Kalpas as failed Amaranths Part II: The Monomyth and Yokuda
###The Monomyth
The Yokuda section of the Monomyth has perhaps the most detailed and accurate description of Kalpas we will ever get. Understanding it is vital to anyone wishing to comprehend the cyclical nature of the Aurbis.
>"Satak was First Serpent, the Snake who came Before, and all the worlds to come rested in the glimmer of its scales. But it was so big there was nothing but, and thus it was coiled around and around itself, and the worlds to come slid across each other but none had room to breathe or even be. [Monomyth]
Satak is thought to be the Yokudan interpretation of what the Bosmer would call Anu. In this paragraph, it is describing Satak and his original "dream" of the Aurbis, in a state of being similar to what we know as the Dawn Era. During this time, spirits are also "worlds," because they each have control over the reality of the universe they exist in. This is mentioned by Nu-Hatta:
>The Jills did not have their full powers; rather, I should say, all the mundex spirits had every power at every time amendment at every ordering, which is to say none of them could ever fully express; our world was young and so were its architect gods. [Nu-Mantia Intercept]
The spirits having complete individual control over reality creates the problem of nobody being able to truly express themselves. Imagine if every Daedric Prince was stuck together in the same plane of Oblivion. Nobody would be able to truly assert their version of reality if everyone else is doing the same.
>And so the worlds called to something to save them, to let them out, but of course there was nothing outside the First Serpent, so aid had to come from inside it, and this was Akel, the Hungry Stomach. Akel made itself known, and Satak could only think about what it was, and it was the best hunger, so it ate and ate. Soon there was enough room to live in the worlds and things began. These things were new and they often made mistakes, for there was hardly time to practice being things before. So most things ended quickly or were not good or gave up on themselves. Some things were about to start, but they were eaten up as Satak got to that part of its body. This was a violent time. [Monomyth]
Akel is thought to be what the Bosmer would call Padomay. Padomay is the primordial force of change, and its subgradient Sithis was described by MK to be pure misanthropy. Change is what allows the spirits to begin becoming things, to divide and split amongst each other like the Great Houses of Morrowind. By dividing, some spirits become less and less until they no longer have much influence on the reality of the world while the stronger spirits can expressive themselves a little bit more.
>"Pretty soon Akel caused Satak to bite its own heart and that was the end. The hunger, though, refused to stop, even in death, and so the First Serpent shed its skin to begin anew. [Monomyth]
It’s unclear what exactly is meant by Satak’s “heart,” but it can be surmised that eventually, the misanthropic nature of change amongst the spirits causes the end of the world by dividing too much. Satak is forced to become a new Amaranth so things can start over.
>As the old world died, Satakal began, and when things realized this pattern so did they realize what their part in it was. They began to take names, like Ruptga or Tu'whacca, and they strode about looking for their kin. As Satakal ate itself over and over, the strongest spirits learned to bypass the cycle by moving at strange angles. They called this process the Walkabout, a way of striding between the worldskins. Ruptga was so big that he was able to place the stars in the sky so that weaker spirits might find their way easier. This practice became so easy for the spirits that it became a place, called the Far Shores, a time of waiting until the next skin. [Monomyth]
Interestingly, in the new Dream, Satak no longer exists as an individual and is now a fusion with Akel known as Satakal. Things begin to start again, with change from the start, and spirits begin to divide and become distinct more rapidly this time. Some of them begin to realize that this has happened before. As the cycle repeats and the Aurbis is periodically destroyed and reborn, the first Magne-Ge learn to hop from worldskin to worldskin by using stars placed in the sky by Ruptga.
>"Ruptga was able to sire many children through the cycles, and so he became known as the Tall Papa. He continued to place stars to map out the void for others, but after so many cycles, there were almost too many spirits to help out. He made himself a helper from the detritus of past skins, and this was Sep, or the Second Serpent. [Monomyth]
As more and more Magne-Ge are born from the spirits wishing to bypass the cycle, Ruptga realizes that it is becoming increasingly difficult to help more and more spirits make the jump. So he creates a spirit known as Sep out of the dead skins of the old worlds to help him. Compare this to the Leaper Demon King and the Greedy Man.
