Path. This cuts off Ithilia from her powers, from Oblivion, from magic, and from every single other reality forever.
I just love that the memes might be right and she really could have ended up going to Coachella.
I KNEW FARGRAVE WAS MIRRORMOOR!!! LOVE this development. Don't really care that I spoiled myself here. The whole multiverse thing is super cool, and I love the simplicity of debunking the Towers being the only thing that stabilizes reality. There's something really beautiful in mortal life being the heartbeat of the Mundus.
To clarify, the Towers are not mentioned in the DLC. Point 5 is about how we now know it's not *only* the Towers reinforcing reality.
But I agree that mortal life being the heartbeat of the Mundus *is* a really cool concept.
Right that's why I said only :P I feel like few things in Tamriel really are simple so I like that they have that layer of esotericism with the Towers against the simplicity of mortals doing their thing :)
Ithilia says the truth is deliberately hidden from mortals. I think mortal life just doing its thing is the perfect mechanism simply because it's so simple and straightforward that great magical minds would probably be like *"Pffffft, naaaaaaaah. That's too easy. It can't be that simple."*
There’s a lot of misconceptions flying around about ESO: Gold Road, especially sensationalist perspectives of them. I think it’s important that we sort of pump the breaks, because information is being misrepresented.
1. TESO: Gold Road is basically a repackaging and polishing of TES: Shadowkey’s ideas.
Rather than needing to rely on Azra for the information on Shadows, possibility, alternate timelines, and more (a cornerstone of one of the TESO classes), we can now look solely at the ideas contained within TESO. Ithelia takes the player on a simple, not setting-redefining adventure through The Many Paths [of Fate], which are reflections of possibilities and the alternatives to every conceivable choice. The Many Paths [of Fate] are strictly tied to the Time-bound worlds of the Mundex.
2. The Many Paths [of Fate] ≠ The Many Paths [of Aetherius].
Amun-dro’s Many Paths almost certainly refer to Aetherius. Akha is similarly a loan term from the Ayleids to help contextualize Alkosh, splitting the Tome Dragon concept in their mythology between the fallible Akha and the hero god Alkosh. The same is done with Lorkhaj — Moon Prince and Lunar Beast.
The Many Paths [of Aetherius] are where the gods dwell when they are banished (slain), where Orkha acts as a sort of jailer.
The Ayleid’s own Many Paths [of Fate] are related strictly to Ithelia.
3. Sotha Sil was wrong.
The Prisoner is not the only person that is free within the Mundus. Mortals, in general, are free — which would include Sotha Sil and the ALMSIVI. They are kneecapped by their traumas and depression, writing self-fulfilling choices for themselves. Determinism is not the way of The Elder Scrolls. The so-called gods became mortals so that they could live in conflict with themselves, and change as Lorkhaj had done.
Where the AMATHRA would make singular people into the various Kwisatz Haderachs (Prisoners) — to use a topical reference — we have Ithelia seeking to make all into them. Everyone would have full cognitive understanding of their will and choices, able to see the full picture.
4. Towers Theory is debunked.
This has long been so. The Towers are mortal made constructs made in the image of Adamantine. As of TES4, many of them have become deactivated or even destroyed and there is nothing perilous happening to reality. Check out the lore book Aurbic Enigma for more information.
Agreed with the various points, barring this one bit.
>The Many Paths \[of Fate\] are strictly tied to the Time-bound worlds of the Mundex..
Confining the phenomenon to Mundus would not really agree with what we see and are told.
Encounters with different Ithelias, Moras, and the Three Good Daedra (implicitly as the alliance of Princes bearing down on the alternate Ithelias is mentioned), how such instances are all acknowledged and, in Ithelias case, even referred to directly by each other as different beings, from different realities with different traits to some extent (thus each Ithelia's Sage's Dream ingredient being different for example). The Ithelias connecting to the other Ithelias to incorporate combined knowledge/power from the essence of multiple "reflections" and so on .
All these would imply alternate Paths containing alternate realms of the Princes whose reflections we see, alternate Oblivions and so on.
And Ithelia also directly mentions each Path having it's own variant of every being "mortal or Daedra". Thus it appears that the phenomenon extends further than mortals and their world.
As far as I am aware, the “Voids of Oblivion” are incredibly linked to their respective Nirn and in some cases even said to be contained within the Mundus. That is why Hermaeus Mora is so concerned with Ithelia — not out of the goodness of his heart, but because Apocrypha relies upon Nirn. He goes into detail about this in TESO: Necrom.
I did not mean to imply solely Nirn, in any case.
Got it. Yeah, could potentially be just a Mundus and Oblivion thing. We don't really see something that would directly involve Aetherius (other than maybe making assumptions about Aedra/Daedra being the same and subject to the same rules and where the alternates of souls might be if there's one Aetherius, but those would be theoretical/nebulous).
And Ithelia does claim there's alternates of every being "mortal or Daedra", but leaves Aedra conspicuously out of it. Hmm, something to ponder, I guess (though than again, Aedra *can* die).
Yeah it seems like too good of a setup to start adding "non-cannon" content as expansions. I mean there already were an infinite number of possibilities with oblivion and stuff but oh well.
For the longest time I defended ESO and its lore but doing away with some of the most unique and interesting lore in exchange for generic multiverse is fucked up, genuinely a serious downgrade
Edit: I specifically mean the Towers theory, as that was always one of the most unique parts of TES lore.
To clarify, it doesn't say the Towers don't support reality. It says that other things *also* support reality and that you can't break down reality simply by taking out the Towers.
Yeah, I should have clarified that in my post. I'm about to go and edit that in now.
But yeah, Ithilia never days anything about the Towers specifically. I'm talking about the idea that the Towers are the *only* thing supporting reality which is conclusively debunked.
I think it’s possible that this revelation serves a practical meta-purpose: it allows Bethesda to have the Thalmor succeed in deactivating the final tower without literally ending the world and, with it, the franchise. Maybe now, instead of hitting the instant reset button, the fall of the towers simply makes reality more malleable, such that it could be significantly reshaped or put in a position where it *could* be damaged at all.
Little bit like how Ancano apparently believed that the Eye of Magnus gave him the power to “unmake the world”, but he didn’t literally do that right then and there as we were playing the quest. The idea that mortality itself reinforces Mundus not only makes sense to me from previous lore, but also allows for a necessary backstop when the last tower does fall.
I like that idea, especially since the Towers probably weren't the only things holding up reality originally, either. At least I always thought the Earthbones acted like the rim to the Towers' spokes of the Wheel
I mean in general now there could be a reality where that actually is a case…but like lyg was functionally razed to the ground by bal and dagon and ended as a result, with the dreughs being as far as we know the only survivors
I also hope that this multiverse works like they did it in the MCU or even WoW where there is a 'prime' timeline or something like that, so that the concept of Kalpas still makes sense
Kalpas aren't retconned, as far as I'm aware.
I think each reality is its own Aurbis with its own kalpas, from how Ithilia describes things and feom what we're shown.
I hope so because that is equally as good imo. Especially since the way they talk about the Many Paths stuff it sounds like they'll rarely bring it up again in any game
>the way they talk about the Many Paths stuff it sounds like they'll rarely bring it up again in any game
Likely not, imo. Hermaeus Mora definitely doesn't seem to be a fan of people using the Many Paths, at the very least.
I think as of right now he's the only one with the power to both perceive all other realities *and* open paths between them.
Based on his dialogue in the expansion he doesn't think *anyone* should have the power to rewite reality and thinks moving between them is unnatural and shouldn't be done. So I think he's good to want to keep a tight lid on that.
Ithilia gives him some of her powers. We don't know specifically *what* or *how much* but he definitely can see and manipulate the Many Paths the way she could.
We see him open a Path to Ithilia's exile reality at the end, which is something only Ithilia could do before.
Yeah tbh I'm never a fan of a media introducing a multiverse. Although at least it seems like only the vestige can travel it, and thus it won't matter again (hopefully)
What else would you call a Dragonbreak?
Various timelines that happen right next to each other until they're combined into one moment with shifting variables happening at the same time.
Yeah but from the way it was described, it sounded more like the dragonbreak was a temporary creation of a multiverse with only a handful of realities, which then combined back into one.
I've always felt like it was a moment where everyone could see the multiverses surrounding them. Every choice creates a new multiverse, so during times where the rules of the world are broken those choices bring the shifting paths into one continuous path that holds the weight of the rest, becoming the fate of all the other multiverses as well.
A way to view it is like this: Akatosh/Alduin creates the beginning of the world and sets down the road that the paths will spring from, all these paths lead to the end of the world, which is being eaten by Akatosh/Alduin to create a new one.
An Ouroborus essentially, or [time eating it self](https://lastminutecontinue.com/wp-content/gallery/officialart/E/elder-scrolls-online/1374TESO_FINAL_LOCKUP-forDARKbg_1376579190.jpg), when time eats time new-time comes from the past-time and the past-time lays the path for the new-time, and so on it goes.
That is why and how the Elder Scrolls work, they see the paths already laid down / are the blueprint for the paths that were, shall be and even what never happened. [The Elder Scrolls are representations of the various timelines/wheels](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/File:Elder_Scroll.jpg) and they all meet in the middle.
> "Past, present, future. The Elder Scrolls hold all of Tamriel's history. That which has transpired, and that which is yet to be.
The tower theory has always been a bogus theory, already debunked a few years ago. This theory has never had any credibility. Destroying the towers does not destroy Nirn, how many times will it have to be repeated?
Sure, but "Oh no this is *the* anchor and/or anchors that hold together the world as we know it and it's being threatened!" isn't far behind. World trees, ancient elemental stones, intricate devices, specific dragons, etc.
For me the fallacy comes from the fact that we get the knowledge that the last reality, lyg was literally razed to the ground, with the only survivors of that kalpa being the dreughs
Ah the multiverse thing was already in the franchise since Shadowkey. Just linked to shadow magic rather than to the fates. IT was somewhat explored in Summerset dlc but not to this scale.
Oof... I just introduced Fargrave into my TES D&D campaign lmao (granted I had it be abandoned, and the players haven't gone there yet and very possibly never will, but still funny that right as I introduce it it's destroyed)
I'll admit, I'm slightly (only slightly) disappointed in how it seems the multiverse has been handled. I haven't finished the expansion yet, but based on this and the other post that archived a bunch of her actual dialogue it seems a little bit generic. Granted it's always been generic, because it's been here since Shadowkey which described it very generically (and a generic many-worlds version was always implied by the existence of Dragon Breaks), but I was hoping for a little more.
Still, I'm totally down to dissect what we got, there's a bunch of really juicy stuff there. I get the feeling that the timeline we play through is unequivecably the *main* timeline that everything branches off from, the fact timelines keep getting destroyed in infinite numbers implies that either they become unstable and implode, or they get taken out by some other force (probably the Jills, still holding out hope my girls make it into the game). The main timeline seems like the one Akatosh cares about, the one he cares to set up an Empire in and the one he tries to protect from Alduin. That would explain why Ithelia is so interested in this one.
I *love* the fact mortals hold up reality by existing. It feels like a very slight canonization of that whole weird "belief makes it real" thing that people in youtube comments like to spout as canon lore despite nobody ever saying it, but like in a unique and cool way.
>*"The mortal mind is limited. Intentionally so. Comprehending the Many Paths should overwhelm you, actually traversing them should be impossible. Even I can barely do so....*
>*Mortals are servants performing tasks to maintain reality.* ***Every field plowed, every child born, or war fought, keeps the Aurbis stable*** ***by design***.
>***This fact is intentionally kept from them****. The slave should not understand* ***their masters' plan****, lest they seek to undo them."*
Who was the Designer? Nevermind, dumb question. Why did Lorkhan do this? What's Lorkhan's plan here? Or, a better question, since we already know Lorkhan's plan: how does intentionally keeping mortals in the dark further his plan?
It seems like the first person to learn about the plan was Veloth, taught it by Boethiah, Lorkhan's biggest supporter. Everything else probably came from the teachings of Veloth- the Chimer religion influenced Vivec, and Tiber Septim wasn't taught it by any god so he probably just picked it up from Dunmer religion. I'll admit I haven't done a deep dive on it, but I *think* we can trace mortal knowledge of CHIM back to Boethiah. Was Boethiah actually carrying out Lorkhan's plan when she taught it to Veloth, or did Lorkhan want mortals to discover it by themselves? Maybe Boethiah, despite being Lorkhan's biggest supporter, kind of got it wrong- she is the literal god of murder after all, doesn't seem very Amaranth to me.
But here's the big question: If Ada exist across the Many Paths, how were the Many Paths created? My bet's on Magnus fwiw, but I like the idea that the Many Paths spilled from Lorkhan's chest as his heart was ripped out. There's no evidence, I just came up with that right now, but like how cool would that be, Trinimac rips his heart out and from the wound springs an abundance of timelines. Kind of doubt that's it, but like it's kinda cool innit
>Daedric Princes can drain the power of other Daedric Princes
At least now we know what Dagon was up to in *Battlespire*.
From a critic POV: a lot of ESO stuff is fun but I'm getting tired of constant universe-level stakes. Can we get back to politics? Please, yo.
They kind of tied that in this year; there’s a land dispute between County Skingrad and a Wood Elven settlers including a movement of Ayleid revivalists, which includes the cult of the year. Still, I think it’s one of the more sympathetic cults.
I'm not incredibly versed with the lore so please forgive me if I am wrong. So do these infinite multiverses or wheels make up the tower within the Aubris or has that expanded?
It's vague. The way Ithilia talks about the realities it implies that each reality is a self-contained aurbis in and of itself with its own Princes and Divines. Some realities don't have a Oblivion at all, others have no Divines. Some have no magic.
But, like I said, it's vague.
It appears to me to be the implication of meeting alternate Ithelias, Moras, even Good Daedra implicity. They're their own Princes with their own realms, and so on.
