How Does Space Work in The Elder Scrolls?
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- čas přidán 26. 06. 2024
- We've all seen and admired the beautiful night sky in the various Elder Scrolls games, from Morrowind to Skyrim. But have you ever wondered what's out there in the great beyond?
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
0:51 The Aurbis
1:21 Mundus and Oblivion
5:09 Aetherius
6:48 Space Travel
9:21 Phenomena
#skyrim #oblivion #morrowind #eso #elderscrolls #bethesda #starfield
Art/Image Credit (in order of appearance):
"The Elder Scrolls Cosmos" by Eucatastr0phic on DeviantArt
"Revival Lorkhan" by Vanuchka on DeviantArt
"Daedric Princes" by coupleofkooks on DeviantArt
"Skyrim - Skuldafn, The Gate to Sovngarde" by Wr47h on DeviantArt
Moon/Aurora Picture from u/TraurigerUntermensch on Reddit
Music:
Composed by Jeremy Soule
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Original Game Soundtrack)
May your roads lead to warm sands... - Hry
I like to think that the stars aren't flat tears, but rather 3D tears, they just ripped through space right where they stood, leaving big, three dimensional holes.
they could easily appear spherical like the planets and for the same reasons too
If a 3D being made a hole in a 2D world, it would look like a circle. If a 4D being made a hold in a 3D world, it would look like a sphere. I like this idea.
I've had this theory for years, and you're the first one that i've seen that also arrived to that conclusion
They could be white holes; white holes are part of a hypothesis for how black holes in our world works, which is too complicated to explain, but the relevant thing is that this model supposes that everything black holes suck in gets spewed out in another universe (where the arrow of time is supposed to be reversed but that's not relevant here. This sounds very similar to the description we are given from lore and would explain why energy is coming out of them, another important part of this model is that travel across a white/black hole is impossible because if would take an infinite ammount of time. This also lines up with what we know, that travel to this parallel dimension is very difficult and the general idea of infinities.
@@domd The interesting thing about that idea is that it isn't entirely untrue about our world either. Our senses evolved for certain circumstances and that limits our perceptions. The best example would be black holes, you've probably seen renderings of them, and they are accurate, but what you see there is not very reflective of their actual structure. Black holes are in a sense infinitely large in that they can contain an infinite amount of mass energy, they appear spherical simply because of the event horizon, in reality they might not actually have a shape since they are infinitely dense.
There's a lot more examples of this but basically “limited by mortal minds” sounds an awful lot like our reality where our perceptions are limited and shaped by the fact that we are animals that evolved in a certain environment. It also might be what you'd say if you were suddenly tasked with trying to explain the world to a medieval peasant.
Elder scrolls stars are basically chill white holes. They're 3d tears in space fabric that pour out magicka
Missed the chance to make a joke about what happens when you get killed by a giant in Skyrim when asking if space travel is possible
I actually was just wondering how space works in TES and then this video gets recommended. The algorithm is in my head.
Same, but I've always wanted to know since in one dragon break, they went to space.
You've willed this video into existence. I thought only the most skilled Red Guard swordsmen were capable of such a feat.
The Lunar Lorkhan is likely incorrect. Fal Droon, the character who wrote that book is meant to be the apex of unreliable narrators in TES, to the point his name is an anagram for “Darn Fool.”
When you die in Starfield you wake up in the back of cart...
Wouldn’t be surprised at this point honestly lol
Hey, you. You're finally awake. You were trying to cross the border, right?
Great video man, I know this was a good bit of research! Somewhat related, you know Douglas Goodall? The designer from Morrowind? He is participating in the modathon under the name AFFA, and he has released an Imperial Mananaut mod over on nexus. So, really good time to be checking out the space aspects!:D
I was not aware of that! Will definitely check that out, thanks!
I'm tempted to say that daedra are aliens with teleportation technology
Youre not INCORRECT… however….
Elder scrolls is the one universe I truly expect to go insane the more I understand “physics.”