>"Oh crap," said the Leaper Demon King, "You have found us out, World-Eater! Yes, just after the two bells of the All-Maker's Goat sound the Greedy Man and I and our servants hoard bits and bobs of the world so you can't eat it all. And when the world comes back we sort of just stick these portions back on and so that's why it is all bigger and bigger for you to eat each time. But it wasn't my idea! The Greedy Man hates you so much and it was his idea to finally trap you one kalpa when it was all much too big and so you would explode out from your belly and die so that the world would never have to die again!" [Aldudagga]
Just like Ruptga and Sep, the Leaper Demon King and the Greedy Man were collecting parts of the old world and bringing them to the new world. This creates the problem of the new world becoming too saturated with pieces from the old one.
>Sep had much of the Hungry Stomach still left in him, multiple hungers from multiple skins. He was so hungry he could not think straight. Sometimes he would just eat the spirits he was supposed to help, but Tall Papa would always reach in and take them back out. [Monomyth]
Because there are too many Magne-Ge, Sep decides to eat them, with Tall Papa coming to their rescue. This is particularly interesting when taken in the context of Aldudagga.
>"The Greedy Man has already f*cked himself up good, hiding inside something that didn't exist anymore, but you: you I curse right here and right now! I take away your ability to jump and jump and jump and doom you to [the void] where you will not be able to leave except for auspicious days long between one and another and even so only through hard, hard work. And it will be this way, my little corner cutter, until you have destroyed all that in the world which you have stolen from earlier kalpas, which is to say probably never at all!" [Aldudagga]
In this passage, Alduin curses the Leaper Demon King to become Dagon until he has destroyed everything he collected from the previous Kalpas. What if this correlates with Sep’s habit of eating the spirits he is supposed to help?
>Finally, tired of helping Tall Papa, Sep went and gathered the rest of the old skins and balled them up, tricking spirits to help him, promising them this was how you reached the new world, by making one out of the old. These spirits loved this way of living, as it was easier. No more jumping from place to place. Many spirits joined in, believing this was good thinking. Tall Papa just shook his head. [Monomyth]
Sep literally gathers up the remnants of the old Kalpas and uses them to create Mundus. The Magne-Ge are tricked into going along with this idea, but the most important thing is that Tall Papa does not participate in creation!
>"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. [Monomyth]
The Magne-Ge that fail to escape and become trapped in this new Kalpa, the first ever Kalpa of mortals, cease to be Magne-Ge and become the Redguards of Hammerfell. The only way for the Redguards to rejoin their former brethren is to find new ways to reach the Far Shores through their deeds in life.
>Sep, however, needed more punishment, and so Tall Papa squashed the Snake with a big stick. The hunger fell out of Sep's dead mouth and was the only thing left of the Second Serpent. While the rest of the new world was allowed to strive back to godhood, Sep could only slink around in a dead skin, or swim about in the sky, a hungry void that jealously tried to eat the stars." [Monomyth]
After the creation of the new Kalpa of mortals, Sep is punished by being squashed by “a big stick.” The obvious answer to what the “big stick” is is the tower of Ada-Mantia, the giant scroll case manifested-metaphor spaceship of Auri-El. However, as pointed out earlier, it is important to understand that Ruptga did not participate in creation so it would not be completely accurate to draw direct parallels between him and Auri-El.
In any case, Sep’s hunger falls out of his mouth and remains on Nirn, while he slinks around in the sky in a dead skin trying to eat the other stars. ESO’s Craglorn expansion touches on exactly this, although it pains me to say that I am not too knowledgeable on the storyline of Craglorn.
So why was Sep really created? There has to be more to it than just “Rupgta needed a helper,” right?
>The world you stand on is said to be the first attempt at chim. It is also admittedly the most famous. That it was choreographed by Lorkhan and ultimately failed is well-documented, but whether or not this failure was intentional is still disputed.
>Wait. Why would anyone want to purposely fail the process of CHIM?
>And this is the most-reached destination of all that embark upon this road. Why would Lorkhan and his (unwitting?) agents sabotage their experiments with the Tower? Why would he crumble that which he esteems?