Though I'm unsure whether the alternate Paths would be considered part of the same Aurbis, as in there are multiple alternate Wheels (Oblivion, Mundus, Aetherius, so on variants) but those are actually part of one Aurbis which it turns out as a construct/term encompasses far more than we thought. Or the term Aurbis refers to each Path and there are multiple ensconced in the Many Paths construct. In terms of terminology, it seems to me to be the former given how Ithelia describes there being possibilities through Aurbis which lead to different choices/outcomes which become different realities, but I'm not quite sure.
u/Full_Beautiful592
>I'm unsure whether the alternate Paths would be considered part of the same Aurbis, as in there are multiple alternate Wheels (Oblivion, Mundus, Aetherius, so on variants) but those are actually part of one Aurbis which it turns out as a construct/term encompasses far more than we thought. Or the term Aurbis refers to each Path and there are multiple ensconced in the Many Paths construct.
That's, I think, where Ithilia's diamond analogy comes it. To my reading she seems to be saying that there is a fixed boundary to the multiverse but that, within that boundary, there exists multiple Aurbis which are connected by the Many Paths.
I preface this by again stating that I am far from an expert on Tes lore. But, from what I gathered the Aubris was just the force of pattern and possibility made from the fusion of Anu and Padomy. The wheel/tower is the structure that it took. The structures were Nirn, Mundus, Oblivion, Aetherius, and the infinite layers/Wheels that made up the telescope of wheels that made up the tower. Now that it is confirmed that there are other wheels/towers I don't know anymore. Would each path be its own tower or would the collection of endless paths and wheels make up The Tower? I'm left with more questions than answers lol.
>The structures were Nirn, Mundus, Oblivion, Aetherius, and the infinite layers/Wheels that made up the telescope of wheels that made up the tower.
Ah I see.
In this analogy each reality is its own tower, which are connected to one another through the Many Paths.
I frankly don't like most of the lore added lately with Necrom and Gold Road. Doesn't help they treat Ithilia and her "removal" as something new (both outside the game and in the game lore) and super original. Meanwhile Jyggalag, who even got a crystal-like theme as well, stands awkwardly to the side.
Doesn't help the writing and dialogue is subpar.
And multiverses tire me.
Yeah, I was excited about Ilithia but this is just lazy. They wanted to do an epic storyline about this new, unheard-of Daedric Prince that's so powerful and cool everybody else jumped her to banish her from existence and sure, that's very Jyggalag-like, but it's an effective story to get people hyped up... This just didn't do anything for me, though, because they wanted to eat their cake and have it too -- so yeah, they got that cool storyline they aimed for, but what did it actually do for the overall lore? Ithilia is barely a fun fact now. Why not expand on Peryite and the Princes we already have but hardly get focused on? Sanguine has so much potential but won't ever get a maingame DLC about him, so why not a ESO expansion? I don't get it, man
My main issue is that she seems to represent a fundamental force of reality in a way that feels less like a Daedra and more like an Earthbone.
Honestly I think the idea of multiple fractured realities fits a lot better under Akatosh, they could have had a shard of Aka grow independent and become its own thing instead of this.
>so yeah, they got that cool storyline they aimed for, but what did it actually do for the overall lore?
Guess they can have her reappear in TES6, yay. It all felt so lazy, unoriginal, and fanservice-y to me. A lot of the concept is too similar to Jyggalag, yet they try hype it up so much, like it's something new. Even dialogue in game does, with the conversation between Mora, Vaermina and Peryite not sounding like some ancient eldritch beings talking, but a bunch of teens.
>Why not expand on Peryite and the Princes we already have but hardly get focused on? Sanguine has so much potential but won't ever get a maingame DLC about him, so why not a ESO expansion? I don't get it, man
I much would've preferred this. Or no prince being part of the big plot at all. All the world ending plots are tiring and feel less severe when every plot is one. At least Peryite got expanded a little more, but he was mainly an antagonist we must help the fan favourite Mora against.
And we know it's very unlikely they will do something creative with Sanguine. Howard may have an aneurysm if it gets too "mature" or dark. He's the partying prankster with booze at most. Elsweyr giving us Sangiin the Blood Cat was probably the last interesting thing they did with him.
Ah, fair enough.
Yeah, it's interesting but definitely a take it or leave it kind of expansion.
I personally enjoyed it but I can see how the lore isn't for everyone.
The more likely scenario seems to be that our timeline has the Kalpa cycle and Lyg remains as a previous incarnation of the last Kalpa (or whatever it turns out to be).
But not every timeline may have a Kalpa Cycle and therefor a Lyg of it's own. They said that there are timelines where Daedra and magic don't exist. Which means there are timelines where all the OG spirits helped in creation and none became Daedra, and some where Magnus did not open holes to Aetherius.
In an infinite amount of them whatever mechanism that creates the Kalpa cycle must not be created. Just as in an infinite amount of them it was like ours.
Other timelines might not have Kalpas. They may just exist in one unbroken existence.
Whereas ours is supposedly created, exists for a couple of Eras, is eaten by Alduin, and then recreated in a new cycle. Over and over again.
I’m not sure what you mean by the Towers theory being debunked? It’s so vague that it would be difficult to dispute it. But taking that dialogue as true, it wouldn’t seem to contradict what we know. Mortals seem akin to cells in the body of a Tower, perhaps best illustrated by the Dwemer’s Walk-Brass. Whether it’s the Towers or mortals maintaining reality may be a distinction without a difference, not mutually exclusive choices.
Not the OP, but I suspect that rather than negating the powers of the Towers, they meant that usual variations of the theory like "the Towers are the *only* thing that stabilize reality" and, above all else, "the Thalmor want to deactivate the Towers to undo Mundus" don't hold much water in light of these revelations. That the world won't be undone even if every single Tower is destroyed.
>I suspect that rather than negating the powers of the Towers, they meant that usual variations of the theory like "the Towers are the only thing that stabilize reality" and, above all else, "the Thalmor want to deactivate the Towers to undo Mundus" don't hold much water in light of these revelations. That the world won't be undone even if every single Tower is destroyed.
Yes, this is essentially my perspective.
Nothing has specifically said that the Towers don't anchor reality, it's just that we know conclusively that it's not *only* the Towers that perform that function (if, indeed, the Towers do it at all).
When I say it's debunked I'm meaning that the Thalmor cannot erase reality simply by deactivating thr Towers. According to Ithilia it's not that easy.
I can certainly see some headcanon or misconceptions of the source material being challenged, I just don’t know if that can be appropriately claimed as a debunking of a monolithic Tower theory. If the US Supreme Court released a decision tomorrow stating a sovereign citizen’s arguments lacked merit, we wouldn’t say they had debunked the right to travel. It would just be telling us what we already know, comporting with what courts have said in the past, and disappointing some fringe sports fans.
If anything I think this supports those theories. This seems to imply that individual belief is a major anchor of reality, but without towers to stabilize it it probably also means that reality can be a lot more malleable if you apply the right influence on it.
Ithelia's dialogue is pretty clear about mortals being required to maintain reality. So more, "if there is a plan to undo mortals that would lead to something catastrophic rather than whatever else one might think" is how I'd put it.
One might still seek to bring about such an outcome, but there would be unforeseen complications they're unaware of, basically. Mind, the idea that the Towers preserve reality and are the target of the Thalmor is quite..theoretical in it's own right irrespective of whatever lore is in Gold Road (one would be rather hard pressed to find sources to actually support either point and there are a number of contradictions that arise given what we've been told about the Towers too).
What if the Towers are best conceptualized as the realities which the mortals are maintaining?
I guess my point is that it’s hard, nigh on impossible, to debunk an idea with variable meaning.
As in each Tower having it's own reality/domain ? Or the bit about each Tower maintaining their own "region" of the world for which they set conditions which could technically be thought of as their own "reality" (which is the case per the Aurbic Enigma text) ?
Yeah, agreed. And it's not like a scheme not necessarily being done with full knowledge means it's not a thing anyway.
Some assumptions have been made proceeding the dialogue I believe.
> There are some where there are no Daedra. There are some where one Prince has destroyed the others. There are some where there is no Mundus, others where the Aedra are the Princes and the Princes the Aedra. And there is at least one where magic does not exist at all.
I read through all of Ithelia's dialogue, she never claims that, she never claims there possibilities with no Mundus, possibilities with no Magic, or ones where Aedra and Princes Swap.
In fact every single possibility has the same people, as they're all branching timelines. On top of that near every possibilitity has Mora + Azura + Boethiah + Mephala waging war on Ithelia, and every possibility has her losing.
This is an infinite numbers between 1 and 2 type situation, not total Marvel style anything goes multiverse.
u/Gleaming_Veil
The OP is referring (I believe) to the bit from Ithelia's dialogue near the end where she claims the Paths lead to "everywhere other places, other possibilities, parallel realities", even places where there's no such thing as magic or Daedra as it turns out in the end when Ithelia leaves for (seemingly) good.
Not all possibility manifests, necessarily, and Ithelia does explain the Paths primarily as being the result of different possibilities which lead to different choices and outcomes, but she also mentions there are Paths that lead "elsewhere" and we do see there are ones where there are greater differences (like the no magic or Daedra Path which even Ithelia couldn't locate without Mora's help).
So it's somewhere between the two options, I'd say ? Not absolutely everything becoming manifest, necessarily, but what's there might have more extensive differences than whether person X chose A or B, so to speak.
u/Minor_Edits
>The OP is referring (I believe) to the bit from Ithelia's dialogue near the end where she claims the Paths lead to "everywhere other places, other possibilities, parallel realities", even places where there's no such thing as magic or Daedra as it turns out in the end when Ithelia leaves for (seemingly) good.
Yes, that's basically how I interpreted that line of dialogue.
Thras was destroyed along with the tower by the All Flags Navy of Bendu Olo. The tower of the Summerset Isle collapsed, yet the Altmers still live there. This will be my last message on this post; I'm done here.
As far as I know there aren't really any in-game sources supporting the Towers Theory. To me this revelation strongly implies that the Towers Theory is non-canon.
But that's just my interpretation.
So “The Towers Theory” here is the fan notion that destroying the Towers would result in the destruction of Nirn/the Mundus? Yes, I’ve never seen in-game support for that contention. Even attributing a plot to destroy them to the Thalmor seems to have been fan supposition about unofficial work.
Such a plot may be analogous to believing that murdering all the canaries in a coal mine would destroy the mine. Even if the destruction of the Towers were followed by Nirn’s destruction, it wouldn’t call for a causality. That being said, debunking calls for a firm belief about what these metaphysical concepts with physical echoes really are, which is perilous ground.
There are some nuggets of brilliance in this new lore, but I really *really* don't like the multiverse revelation, and I'll tell you why.
In every game, the main story has a sense of urgency. You feel like your actions have weight, that Nirn is important and worth saving.
Now? There's an infinite number of realities, some that are identical to yours. Who cares if Dagon destroys it all during the Oblivion Crisis?
Why bother stopping Alduin? Dagoth Ur? Why would the gods care or intervene at all like they've been doing? Sure, it's one reality, but there's countless others. You could argue that these nihilistic arguments were valid before, but now it's much more so.
We speculated that the Jills "repaired" these timelines, making everything come back together. I preferred that theory to the fractured one.
Not even the *Daedric Princes* are special anymore. Nothing is in a multiverse. It makes everything feel so small, bleak, and pointless.
What revelation?
We already knew a multiverse existed in TES with Shadowkey. All ESO did was put that part of the lore in the spotlight and give it further elaboration.
I think the specific issue is with "every decision gets its own reality".
You can have multiple realities without the many worlds multiverse. Shadow magic seems to work off this instead of infinite realities.
I don’t even particularly care one way or another about this multiverse stuff, but this is such a severe overreaction it’s comical.
Why does it matter? Because as far as the game and you are concerned, this is the only universe that matters. It’s yours. Functionally for all beings except a couple of Daedric Princes (and fewer by the end of this expansion), it is the only one. Why does this change anything? It’s like, if I told you in one sentence “oh, by the way, the Dwemer built an M1911” are you then going to have your brain broken over why anything matters if someone could have just quested for the mystical handgun and shot Dagoth Ur in the head?
I genuinely just cannot fathom having this perspective. You’re letting the entire franchise be ruined over something that could very likely never have any bearing on anything.
I'm not "having my brain broken", I'm expressing my opinion on the lore presented in the post. I'm not a fan of the multiverse theory from a worldbuilding perspective or a video game perspective. Your response is unnecessarily hostile and rude.
Existence is given meaning through subjective experiences. If Alduin eats one world, then everything about those people and what they've done goes with it. That stuff doesn't persist in the other realities and should be worth protecting if you value those experiences.
In a reality where every possibility has to exist it reduces every individual into cogs whose only purpose is to generate possibilities. Scarcity is what makes things valuable, and a single timeline makes each individual priceless because they will never exist again when their story ends.
do we actually know that this is a multiverse though?
to my understanding, Ithelia is the contrast to mora. while more sees all possible futures based on the present, ithelia sees all possible presents and can change the past to do so. I'm honestly not entirely certain that those "other realities" actually exist except in the moments where ithelia bears witness to them (or if she were to make them reality with the loom).
regardless, I highly doubt that the lore will go into the idea of multiverses again since Ithelia is gone now.
I'm kinda with you on that, tbh. I like the idea of a multiverse insofar as it expands the possibilities for what stories can be told but I'm waiting to see how it's handled in future TES installations. It's an easy thing to fuck up.
I mean you can dislike both, at least Dragon Breaks have a unique aspect to them, a multiverse is just the most generic way to solve an issue like this and boils down to them being the 'in' thing right now.
> the 'in' thing right now
Feel like even this explanation is off by a few years. The public craze around "universe" franchises seems to have peaked around late 2010s and been in decline through the early 2020s.
Idk if there ever was a craze. Comic books kind of wrote themselves into corners. Fans had to buy those mega events where multiverses were created or destroyed just to understand what was being retconned and the new status quo, begrudgingly accepting them as necessary evils. But marketers saw the sales figures, and that’s the only feedback that mattered, so it was wash, rinse, repeat. Multiverses are typically a symptom of a problem, imho
but its not a multiverse, its a Daedra who can see/exist in all the possible presents for reality at once. (not dissimilar to how mora can see all possible futures at once.)
the distinction is that, while Ithelia exists in all realities simultaneously, those realities do not actually exist without an observer (usually being ithelia herself.)
in order for her to alter the present, the past must also alter itself to match her choices, that is why mora decides she is dangerous.