I love a materialist explanation of The Elder Scrolls
Crazy to think that mannimarco became the necromancer moon after daggefall
What do you mean? he -/did/did not/only partially/- become the moon due the Dragon break.
10:57 That type of thing getting addresed could be an interesting thing to add to an elder scrolls game where they're set in a time period with technology, science and medicine as close to ours, but that would be too risky for Bethesda to try.
But I still love the idea of magic and tech being used together, things like enchanted pieces of tech sounds like something an industrial scaled company could do in a world of that nature, and magitech items being used for scientific discovery in such a world. This is an interesting concept, hopefully it will be executed flawlessly if it ever happens.
Was there ever a good video game where straight-up magic and technology were used together? I feel like there should be.
You could consider Bioshock a fusion of magic and technology.
@@ChadVulpes I haven't seen a game like that before but I could imagine that could've been in some obscure DOS title from the 80s and 90s.
@@blueblaze5160 I've tried some of it while visiting my sister on my brother-in-law's PS4 but not enough to understand the lore or how that's like in the game world.
@@Im-BAD-at-satire that’s so specific, but it sound probable, hahah
This is a great channel! Just pure lore, no headcanons and no theories talked as if they were true.
Also a great deal of respect for stuff outside of the big three games (Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim). I love Kirkbride's contributions, but sometimes the TES community take all of his words as gospel and ignore the other writers for the series.
Anyway, keep up the amazing work!
This makes me wonder if Talos is truly a god considering he doesn’t have a planet or a moon.
There are a bunch of complicated theories out there and there is of course the whole debate about whether or not Talos is actually a god (I believe he is personally), but when it comes to the fact that he doesn’t noticeably have a planet/moon, Talos is believed to have “mantled” Lorkhan as a Shezzarine (basically a mortal reincarnation of Lorkhan/Shezarr), and thus when he ascended, Nirn/Masser and Secunda would have become his planet/plane of existence.
I did think about talking about this in the video, but it’s a bit of a complicated topic and it’s nothing with a definitive answer.
The planets are just the original gods. It's not a 1:1 rule of "god = planet"
For example, the Tribunal of Morrowind -- Vivec, Almalexia, and Sotha Sil -- were living gods and they didn't have planets either. They were mortals who ascended to divinity.
Talos is a similar situation.
I view Nirn's place in the cosmos as being similar to Earth. Space is the same as ours, the stars are the same, the sun is the same, nirn revolves around a star (their sun). I see the Magna-Ge as having ripped 3D-"holes" in the fabric of space, leaving behind a 3D ball of hot gas, i.e. a star. When it says that Magnus and the Magne-Ge fled creation it doesn't just mean that they fled Nirn, it means that they fled *all* of creation, they fled time and space, the cosmos. They went back the Aetherius, a kind of heaven, or at least a realm outside of the created universe and space-time. The Et'Ada that stayed remain in the created space-time and exist as uninhabitable planets, for giant lifeless rocks floating in space is all that remains of their physical bodies.
Therefore, I don't believe that traveling through planes of oblivion are quite the same as space travel. It is exactly what it is stated to be - traveling through alternate dimensions. The daedra did _not_ contribute to creation, so they could not be part of space-time, or the universe, they must be outside of it. Hence the depiction of Mundus (the universe) floating in a sea of oblivion that is outside of it. I think it is useful for the daedric realms to be depicted as planets like how the Aedra are, simply to emphasize that they are the same creatures (Et'Ada), but in actuality they are infinite planes of existence that are *not* like our universe. They can't be so easily placed one-next-to-the-other in a 3-dimensional space.
There could even be other galaxies in the Elder Scrolls universe, just no reason to mention them since they aren't significant to the series. Wouldn't it be funny if in Starfield you could find the Elder Scroll's galaxy, land on Nirn (specifically in Skyrim) and the locals end up arresting you. Next thing you know, you wake up on a cart bound for Helgen and you hear "hey you, you're finally awake?" Todd Howard will have done it again, he sold Skyrim to us AGAIN. That would be hilarious!
Great video, you have some pretty well founded knowledge. Appreciate the way you summed up
some of the more nebulous events. Subscribed, hope you get more recognition.
