Gradience, Creation, Divinity

Imagine the entirety of the Elder Scrolls as a gradient scale going from upper-left to lower-right, along which lies all the various states of existence we are familiar with.

On the extreme upper-left end is the Godhead — the original and incomprehensible entity that creates all else in its Dream.

The primal state of the Godhead’s Dream is known as the Void.

Within the Void exist two concepts, Infinity and Change. Anu and Padomay. Their relationship is known as Aurbis.

Anu and Padomay, respectively, create Anuiel and Sithis, reflections of themselves usually described as their “souls”.

Anuiel and Sithis create the Time Dragon and the Unstable Mutant, first of the et’Ada: To the Aldmer, Auri-El and Lorkhan. To the Imperials, Akatosh and Shezarr. To the Nords, Aka-tusk and Shor. Other et’Ada emerge, some more aligned to Anu and some to Padomay, and reside in their kingdom of Aetherius.

The Time Dragon and the Unstable Mutant, at the latter’s urging, create Mundus, the Material Prison, along with a host of other et’Ada. By this process they also bind themselves to it, a (perhaps forced) subgradience into mortal beings known as Aedra.

The et’Ada who refused to participate in this creation, realizing the trap of mortality, instead create their own realms in Oblivion, the echo of the primordial Void.

From here, men and mer differ: men believe that they were created directly by the hand of the Aedra, while mer believe themselves to be their descendants. This disagreement is the single most important philosophical divide in the history of Nirn.

Basically, it looks like this.

Nearly every significant mythic or metaphysical concept in the Elder Scrolls can be fit neatly into this paradigm:

CHIM is realizing the existence of the extreme upper-left gradient without negating oneself.

Amaranth is… well, let’s just consult the Elk here.

…to imagine the subcreation AFTER mortal death, which by pattern would mean an echo of Mundus, and through this imagining, the failures of so many. […] Those who do not fail become the New Men: an individual beyond all AE, unerased and all-being. Jumping beyond the last bridge of all existence is the Last Existence, The Eternal I. […] The New Man becomes God becomes Amaranth, everlasting hypnogogic. Hallucinations become lucid under His eye and therefore, like all parents of their children, the Amaranth cherishes and adores all that is come from Him.

Apotheosis is shifting, from mortality, one gradient to the left — not proper Aedra, but their equals, known as gods.

Creation, as a proper noun, is the formation of Mundus, an act which required the concurrent sub-gradation of et’Ada to Aedra, and the introduction of mortality into the Dream.