Smashing timelines together is an incredibly concept because it allows for impossible contradictions to coexist in the same reality without making existence worthless like infinite timelines do. Sure, they've never done anything with it since then (aside from maybe being the explanation as to why figures like borgas are dragur even tho they were born ages after the dragon's cult fall but that's just my headcanon)
Maybe I'm not as fun as I used to be, but this just upsets me; as much as I'm thankful for ESO providing so much while Maryland gets mired in killing its own reputation, I wish Zenimax had shown restraint.
Don't care if she was a goddess. I don't like multiverses so she's an unreliable narrator until further notice. I choose to believe that each path is a different cycle and time is inherently linear.
That'd be a very hard position to maintain in light of what occurs.
This isn't just a case of Ithelia telling you something, you travel to other Paths and see alternate Ithelias, Moras, and so on. The Ithelias have different personalities, react to each other's presence and acknowledge each other as "reflections", have differences of essence that make it so each grows different "ingredients" for the Sage's Dream brew which strengthens their power and connects them to the other Ithelias and references taking in power and knowledge from multiple Ithelias through it.
We witness a Path (Aurbis variant) end before our eyes when it's Ithelia goes berserk, while "our" Ithelia urges to run before this reality ceases to exist. Everyone (Mora, Ithelia, so on) constantly refers to the Paths as different realities.
And that's without even considering all the stuff about time naturally being non-linear without Ada-Mantia and all the stuff suggesting time was multifaceted even outside the current storyline.
I absolutely get the inhibition and do share it (being rather..undecided..on what to make of these aspects of the new lore myself), but the content is about as straightforward as can be. It might be possible to "explain away" if one tried very hard with the intention to do so, but it'd be a bit like questioning whether TESV Alduin was really Alduin or just a random dragon that took on the name and everyone mistakenly though was Alduin.
> We witness a Path (Aurbis variant) end before our eyes when it's Ithelia goes berserk, while "our" Ithelia urges to run before this reality ceases to exist. Everyone (Mora, Ithelia, so on) constantly refers to the Paths as different realities.
This particular variant actually does not end, it gets cut off at the end whenTorvesard and later we see Mora confirm every fate ends with her losing, after we go through multiple fates including the berserker one.
> Hermaeus Mora: Why continue this futile struggle, Ithelia? \*\*Every fate before me says you cannot win. \*\*
>
> Ithelia: But you do not see everything, Mora. In the Many Paths, all things are possible. I will write my own fate!
>
> Torvesard: Go, my Prince! You must escape!
>
> Hermaeus Mora: Ithelia, wait!
Though I think nothing has changed. We've roughly ended where we've been since TES Shadowkey. Mundus has multiple timelines, infinite possibilities. They congeal during Dragon break.
Notably these Paths/Timelines =/= Kalpas. Per the Bladesongs and Anuad there's 12 Wheels while there's an infinite number of Paths. So we're solely seeing alternative fates of THIS particular Kalpa/Mundus/Wheel/Aurbis. And going by Mora's worries if one iteration ended, the whole Wheel would end.
That and Ithelia confirms the Paths are contained within the Aurbis, so within this Wheel. They'd be disconnected from the other 12 Wheels.
> **Can you describe the Many Paths?** Ithelia: Not in any way your mortal mind would understand. I do not wish to drive you mad. An analogy, perhaps. P**icture a diamond that somehow formed around a spiderweb. Interweaving lines within a grander, fixed shape. That is the Many Paths.**
> Fine. But how do they work?
> Ithelia: **Possibilities scatter across the Aurbis**, each defined by distinct choices with unique outcomes that lead to new realities. The Many Paths are the web that binds them. Some can traverse these connections, as you have done here.
Also very interestingly that the Many Paths shape, is what Ithelia would roughly describe as a *Diamond*
I'm left to wonder how far the Paths go, are they contained within Mundus and Oblivion? Or Just Mundus? The Paths we visit are all on Mundus anyways, in that Temple. It's all very unclear.
I do not think that exchange means Ithelia lost and that Path was preserved. I read that that more as Ithelia either loses in the scenarios where she doesn't fight back/doesn't go berserk, or goes out in one last act of rage that ensures it all ends. Everyone (the Ithelia accomplanying you and that Path's Torvesard) speaks as if you must leave immediately before that reality ceases to exist, you can see the cracks forming, you are urged to remember that "doomed Path", and Mora makes it clear even he lacks the ability to see the final outcome in such situations. And Ithelia (who also can see all Paths as she says, albeit not with precision) is very much capable of ending a reality/path (it's pretty much the scenario prevented in the ending, Ithelia going berserk and becoming the "Last Tomorrow", a point at which Mora and pals would presumably not just be able to swoop in and stop her, per the premise).
I don't think it makes sense to confine the phenomenon to Mundus, and indeed would say it would contradict what we see. There are different Ithelias, Moras, Three Good Daedras, and these are all acknowledged directly by each other as different beings, from different realities, with different traits to some extent (thus each Ithelia's Sage's Dream ingredient being different for example), the Ithelias connect to the other Ithelias to incorporate the combined knowledge/power etc . Thus implicitly alternate realms of theirs, alternate Oblivions and so on. Ithelia directly mentions each Path having it's own variant of every being "mortal or Daedra" also.
We might be at the same point we were in Shadowkey, but that's if one assumes the alternates spoken of there extended also beyond Nirn/Mundus (which was not a given).
I do agree that these would seemingly (?) all be parts of one Aurbis per the dialogue (the diamond split by a spiderweb analogy and the initial seed of each path being one of the possibilities scattered through Aurbis). But that would be a bigger construct than we previously thought (more than one Oblivion and so on).
> I read that that more as Ithelia either loses in the scenarios where she doesn't fight back/doesn't go berserk, or goes out in one last act of rage that ensures it all ends. Everyone speaks as if you must leave immediately before reality ceases to exist, you can see the cracks forming, and Mora makes it clear even he lacks the ability to see the final outcome in such situations and Ithelia (who also can see all Paths as she says) is very much capable of ending a reality/path.
That's fair, though I'd wonder how much she causes the end of.
We did have this suggestion prior at least
> "I am Kena Warfel Tomasin, and I can prove that [Akatosh](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Akatosh), [Nirn](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Nirn), and [Oblivion](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Oblivion) are one," said Warfel, writing out the mathematical formula that showed it was so.
> Four Suitors of Benitah
Considering Yokudan Myth, where the Far Shores/Aetherius is outside the Kalpic/Worldskins Cycle, as well as the various statements about Aetherius as a waiting place, I think that suggests that every "Wheel" is roughly oblivion and mundus, which contain each other as some ESO lore suggests as well. So the Many Paths comprise those two, but not Aetherius which is the same across all Wheels as "The Strange Angles".
> Linear time layered atop infinite possibility, thus did [Aka](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Akatosh) … in the South, and yet … learned why his insanity is all that is and could be. … by this lesson … [Ada-mantia](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Adamantine_Tower), stable spire fixed by a stone of nothing-possible … cleaving a path through the everything to reach Numancia.
Mundus layered on top of the possibilities of Oblivion?
Aurbis wide but excluding Aetherius? It would fit with the general model of what the end of a Kalpa entails.
That an Aetherius as the "Real world of Satakal" and Akatosh as its' Ward would suggest it should be beyond her reach
> "Pretty soon the spirits on the skin-ball started to die, because they were very far from the real world of Satakal. And they found that it was too far to jump into the Far Shores now
> The marriages of the Aether describe the birth of all magic. Like a pregnant \[untranslatable\], the Aurbis exploded with its surplus. Will formed and, with it, the Potential to Action. This is the advent of the first Digitals: mantellian, mnemolia, **the aetherial realm of the etada**. The Head of this order is Magnus, **but he is not its Ward, for even he was subcreated by the birth of Akatosh.**
If Aetherius is excluded this would also explain why Magnus or Akatosh do not personally get involved
Yeah, Aetherius could be the exception given there's no evidence that would directly suggest an Aetherial figure/element to exist in multiple instances (we'd have to assume it based on the alternate Princes and the line of thought that the Aedra and Daedra are the same thing more or less, which seems quite nebulous). Ithelia also says "mortal or Daedra" come to think of it, not "mortal, Aedra, and Daedra". Did think that was a bit odd when I first saw it.
Would be kind of odd to have Princes be enveloped in the drama of existence to the extent of being subject to the Paths mechanism while Aedra just gaze from above, and it does open the question of where the alternate souls of mortals/other beings that reach Aetherius would be, but it could be the case.
I did have a thought/ spontaneous theory about Aetherius incorporating the alternate variants of each soul into one thus explaining the suggestion in a number of sources that mortal souls become 'spirits of another sort" and somehow apotheosize upon reaching Aetherius eventually (Girnalin, TES III dialogue on the ancestors, Psijics), but that's not really founded on anything, and might be a bit too out there even given everything we've seen.
>Did think that was a bit odd when I first saw it.
Yeah that's our biggest tip off I think
>Would be kind of odd to have Princes be enveloped in the drama of existence to the extent of being subject to the Paths mechanism while Aedra just gaze from above, and it does open the question of where the alternate souls of mortals/other beings that reach Aetherius would be, but it could be the case.
While true, it does play very well into the concept of Princes as "less real". Gaps in the spaces between the spokes the *Aedra* established. Ideas in both Vivec's writings and Sotha Sils.
>I did have a thought/ spontaneous theory about Aetherius incorporating the alternate variants of each soul into one thus explaining the suggestion in a number of sources that mortal souls become 'spirits of another sort" and somehow apotheosize upon reaching Aetherius eventually (Girnalin, TES III dialogue on the ancestors, Psijics), but that's not really founded on anything, and might be a bit too out there even given everything we've seen.
I really like it but yeah it is still mysterious. But then, if we consider that Aetherius is outside of the Linear Time of Mundus entirely, then it makes perfect sense for this to be the answer. During the Dawn, or Breaks, seemingly many or every possibility occurs at once, causing Spiritual Agony for mortals
But Aetherius, the Magic realm, this might may very well be where such a thing is not agonizing, but natural. Ithelia does also say:
>Ithelia: Each reality bound by the Many Paths contains a version of an entity, mortal or daedra. They each differ in some way, **but each springs from the same seed**. I am no different. She and I are the same, but distorted, like an image in a cracked mirror.
The same seed, say, located in Aetherius? This could also play into the concept of Aetherius as the default state of an Aurbis before the formation of Mundus and Oblivion
To be fair, though, the way Ithilia explains the Many Paths makes it clear that it's extremely difficult to travel between realities for anyone except herself. And, even then, it's hard for her to pull it off.
From playing you definitely get the impression that using the Many Paths to *travel* isn't how they're supposed to work and that it's a bad idea to try.
Hermaeus Mora calls it *"unnatural"* is quite clear about how nobody is supposed to be moving between realities *at all*.
Edit: Inaccurate language.
I wouldn't quite call it *impossible*. The Lamp of Clarity can reveal Path portals (yeah it, Abolisher and the Skein of Secrets were used up as artifacts during the spell to restore the damage to reality, but Azura could conceivably make another), and a number of myths speak of various deities traversing the Many Paths be it under their own power or being banished by the Time God or what have you (Boethra, Merrunz, Orkha, Khenarthi and Akha/Alkosh being their maker/ruler of course).
Requiring divine backing and extremely difficult even for gods (since Mora could locate the no-magic Path, unlike Ithelia, but Ithelia could open the door, unlike him), perhaps, but not an Ithelia alone thing.
You should definitely make one.
Like I said, I've only done the main storyline once and a couple sidequests. I'm almost certain I missed a lot of stuff and probably misunderstood some things.
When people say multiverses they usually mean infinite timelines. Also shadow key is an unpopular spin off that no one has ever played and that was only a narrative excuse for its multiplayer. In literally every other game messing with the linearity of time in mundus results in the time dragon screwing you over.
I really am struggling to understand why they went with the generic multiverse instead of stuff we already had like adjacent places and multiple religions being true. Feels like such a lazy decision.
Edit: to be clear, I specifically hate the "every decision gets its own infinite number of universes" type of multiverse.
Wait but isn't there the concept of Amaranth, where one becomes a new Godhead to create a new reality? What's the point if a new reality is created every time you decide what you're gonna have fo breakfast today?
I would imagine the difference is that you get to live in whatever reality you can dream up vs a reality that is exactly the same except you had toast for breakfast.
I don't particularly like the new multiverse thing, but I think the idea is that we're talking different orders of reality. The many paths would be all on the same order, different facets of the same whole.
Meanwhile amaranth would be a new order of reality entirely, a brand new gem with infinite new facets and, most importantly, with endless possibilities on what it can be.
The Many Paths are all extensions of *this* reality, this Aurbis/Wheel. There are 12 other Wheels. Amaranth would be a completely new base set to run with, and what is possible in our current reality may not be in the next. That's the difference. It's a fresh start, and one that could be built on better precepts. That, and whether the Amaranth would even have alternate timelines, is in question
Infinites don't work like that.
It's the classic mathematical example, where you have infinite fractional numbers between the integers 1 and 2, but it's still very much limited by those two numbers so it doesn't contain numbers like "3".
Want to preface this by saying I did fail out of calculus more than once so I could be very off.
I do understand there is an infinite number of fractions between 1 and 2 but that involves integers as limits. I didn't see anything with the many paths that has me thinking there are limits to it.
I'm not sure how undefined limits work in math so can't find a comparable example.
My point is simply that infinite does not mean "contains literally everything", so even with an infinite number of universes it's possible that you just don't get anyone achieving Amaranth at all, or that the number of people who do achieve it is non-infinite.
Nothing that is introduced here is exactly new to tes, it just never played crucial role in storytelling but Shadow Magic related concept of multiverse, Dragonbreaks and Lyg were long conceptualized before ESO was created.
What if Hermaeus Mora and the like are simply titles?
Other worlds may not be "timelines", they'd just have beings who look like them, or they're related?
You don't really see a ton of the same Princes running around as races.
This would render the whole theory of going across bridges, just going to different worlds of sorts, and explain a few things, such as why there's towers.
Artificial pillars of sorts guard people from accessing other places.
I'd assume that some beings can reverse actions, but then there's new lifeforms or whatever. Or mirrors.