Love this sort of stuff. Good job on the video mate.
Reallly fascinating and good video! I’ve been looking all over for something covering this specific question.
Glad it could be of service!
I wonder if the whole “incomprehensible to mortal minds” thing is just because the gods couldn't be bothered to explain General Relativity, which is understandable, I wouldn't want to try to teach a medieval farmer even classical mechanics, much less the absolutely mind bending General Relativity.
Also TES lore generally has a tendency of producing similar results to our world but with different mechanisms so it probably isn't far fetched that a lot of the physics and therefore space is similar but in a different way. Though I don't think anyone has thought it through entirely and Bethesda is just gonna leave it up to interpretation.
I like your channel because you talk about interesting Elder Scrolls topics. Keep it up
Thank you!
interesting, underrated, You now have my subscription
Amazing video! I really enjoyed learning it all.
Love the vid bro personally i thought i knew absolutely everything about the elder scrolls universe but youve opened my mind alot! And that adds more soo much more wonder to game and even makes me wanna play rn soo mad props bro keep up the content💯
If there’s one thing I’ve learned about the Elder Scrolls, it’s that there’s always more lore to discover lol. Thank you for the kind words!
This was some solid work, good job.
Thank you very much!
3:00 - really wish we could interact with the Divines in the same way we get to interact with the Daedric Princes.
Still, I’m pretty sure we can still visit the Divine Plane of Dibella, or, as some people know it, the Laboratory of Love…
Literally brainstorming how an elder scrolls game in space would be like. Treasure Planet, flying ships, etc
I'm getting huge Dragonlance vibes about the moons. On Krynn there are three moons, and one of them can only be seen by evil beings.
9:00 What a beautiful image...
Great video once more!
Thank you so much!
Great video!
This is a great video! It's a damn shame you only have 3k views. I'm not big on TES Lore(or TES in general), but I really like your to-the-point presentation. I'm subbed.
Thank you so much!
@@ceedott Thank you for creating something worthwhile! :)
I recall one of the authors that left after TES2 said that the drawfs into the futrue and that they were very behind tech wise since i guess the time they were popped into was currently having a space war but there's zero chance that's cannon but it always made me wonder about the elder scrolls space
Michael Kirkbride I think
Cool video. I always like listening to people talk about TES and all its lore.
I like how your using the song secunda while talking about space
Very cool video dude
Thanks!
1:43 it isn't confirmed he tricked them, a lot of pantheons believe it was an acknowledged and willing sacrifice
Possible theory: Look at most modern religions. They all have creation stories and other lore that would seem perfectly in place for a fantasy game. Things like pulling a mountain or holding up the sky etc. And followers of those religions believe in most if not all of the stories. Everyone in the ES series follows one religion or another most following the one specific to their race and/or homeland and all of those religions are variations of each other which would suggest a common origin story they all derived from. I don't know how many have played Enderal but in the beginning (not a spoiler, don't worry) there's a cutscene talking about the Light-Born who were powerful arcanists who used their magic to achieve immortality. Over centuries their humanity was forgotten about by the public and they were worshipped as Gods. Stories changed from them being immortal rulers to them being creator/destroyer deities. It's not farfetched to think that in a world where magic is not only a real thing but a common practice that a few would become powerful enough to over time be seen as gods. We know that Daedra and Aedra can and have interacted with humans and even gifted artifacts but how do we know they aren't just really powerful mages that have been worshipped as Gods over the years. Tiber Septim became a God worshipped as Talos because the Nords believed he achieved Godhood. The living Tribunal gained Immortality and other God-like powers and became known as living Gods until they were stripped of their powers. I believe Nirn functions just as any other planet with normal moons, stars, and a sun. And what we see as magic is evolutionary abilities like all animals have including humans but theirs are just way better. We have animals that can change their skin to blend in to the environment and look invisible. If humans could do that we'd call it magic despite it being a biological part of animals. But since they do see it as magic on Nirn they subconsciously believe it's something they have to be trained how to do and so not everyone can do it. It's like a backflip. Most people are physically capable of doing it but we don't believe we are and we got it in our heads that we can't so most of us don't even try.
