Kalpas as failed Amaranths Part I: Introduction, the Dawn Era, and the Amaranth
Hi /r/teslore. After a lot of headaches, arguments, discussion, speculation, daydreaming, days of being sick, boredom, and listening to Ambient music I have decided to compile all of my thoughts on Kalpas and the Amaranth into one (or three) posts.
For those of you reading this, I ask of you two things.
Forget everything you think you know about the Amaranth and Kalpas other than what you've directly seen from MK's texts or sources of the like. Forget about all the fan interpretations you've seen on the internet. Read this with a blank mind and take nothing with you other than what you saw from the sources themselves.
Please do not bring up the credibility of Mankar Camoran. Frankly, I'm tired of posting (or seeing) topics like this, coming back in a few hours, noticing that the topic has a lot of replies... only to find out that most of it is back and forth bickering about whether or not Mankar should be trusted given his confusing speech in Oblivion. Just assume that he knows what he's talking about for the sake of discussion.
With that out of the way, let's jump right into this wonderfully convoluted and wrong-minded misinterpretation of the world of Elder Scrolls.
###The Dawn Era
Possibly one of the most important pieces of information we have to understand the nature of the cycle of Kalpas is that the Dawn Era, in its entirety, was the end of the last Kalpa.
>Assume "The Dawn Era was the End of the Previous Kalpa. The new Kalpa begins with the first day of the Merethic Era."
>Then put on your lore-hats and start looking hard at the ramifications of that. [MK]
Before this, MK dropped a few hints that the Dawn Era was not so much a Dawn as implied by its title.
>Nirn as we know it is only about 6000 years old, give or take. It's made of myth, not continental drift and the march of penguins.
>That said, the God Time (whose very name is contradictory) before it cannot accurately be measured by mortal perception. [MK]
It’s also brought up again during the recent reveal of the Nordic totem religion that didn’t make the cut into Skyrim.
>The gods are cyclical, just like the world is. There are the Dead Gods, who fought and died to bring about the new cycle; the Hearth Gods, who watch over the present cycle; the Testing Gods, who threaten the Hearth and thus are watched; and the Twilight Gods, who usher in the next cycle. [MK]
The “dead gods” mentioned later in the same source are none other than Shor and Tsun, who died during the Ehlnofex wars of the Dawn Era.
So what does this mean? Were we wrong to think of the Dawn Era as the very beginning? In short, yes. The important thing to take away from this is that Auri-El, Magnus, Shor, Anu, Padomay, the Ehlnofey and the rest of the mythic figures we read about were all inhabitants of a previous Kalpa.
###The Amaranth
The key to understanding the relationship between the Amaranth and the Kalpa is the Magna-Ge. According to the teachings of Mankar Camoran, the Magna-Ge follow the path of the godhead.
>[W]oe to the Oath-breakers! Of the skin of gold, the Xarxes Mysteriuum says "Be fooled not by the forlorn that ride astray the roadway, for they lost faith and this losing was caused by the Aedra who would know no other planets." Whereby the words of Lord Dagon instructs us to destroy these faithless. "Eat or bleed dry the gone-forlorn and gain that small will that led them to walk the path of Godhead at the first. Spit out or burn to the side that which made them delay. Know them as the Mnemoli." [Commentaries]
According to MK, the Magne-Ge hop Kalpas.
>Mnemolic magic is related to the "Star Orphans", gods and heroes and demons that live between creations, which can include those reality-bending burps known as Dragon Breaks. Think of them as the all-stars between kalpas, if that helps. [MK]
Also according to MK, Anu brought the Magne-Ge into the current Amaranth by dreaming of them in the sun.
>"Amaranth anon Anew AE I, which is said to have occupied the passageways of heaven and earth, because everyone above and below asks Amaranth anon Anew AE I if they cannot find the passage. Amaranth anon Anew AE I is the Godhead who caused to be visible. Amaranth anon Anew AE I stands as a post at the turning point. The others say of Amaranth anon Anew AE I the post: "The one and one (an inelegant numner) who crosses the middle of the Z the Centrex without calm, may his name be I and no other, for he takes up the center of it in sleep. The path of the stars of the sky should be kept unchanged but will not, for he dreams in the sun and now has dreamed of orphans, anon Magne-Ge, the colors he still wishes to dream." [MK]
Anu sleeps in the sun and brings the Magne-Ge into the new world by dreaming of them. The all-stars of the past worlds. Who else sleeps in the sun and brings the Magne-Ge into the new world?
Additionally we have at least three sources that place Anu and Padomay in the Dawn Era, and we know the Dawn Era was the end of the last Kalpa.
With all of this information in hand, it can be surmised that a single Kalpa takes place within a single “dream,” and the turning of the Kalpa involves Anu selecting the Magne-Ge, sleeping in the sun to dream the next Kalpa, and “remembering” the Magne-Ge he wishes to bring into the next cycle. As such, every Kalpa was an attempt at achieving an Amaranth that breaks the cycle but ultimately failed until the advent of Lorkhan and the mortal Kalpa, Mundus. But more on that later.
What is especially important to note is how the path of the stars of the sky are being changed. What could this mean? We know that in the current Kalpa the Magne-Ge do not return after jumping ship in the Dawn Era, but still exert a profound influence upon Mundus, which will be touched upon when we examine the Monomyth. Perhaps in this way they are dreamed of as “orphans,” as opposed to being children of Ruptga or Magnus.