On Oblivion

I've recently got my hands on ESO, and after going into Crow's Woods this has been bickering in my mind, so here it goes, also, I'm taking heavy inspiration from Souls and Stars from /u/MareloRyan, so if you haven't read that yet, go and take a look!

What are the Planes of Oblivion? The common conception is that there are sixteen Planes, one for each Daedric Prince (including Jyggalag's and Sheogorath's shared Realm), and these Planes were created by the Princes to mock the Aedra in their creation of the Mortal Plane, Mundus and Nirn, and that those sixteen are the only Planes there can be in Oblivion. But then comes the question, what about the other realms such as the Soul Cairn?

What I have come up with is that anyone can make a realm for themselves in Oblivion. You don't have to be a Daedric Prince to create your Plane, nor is a Daedric Prince determined because it created and rules over a Realm.

What is Oblivion

Has it ever happened to you why is Oblivion terminology so linked to water? From the book The Waters of Oblivion, to these passages in The Void of Oblivion:

>While it is easiest to think of a Void being exactly that, Oblivion is anything but, and while it is true that much of it is black and empty sea, through every era magicians and emperors and villains have all visited its borders and returned with tales of countless isles of wonder and cosmic whimsy.

What if Oblivion is, in fact, an endless sea? In ESO, during the quest A Son's Promise, the Vestige visits the pocket realm Crow's Wood, and there Telbari Oran tells you that in Oblivion everything is crafted out of illusion, metaphor and memory, and your mind struggles to make all the chaos of memories into something solid as you know Tamriel. Does that ring a bell? Water is memory, and so, Oblivion seems to be made from raw memory, raw AE, if you'd like, or at least some portion of it, the portion used to create Realms, just as Aetherius is, at least to some extent, composed of raw Animus.

What I propose is that Oblivion is the collection of all AE source material, all AE-to-be, unrecorded memories, unused disk-space, and Aetherius is just in the same manner the collection of all Animus source material, but for now I’ll be focusing on Oblivion.

What is a Plane of Oblivion

Now that I have laid out my initial thoughts, it’s time to expand on it a little further. As I mentioned, in ESO it is said that an Oblivion Plane is made of metaphor, memories, even the grass is just a memory of Nirn’s grass, and your mind sees those memories and gets from its own memory what seems to be closer to it so you can see and identify it, a phenomena close to how mortals see the infinite planes as spheres. And I believe all have read that the Oblivion Planes are made in both mockery and imitation of the Mortal Plane, and now you see where I’m getting at? The Planes of Oblivion are an entity’s memories and experiences on Nirn.

When a Prince crafts his or her Realm, it always seem to reflect that Prince’s personality, but always having some sort of resemblance to Nirn, always inspired by the Mortal Plane, but always with a twist. The way I have come to see it is that all Daedric princes first had to see Nirn to desire it, since Nirn is pretty much the centre of all the Aurbis, and only after they witnessed creation would they want to make their own visage of it, and so, after their experiences of Nirn pass through the lens of their personalities, where they are shaped to reflect the very Prince (or any Ada, more on this in a moment), where the “ideal” Nirn for that Prince is formulated, and then they proceed to gather raw AE from Oblivion through sheer force of Will and bend this AE to their own, imparting his/her AE into the raw material, shaping it to its own view of the Mortal Plane.

Why and How can someone create a Plane

Why? Because yes. That’s what power is, to change reality to your whim. It is part of the nature of the Aurbis, memory can and is manipulated, quite a lot actually, and it is just in accordance to the nature of a Daedra, to change, not create. When someone has enough power, enough force-of-spirit as to say, it becomes part of their nature to cause change, or at least to be able to cause so. Talos changed Cyrodiil (through CHIM, Thu’um or White-Gold-ing all fit in this theory of mine), Vivec changed his past, Mankar changed quite a few things (including his own Paradise, which I will discuss just a little further), Molag made an escape route to the cycle of Life and Death, Meridia changes the rays of Magicka from Magnus so they are harmful to the undead, Azura (or the Tribunal) changed an entire race’s skin color, and I could go on and on with this list without it threatening to go dry.

So what’s to stop someone with enough power from taking the AE and gathering it in their own little garden? Nothing I say. As evidenced by the Soul Cairn and Gaiar Alata, both Olivion Realms created by once-mortals. Mankar did not gather the AE himself, that’s true, Mehrunes did this for him, getting a part of his Deadlands and letting Mankar do his thing, but the rest, the rest is all Mankar, it is his memories, his view of how Tamriel should have been, a special place just for him, his Realm.

Not to mention that, when Jyggalag became Sheogorath, when his nature, his personality, the lens of his AE changed, so did his/their Plane, from a Realm of Order it became the Asylums, which further evidences that the Realms are susceptible to the essence of its “ruler” and susceptible to changes in that nature, if the AE is to change, so the Realm changes to fit accordingly.

Oblivion is not a place only for Daedric Princes, they aren’t the only ones who can have their Planes, nor are they defined as Daedric Princes solely because they have a Realm, for what are the Princes if not Ada? And what are mortals if not degraded Ada as well? Anyone with enough power, enough knowledge, can take some space of the Void, gather enough raw-AE and build its own Plane, based on its own personality, its own AE. It is easier for “greater” beings like the Princes, but that doesn’t mean they are the only ones able to create Realms.