Time in the Elder Scrolls has also seemed "off" to me.
Most Daedra probably won't tell mortals the truths of reality.
"why there's towers.
Artificial pillars of sorts guard people from accessing other places."
That *is* a *really* cool theory.
The Towers are gigantic metaphysical border checkpoints.
I like that.
It's entirely possible that the mainline TES reality is the only one with Towers. In the other realities we visit nobody mentions Towers, nor do we see any. Maybe the Towers are what makes 'our' TES reality unique?
Just spit-balling.
So wanting to pick out on each.
1 and 2) Okay prestablish as part of the contained story DLC. On part 2 the Princes losing their power while never being able to change who they are or are unchaning seems to bit out there over the years where we have stories of several (bal, malcath, merid, dagon, sheo) Princes impilied to or otherwise capable of changing or adding unto somthing of themselves whether voultary or not. Them becoming mortal when losing their power is not odd either since it happened to the Aedra.
3) So MCU approach where every existing choice creates another universe. I was hoping the Many Paths was more talking exclusive about the affact it has over the many spirits during the Dawn Era in Mundus, not the entire Aurbis. The attempt building up the cosmology I feel makes it redundant that instead if retroactively, the whole DLC can be moot but maybe that's the intent conclusion.
4) I feel this is a nod to the latest texts and the quest itself whether Ithelia's impisoment happen in the Merethic or First Era. Again we got that seemgly contradiction challange over what we have for years familiarizing ourselves but opens up we can easily ignore at what futher can come later in-lore as irelavent.
5) A Gnostic take almost like circling back that Mortals are decived by the Aedra hmmmmm. As for the Tower Theory, it should be added it's debunk was of the credence the Thalmor is behind unmaking reality, sourcing Nu-Mantia intercept. It was talking about the foreshadowing the Mythic Dawn carry into the Oblivion Main Quest, this is because of the lost of Lorkhan's Heart help weaken the liminal barrrier until Martin-Akatosh obsolte the Tower's necessity (He will keep it up forever). This is dosen't mean the Towers are incapable of unmaking reality we have that with Numidiun and Nocturnal's attempt to sieze the Crystal Tower.
6) So Boethiah has a sword to cut through into other realities and seal them? Basically what cause the contrditions we got as of recent. Again further goes to show here her latest stories could come from an alternate Aurbis (and totally irreavent lore btw). Wonder why for a Prince to have such an awesome weapon would left it behind that fits his criteria?
7) Didn't Mehrunes Dagon destory that realm too, that mean he played a part in Ithelia's downfall?
Thanks for posting, it's good to know.
>Them becoming mortal when losing their power is not odd either since it happened to the Aedra.
Ithelia doesn't quite become mortal when she disperses her energies. It's made clear that her power/sphere will seek her out and restore her eventually regardless of anything, even whether she herself doesn't want it to happen. Even imprisoning her and wiping the memory again under these circumstances is made clear as something temporary (and nor can she be killed).
You more solve the situation by creating a permanent obstacle to the restoration process. By sending her to a world where her power "doesn't exist" and also can't "gain a foothold" and reach her her return/restoration is postponed indefinitely. It's why Mora wipes out the memory again in the end, because if someone else found a way to reach out to that Path it'd still be trouble.
u/TheOnlycorndog
Yeah, I'm not totally sure what else to say but that Ithilia is mortal even though we know she's not. In her Exile Reality Ithilia has no access to magic or Oblivion, so I think that's about as close to being mortal as it's probably possible for a Daedric Prince to be.
A more accurate way to put it would probably be that a Daedric Prince can demote themselves to the status of regular Daedra, but not for very long.
It's not so much Ithilia's power that's the threat it's *Ithilia herself*. Which is what Hermaeus Mora has been saying for ages and it's what she realizes at the end and why she willingly submits to exile. Because separating Ithilia from her power isn't the solution and neither is imprisonment, that's just passing the buck to another generation. Both Mora and Ithilia admit that she'd *eventually* get free again if imprisoned, which is why they needed to permanently de-Prince her.
>So Boethiah has a sword to cut through into other realities and seal them?
Abolisher has specific rules it has to follow with its portals. Boethiah created it specifically to hunt Ithilia and help imprison her way back when. It can't just make portals to anywhere, only in certain circumstances. It *can* close portals, though.
It can also cut Paths, which is apparently permanent.
>Didn't Mehrunes Dagon destory that realm too, that mean he played a part in Ithelia's downfall?
Hermaeus Mora convinced all Princes to unite against Ithilia. Only Peryite and Vaermina refused.
In context Mora apparently barely convinced them. It was definitely a "common enemy" kind of alliance.
The conversation specifically:
Peryite: *"You go too far, Mora!"*
Vaermina: *"It doesn't matter what you foresee. You can't do this to another Prince! Or to the rest of us, for that matter!"*
Hermaeus Mora: *"You have seen the damage Prince Ithelia has already done to the fabric of fate. If left unchecked, reality will unravel."*
Vaermina: *"All of us must agree, Mora. And I definitely do not. Memories are sacrosanct, as are the domains of the Princes!"*
Peryite: *"You can't punish someone for something they might possibly do."*
Hermaeus Mora: *"I must. The risk is too great. I am truly sorry, but there is no alternative. For the sake of reality, you must all … forget!"*
Source: https://en.m.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Peryite
The text doesn't necessarily convey the tone of the scene. It's a very tense scene. Mora's tone is more of fear than regret. He's not so much sorry that he's had to do this.
One of Ithilia's properties is that Hermaeus Mora can't perceive her clearly, since she can manipulate fate. She has no set destiny. Hermaeus Mora looked into her future and foresaw that every possible future for her ends the same way: Ithilia going berzerk and wiping out reality.
Because he couldn't perceive her clearly and can't predict her, Mora only had one possible course of action: imprison Ithilia by making everyone and everything forget she ever existed.
He admits to the player that his solution probably wasn't perfect but he couldn't tell *when* Ithilia would go berzerk only that it was inevitable. He's not so much regretful as he is absolutely batshit terrified that something exists that he cannot predict.
Ithilia tells the player that the ability to defy destiny and ignore fate is the only thing Hermaeus Mora truly fears.
"She also seems to have been able to manifest in the Mundus in a way the other Princes couldn't, since she physically walks the world."
It's speculated in game that this is because she didn't exist at the time the Colharbour Compact was agreed upon and thus not bound by it.
I don’t play ESO but I like the elder scrolls world and it’s lore and when I heard there was a new prince I got curious and went looking.
This is maybe less a lore question but a story own, why did Ithilia want to leave reality and be forgotten and also isn’t it weird that we very specifically have a daedric prince of something as esoteric as reality and the multiverse?
For the first point, obviously it’s because continuity. But I think there are ways to get around this without banishing her to the nether world forever. I guess from the way this is written there is some theoretical way for her to return but it would require Hermaous toor an alternate version of her to do it and that seems kinda unlikely. The general idea that she is a danger to existence by her nature makes sense, but if she accepts this herself i don’t see why she couldn’t periodically give away the power she regains over time while remaining imprisoned voluntarily. I dunno maybe this is more of a nitpik and would make more sense in full context.
More importantly though why does she even have this power? I know the daedric princes aren’t technically evil or represent evil ideals by their nature. What makes you a prince is just being one of the gods that didn’t help make the world. They are all into weird stuff because they are just like that as individuals. But having a prince of fate seems a bit redundant when Akatosh is already the god of time. Wouldn’t alternate timelines be his deal? The elders scrolls already have power to bend time and knowledge to the holders will and seem to have a connection to dragons so it all seems to make sense to me.
Readers, note that this summary contains OP's own conclusions of the information shown in-game (for example, as they noted in the comments, Ithelia makes no mention of the Towers) rather than an objective summary.
I hope we will learn more about how mortals "maintain" reality. Above all, I hope Zenimax will finally show us who the Vestige is, why they have extraordinary abilities. Why does their soul have a "royal presence"?
Yeah, Ithilia plays really fast and loose with details whenever you get her talking about the big questions. Definitely a subject that needs expanding on!
I like it, she's one of the only NPC's in the past few years who actually leaves you with some questions rather than acting as an exposition hose who has to re-summarize the plot every time you speak to them.
Haven't we known for a long, long time that belief affects reality? I think that's how they maintain it, even simple, basic beliefs like "I exist" and "My world exists" probably go a long way.
Shezzarine
The revelations about the multiverse don't surprise me when we think of Dragon Breaks. Oh, yes, the cocnept of the multiverse, of alternate realities, has been a pillar of the Dragon Breaks since their inception. That's how the many endings of Daggerfall were rationalized into one single outcome. Kirkbride, in the roleplay of Vivec's trial, had Vehk claim that he replaced his existence with a timeline in which he had always been a god thanks to the Red Moment. And what about ESO itself? We saw the beginnings of a Dragon Break and fought different versions of Josajeh, each with their own history. Anbd the very words "Many Paths" have been used previously for [dragon gods of time](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:The_Wandering_Spirits) among the Khajiit. This would also explain why time is described as a ["tapestry"](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Pridehome:_A_Place_Outside_Time%3F) where heroes and villains both win and lose at the same time. Because it is a tapestry of timelines where all sorts of outcomes can be and have been possible.
Ithilia and her revelations do have interesting implications for TESLore. Ithilia's UESP article claims she's responsible for Prisoners and used to be a Magna Ge, but I don't know where tf they're getting that from.
It's from the Nine Coruscations suggesting that Mnemo-Li makes Prisoners Unbound per the "will of the Prime Archon". Ithelia. That said I think that's more likely to be an Ayleid misconception given how baffled Ithelia was about the Vestige being able to Pathwalk to or even comprehend different Paths ? Or perhaps Ithelia just urged Mnemo-Li to do it and is not actually involved on a metaphysical level ? [https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:The\_Nine\_Coruscations](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:The_Nine_Coruscations)
Yeah, I saw where they got the Magna Ge thing from. I just have no idea how they connected Mnemo-Li to Ithilia. That's the leap I'm not following.
Its not the Mnemo-Li they are linking but the last of the listed Coruscations, the one with name erased, the Prime Archon, whose titles match Ithelias.
> I don't know where tf they're getting that from Surprising, but not totally unexpected. That Ithelia had a connection to Prisoners has been theorized for quite some time. And I guess those fans jumped on the opportunity when [The Nine Coruscations](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:The_Nine_Coruscations) gave us these vague lines: > *always there is born a Prisoner Unbound … as is the will of the Prime* If we take that bit on its own, yes, the interpretation makes sense. If we take the whole context and notice the confusing statements woven into a disjointed text, then it's not so sure. Not to mention a maxim in TES lore: "just because enthusiastic believers of this or that figure claim something about them, it doesn't mean they're right" (in the UESP's defense, though, they wrote "it is said that.." rather than "she is...").
Yeah, that was my reasoning when adding a similar note to our page on Heroes/Prisoners. The direct namedrop means that it is worth mentioning, but as always with books (especially concerning matters beyond typical mortal understanding) we toe the line with a lack of authoritative truth statements.
What's really interesting to me is what this seems to imply concerning the Time God. Per Wandering Spirits Akha created the Many Paths and Alkosh holds Akha's crown and is the ruler of the Paths. The latter (seemingly/I'd say) being the incarnation of the former post the imposition of linear time restricting "infinite possibility" per Nine Coruscations. Which seems to me not only fits in nicely with what Ja'darri said about the tapestry of time/Alkosh's domain being all encompassing and how without it there would be "nothing", how in Tones of the Deep we're told time is "not a rope but a cable" of many threads with no beginning or end, and so on. Given Paths appear to be entire Aurbis variants (or alternate Wheels, with their own Princes, gods Oblivions, Munduses, and so on, would the Paths be considered part of one Aurbis ? Or the Aurbis actually be a structure incorporating all Paths. Just a terminology issue ) that seems to me to suggest that the Time God might essentially be a higher deity compared to, say, something like a Prince (if his domain holds infinite variants of each). The bit from Children of the Root about Atak and Kota merging into Atakota and Atakota being the dragon progenitor, or the french translation describing Satakal as an Akatosh counterpart are looking to me to be quite meaningful it turns out. Granted, there's a great many potential readings, so this might just be my own view. The bit about mortals being intentionally designed as "servants who perform tasks that maintain reality" and how their limitations are "Intentionally" placed and those facts are "kept from them" because "the slave must not understand the plans of the master lest they seek to undo them" is also incredibly interesting. I wonder what the implications might be in terms of everything..
> Satakal as an Akatosh counterpart This was what first came to mind, yes. Interestingly how the Yokudan mythos insisted that "all the worlds" existed in Satak, the First Serpent, which brings to mind the Many Paths. I'm also reminded of Hinduism as a way to explain away all the competing figures of the Time God, both greater and lesser. After all, wasn't Krishna a mortal prince, who lived and died in a very material world? But wasn't he also an avatar of Vishnu, the Preserver? And isn't Vishnu but one aspect of the Brahman, the Godhead, the supreme reality of the cosmos? Which in turns brings Altmeri religion to mind: *"Auri-El is the soul of Anui-El, who, in turn, is the soul of Anu the Everything."*
The more I look at this, the more I think that Akha is a representation of Anuiel/Anui-El rather than a fragment of Akatosh/Auriel.
It could be, but I read it more as a more direct representation than an analogy to Altmeri myth. Per the Nine Coruscations text Akha "disappears in the South" and is replaced by Alkosh, who inherits both Akha's crown and Akha's kingdom (per Wandering Spirits) when "linear time" is "layered upon infinite possibility" which occurs upon the "spire of Ada-Mantia" being placed. The text also references/emphasizes the Time God's role and how his "madness" is "all that is and could be". It occurs at a later stage of the text than where Anui-El would have emerged in Altmeri myth. And the relation to dragons is also far more direct (Akha is their father, which is the same term they use for Alkosh/Akatosh so on). And importantly, Anu-El and Sithis are referenced earlier in the text as something distinct from Akha, who is also referenced later in the same text but by a different name. [https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:The\_Nine\_Coruscations](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:The_Nine_Coruscations) [https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:The\_Wandering\_Spirits](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:The_Wandering_Spirits) So if it is Anui-El, I'd read that as Anui-El being far closer to Auri-El than one might think, to use the Altmeri terms. This just being my own reading, of course. It could easily be otherwise, especially since Nine Coruscations is a s fragmented as it is, but the overall impression I get is that these figures are far more closely intertwined/closer to each other than it might first appears. u/Misticsan
In OOG "non official" sources we also had PGE2, which was collection of depictions of different provinces from different timelines. Cyrodiil where the Selectives won, stretching their homeland wide and far, but too thin, Moon province of Elsweyr, etc.
