Understanding First Creation Vs Second Creation, the Stars, And Aedra

Read the Yokudan creation myth.

Reality began as a dance between Padomay and Anu. It was only really Padomay that existed, and the two 'fought' and Padomay died but birthed the Daedric Princes, Lorkhan, and of the mixed blood of the two was born everything else.

By dying, Padomay left the structure of existence to rest upon Anu's shoulders. In sadness for the loss of his creation with Padomay, Nir (possibly meaning memory, as in, enduring tangibility, the emergence of first themes and forms), he withdrew unto himself and dreamt. He became the Amaranth, his dream is the universe. This was the first creation.

Creation myths and Anuads reference "12 worlds of creation". It has become obvious to me what these are.

Nir's corpse is the firmament that blocks the light of Aetherius (Anu) from consuming (by fire, into permanent stasis like being burned instantly into diamond) the 'mixed blood' children of Anu and Padomay. That's everyone that's not Daedra. These are able to create, Daedra are not.

In that firmament are stars. We understand that these were made by Magna-Ge. However, the constellations represent 12 + 1 echoes of the first creation.

Recall that before the first creation, Nir (memory) was the pinnacle of existence. The most powerful and tangible beings were nothing more than theme, form, pattern.

At the very beginning, after the first creation, all you had were the major themes of existence. These were the 12 worlds, and these are reflected in the stars.

The important thing to consider is that Anu and Padomay's battle is what made creation, so creation reflects it in its very DNA.

There is the three-form which is the warrior/thief/mage, king/rebel/observer template. This is basically Akatosh, time, the consequence of the first creation. What you have is Stasis coexisting with Change. If everything was stasis, then after one instance the universe would have fulfilled all it can and would cease in that same instance. If everything was change, then nothing would be distinguishable from anything else: death in the void. So, to have existence you have Static Change. This is time, each moment is static and unique, but is followed by a consequential moment. The notion of Anuaic force lockstep chasing Padomaic as the definition of time is what's going on here. Add in an observer: something to whom this procession has relevance, someone who can choose one outcome over another. Keep in mind that out of one moment there might be infinite possible moments. Padomay is all of those moments collectively. The Observer must select only one.

Of these three, each has three charges, representing stages of growth and influence. Each has object of action, allegorically represented by a woman who reflects the character of the master. The warrior has his lady: the embodiment of noble ideals. The mage his apprentice: the legacy of his choices. The thief his lover: the object of his aimless lust. The next is the empowering means: steed, atronach, shadow. Finally, the culmination and fulfillment: lord (dominion), ritual (the actual choice), tower (discovery of the hidden).

The dream of Anu, recalling the thematic existential battle between himself and Padomay, splits existence into these 12 gradients. The corpse of Padomay, the void, Sithis, remains as the serpent.

We must conclude that there were indeed 12 worlds each aligned to what are now constellations. These forms pre-date the first creation, and are superior to it, so creation cannot reject these forms. There may even have been a 13th world, although one might simply say that this world was Oblivion or a black hole more than a planet.

The varying myths, Shor Son of Shor, the stories about Kalpas all refer to this time and its intrigues. We know this: it ends.

Lorkhan (the "Missing God") decided to make a new world out of bits of the 12: Nirn. There were reasons, though vague (mortality and children as a solution to some vague existential crisis the spirits faced, perhaps as a way to grow and continue, perhaps the spirits had achieved a perfection and couldn't foresee a way to further progress). In the end, this act destabilized the cosmos - again, somehow.

The spirits fought, the Daedra simply watched. The Missing God "died", his heart stabilized the world, Auri-El gathered the remnants of all the 12 worlds and Magnus left for Aetherius.

This was the second creation. Note what changed: all the matter of the 12 worlds was balled into Nirn. So, the 12 worlds still exist, but they exist as Nirn. The constellations in the firmament are likely nothing more than an inevitable echo of the first creation. The Magna-Ge didn't create the constellations, the constellations are forms that are built into the Aurbis and its DNA.

Now, the spirits didn't exist materially as mortals did. They existed "as stories" and themes. It seems clear, from the evidence of history, that the spirits were multi-faceted, fractal beings. They existed as many different things, with common characteristics, at once.

Creating Nirn also led to the emergence of lesser spirits. These spirits weren't strong enough to exist in a fractal universe. That is, these spirits weren't themes, but distinct splinters of themes. They needed distinct environments against which they could be defined.

The Aedra 'died' in the sense that they were once infinite spirits of infinite potential who chose to become limited so they could exist as those distinct laws/histories/environments which the lesser spirits needed. It's not that they gave up their divinity. It's that they elected to persist as less than what they were. If they hadn't, the lesser spirits would have perished in the chaos of many realities.

Taking this a step further, there's evidence that a series of rituals connected to the series of towers on Tamriel formed specific version of reality into one common history. That is, at the beginning Aldmeris was fractal. The beings that lived there existed as multiple forms all at once. Different means of stabilizing reality developed: Yffre and the green song created a natural environment in which spirits could thrive. The Ayleids built a tower in the mold of Ada-Mantia. The Altmer built a crystal tower representative of their eternal law and imagining theirs to be the perfected society. And so forth. These created pockets of reality where only one timeline could exist.

Whatever its original use by the Ayleids, the White-Gold Tower was taken over by men and Alessia's covenant with Akatosh represented Cyrodiilic reality favoring men (the seal against Oblivion was only part of that). Out of this covenant reality, an obscure event which resulted in history's biggest Dragon Break changed everything. This was a period of probably 1000 years in which everyone has a different reckoning of history. Eight stars are said to have fallen from heaven to the earth. This is one of the few events everyone holds in common. This period is called the Middle Dawn.

It seems likely that what happened was that you have a situation where reality is fractal in Aldmeris, then somehow a tower is built. That tower represents the one reality. For a while, there was only Summerset for the Altmer. This is why they investigated Tamriel and found it to be empty: wild bird beings living where the Ayleid capital would be. The Middle Dawn represented these realities - eight and one of them at least - converging to share a common history. In TES, history can be retroactively rewritten.

It is even suggested that maybe the idea of eight Aedra come from this event. We know that one of the groups that might have triggered the Middle Dawn - the Marukhati Selectives - were all about worshipping only One god.

It's possible that the Aedra themselves are only a consequence of Ayleid meddling. The Ayleids really liked the number 8, and they did some weird magic in response to the human rebellion against them. They split their "Staff of Towers" into 8 pieces and carried them away to 8 "fold-places" (different realities?).

In any event, we actually know very little of Marukh and the events of the First Era (mostly coming to us from the mouths of Nord and Dunmer historians).

The point of this being that reality more so created the Aedra than the Aedra created reality.

The Aedra are just pieces of powerful spirits who gave up their spiritual lives, and then had their corpses all split up into different parts by powerful magic and so forth.

I write this to clarify questions such as: which Aedra is Shor? The two are not compatible ideas. Shor is a reflection of that more mythic beginning going back to the light vs the serpent. The Aedra are more specific to Nirn and its mundane histories. That's not to say there aren't connections and parallels. It's just that by understanding the big picture, you can make sense of what's going on a bit better.