The Tsaesci Creation Myth Reexamined

>Given this knowledge, we should reexamine the Tsaesci Creation Myth-Me

>Eye you should.-MK

I've been meaning to get to this ever since that comment, because I believe MK was hinting at something. The Tsaesci Creation Myth is perhaps the only equal to the Redguard Creation Myth in terms of its complexity and enigmatic language, for reasons MK has recently elaborated on.

This follows the C0DA of Akavir being the new dream. If you don't follow this C0DA, that's fine, but I say this as a disclaimer in case someone walks away with the wrong idea.

Let's begin.

>There was the Striking, and the Egg was split into twelve worlds, one for each serpent who had a name, and the names of the serpents were alive and coiled into themselves and became more eggs, for names are self-maters, and the Naming went and went. According to the calculations, the random sequence learned very cunningly that fragmentation reserved itself to the left eye. Variation realms were the evidence needed.

Here we see the mention of Twelve Worlds, a similarity with the Anuad. It could be that the creation of Akavir shared similarities with that of Anu's dream. It could be that this is the Akavir equivalent of the Anuad, but I'm not certain of this.

The mention of serpents "coiling into themselves and became more eggs" sort of supports this. The context of Naming and its implications of identity leads me to believe this is a period similar to when the Anui-el was contemplating his existence. They're searching themselves, creating subgradients so they can understand themselves. More "snakes", or spirits, are created in the process.

The last two sentences are very perplexing. The rest of the first paragraph draws clear parallels to the Aurbis creation event, but here we see that there is personified "Random Sequence" discovered that the creation of new concepts leaned towards "the Left Eye", which may be an Anu The Everything equivalent. "Variation Realms" suggests that the "Random Sequence", who is perhaps a Sithis figure, saw that there was too much stasis and uniformity. He sought to create different things rather than the inbred concept breeding of the serpents.

Thus we can draw clear similarities to the Aurbis creation event from the first paragraph.

>There was the Biting, which broke the twelve worlds and their name-eggs, and the Biters chewed new names of the lesser serpents until soon death was known to the smallest and your alphabets disappeared but ours did not. The state of rest became worthy of blame, however segmented, so heat was wasted across the right eye. And in mercy we gave to you language that was dead yet walking if you used it, which you did, though transient food-forms became problematic.

Here things become more cryptic. The Biting makes some sense as an event similar to when Padomay shattered the Twelve Worlds with Lorkhan, but that clearly isn't the whole story. There is a divergence.

We see that there is not one Lorkhan figure but many; not one Biter but multiple Biters. They halt the process of inbred concept creation.

But what "inbred concepts" were they stopping? Remnants from the previous Dream. This is the first time that the myth directly speaks to what is presumed to be someone from Tamriel. The Biters destroyed the previous "alphabet", the formula from which concepts are created. They're rejecting Tamriel's ideas and substituting their own.

"The state of rest" may refer to an Anuic ideal, and given that Anu was the previous Dreamer, became something "worthy of blame". It was limited and some of the blame went to the Right Eye, the Padomaics responsible for the Biting.

The Tsaesci creator beings, being the Snake Ninjas they are, possibly recreated some of these concepts out of pity(and for their own nefarious purposes) for the presumably sizable population of Tamrielic people who were going to arrive in Akavir someday. These are the "Otherkin" Tosh Raka refers to in his decree. Obviously, he is not pleased.

I believe this is the root of the Tsaesci vs Po Tun conflict. Tosh Raka doesn't want any of Tamriel's concepts. He wants to kick off his parent's past and forge his own path. The Tsaesci, on the other hand, want to keep the past dreams. The "Men of Akavir" are the "transient food-forms", the left overs from a past dream. This is why they "ate the Men of Akavir". They were protecting them.

This is notable because it implies the Dreamer is not omnipotent. Otherwise Tosh Raka would have succeeded in taking out the Tsaesci a long time ago and would have invaded Tamriel. He's strong, but I believe that he has to interact through a dream avatar. Since his original avatar wasn't strong enough to take out the Tsaesci, he invented a Dragon Style and upgraded himself into an awesome Kung Fu Time Dragon God.

It's possible Anu could have done something similar and taken a more active role in his dream, but he was too busy fighting off Dream!Padomay.

>There was the Slithering, when scales were now name-bites that moved freely, and the dead language speakers bled out into non-talk, which is egg-naming inverted, which slides into the shedding of more dead, which cannot be redeemed in the hunger quadrant, and now we could no more be detached, for the twelve-to-one only talked unsense except for us, who ate your slithering during trumpet season as the Biters poisoned the random sequence until we came and made of it music, as that is the only thing that might save the prey who wore all shapes of confusion not described yet in the calculations. Some of us discovered honor, though more found the idea of moderation, which turned into the identical selection process and we created our eating that way.

