The Elder Way, Hist Genetics, and Argonian Reincarnation

The simplest way a common Argonian would explain to an Imperial interviewer as to what happens to an Argonian after death is that they are rejoined with the Hist and reincarnated into a new body. This has some truth in it, yes, but is very unspecific and does not contain the whole truth. To understand the full truth, one has to first understand Hist-altering, A.K.A the Elder Way. In Lord of Souls, it is revealed that the Hist can “alter things”. More specifically, one case of their altering of “things” is them altering the Argonian physical composition to make Argonians much stronger, faster, and more intelligent when they needed the Argonians to be extra-efficient soldiers in the Oblivion Crisis. Glim specifically states that “A few twelves of years ago, our country was invaded from Oblivion. The Hist knew it was going to happen, and called our people back to Black Marsh. Many of us were altered, made ready for the war that we had to fight. Made stronger, faster—able to endure terrible things. …” We also know that Hist Sap can also alter the Argonian physical state, as Hist sap transforms Argonians at childhood from small primitive lizards to tall humanoid lizards. The more Hist sap that is taken, the more humanoid the Argonian looks.

And finally we know Hist can alter themselves. The Lilmoth tree is described as gigantic and overreaching, and the Hist we see in Oblivion is not exactly gigantic and overreaching, yet all Hist are equal and look the same originally. We know Hist can alter things, and why not themselves? It seems only reasonable a Hist whose purpose is to give political advice would look fearsome and powerful, and that another who is cut away from its brothers would be frail and small. Another theory I have come up with is that Falinesti is in fact a Hist that has disconnected from the Hivemind, i.e gone “Rogue” in order to adapt for a changing environment and culture, and thus grew ways to move around and be favorable for the populace of Bosmer.

Contrary to what one may think, Hist alterting is definitely not alteration magic. Neither is it magic at all, really. Hist altering is a technique of super-evolution older than any kind of magic or ascension. The Hist were in fact the first beings on Nirn, and had plenty of time to develop their ways. This technique is so old and complex a simple human or mer mind could not comprehend it, only a super advanced one, such as the mind of a Psijic monk.

From On Arteaum we know that the first beings on Tamriel (The Hist) taught the Psijics the Elder Way, a way of changing the natural composition of things. This fits perfectly with the theory. So, from now on in this explanation I will refer to Hist Super-evolution-altering as The Elder Way.

I myself have a very limited understanding of Genetics, as one would expect from someone my age and educational grade, but I’m still going to do my best to use it in comparison. Where magic is based on Magicka, the Elder Way is based on something I can only identify as the Elder Scrolls counterpart of DNA or the genetic composition of different living things. In simplicity, the Elder Way is really a fancy term for purposeful mutation. If a Hist such as the Lilmoth tree wants to look more fearsome and gigantic, it simply has to use its hyper-intelligence to think its nucleotide sequence into changing around, composing a new sequence that would allow for the genomes to develop differently, and the result would be a larger Hist. There you have it, I just terribly explained mutation. Anyways the same works for Hist Sap ingestion. Think of the Hist and Argonians as computers and sap as a flash drive. The Hist set a certain blueprint for Elder Way Mutation in the sap, basically like data, shed the sap, and the sap is then taken and willfully ingested by the young Argonian. Then this data is transferred, and the sap runs the data like a program, mutating the Argonian. The more sap is ingested, the more data can be transferred and the program or mutation can run more effectively. The reason ingestion has to be done over and over again and that Argonians are not born like their parents is because Argonians are unable to ejaculate part of the sap to their egg spawns and thus transfer the program nor can they themselves alter the child because they cannot comprehend the Elder Way.

The neat thing is that through seeing that the Hist were able to mutate Argonians from afar at the time of the Oblivion Crisis we can see that the Hist can actually transmit data to the Sap from far away. Think of this kind of like Elder Way mutation internet or cloud data. From this we can hypothesize on what happens when Argonians die.

Let’s get an example going. Say we have an Argonian, we’ll call him Jeelus from the Agaceph tribe. When Jeelus turned 1 year old, his dad Zeeril took him to ingest some sap and get named. Jeelus happily did his duty as an Argonian and ingested some sap from the local village tree. Once he did, the sap took control of his body and used the Elder Way to turn him into a nice, tall, handsome young Argonian. Now let’s say Mr. Jeelus grows up and works with the East Empire Company, and on one of his trips suddenly falls overboard from his ship and gets eaten by a Sea Drake. Once the jaws of death sink on him and his brain stops functioning, the sap mutation program realizes the Argonian died, and thus gathers all the info on how to mutate an Argonian to look and be as strong as Jeelus, making it into, you guessed it, blueprints! It sends those blueprints back to the Hist, who then takes those blueprints and puts them into yet another sap flash drive to insert into yet another newborn Argonian, who is by chance the nephew of Jeelus. Jeelus’s nephew then grows up to look and be as strong as Jeelus. The nephew’s dad, Jeelus’ egg mate, looks at his newly ingested son and exclaims, “Xuth! My boy sure does look like his uncle Jeelus. I bet he is a reinacarnation of him!” and thus the cycle completes itself and that is how Argonian reincarnation works.

Since this process is so successful, and “reincarnation” is so common, death is viewed as a major part of Argonian culture, which is also why many Argonians have a belief in Sithis. Sadly, though, it is not Sithis that causes the reincarnation but rather the manipulative Hist.

That is all. See you tomorrow in the Community Thread.