State Gradient Echo of Mundus Centerex

The Loveletter talks about a state beyond Mortal Death, “Z”, the “State Gradient Echo of Mundus Centerex”. That term has always confused me. It sounded so familiar, like I should know it, and it itched like a splinter in my brain.

It’s important because it describes the last state of existence, the ultimate point that every Elder Scrolls mortal should want to reach. It’s the point beyond CHIM, which makes it pretty damn interesting. It’s already been defined as the Amaranth, which is most likely a point where you become a Godhead yourself, and start dreaming your own dream. But the nature of that final dimension are ill-defined, and I thought perhaps the State Gradient Echo of Mundus Centerex might hold some clues.

Then I started researching MRI technologies to answer a few questions for my wife, who’s had more than a few MRIs recently. And now I think I might know what a State Gradient Echo of Mundus Centerex is.

What’s a State Gradient Echo?

Either by coincidence or design, these three terms show up in the same order when a student is learning to operate MRI machines. Understanding MRI imaging is a little like learning how to play an instrument; an MRI machine is incredibly intricate and flexible and pulling an informative image from a subject is a little like tuning a guitar to make one incredibly specific note when you thump it with a hammer.

A State Gradient Echo is hard to explain, but basically it’s one technique MRI operators can use to create a clear image of specific tissues in a human body that might otherwise show up as indistinct, out of focus, or not at all.

In terms of the Elder Scrolls, the "Gradient" term appears to be interchangeable with the word “creation”, so I think Kirkbride is using the concept of MRI photography as the creation of reality. In a way, he’s saying that a photograph of an object (say, a flower) is like creating another physical thing, another flower.

If we sprinkle this with a bit of Metaphysics, we could think of the whole reality of the Elder Scrolls as a two-dimensional image: an image projected onto a monitor. The Elder Scrolls universe is actually just a series of flat slides, each slide representing a “state” of the Elder Scrolls universe at that point in time.

This would make more sense if I started talking about quantum mechanics and the concept of experiencing time as a series of slides in a roll of film but wouldn’t it be more fun if you figured that out for yourself?

What’s a Mundus?

That’s an easy one. The Mundus is the physical realm that floats around in Oblivion. The Aedric planets, Nirn, and its Moons are all part of Mundus.

What’s a Mundus Centerex?

Tricky part. A Centerex is, by the strictest definition, the central office through which all mail is routed. But if you cross your eyes a little you can see how a Centerex can also mean the center through which all communication, or commands, are sent.

So the Mundus Centerex is the Brain of the World, the “soul” or the “center” of the Mortal realm. It’s interesting that Kirkbride refers to it with the letter “Z”, because can you guess what a Z-axis State Gradient Echo of a human body looks like?

Therefore it’s probable that a State Gradient Echo of Mundus Centerex is an image of the fundamental mind behind the Mundus, the nervous system of the entire span of physical reality, which the Loveletter names as the “Last Existence, The Eternal I”, or the Godhead.

What’s a Nubian?

Shut up, Banky.