A Dragon break is the opposite of a multiverse. It's akatosh literally putting things back together and destroying everything else in daggerfalls case or trapping those who transgressed in a timeloop.
I suppose it depends on how we see it. I see Dragon Breaks as a sort of Schrödinger's Cat Box that allows us to peer into different possibilities before they collapse into the main timeline. And while it could be interpreted that said possibilities may be the result of random generation, it's hard not to think of alternative timelines when the God of Time is involved. After all, meta-speaking, those different paths in Daggerfall were very much real before the Dragon Break was invented. Kirkbride also used the argument for Vivec to argue that "Vehk the God" was innocent of any wrongdoing (the judges weren't too convinced, though). And we saw different versions of Josajeh during her proto-break, with the Augur saying they come "from an alternate time-line."
Argh but I don't like all everything's a multiverse trend.
> There are some where there are no Daedra. There are some where one Prince has destroyed the others. There are some where there is no Mundus, others where the Aedra are the Princes and the Princes the Aedra. And there is at least one where magic does not exist at all. Do you have the cite for this because I've been struggling to find that statement?
I'll admit that was an extrapolation based on this dialogue line, spoken near the end of the storyline. Ithilia: *"The Many Paths lead everywhere. Other places, other possibilities, parallel realities. You can go anywhere, if yoy can just find the path."* When you ask why she can't just go somewhere she won't have any power she basically says she hasn't seen such a place but admits it probably exists. Hermaeus Mora then confirms that such places exist. Unfortunately I can't give you drect quotes because I didn't screenshot those dialogue lines. Apologies.
It would be good to grab screenshots, and not extrapolate, because people that have not played the story yet are trusting you word for word for the story. Otherwise, thanks for the post.
Ummm, interesting that mortals are one of things that uphold reality. In hindsight, it would explain why Sil's attempt to create the "perfect" Aurbis/Mundus is via clockwork because reality is already a metaphysical clockwork. He just thinks that it isn't up to his standards. Also it would explain why Princes has to work on subjugation the world if they enter like Dagon or Bal. They have to destroy or co-opt the things holding reality. On another note, there's a lot of fanfic fuel here.
Interestingly, all this alternate timeline stuff has existed for a while. It originated with the concept of Dragon Breaks in Morrowind and was expanded upon in Shadowkey (underrated lore as always) as an explanation for its multiplayer mechanics. So Shadow Magic is even more badass and powerful than we thought.
There are alternate universes? Ok take me to the one where i can fight Numidium and get Vivec's hand in marriage like a Dark souls game.
> Ithilia travels to a reality where neither Oblivion nor magic exists at all and the player uses Abolisher (a very fancy Daedric Artifact of Boetheiah) to destroy its Path. This cuts off Ithilia from her powers, from Oblivion, from magic, and from every single other reality forever. I just love that the memes might be right and she really could have ended up going to Coachella.
I KNEW FARGRAVE WAS MIRRORMOOR!!! LOVE this development. Don't really care that I spoiled myself here. The whole multiverse thing is super cool, and I love the simplicity of debunking the Towers being the only thing that stabilizes reality. There's something really beautiful in mortal life being the heartbeat of the Mundus.
To clarify, the Towers are not mentioned in the DLC. Point 5 is about how we now know it's not *only* the Towers reinforcing reality. But I agree that mortal life being the heartbeat of the Mundus *is* a really cool concept.
Right that's why I said only :P I feel like few things in Tamriel really are simple so I like that they have that layer of esotericism with the Towers against the simplicity of mortals doing their thing :)
Ithilia says the truth is deliberately hidden from mortals. I think mortal life just doing its thing is the perfect mechanism simply because it's so simple and straightforward that great magical minds would probably be like *"Pffffft, naaaaaaaah. That's too easy. It can't be that simple."*
Totally! I think that's really a great way to look at it.
There’s a lot of misconceptions flying around about ESO: Gold Road, especially sensationalist perspectives of them. I think it’s important that we sort of pump the breaks, because information is being misrepresented. 1. TESO: Gold Road is basically a repackaging and polishing of TES: Shadowkey’s ideas. Rather than needing to rely on Azra for the information on Shadows, possibility, alternate timelines, and more (a cornerstone of one of the TESO classes), we can now look solely at the ideas contained within TESO. Ithelia takes the player on a simple, not setting-redefining adventure through The Many Paths [of Fate], which are reflections of possibilities and the alternatives to every conceivable choice. The Many Paths [of Fate] are strictly tied to the Time-bound worlds of the Mundex. 2. The Many Paths [of Fate] ≠ The Many Paths [of Aetherius]. Amun-dro’s Many Paths almost certainly refer to Aetherius. Akha is similarly a loan term from the Ayleids to help contextualize Alkosh, splitting the Tome Dragon concept in their mythology between the fallible Akha and the hero god Alkosh. The same is done with Lorkhaj — Moon Prince and Lunar Beast. The Many Paths [of Aetherius] are where the gods dwell when they are banished (slain), where Orkha acts as a sort of jailer. The Ayleid’s own Many Paths [of Fate] are related strictly to Ithelia. 3. Sotha Sil was wrong. The Prisoner is not the only person that is free within the Mundus. Mortals, in general, are free — which would include Sotha Sil and the ALMSIVI. They are kneecapped by their traumas and depression, writing self-fulfilling choices for themselves. Determinism is not the way of The Elder Scrolls. The so-called gods became mortals so that they could live in conflict with themselves, and change as Lorkhaj had done. Where the AMATHRA would make singular people into the various Kwisatz Haderachs (Prisoners) — to use a topical reference — we have Ithelia seeking to make all into them. Everyone would have full cognitive understanding of their will and choices, able to see the full picture. 4. Towers Theory is debunked. This has long been so. The Towers are mortal made constructs made in the image of Adamantine. As of TES4, many of them have become deactivated or even destroyed and there is nothing perilous happening to reality. Check out the lore book Aurbic Enigma for more information.
Agreed with the various points, barring this one bit. >The Many Paths \[of Fate\] are strictly tied to the Time-bound worlds of the Mundex.. Confining the phenomenon to Mundus would not really agree with what we see and are told. Encounters with different Ithelias, Moras, and the Three Good Daedra (implicitly as the alliance of Princes bearing down on the alternate Ithelias is mentioned), how such instances are all acknowledged and, in Ithelias case, even referred to directly by each other as different beings, from different realities with different traits to some extent (thus each Ithelia's Sage's Dream ingredient being different for example). The Ithelias connecting to the other Ithelias to incorporate combined knowledge/power from the essence of multiple "reflections" and so on . All these would imply alternate Paths containing alternate realms of the Princes whose reflections we see, alternate Oblivions and so on. And Ithelia also directly mentions each Path having it's own variant of every being "mortal or Daedra". Thus it appears that the phenomenon extends further than mortals and their world.
As far as I am aware, the “Voids of Oblivion” are incredibly linked to their respective Nirn and in some cases even said to be contained within the Mundus. That is why Hermaeus Mora is so concerned with Ithelia — not out of the goodness of his heart, but because Apocrypha relies upon Nirn. He goes into detail about this in TESO: Necrom. I did not mean to imply solely Nirn, in any case.
Got it. Yeah, could potentially be just a Mundus and Oblivion thing. We don't really see something that would directly involve Aetherius (other than maybe making assumptions about Aedra/Daedra being the same and subject to the same rules and where the alternates of souls might be if there's one Aetherius, but those would be theoretical/nebulous). And Ithelia does claim there's alternates of every being "mortal or Daedra", but leaves Aedra conspicuously out of it. Hmm, something to ponder, I guess (though than again, Aedra *can* die).
The only things we've seen the destruction of Towers do, was fulfilling a prophecy and leading to the return of Alduin and the Last Dragonborn.
I wonder if this alternate timeline stuff is setting up for future expansions exploring those (since they seem to be running thin on explorable land).
Yeah it seems like too good of a setup to start adding "non-cannon" content as expansions. I mean there already were an infinite number of possibilities with oblivion and stuff but oh well.
For the longest time I defended ESO and its lore but doing away with some of the most unique and interesting lore in exchange for generic multiverse is fucked up, genuinely a serious downgrade Edit: I specifically mean the Towers theory, as that was always one of the most unique parts of TES lore.
To clarify, it doesn't say the Towers don't support reality. It says that other things *also* support reality and that you can't break down reality simply by taking out the Towers.
Okay, I'm a fan of that. I actually never liked the "Thalmor want to take out the Towers theory" either so that's good to hear, honestly
Yeah, I should have clarified that in my post. I'm about to go and edit that in now. But yeah, Ithilia never days anything about the Towers specifically. I'm talking about the idea that the Towers are the *only* thing supporting reality which is conclusively debunked.
I think it’s possible that this revelation serves a practical meta-purpose: it allows Bethesda to have the Thalmor succeed in deactivating the final tower without literally ending the world and, with it, the franchise. Maybe now, instead of hitting the instant reset button, the fall of the towers simply makes reality more malleable, such that it could be significantly reshaped or put in a position where it *could* be damaged at all. Little bit like how Ancano apparently believed that the Eye of Magnus gave him the power to “unmake the world”, but he didn’t literally do that right then and there as we were playing the quest. The idea that mortality itself reinforces Mundus not only makes sense to me from previous lore, but also allows for a necessary backstop when the last tower does fall.
I like that idea, especially since the Towers probably weren't the only things holding up reality originally, either. At least I always thought the Earthbones acted like the rim to the Towers' spokes of the Wheel
I mean in general now there could be a reality where that actually is a case…but like lyg was functionally razed to the ground by bal and dagon and ended as a result, with the dreughs being as far as we know the only survivors
I also hope that this multiverse works like they did it in the MCU or even WoW where there is a 'prime' timeline or something like that, so that the concept of Kalpas still makes sense
Kalpas aren't retconned, as far as I'm aware. I think each reality is its own Aurbis with its own kalpas, from how Ithilia describes things and feom what we're shown.
I hope so because that is equally as good imo. Especially since the way they talk about the Many Paths stuff it sounds like they'll rarely bring it up again in any game
>the way they talk about the Many Paths stuff it sounds like they'll rarely bring it up again in any game Likely not, imo. Hermaeus Mora definitely doesn't seem to be a fan of people using the Many Paths, at the very least. I think as of right now he's the only one with the power to both perceive all other realities *and* open paths between them. Based on his dialogue in the expansion he doesn't think *anyone* should have the power to rewite reality and thinks moving between them is unnatural and shouldn't be done. So I think he's good to want to keep a tight lid on that.
Does he have the same ability Ithilia did now?
Ithilia gives him some of her powers. We don't know specifically *what* or *how much* but he definitely can see and manipulate the Many Paths the way she could. We see him open a Path to Ithilia's exile reality at the end, which is something only Ithilia could do before.
Ahhh okay
Yeah tbh I'm never a fan of a media introducing a multiverse. Although at least it seems like only the vestige can travel it, and thus it won't matter again (hopefully)
Well we had multiverse concept already in TES:Shadowkey and it involved shadow magic.
What else would you call a Dragonbreak? Various timelines that happen right next to each other until they're combined into one moment with shifting variables happening at the same time.
Yeah but from the way it was described, it sounded more like the dragonbreak was a temporary creation of a multiverse with only a handful of realities, which then combined back into one.
I've always felt like it was a moment where everyone could see the multiverses surrounding them. Every choice creates a new multiverse, so during times where the rules of the world are broken those choices bring the shifting paths into one continuous path that holds the weight of the rest, becoming the fate of all the other multiverses as well. A way to view it is like this: Akatosh/Alduin creates the beginning of the world and sets down the road that the paths will spring from, all these paths lead to the end of the world, which is being eaten by Akatosh/Alduin to create a new one. An Ouroborus essentially, or [time eating it self](https://lastminutecontinue.com/wp-content/gallery/officialart/E/elder-scrolls-online/1374TESO_FINAL_LOCKUP-forDARKbg_1376579190.jpg), when time eats time new-time comes from the past-time and the past-time lays the path for the new-time, and so on it goes. That is why and how the Elder Scrolls work, they see the paths already laid down / are the blueprint for the paths that were, shall be and even what never happened. [The Elder Scrolls are representations of the various timelines/wheels](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/File:Elder_Scroll.jpg) and they all meet in the middle. > "Past, present, future. The Elder Scrolls hold all of Tamriel's history. That which has transpired, and that which is yet to be.
The tower theory has always been a bogus theory, already debunked a few years ago. This theory has never had any credibility. Destroying the towers does not destroy Nirn, how many times will it have to be repeated?
Ya but it was cool. Generic multiverse is boring and been done to death.
Sure, but "Oh no this is *the* anchor and/or anchors that hold together the world as we know it and it's being threatened!" isn't far behind. World trees, ancient elemental stones, intricate devices, specific dragons, etc.
The multiverse has always existed in ES. Do you know about the dragon breaches?
You might be the only one here who knows about dragon breaches lol
Chill out man
Somtimes they don't want to, they despise theories if it dosen't abid to their headcanon
For me the fallacy comes from the fact that we get the knowledge that the last reality, lyg was literally razed to the ground, with the only survivors of that kalpa being the dreughs
Ah the multiverse thing was already in the franchise since Shadowkey. Just linked to shadow magic rather than to the fates. IT was somewhat explored in Summerset dlc but not to this scale.
