Scarab That Transforms Into The New Man

Compilation of Scarab references:

> By the Book, take this key and pierce the divine shell that encloses the mantle-takers! The skin of gold! SCARAB AE AURBEX!

> We pledge ourselves to you, the Frame-maker, the Scarab: a world for us to love you in, a cloak of dirt to cherish. Betrayed by your ancestors when you were not even looking. Hoary Magnus and his ventured opinions cannot sway the understated, a trick worthy of the always satisfied. A short season of towers, a rundown absolution, and what is this, what is this but fire under your eyelid?

> 30. The Scarab. 10

> Representations of the chim, and by extension the Psijic Endeavor, are always protean values, such as the anumidi models renowned by the Dwemer, the Scarab of contemporary astrolothurges, and the Striking ("exact egg-cracking") of old Argonia. All of these representations possess an innate and constant aspect of transformation.

> You in the Fourth Era have already witnessed many of the attempts at reaching the final subgradient of all AE, that state that exists beyond mortal death. The Numidium. The Endeavor. The Prolix Tower. CHIM. The Enantiomorph. The Scarab that Transforms into the New Man.

We have seen many mentions of the Scarab in TES, but not any analyses on what it is outside of Amaranth hunts. But probably the most well known usage is The Scarab that Transforms into the New Man. What could this possibly mean? Let’s put our scholar hats on and take a look.

In Egyptian mythology, the scarab is probably one of the most iconic pieces of imagery. “What is so special about a dung beetle?” you might ask. The Egyptians viewed the Scarab as symbolic of their eternal souls. They believed that everything that happens in nature is symbolic or a myth echo of a divine imprint. So of course they used natural phenomena to understand the metaphysical.

Still wondering where the dung comes into play?

First google images of egyptian iconography of the Scarab. Usually it’s shown underneath a Sun. Dung beetles’ entire lives revolve around the dung balls they move around. Adult scarabs roll dung around, in which their offspring is inside until they mature and can emerge to fly away. Egyptians saw this representing mortals trapped in the physical world, until they can finally emerge transformed. I think already, you can see the parallels in play here.

> ‘Take this key and pierce the divine shell that encloses the mantle-takers! The skin of Gold! SCARAB AE AURBEX!’

Often, divinity is described as golden, kind of like the sun. Which in Egyptian mythology, is the source of divine radiance. It’s worth noting that the life cycle of the scarab is comparable to Egyptian mythos of ascendence. The dung beetle gaining it’s wings and flying away was representative of a mortal dying and rebirth in another reality.

Of course, piercing the divine shell has been done before, in different ways. Anu slept in the sun and dreamed the universe we all know and love which is the ultimate act of the Scarab. Myth echos trickle down when Auriel ascended to the Sun and pierced it, attaining the divine mantle and skin of gold, becoming Auri-El.

> “We pledge ourselves to you, the Frame-maker, the Scarab: a world for us to love you in, a cloak of dirt to cherish.”

So how does the Scarab transform into the New Man? Well, first I’d like to posit the possibility that this New Man isn’t the New Man that becomes Amaranth. Remember, the Scarab that Transforms into the New Man is an attempt at Amaranth that didn’t succeed. Beyond that, where does the scarab imagery originate? Yokuda. Where hate for Lorkhan was arguably the strongest among men. Why did the Yokudans hate Lorkhan?

> "Pretty soon the spirits on the skin-ball started to die, because they were very far from the real world of Satakal. And they found that it was too far to jump into the Far Shores now. The spirits that were left pleaded with Tall Papa to take them back. But grim Ruptga would not, and he told the spirits that they must learn new ways to follow the stars to the Far Shores now. If they could not, then they must live on through their children, which was not the same as before.”

Yokudans were cut off from the Far Shores by Sep, who tricked them and betrayed them. They were forced to die and live on through their children and condemn them to the same fate. Not only that, they were forced to live through Kalpas, myth echos of Satakal eating himself over and over again. Alway reminded of Sep’s betrayal and the forsaking of their people by Tall Papa. Unlike the dung beetle, they will never know escape unless they find a new way.

It is up to the Redguards to find the way back, to make the Scarab Transform so they might reach the Far Shores again. So they might, the steps have been taken before, albeit mundanely. If any of you have played TESA:Redguard, you may remember that Scarab puzzle. If you haven’t played it, look it up. Seriously. It’s a Scarab that Cyrus has to jump around to make it transform into a New Man. Upon its transformation, a door is unlocked for Cyrus to continue. Kind of sounds like jumping to the Far Shores. Cyrus very well may have stumbled onto something in that dungeon that could save his people from the misery of their imprisonment within the Mundus and finally wave the big “fuck you” stick at Sep for the glory of Tall Papa.