Great video, I love learning about the lore of many fantasy settings as it kind relates back to our own. The last part you mentioned about how phenomena in the Elder Scrolls universe might be misinterpreted by lack of technology could be a theory same as to our history.
Thank you starfield, thank you for letting space exploration and general game design for space games down.
Elder Scrolls pretty much works on an Ancient/Medieval style interpetation of space where everyone lived in different Spheres and Earth is at the center of the universe.
This was nice.
Overall.
I liked this.
999th sub here. Good vid.
Subbed before i even watched 5 seconds
This video came out on my birthday lol
Happy birthday!
I have to hand it to them for making the celestial side of TES so creative. In my fantasy story, admittedly, it's much simpler. The setting is on an Earth-like planet with environments we Humans would recognise and it's third from its single star.
Don't wanna play too fast and loose I see haha
you probably have Michael kirkbride to thank for that. He's denied it but let's be honest the dude has definitely tripped a few times
Coda is some crazy stuff.
man image if Dwemer discovered space travel that be insane
Ok well this was way more complex and strange than I had thought lol. I'm interested in the cosmological aspects of other fantasy series but I didn't get very deep into how TES depicts it. It's not just empty 'space!'
I crave more videos they're good
Breh, all those likes and no subs? I gotchu , good stuf dude
It wouldn't surprise me if much of what we think about space in the Elder Scrolls is intentionally inaccurate on the dev's part for the purpose of immersion. While there are nuggets of truth, much of what we think we know about space in TES is second hand and if there's one thing we know about Daedra and Aedra alike it's that none of them are truly perfect or fully benevolent. Much of the creation story could be an exaggeration or even outright lies woven together to make the deities look more powerful than they truly are or ever were.
In regards to the nuggets of truth, we do know that things such as Daedra and Aedra and their respective realms do truly exist within the lore, because we get to speak to them and visit many of their realms. Though, we don't know to what extent it is true that their realms are truly "their" realms that they created, as in the Shivering Isles DLC in Oblivion the player is able to perform what is referred to as "Mantling" to outright become Sheogorath and take his place within existence, and with it comes lordship over his realm. If this was possible once, it could have been performed multiple times and as such other divine beings could just as easily have come and gone through a similar process of mantling that has gone undocumented.
Unless we ever get to experience the full truth of the matter firsthand, space is going to remain mysterious with the in-lore religion being the best we have to work with to understand it. I feel that this is very intentional, as without knowing for sure whether space is anything like how it is in reality, we are more able to relate to our own player characters and the other characters that they interact with, assisting us mentally with immersing into their world. If we knew for sure that space is just space for instance, it would give us knowledge that other characters don't have and would completely kill the vibe of dialogue and scenes referring to space in such a mystical manner. It would remove us from their time and place mentally.
I dont know much about TES lore i only played skyrim, i learner about TES lore being all a gods dream or something alike that thanks to a friend.
For me in my headcanon TES is an alternative universe of ours universe such as how fallout is our alternative reality game /universe.
I also belive TES and fallout maybe even starfield, are all connected in a way.
I'm curious if there's a difference between a moon and a planet from the perspective of geocentrism. If everything if revolving around Nirn wouldn't that make the other planets moons? In the case of TES only Masser and Secunda are considered moons though.
Planets and Moons might be different concepts in the world of TES.
What if nirn is just some wacky planet way out there in the starfield universe
Its full of caves.
A whole Universe - Elder Scrolls have a lot to discover . Instead of making Starfield, Bethesda should use this enormous planetary system to create new games . Or they can make a whole new game by adding together Oblivion, Morowind , Dagerfall , Skyrim, ... into one main huge story
Its meant to say
Space
The final frontier….