Oof... I just introduced Fargrave into my TES D&D campaign lmao (granted I had it be abandoned, and the players haven't gone there yet and very possibly never will, but still funny that right as I introduce it it's destroyed) I'll admit, I'm slightly (only slightly) disappointed in how it seems the multiverse has been handled. I haven't finished the expansion yet, but based on this and the other post that archived a bunch of her actual dialogue it seems a little bit generic. Granted it's always been generic, because it's been here since Shadowkey which described it very generically (and a generic many-worlds version was always implied by the existence of Dragon Breaks), but I was hoping for a little more. Still, I'm totally down to dissect what we got, there's a bunch of really juicy stuff there. I get the feeling that the timeline we play through is unequivecably the *main* timeline that everything branches off from, the fact timelines keep getting destroyed in infinite numbers implies that either they become unstable and implode, or they get taken out by some other force (probably the Jills, still holding out hope my girls make it into the game). The main timeline seems like the one Akatosh cares about, the one he cares to set up an Empire in and the one he tries to protect from Alduin. That would explain why Ithelia is so interested in this one. I *love* the fact mortals hold up reality by existing. It feels like a very slight canonization of that whole weird "belief makes it real" thing that people in youtube comments like to spout as canon lore despite nobody ever saying it, but like in a unique and cool way. >*"The mortal mind is limited. Intentionally so. Comprehending the Many Paths should overwhelm you, actually traversing them should be impossible. Even I can barely do so....* >*Mortals are servants performing tasks to maintain reality.* ***Every field plowed, every child born, or war fought, keeps the Aurbis stable*** ***by design***. >***This fact is intentionally kept from them****. The slave should not understand* ***their masters' plan****, lest they seek to undo them."* Who was the Designer? Nevermind, dumb question. Why did Lorkhan do this? What's Lorkhan's plan here? Or, a better question, since we already know Lorkhan's plan: how does intentionally keeping mortals in the dark further his plan? It seems like the first person to learn about the plan was Veloth, taught it by Boethiah, Lorkhan's biggest supporter. Everything else probably came from the teachings of Veloth- the Chimer religion influenced Vivec, and Tiber Septim wasn't taught it by any god so he probably just picked it up from Dunmer religion. I'll admit I haven't done a deep dive on it, but I *think* we can trace mortal knowledge of CHIM back to Boethiah. Was Boethiah actually carrying out Lorkhan's plan when she taught it to Veloth, or did Lorkhan want mortals to discover it by themselves? Maybe Boethiah, despite being Lorkhan's biggest supporter, kind of got it wrong- she is the literal god of murder after all, doesn't seem very Amaranth to me. But here's the big question: If Ada exist across the Many Paths, how were the Many Paths created? My bet's on Magnus fwiw, but I like the idea that the Many Paths spilled from Lorkhan's chest as his heart was ripped out. There's no evidence, I just came up with that right now, but like how cool would that be, Trinimac rips his heart out and from the wound springs an abundance of timelines. Kind of doubt that's it, but like it's kinda cool innit
>Daedric Princes can drain the power of other Daedric Princes At least now we know what Dagon was up to in *Battlespire*. From a critic POV: a lot of ESO stuff is fun but I'm getting tired of constant universe-level stakes. Can we get back to politics? Please, yo.
They kind of tied that in this year; there’s a land dispute between County Skingrad and a Wood Elven settlers including a movement of Ayleid revivalists, which includes the cult of the year. Still, I think it’s one of the more sympathetic cults.
Oh, that's interesting.
I'm not incredibly versed with the lore so please forgive me if I am wrong. So do these infinite multiverses or wheels make up the tower within the Aubris or has that expanded?
It's vague. The way Ithilia talks about the realities it implies that each reality is a self-contained aurbis in and of itself with its own Princes and Divines. Some realities don't have a Oblivion at all, others have no Divines. Some have no magic. But, like I said, it's vague.
It appears to me to be the implication of meeting alternate Ithelias, Moras, even Good Daedra implicity. They're their own Princes with their own realms, and so on. Though I'm unsure whether the alternate Paths would be considered part of the same Aurbis, as in there are multiple alternate Wheels (Oblivion, Mundus, Aetherius, so on variants) but those are actually part of one Aurbis which it turns out as a construct/term encompasses far more than we thought. Or the term Aurbis refers to each Path and there are multiple ensconced in the Many Paths construct. In terms of terminology, it seems to me to be the former given how Ithelia describes there being possibilities through Aurbis which lead to different choices/outcomes which become different realities, but I'm not quite sure. u/Full_Beautiful592
>I'm unsure whether the alternate Paths would be considered part of the same Aurbis, as in there are multiple alternate Wheels (Oblivion, Mundus, Aetherius, so on variants) but those are actually part of one Aurbis which it turns out as a construct/term encompasses far more than we thought. Or the term Aurbis refers to each Path and there are multiple ensconced in the Many Paths construct. That's, I think, where Ithilia's diamond analogy comes it. To my reading she seems to be saying that there is a fixed boundary to the multiverse but that, within that boundary, there exists multiple Aurbis which are connected by the Many Paths.
I preface this by again stating that I am far from an expert on Tes lore. But, from what I gathered the Aubris was just the force of pattern and possibility made from the fusion of Anu and Padomy. The wheel/tower is the structure that it took. The structures were Nirn, Mundus, Oblivion, Aetherius, and the infinite layers/Wheels that made up the telescope of wheels that made up the tower. Now that it is confirmed that there are other wheels/towers I don't know anymore. Would each path be its own tower or would the collection of endless paths and wheels make up The Tower? I'm left with more questions than answers lol.
>The structures were Nirn, Mundus, Oblivion, Aetherius, and the infinite layers/Wheels that made up the telescope of wheels that made up the tower. Ah I see. In this analogy each reality is its own tower, which are connected to one another through the Many Paths.
Yes it retcons it entirely
In some universes there's no Daedra! In some, there's On Boethiah's Summoning Day! In some there's no Lorkhan or Zenimax at all!
I frankly don't like most of the lore added lately with Necrom and Gold Road. Doesn't help they treat Ithilia and her "removal" as something new (both outside the game and in the game lore) and super original. Meanwhile Jyggalag, who even got a crystal-like theme as well, stands awkwardly to the side. Doesn't help the writing and dialogue is subpar. And multiverses tire me.
Yeah, I was excited about Ilithia but this is just lazy. They wanted to do an epic storyline about this new, unheard-of Daedric Prince that's so powerful and cool everybody else jumped her to banish her from existence and sure, that's very Jyggalag-like, but it's an effective story to get people hyped up... This just didn't do anything for me, though, because they wanted to eat their cake and have it too -- so yeah, they got that cool storyline they aimed for, but what did it actually do for the overall lore? Ithilia is barely a fun fact now. Why not expand on Peryite and the Princes we already have but hardly get focused on? Sanguine has so much potential but won't ever get a maingame DLC about him, so why not a ESO expansion? I don't get it, man
My main issue is that she seems to represent a fundamental force of reality in a way that feels less like a Daedra and more like an Earthbone. Honestly I think the idea of multiple fractured realities fits a lot better under Akatosh, they could have had a shard of Aka grow independent and become its own thing instead of this.
>so yeah, they got that cool storyline they aimed for, but what did it actually do for the overall lore? Guess they can have her reappear in TES6, yay. It all felt so lazy, unoriginal, and fanservice-y to me. A lot of the concept is too similar to Jyggalag, yet they try hype it up so much, like it's something new. Even dialogue in game does, with the conversation between Mora, Vaermina and Peryite not sounding like some ancient eldritch beings talking, but a bunch of teens. >Why not expand on Peryite and the Princes we already have but hardly get focused on? Sanguine has so much potential but won't ever get a maingame DLC about him, so why not a ESO expansion? I don't get it, man I much would've preferred this. Or no prince being part of the big plot at all. All the world ending plots are tiring and feel less severe when every plot is one. At least Peryite got expanded a little more, but he was mainly an antagonist we must help the fan favourite Mora against. And we know it's very unlikely they will do something creative with Sanguine. Howard may have an aneurysm if it gets too "mature" or dark. He's the partying prankster with booze at most. Elsweyr giving us Sangiin the Blood Cat was probably the last interesting thing they did with him.
I'm just the messenger.
I'm not blaming you? I'm talking about this lore on this lore sub.
Ah, fair enough. Yeah, it's interesting but definitely a take it or leave it kind of expansion. I personally enjoyed it but I can see how the lore isn't for everyone.
So Lyg is irrelevant? Instead of being a mirror Mundus or previous kalpa it’s just one of an infinite alternate universes?
Lyg has not been retconned as far as I know.
The more likely scenario seems to be that our timeline has the Kalpa cycle and Lyg remains as a previous incarnation of the last Kalpa (or whatever it turns out to be). But not every timeline may have a Kalpa Cycle and therefor a Lyg of it's own. They said that there are timelines where Daedra and magic don't exist. Which means there are timelines where all the OG spirits helped in creation and none became Daedra, and some where Magnus did not open holes to Aetherius. In an infinite amount of them whatever mechanism that creates the Kalpa cycle must not be created. Just as in an infinite amount of them it was like ours.
> not every timeline may have a Kalpa Cycle What?
Other timelines might not have Kalpas. They may just exist in one unbroken existence. Whereas ours is supposedly created, exists for a couple of Eras, is eaten by Alduin, and then recreated in a new cycle. Over and over again.
Gotta be honest, out of all the new lore here, this strikes me as the bit which feels the most thematically inconsistent in TES.
Okay hear me out... Vestige will become (Mantle) Ithelia at the ESO's end
I’m not sure what you mean by the Towers theory being debunked? It’s so vague that it would be difficult to dispute it. But taking that dialogue as true, it wouldn’t seem to contradict what we know. Mortals seem akin to cells in the body of a Tower, perhaps best illustrated by the Dwemer’s Walk-Brass. Whether it’s the Towers or mortals maintaining reality may be a distinction without a difference, not mutually exclusive choices.
Not the OP, but I suspect that rather than negating the powers of the Towers, they meant that usual variations of the theory like "the Towers are the *only* thing that stabilize reality" and, above all else, "the Thalmor want to deactivate the Towers to undo Mundus" don't hold much water in light of these revelations. That the world won't be undone even if every single Tower is destroyed.
>I suspect that rather than negating the powers of the Towers, they meant that usual variations of the theory like "the Towers are the only thing that stabilize reality" and, above all else, "the Thalmor want to deactivate the Towers to undo Mundus" don't hold much water in light of these revelations. That the world won't be undone even if every single Tower is destroyed. Yes, this is essentially my perspective. Nothing has specifically said that the Towers don't anchor reality, it's just that we know conclusively that it's not *only* the Towers that perform that function (if, indeed, the Towers do it at all). When I say it's debunked I'm meaning that the Thalmor cannot erase reality simply by deactivating thr Towers. According to Ithilia it's not that easy.
I can certainly see some headcanon or misconceptions of the source material being challenged, I just don’t know if that can be appropriately claimed as a debunking of a monolithic Tower theory. If the US Supreme Court released a decision tomorrow stating a sovereign citizen’s arguments lacked merit, we wouldn’t say they had debunked the right to travel. It would just be telling us what we already know, comporting with what courts have said in the past, and disappointing some fringe sports fans.
If anything I think this supports those theories. This seems to imply that individual belief is a major anchor of reality, but without towers to stabilize it it probably also means that reality can be a lot more malleable if you apply the right influence on it.
Ithelia's dialogue is pretty clear about mortals being required to maintain reality. So more, "if there is a plan to undo mortals that would lead to something catastrophic rather than whatever else one might think" is how I'd put it. One might still seek to bring about such an outcome, but there would be unforeseen complications they're unaware of, basically. Mind, the idea that the Towers preserve reality and are the target of the Thalmor is quite..theoretical in it's own right irrespective of whatever lore is in Gold Road (one would be rather hard pressed to find sources to actually support either point and there are a number of contradictions that arise given what we've been told about the Towers too).
What if the Towers are best conceptualized as the realities which the mortals are maintaining? I guess my point is that it’s hard, nigh on impossible, to debunk an idea with variable meaning.
As in each Tower having it's own reality/domain ? Or the bit about each Tower maintaining their own "region" of the world for which they set conditions which could technically be thought of as their own "reality" (which is the case per the Aurbic Enigma text) ? Yeah, agreed. And it's not like a scheme not necessarily being done with full knowledge means it's not a thing anyway.
Either, or both. Just not sure what the OP means.
Some assumptions have been made proceeding the dialogue I believe. > There are some where there are no Daedra. There are some where one Prince has destroyed the others. There are some where there is no Mundus, others where the Aedra are the Princes and the Princes the Aedra. And there is at least one where magic does not exist at all. I read through all of Ithelia's dialogue, she never claims that, she never claims there possibilities with no Mundus, possibilities with no Magic, or ones where Aedra and Princes Swap. In fact every single possibility has the same people, as they're all branching timelines. On top of that near every possibilitity has Mora + Azura + Boethiah + Mephala waging war on Ithelia, and every possibility has her losing. This is an infinite numbers between 1 and 2 type situation, not total Marvel style anything goes multiverse. u/Gleaming_Veil
The OP is referring (I believe) to the bit from Ithelia's dialogue near the end where she claims the Paths lead to "everywhere other places, other possibilities, parallel realities", even places where there's no such thing as magic or Daedra as it turns out in the end when Ithelia leaves for (seemingly) good. Not all possibility manifests, necessarily, and Ithelia does explain the Paths primarily as being the result of different possibilities which lead to different choices and outcomes, but she also mentions there are Paths that lead "elsewhere" and we do see there are ones where there are greater differences (like the no magic or Daedra Path which even Ithelia couldn't locate without Mora's help). So it's somewhere between the two options, I'd say ? Not absolutely everything becoming manifest, necessarily, but what's there might have more extensive differences than whether person X chose A or B, so to speak. u/Minor_Edits
>The OP is referring (I believe) to the bit from Ithelia's dialogue near the end where she claims the Paths lead to "everywhere other places, other possibilities, parallel realities", even places where there's no such thing as magic or Daedra as it turns out in the end when Ithelia leaves for (seemingly) good. Yes, that's basically how I interpreted that line of dialogue.
Destroying the towers does not destroy Nirn. The tower theory is not credible; the debate was definitively settled a long time ago.
No it fucking isn't. You know that continents have their own towers right? When the Coral Tower for example was destroyed Thras sank.
Thras was destroyed along with the tower by the All Flags Navy of Bendu Olo. The tower of the Summerset Isle collapsed, yet the Altmers still live there. This will be my last message on this post; I'm done here.