The "scales moving freely" are fragments of a greater spirit descending and becoming the "Gift-limbs" of Akavir. However, some of Tamriel began bleeding in. The "twelve-to-one" refers to how Anu formed Nirn from the remnants of the Twelve Worlds. It was unsense, something too crazy even for the Tsaesci, so they silenced it the only way they could.

It should be noted that the Biters turned on the random sequence, implying that they are more animalistic than Lorkhan was or had reason to turn on it. I suspect something happened there that is mentioned in a different Akaviri creation myth.

Regardless of why, the Tsaesci eventually came and stopped the poison biting. They all began to sing the music, creating their own Aurbis. This is the Trumpet Season, the time when the music is being established. I imagine the Music of the Ainur from Tolkien's Ainulindale would be an apt comparison.

We see a fundamental philosophy emerge in this time: Honor or Moderation? I imagine that this is similar to the Padomaic vs Anuic debate of the previous dream, but different in some ways.

We can see that the Po Tun lean toward the path of Honor. They honor Tosh Raka above all, who is a radical dreamer that cannot stand any concept not his own. The Tsaesci, on the other hand, are Ninjas. Honor is an obstacle to them. They prefer Moderation instead, which may explain why they try to preserve elements from the past dreams. It also might explain why they took the time to actually visit Tamriel whereas the other cultures haven't.

The Kamal, I believe, represent the absence of both. They're brutal barbarians who care nothing for civilization of any sort. The Tsaesci may not be honorable, but even they realize the necessity of some rules for civilization.

>There was the Shedding, who inflated into a sphere of edible communications and this is how the sequence began to find proportion again. The name-eggs that had survived without also turning into calculation powder settled and became dreugh-waters, which was the first thing to finally encompass the risks attempted by the Striking. Stomach signals wrote a complex document of conditions. This was the variation map, called dai.

Now we see the creation of something like Oblivion. The name eggs who barely got away without being turned into "calculation powder"(likely an Earthbone equivalent) settled and became "dreugh-waters", a term heavily associated with the Daedra. Is it a change brought in by the Tsaesci Ancestor Spirits? Maybe.

>The Reaching came, where movements of dai progressed across islands of edible communication and food-forms could stockpile. One Reaching unravelled but the Coiling at its belly made a virtual star line, which made eating lucid. We slid to the imago and Named it cunningly. The waters obeyed and dead names took up their place in the random sequence. The first serpents returned to us in transmissions that answered the alphabet-virus which we then consumed at last. By the relative dai, we egg-named it and swallowed all source-information to preserve the virus and became immortal thereby. Past the star line, dead-talking continued.

Here is likely an event where their creation was in a flux state like the Dawn Era. They sneakily introduced some old ideas to the mix by naming an egg and making the waters move as they wish.

The "dead names" are likely old concepts that the Tsaesci tricked into the dream, and the alphabet-virus was their asymmetric weapon against the Dreamer to alter things to their wishes.

Naturally, the Tsaesci used this opportunity to pull an inverse Lorkhan. They didn't surrender their divinity to empower their planet; they used the planet's creation to become immortal. "Past the star line" refers to Tamriel.

>The Laying then happened, and we moved into forms that had been granted from the source information of the first serpents, which was gold-walking, which is pattern. The scales became intertwined in the random sequence with music that ate forever, which we fed with you. Low forms created a seeking egg but we fed it to the music, too. Then the Biter-Shedding grew sideways into the reception field and knew a Coiling and mastery was ours borne from the calculations. The final name was Tsaescence and we ate it to become it and there are no more variations.

And here the scheme is pulled off. The Tsaesci were integral to Akavir's creation, altering it in subtle ways that benefited them. They are dominated by no one and assimilate all, which is why they couldn't resist including some of Tamriel's ideas.

I believe "Tsaescence" is the name of their chief Martial Art, which was woven into the fabric of creation. The Music is in tune with this style, which may be why it is so powerful.

They "ate"(internalized) the style, and "became" the style, which is how they became the Snake Men. "There are no more variations" because the Tsaesci view Tsaescence as the highest form of martial arts, and won't accept any other alternative. Hence their trouble when Tosh Raka dreams up his dragon style.

This necessitates the Dragonguard's trip to Tamriel. They come to alter Tamriel's history so that they can sneak these ideas into the creation of Akavir, which in turn grants them power.

This is the Akaviri Dragonguards plan. They believe that if they can support certain ideas in Tamriel(Dragons are bad, go Dragonborn!), they can sneak them into Akavir's dream.

This would allow them to write into existence their own version of a Dragonborn, someone who would be able to take down Tosh Raka once and for all. They would then have absolute control over Akavir.

Their snake imagery has some to do with Lorkhan, I believe, because the Tsaesci are for Creation. They wanted a Mundus. However, the reason for their snake-like forms is primarily as an outward expression of the philosophy of Tsaesance.

The Tsaesci are a sneaky, devious lot. They're willing to time travel all the way to a previous dream to have a shot at beating one of their enemies. They aren't opposed to dirty tricks and they never, ever fight fair. Above all, they are followers of Tsaescence, with all that implies.