😂
I feel like the """"real"""" explanations for some of the things in the elder scrolls are more in line with our own reality, but are possible because of the metaphysics of actual magic. As other people have said, perhaps the stars ARE tears to aetherius, but are simply 3D tears, like wormholes are 3d holes. Perhaps the universe is infinite in physical space, like our own, and you CAN physically travel to other "planets," but those plants, like Nirn, are the physical remnants of metaphysical beings like how Nirn is whats left of Lorkhan. One CAN physicall travel and explore all of the physical aspect of their dimensions, but their extra-dimensional nature is only possible with magic. Oblivion in this case would be a purely magical or "extra dimensional" place- perhaps like our own ideas of physical parallel universes.
And like is mentioned in outside sources, ideas of far-future technological civilizations that have melded magic and technology to leave Nirn behind is a neat idea. I believe one source states that The Eye of Magnus is actually just an AI asteroid mining machine that somehow got sent back in time and crashed on Nirn. Its immense magic and metalic structure are, like dwemer automatons, linked; it has immense magical power because it is USING that power to do its job out in space.
But, maybe I'm wrong. I love lore and speculation, especially with crazy worlds like elder scrolls
Secunda? Sounds like that planet in dune! Seluna secundus
It actually sounds exactly as the word for 'a second' in many languages
I mean, a second as a 1/60 of a minute, not a second as a one between a first and a third
@@whoeverest_the_whateverest ah ok
Tyranids… and Orks.
What if the space theories in this TES are unreliable narratives of the common men just like how Earthlings used to think about the skies? In reality it may work similarly to how our universe works
needs more microtransaction planets
This one speaks thw truth.
9:08 I'd buy a modern console for the chance to play 'Elder Scrolls VII: Masser'.
Ok but just to be clear Lorkahn did not "trick" the Et Ada. They simply misunderstood him.
Vivek proved the gift of limitation was infact the gift of ascention(for one can only ascend if their is a limit to ascend beyond. The infinity of the proto gods became their own insurmountable limitation).
Lorkhan's gift was Amaranth(full individual god ascension, the ability to be a new universe entirely seprate from the current one and it's unending kalpas). However the only person to have ever known it's truth is the one who failed amaranth and instead achieved "Chim", Chim beinging essentially one step above the original Et Ada stagnant proto God state(though i could write an essay on Chim alone we shan't go there here). However it is unclear just how powerful it really is and wether or not the state was only actually reachable by vivek via cheating using the heart of Lorkhan. Regardless, any descendant of the original Elnofey should be able to achieve Chim and thus also reach *Amoranth* and become they're own new universe as a new "dreamer". Thus the original promise of Lorkahn was genuine, regardless of the original Et Ada's inability to truly comprehend it due to the sheer ignorance, Greed, and impatience that make up their sphere of understanding. Just as a stone remains a stone regardless of wether or not you understand it or precieve it, the stone remains all the same, so too does the gift of Amaranth, so too does lorkahns truth remain genuine.
Praise *Lorkhan!*
PRAISE THE FININITE!
🤓🤓
Dont ask questions you cant handle the answer to.
I like that you got the cosmology correct, there is no actual space. The amount of ESO references disturb me however.
Could also go over the fluidity of Elder Scrolls reality and how its dependent on the beliefs of mortals.
Hence why different peoples are able to effect the reality of the Daedra and Aedra or how history has shifted drastically from things we know happened or was.
Essentially if no one believes in Tiber Septim as divine then he ceases to be and similarly if people view the creation of Mundas differently then the past as we know it ceases to be.
One could also view this as being an easy out like Dragonbreaks for the writers of each game to do what they want like completely rewrite Skyrim's history to be about dragons or rewrite shouts as derived from dragons or removing whole cities or completely changing existing cities.
Why is this amount of ESO references disturbing to you?
@@ChadVulpes
Because its ESO.
Although it has little bits of good lore the whole thing really messes with the lore.
But that is to be expected as its an MMO it can't really be helped.
Better to treat only Bethesda Game Studios games as canon as to not taint the lore with ESO or the card game lore.
@@darken2417 So ESO lore is bad because it's an MMO?
@@ChadVulpes
Its deeper than that. The MMO nature necessarily effects the lore because it must fit within that experience.