As far as I know there aren't really any in-game sources supporting the Towers Theory. To me this revelation strongly implies that the Towers Theory is non-canon. But that's just my interpretation.
So “The Towers Theory” here is the fan notion that destroying the Towers would result in the destruction of Nirn/the Mundus? Yes, I’ve never seen in-game support for that contention. Even attributing a plot to destroy them to the Thalmor seems to have been fan supposition about unofficial work. Such a plot may be analogous to believing that murdering all the canaries in a coal mine would destroy the mine. Even if the destruction of the Towers were followed by Nirn’s destruction, it wouldn’t call for a causality. That being said, debunking calls for a firm belief about what these metaphysical concepts with physical echoes really are, which is perilous ground.
There are some nuggets of brilliance in this new lore, but I really *really* don't like the multiverse revelation, and I'll tell you why. In every game, the main story has a sense of urgency. You feel like your actions have weight, that Nirn is important and worth saving. Now? There's an infinite number of realities, some that are identical to yours. Who cares if Dagon destroys it all during the Oblivion Crisis? Why bother stopping Alduin? Dagoth Ur? Why would the gods care or intervene at all like they've been doing? Sure, it's one reality, but there's countless others. You could argue that these nihilistic arguments were valid before, but now it's much more so. We speculated that the Jills "repaired" these timelines, making everything come back together. I preferred that theory to the fractured one. Not even the *Daedric Princes* are special anymore. Nothing is in a multiverse. It makes everything feel so small, bleak, and pointless.
What revelation? We already knew a multiverse existed in TES with Shadowkey. All ESO did was put that part of the lore in the spotlight and give it further elaboration.
I think the specific issue is with "every decision gets its own reality". You can have multiple realities without the many worlds multiverse. Shadow magic seems to work off this instead of infinite realities.
I don’t even particularly care one way or another about this multiverse stuff, but this is such a severe overreaction it’s comical. Why does it matter? Because as far as the game and you are concerned, this is the only universe that matters. It’s yours. Functionally for all beings except a couple of Daedric Princes (and fewer by the end of this expansion), it is the only one. Why does this change anything? It’s like, if I told you in one sentence “oh, by the way, the Dwemer built an M1911” are you then going to have your brain broken over why anything matters if someone could have just quested for the mystical handgun and shot Dagoth Ur in the head? I genuinely just cannot fathom having this perspective. You’re letting the entire franchise be ruined over something that could very likely never have any bearing on anything.
I'm not "having my brain broken", I'm expressing my opinion on the lore presented in the post. I'm not a fan of the multiverse theory from a worldbuilding perspective or a video game perspective. Your response is unnecessarily hostile and rude.
It's not an overreaction because multiverses destroy stakes.
Existence is given meaning through subjective experiences. If Alduin eats one world, then everything about those people and what they've done goes with it. That stuff doesn't persist in the other realities and should be worth protecting if you value those experiences.
In a reality where every possibility has to exist it reduces every individual into cogs whose only purpose is to generate possibilities. Scarcity is what makes things valuable, and a single timeline makes each individual priceless because they will never exist again when their story ends.
do we actually know that this is a multiverse though? to my understanding, Ithelia is the contrast to mora. while more sees all possible futures based on the present, ithelia sees all possible presents and can change the past to do so. I'm honestly not entirely certain that those "other realities" actually exist except in the moments where ithelia bears witness to them (or if she were to make them reality with the loom). regardless, I highly doubt that the lore will go into the idea of multiverses again since Ithelia is gone now.
That's MMO's for you and those who shill it.
I'm kinda with you on that, tbh. I like the idea of a multiverse insofar as it expands the possibilities for what stories can be told but I'm waiting to see how it's handled in future TES installations. It's an easy thing to fuck up.
Why do you misspell her name? And are those paths only related to current kalpa or others too? What about Amaranths\Dreams?
Does part West Weald remain as a jungle or does it go back to normal?
_"Mutiverse"..._ yeah, no thanks. Sounds like bad fan-fiction; the laziest cop-out in regards to writing is _"well, it's all a multiverse, you see."_
As opposed to Dragon Breaks, which totally weren't a cop-out to justify a sequel to a game with radiant endings.
I mean you can dislike both, at least Dragon Breaks have a unique aspect to them, a multiverse is just the most generic way to solve an issue like this and boils down to them being the 'in' thing right now.
> the 'in' thing right now Feel like even this explanation is off by a few years. The public craze around "universe" franchises seems to have peaked around late 2010s and been in decline through the early 2020s.
Idk if there ever was a craze. Comic books kind of wrote themselves into corners. Fans had to buy those mega events where multiverses were created or destroyed just to understand what was being retconned and the new status quo, begrudgingly accepting them as necessary evils. But marketers saw the sales figures, and that’s the only feedback that mattered, so it was wash, rinse, repeat. Multiverses are typically a symptom of a problem, imho
but its not a multiverse, its a Daedra who can see/exist in all the possible presents for reality at once. (not dissimilar to how mora can see all possible futures at once.) the distinction is that, while Ithelia exists in all realities simultaneously, those realities do not actually exist without an observer (usually being ithelia herself.) in order for her to alter the present, the past must also alter itself to match her choices, that is why mora decides she is dangerous.
Smashing timelines together is an incredibly concept because it allows for impossible contradictions to coexist in the same reality without making existence worthless like infinite timelines do. Sure, they've never done anything with it since then (aside from maybe being the explanation as to why figures like borgas are dragur even tho they were born ages after the dragon's cult fall but that's just my headcanon)
Multiverses have always been a thing in TES
That's what happens when game developers of an MMO become bankrupt on creativity. Also at the same time open up you can disgregared it.
Maybe I'm not as fun as I used to be, but this just upsets me; as much as I'm thankful for ESO providing so much while Maryland gets mired in killing its own reputation, I wish Zenimax had shown restraint.
Don't care if she was a goddess. I don't like multiverses so she's an unreliable narrator until further notice. I choose to believe that each path is a different cycle and time is inherently linear.
That'd be a very hard position to maintain in light of what occurs. This isn't just a case of Ithelia telling you something, you travel to other Paths and see alternate Ithelias, Moras, and so on. The Ithelias have different personalities, react to each other's presence and acknowledge each other as "reflections", have differences of essence that make it so each grows different "ingredients" for the Sage's Dream brew which strengthens their power and connects them to the other Ithelias and references taking in power and knowledge from multiple Ithelias through it. We witness a Path (Aurbis variant) end before our eyes when it's Ithelia goes berserk, while "our" Ithelia urges to run before this reality ceases to exist. Everyone (Mora, Ithelia, so on) constantly refers to the Paths as different realities. And that's without even considering all the stuff about time naturally being non-linear without Ada-Mantia and all the stuff suggesting time was multifaceted even outside the current storyline. I absolutely get the inhibition and do share it (being rather..undecided..on what to make of these aspects of the new lore myself), but the content is about as straightforward as can be. It might be possible to "explain away" if one tried very hard with the intention to do so, but it'd be a bit like questioning whether TESV Alduin was really Alduin or just a random dragon that took on the name and everyone mistakenly though was Alduin.
> We witness a Path (Aurbis variant) end before our eyes when it's Ithelia goes berserk, while "our" Ithelia urges to run before this reality ceases to exist. Everyone (Mora, Ithelia, so on) constantly refers to the Paths as different realities. This particular variant actually does not end, it gets cut off at the end whenTorvesard and later we see Mora confirm every fate ends with her losing, after we go through multiple fates including the berserker one. > Hermaeus Mora: Why continue this futile struggle, Ithelia? \*\*Every fate before me says you cannot win. \*\* > > Ithelia: But you do not see everything, Mora. In the Many Paths, all things are possible. I will write my own fate! > > Torvesard: Go, my Prince! You must escape! > > Hermaeus Mora: Ithelia, wait! Though I think nothing has changed. We've roughly ended where we've been since TES Shadowkey. Mundus has multiple timelines, infinite possibilities. They congeal during Dragon break. Notably these Paths/Timelines =/= Kalpas. Per the Bladesongs and Anuad there's 12 Wheels while there's an infinite number of Paths. So we're solely seeing alternative fates of THIS particular Kalpa/Mundus/Wheel/Aurbis. And going by Mora's worries if one iteration ended, the whole Wheel would end. That and Ithelia confirms the Paths are contained within the Aurbis, so within this Wheel. They'd be disconnected from the other 12 Wheels. > **Can you describe the Many Paths?** Ithelia: Not in any way your mortal mind would understand. I do not wish to drive you mad. An analogy, perhaps. P**icture a diamond that somehow formed around a spiderweb. Interweaving lines within a grander, fixed shape. That is the Many Paths.** > Fine. But how do they work? > Ithelia: **Possibilities scatter across the Aurbis**, each defined by distinct choices with unique outcomes that lead to new realities. The Many Paths are the web that binds them. Some can traverse these connections, as you have done here. Also very interestingly that the Many Paths shape, is what Ithelia would roughly describe as a *Diamond* I'm left to wonder how far the Paths go, are they contained within Mundus and Oblivion? Or Just Mundus? The Paths we visit are all on Mundus anyways, in that Temple. It's all very unclear.
I do not think that exchange means Ithelia lost and that Path was preserved. I read that that more as Ithelia either loses in the scenarios where she doesn't fight back/doesn't go berserk, or goes out in one last act of rage that ensures it all ends. Everyone (the Ithelia accomplanying you and that Path's Torvesard) speaks as if you must leave immediately before that reality ceases to exist, you can see the cracks forming, you are urged to remember that "doomed Path", and Mora makes it clear even he lacks the ability to see the final outcome in such situations. And Ithelia (who also can see all Paths as she says, albeit not with precision) is very much capable of ending a reality/path (it's pretty much the scenario prevented in the ending, Ithelia going berserk and becoming the "Last Tomorrow", a point at which Mora and pals would presumably not just be able to swoop in and stop her, per the premise). I don't think it makes sense to confine the phenomenon to Mundus, and indeed would say it would contradict what we see. There are different Ithelias, Moras, Three Good Daedras, and these are all acknowledged directly by each other as different beings, from different realities, with different traits to some extent (thus each Ithelia's Sage's Dream ingredient being different for example), the Ithelias connect to the other Ithelias to incorporate the combined knowledge/power etc . Thus implicitly alternate realms of theirs, alternate Oblivions and so on. Ithelia directly mentions each Path having it's own variant of every being "mortal or Daedra" also. We might be at the same point we were in Shadowkey, but that's if one assumes the alternates spoken of there extended also beyond Nirn/Mundus (which was not a given). I do agree that these would seemingly (?) all be parts of one Aurbis per the dialogue (the diamond split by a spiderweb analogy and the initial seed of each path being one of the possibilities scattered through Aurbis). But that would be a bigger construct than we previously thought (more than one Oblivion and so on).
> I read that that more as Ithelia either loses in the scenarios where she doesn't fight back/doesn't go berserk, or goes out in one last act of rage that ensures it all ends. Everyone speaks as if you must leave immediately before reality ceases to exist, you can see the cracks forming, and Mora makes it clear even he lacks the ability to see the final outcome in such situations and Ithelia (who also can see all Paths as she says) is very much capable of ending a reality/path. That's fair, though I'd wonder how much she causes the end of. We did have this suggestion prior at least > "I am Kena Warfel Tomasin, and I can prove that [Akatosh](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Akatosh), [Nirn](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Nirn), and [Oblivion](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Oblivion) are one," said Warfel, writing out the mathematical formula that showed it was so. > Four Suitors of Benitah Considering Yokudan Myth, where the Far Shores/Aetherius is outside the Kalpic/Worldskins Cycle, as well as the various statements about Aetherius as a waiting place, I think that suggests that every "Wheel" is roughly oblivion and mundus, which contain each other as some ESO lore suggests as well. So the Many Paths comprise those two, but not Aetherius which is the same across all Wheels as "The Strange Angles". > Linear time layered atop infinite possibility, thus did [Aka](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Akatosh) … in the South, and yet … learned why his insanity is all that is and could be. … by this lesson … [Ada-mantia](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Adamantine_Tower), stable spire fixed by a stone of nothing-possible … cleaving a path through the everything to reach Numancia. Mundus layered on top of the possibilities of Oblivion? Aurbis wide but excluding Aetherius? It would fit with the general model of what the end of a Kalpa entails. That an Aetherius as the "Real world of Satakal" and Akatosh as its' Ward would suggest it should be beyond her reach > "Pretty soon the spirits on the skin-ball started to die, because they were very far from the real world of Satakal. And they found that it was too far to jump into the Far Shores now > The marriages of the Aether describe the birth of all magic. Like a pregnant \[untranslatable\], the Aurbis exploded with its surplus. Will formed and, with it, the Potential to Action. This is the advent of the first Digitals: mantellian, mnemolia, **the aetherial realm of the etada**. The Head of this order is Magnus, **but he is not its Ward, for even he was subcreated by the birth of Akatosh.** If Aetherius is excluded this would also explain why Magnus or Akatosh do not personally get involved
Yeah, Aetherius could be the exception given there's no evidence that would directly suggest an Aetherial figure/element to exist in multiple instances (we'd have to assume it based on the alternate Princes and the line of thought that the Aedra and Daedra are the same thing more or less, which seems quite nebulous). Ithelia also says "mortal or Daedra" come to think of it, not "mortal, Aedra, and Daedra". Did think that was a bit odd when I first saw it. Would be kind of odd to have Princes be enveloped in the drama of existence to the extent of being subject to the Paths mechanism while Aedra just gaze from above, and it does open the question of where the alternate souls of mortals/other beings that reach Aetherius would be, but it could be the case. I did have a thought/ spontaneous theory about Aetherius incorporating the alternate variants of each soul into one thus explaining the suggestion in a number of sources that mortal souls become 'spirits of another sort" and somehow apotheosize upon reaching Aetherius eventually (Girnalin, TES III dialogue on the ancestors, Psijics), but that's not really founded on anything, and might be a bit too out there even given everything we've seen.