Hell the first thing that the game did was force alliances in a way where no race was left out and where each member of each alliance was connected geographically.
That didn't take existing lore and put the MMO into it but instead made the MMO and applied its setting to the lore.
We could also point to how every class in the game uses quite a lot of magic with such silliness as the Dragonknight class being the most melee centric character still having a whole lot of magic abilities.
Not to mention for the whole Imperial City battle. If ESO were to be considered canon then we'd have to be reading a lorebook about the reign of Emperor Poopguy4452 lol.
And lets not forget that this game takes place a whopping 1000 years before Skyrim and a bit less from its predecessors, yet things are remarkably similar.
Could also talk about how the Skyrim dragon lore shouldn't exist until after the Warp In the West but I'll be fair and assume Bethesda treat Skyrim's game lore as rewriting pre-Skyrim lore and not being the result of Dragonbreaks changing everything.
@@darken2417
Alliances for races in MMO games is something that just happens. WoW did it, and so does most everyone else.
I've seen sillier names that Emperor Poopguy4452 in some people's Skyrim games. How's that different?
I feel like TES, like most fantasy worlds don't progress in technology. What makes ESO portrayal of that any different?
The rest of your points don't really pertain to the lore itself, so I didn't address them.
Good vid, but it's worth mentioning coda is actually canon to Oblivion nor Skyrim. Of course canon is ultimately subjective, just thought I'd leave this here
ah yes asking the real questions
Elder scrolls has a beautiful STARFIELD!!! Ba dum!
Maybe elder.scrolls are inside a black hole.
So, what you’re saying is. Elder scrolls is essentially Stargate……….😂
Plane(t)
420th like!
What does Stanfield and the elders scrolls have to do with each other?
as far as we know nothing
Just to piss off the Kirkbride fanboys, I feel like I should remind everyone than Landfall and C0DA are not canonical.
Lets not forget that Nirn is in the same universe as Half Life.
Hold up what?
@@blazergamer6425 czcams.com/video/U7GPqReC2HU/video.html
@@blazergamer6425 I think he was referencing the mod that was mentioned in the video. Portal is in the same universe as Half-Life, and if the Valve mod that adds the Space Core to Skyrim is canon, it would mean that they all exist in the same universe. Though, I would guess the original commenter was making this huge stretch for a joke.
@@ChadVulpes Well I mean there is a direct reference to a man wearing power armor and a laser weapon that somehow was in the Elder Scrolls lore so I mean it is possible.
@@blazergamer6425 Different IPs being connected isn't a question of what is possible within a universe, but whether or not the holders of those IPs wish to connect them.
I assume you're talking about Pelinal Whitesrake. The nature of his powers are somewhat vague, though often interpreted as portrayal of a player character in the oldest of TES Lore. Nevertheless, it doesn't specifically imply an involvement with the Half-Life universe.
It doesn't
How much of this is fact and mythology in Elder Scrolls? It sounds more like theology and Myth. Humanity had equally ridiculous ideas of the world and the cosmos.
your applying real world logic to a fantasy with an unreliable narrator...
It's pronounced "or-bus" not "ar-bus".
This video is brought to you by a flat earther!
Do people consider ESO canon?
It is canon
You can have your own opinion/head canon of course but generally yes, ESO is canon.
Why wouldn't be canon?
@@jrpgnation6375 It just doesn't really make sense in some ways lol like why would the nords, dark elves, and argonians be allies? According to all the lore from the Bethesda games they've hated each other with a deep passion since forever. Nord's have always invaded morrowind seeking the heart of shor (lorkhan), morrowind has always enslaved argonians, etc etc.
@@Metaphix It's a marriage of convenience originally to fight off the akaviri invasion, then to fight the other alliances and take Cyrodiil. A lot of the pact quests deal with people who want to leave or destroy the alliance, and all three races have factions that refused to join
Pfft . Nirn is flat my guy. Im not buying your "roundie" propaganda. 😂
Most of your information is contradictory to the in game lore. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news , good attempt though