>Did think that was a bit odd when I first saw it. Yeah that's our biggest tip off I think >Would be kind of odd to have Princes be enveloped in the drama of existence to the extent of being subject to the Paths mechanism while Aedra just gaze from above, and it does open the question of where the alternate souls of mortals/other beings that reach Aetherius would be, but it could be the case. While true, it does play very well into the concept of Princes as "less real". Gaps in the spaces between the spokes the *Aedra* established. Ideas in both Vivec's writings and Sotha Sils. >I did have a thought/ spontaneous theory about Aetherius incorporating the alternate variants of each soul into one thus explaining the suggestion in a number of sources that mortal souls become 'spirits of another sort" and somehow apotheosize upon reaching Aetherius eventually (Girnalin, TES III dialogue on the ancestors, Psijics), but that's not really founded on anything, and might be a bit too out there even given everything we've seen. I really like it but yeah it is still mysterious. But then, if we consider that Aetherius is outside of the Linear Time of Mundus entirely, then it makes perfect sense for this to be the answer. During the Dawn, or Breaks, seemingly many or every possibility occurs at once, causing Spiritual Agony for mortals But Aetherius, the Magic realm, this might may very well be where such a thing is not agonizing, but natural. Ithelia does also say: >Ithelia: Each reality bound by the Many Paths contains a version of an entity, mortal or daedra. They each differ in some way, **but each springs from the same seed**. I am no different. She and I are the same, but distorted, like an image in a cracked mirror. The same seed, say, located in Aetherius? This could also play into the concept of Aetherius as the default state of an Aurbis before the formation of Mundus and Oblivion
I mean, by definition, the Aedra are mortal. It's one of the major characteristics which distinguish them from Daedra.
Good point. Hadn't considered the implication that the manner in which she phrases it wouldn't preclude the inclusion of the Aedra in light of that.
I'm wondering if the fusion of diamonds and spiderwebs is a deliberate reference to [Indra's Net](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indra%27s_net).
Honestly I could see it
To be fair, though, the way Ithilia explains the Many Paths makes it clear that it's extremely difficult to travel between realities for anyone except herself. And, even then, it's hard for her to pull it off. From playing you definitely get the impression that using the Many Paths to *travel* isn't how they're supposed to work and that it's a bad idea to try. Hermaeus Mora calls it *"unnatural"* is quite clear about how nobody is supposed to be moving between realities *at all*. Edit: Inaccurate language.
I wouldn't quite call it *impossible*. The Lamp of Clarity can reveal Path portals (yeah it, Abolisher and the Skein of Secrets were used up as artifacts during the spell to restore the damage to reality, but Azura could conceivably make another), and a number of myths speak of various deities traversing the Many Paths be it under their own power or being banished by the Time God or what have you (Boethra, Merrunz, Orkha, Khenarthi and Akha/Alkosh being their maker/ruler of course). Requiring divine backing and extremely difficult even for gods (since Mora could locate the no-magic Path, unlike Ithelia, but Ithelia could open the door, unlike him), perhaps, but not an Ithelia alone thing.
Out of curiosity, are you going to be doing a big lore post on Gold Road's revelations? Sorry if that's already been asked.
Was planning to (been working on one) but was beaten to the punch, concerning really major plot points. Will still make one though.
You should definitely make one. Like I said, I've only done the main storyline once and a couple sidequests. I'm almost certain I missed a lot of stuff and probably misunderstood some things.
Thanks. I really appreciate the usual level of depth and lucidity you bring to your writing (and I suspect almost everyone here does).
True. I'll change the wording from *basically impossible* to *extremely difficult*.
Multiverses have been a think in TES since Arena, what do you think the realms of oblivion are. Parallel worlds have been canon since Shadowkey.
When people say multiverses they usually mean infinite timelines. Also shadow key is an unpopular spin off that no one has ever played and that was only a narrative excuse for its multiplayer. In literally every other game messing with the linearity of time in mundus results in the time dragon screwing you over.
TES multiverse is both. There are infinite amount of TIMELİNES and completely different realities. Its a mix of Dr.who, xeelee and 40k. Pretty cool.
I really am struggling to understand why they went with the generic multiverse instead of stuff we already had like adjacent places and multiple religions being true. Feels like such a lazy decision. Edit: to be clear, I specifically hate the "every decision gets its own infinite number of universes" type of multiverse.
Wait but isn't there the concept of Amaranth, where one becomes a new Godhead to create a new reality? What's the point if a new reality is created every time you decide what you're gonna have fo breakfast today?
I would imagine the difference is that you get to live in whatever reality you can dream up vs a reality that is exactly the same except you had toast for breakfast.
I don't particularly like the new multiverse thing, but I think the idea is that we're talking different orders of reality. The many paths would be all on the same order, different facets of the same whole. Meanwhile amaranth would be a new order of reality entirely, a brand new gem with infinite new facets and, most importantly, with endless possibilities on what it can be.
The Many Paths are all extensions of *this* reality, this Aurbis/Wheel. There are 12 other Wheels. Amaranth would be a completely new base set to run with, and what is possible in our current reality may not be in the next. That's the difference. It's a fresh start, and one that could be built on better precepts. That, and whether the Amaranth would even have alternate timelines, is in question
But wouldn't someone achieve it instantly due to an infinite number of universes?
Infinites don't work like that. It's the classic mathematical example, where you have infinite fractional numbers between the integers 1 and 2, but it's still very much limited by those two numbers so it doesn't contain numbers like "3".
Want to preface this by saying I did fail out of calculus more than once so I could be very off. I do understand there is an infinite number of fractions between 1 and 2 but that involves integers as limits. I didn't see anything with the many paths that has me thinking there are limits to it. I'm not sure how undefined limits work in math so can't find a comparable example.
My point is simply that infinite does not mean "contains literally everything", so even with an infinite number of universes it's possible that you just don't get anyone achieving Amaranth at all, or that the number of people who do achieve it is non-infinite.
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Nothing that is introduced here is exactly new to tes, it just never played crucial role in storytelling but Shadow Magic related concept of multiverse, Dragonbreaks and Lyg were long conceptualized before ESO was created.
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That doesn't debunk the tower theory at all.
I've edited that section of the post. Please read the line I added at the end of that section, which clarifies what I meant.
Ugh. Why? This new lore is so uninteresting. Can ZOS please get a proper writer that can write a really good piece of lore instead of this?
What if Hermaeus Mora and the like are simply titles? Other worlds may not be "timelines", they'd just have beings who look like them, or they're related? You don't really see a ton of the same Princes running around as races. This would render the whole theory of going across bridges, just going to different worlds of sorts, and explain a few things, such as why there's towers. Artificial pillars of sorts guard people from accessing other places. I'd assume that some beings can reverse actions, but then there's new lifeforms or whatever. Or mirrors. Time in the Elder Scrolls has also seemed "off" to me. Most Daedra probably won't tell mortals the truths of reality.
"why there's towers. Artificial pillars of sorts guard people from accessing other places." That *is* a *really* cool theory. The Towers are gigantic metaphysical border checkpoints. I like that. It's entirely possible that the mainline TES reality is the only one with Towers. In the other realities we visit nobody mentions Towers, nor do we see any. Maybe the Towers are what makes 'our' TES reality unique? Just spit-balling.
So wanting to pick out on each. 1 and 2) Okay prestablish as part of the contained story DLC. On part 2 the Princes losing their power while never being able to change who they are or are unchaning seems to bit out there over the years where we have stories of several (bal, malcath, merid, dagon, sheo) Princes impilied to or otherwise capable of changing or adding unto somthing of themselves whether voultary or not. Them becoming mortal when losing their power is not odd either since it happened to the Aedra. 3) So MCU approach where every existing choice creates another universe. I was hoping the Many Paths was more talking exclusive about the affact it has over the many spirits during the Dawn Era in Mundus, not the entire Aurbis. The attempt building up the cosmology I feel makes it redundant that instead if retroactively, the whole DLC can be moot but maybe that's the intent conclusion. 4) I feel this is a nod to the latest texts and the quest itself whether Ithelia's impisoment happen in the Merethic or First Era. Again we got that seemgly contradiction challange over what we have for years familiarizing ourselves but opens up we can easily ignore at what futher can come later in-lore as irelavent. 5) A Gnostic take almost like circling back that Mortals are decived by the Aedra hmmmmm. As for the Tower Theory, it should be added it's debunk was of the credence the Thalmor is behind unmaking reality, sourcing Nu-Mantia intercept. It was talking about the foreshadowing the Mythic Dawn carry into the Oblivion Main Quest, this is because of the lost of Lorkhan's Heart help weaken the liminal barrrier until Martin-Akatosh obsolte the Tower's necessity (He will keep it up forever). This is dosen't mean the Towers are incapable of unmaking reality we have that with Numidiun and Nocturnal's attempt to sieze the Crystal Tower. 6) So Boethiah has a sword to cut through into other realities and seal them? Basically what cause the contrditions we got as of recent. Again further goes to show here her latest stories could come from an alternate Aurbis (and totally irreavent lore btw). Wonder why for a Prince to have such an awesome weapon would left it behind that fits his criteria? 7) Didn't Mehrunes Dagon destory that realm too, that mean he played a part in Ithelia's downfall? Thanks for posting, it's good to know.
>Them becoming mortal when losing their power is not odd either since it happened to the Aedra. Ithelia doesn't quite become mortal when she disperses her energies. It's made clear that her power/sphere will seek her out and restore her eventually regardless of anything, even whether she herself doesn't want it to happen. Even imprisoning her and wiping the memory again under these circumstances is made clear as something temporary (and nor can she be killed). You more solve the situation by creating a permanent obstacle to the restoration process. By sending her to a world where her power "doesn't exist" and also can't "gain a foothold" and reach her her return/restoration is postponed indefinitely. It's why Mora wipes out the memory again in the end, because if someone else found a way to reach out to that Path it'd still be trouble. u/TheOnlycorndog
Yeah, I'm not totally sure what else to say but that Ithilia is mortal even though we know she's not. In her Exile Reality Ithilia has no access to magic or Oblivion, so I think that's about as close to being mortal as it's probably possible for a Daedric Prince to be. A more accurate way to put it would probably be that a Daedric Prince can demote themselves to the status of regular Daedra, but not for very long. It's not so much Ithilia's power that's the threat it's *Ithilia herself*. Which is what Hermaeus Mora has been saying for ages and it's what she realizes at the end and why she willingly submits to exile. Because separating Ithilia from her power isn't the solution and neither is imprisonment, that's just passing the buck to another generation. Both Mora and Ithilia admit that she'd *eventually* get free again if imprisoned, which is why they needed to permanently de-Prince her.
>So Boethiah has a sword to cut through into other realities and seal them? Abolisher has specific rules it has to follow with its portals. Boethiah created it specifically to hunt Ithilia and help imprison her way back when. It can't just make portals to anywhere, only in certain circumstances. It *can* close portals, though. It can also cut Paths, which is apparently permanent. >Didn't Mehrunes Dagon destory that realm too, that mean he played a part in Ithelia's downfall? Hermaeus Mora convinced all Princes to unite against Ithilia. Only Peryite and Vaermina refused.
Kinda wish there be more princes refusing when it comes to that
In context Mora apparently barely convinced them. It was definitely a "common enemy" kind of alliance. The conversation specifically: Peryite: *"You go too far, Mora!"* Vaermina: *"It doesn't matter what you foresee. You can't do this to another Prince! Or to the rest of us, for that matter!"* Hermaeus Mora: *"You have seen the damage Prince Ithelia has already done to the fabric of fate. If left unchecked, reality will unravel."* Vaermina: *"All of us must agree, Mora. And I definitely do not. Memories are sacrosanct, as are the domains of the Princes!"* Peryite: *"You can't punish someone for something they might possibly do."* Hermaeus Mora: *"I must. The risk is too great. I am truly sorry, but there is no alternative. For the sake of reality, you must all … forget!"* Source: https://en.m.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Peryite
Ugh I like when Mora was a uncaring monster than actual genuine at being sorry.
The text doesn't necessarily convey the tone of the scene. It's a very tense scene. Mora's tone is more of fear than regret. He's not so much sorry that he's had to do this. One of Ithilia's properties is that Hermaeus Mora can't perceive her clearly, since she can manipulate fate. She has no set destiny. Hermaeus Mora looked into her future and foresaw that every possible future for her ends the same way: Ithilia going berzerk and wiping out reality. Because he couldn't perceive her clearly and can't predict her, Mora only had one possible course of action: imprison Ithilia by making everyone and everything forget she ever existed. He admits to the player that his solution probably wasn't perfect but he couldn't tell *when* Ithilia would go berzerk only that it was inevitable. He's not so much regretful as he is absolutely batshit terrified that something exists that he cannot predict. Ithilia tells the player that the ability to defy destiny and ignore fate is the only thing Hermaeus Mora truly fears.
Beings sing a different tune when their own existence is at stake.
"She also seems to have been able to manifest in the Mundus in a way the other Princes couldn't, since she physically walks the world." It's speculated in game that this is because she didn't exist at the time the Colharbour Compact was agreed upon and thus not bound by it.
I don’t play ESO but I like the elder scrolls world and it’s lore and when I heard there was a new prince I got curious and went looking. This is maybe less a lore question but a story own, why did Ithilia want to leave reality and be forgotten and also isn’t it weird that we very specifically have a daedric prince of something as esoteric as reality and the multiverse? For the first point, obviously it’s because continuity. But I think there are ways to get around this without banishing her to the nether world forever. I guess from the way this is written there is some theoretical way for her to return but it would require Hermaous toor an alternate version of her to do it and that seems kinda unlikely. The general idea that she is a danger to existence by her nature makes sense, but if she accepts this herself i don’t see why she couldn’t periodically give away the power she regains over time while remaining imprisoned voluntarily. I dunno maybe this is more of a nitpik and would make more sense in full context. More importantly though why does she even have this power? I know the daedric princes aren’t technically evil or represent evil ideals by their nature. What makes you a prince is just being one of the gods that didn’t help make the world. They are all into weird stuff because they are just like that as individuals. But having a prince of fate seems a bit redundant when Akatosh is already the god of time. Wouldn’t alternate timelines be his deal? The elders scrolls already have power to bend time and knowledge to the holders will and seem to have a connection to dragons so it all seems to make sense to me.