>Perhaps he failed so you might know how not to. [Psijic Endeavor]
Sep/Lorkhan was created to fail at Chim (and by extension, so Anu could fail at the current Amaranth) so mortals would better understand how to succeed, because only a mortal can truly ascend past the divine. The whole point of the sought-after Amaranth in Tamriel is to break the vicious cycle of the periodic creation and destruction of the universe.
Perhaps this is influenced by the absence of Anu, Magnus, and the Magne-Ge in the current iteration of the world. The Magne-Ge, while not present, are still profoundly influential on the fate of the mortals through their constellations.
>This pantheon is made up of the Filters, Chromes, Penumbras, and Capricious Glows that influence the day-by-may fortunes of the myriad creatures that play among the Magne-Ge’s many-and-shattered floating untimes. All of them are days that may. [Magne-Ge Pantheon]
Perhaps in this way, the “path of the stars” being changed was made in the intention of influencing the lives of the mortals so that one day, someone would inevitably succeed.
###Yokuda
There are other hints of the current Kalpa being special in that it’s the first one with mortals, such as in Hunger of Sep.
>It was not ever thus. In far-off Yokuda, in times of yore, when all walked in step with the gods, these beetles were the friends of our houses and the amusing companions of our children.
>…
>Then evil came to Yokuda, and red war, and forbidden rites were practiced, and fell things were summoned that should never have been called forth. It was a Time of Ending. Satakal arose from the starry deeps, and Yokuda was pulled down beneath the waves. But after every End Time comes a New Time, and it was even so in this case. For some of the people were permitted to sojourn to Tamriel, where we took Hammefell for our own. There we were given a chance to once again worship the gods in proper reverence. [Hunger of Sep]
The Hunger of Sep is interesting in that it is the first in-game reference to Yokuda being the previous Kalpa. During the times of Yokuda, the inhabitants “walked in step with the gods,” until a series of events that suspiciously mirror those on Tamriel cause Satakal to rise from the ocean and eat the world.
So how does a continent to the west = a previous Kalpa? How does that even make sense? Well, we know MK is a fan of this idea:
>dream A = Yokuda of myth + unknown Tamriel + unknown Akavir
>dream B = remembered Yokuda + Tamriel we know + Akavir we know
>dream C = remembered Yokuda + Remembered Tamriel + Unknown Akavir.
>This is the coolest thing ever. And there is a rule about such things. [MK]
Rolling with this idea, it can be surmised that the continent the Redguards sailed from isn’t the same group of rocks to the west of Tamriel that we all know of. Rather, those groups of rocks are a representation in the current dream of what once was Yokuda, while the Yokuda that the Redguards sailed from was the real thing. This is why when Uriel Septim invaded Akavir, it was apparently so alien and uncertain that nobody could really remember what it looked like. It was an uncertain representation of what might come in the next Dream, but nothing concrete. Septim only invaded this representation, and not the real deal.
That being said, a lot of really profound and perhaps controversial things can come from the idea that Yokuda was the last Kalpa. For starters, what were the Lefthanded Elves? Perhaps they weren’t elves at all.
The idea presented in that theory that MK really seems to like is that the Lefthanded elves were actually one of the various groups of men that resided in Yokuda, and not actual elves. The Lefthanded elves had an empire that was reportedly several times the size of the Septim Empire in the current Kalpa.
Emperor Hira was the head of a Yokudan empire that sought the destruction of the Ansei, powerful magicians that could create magical swords from their own spirits to manipulate reality. After the empire is beaten and Emperor Hira is apparently killed, a cataclysmic event sinks Yokuda after a group known as the Hiradirge performs Pankratosword (a sword move that literally splits the atom) to sink the continent.
>during the last civil war, a renegade band of Ansei called the Hiradirge were said to be masters of stone magic. When they were defeated in battle in 1E 792, the argument goes, they had their revenge on the entire land, destroying what they would never rule. [PGE3]
A “dirge” is a ceremonial song in tribute to the recently deceased, and “Hiradirge” likely refers to a renegade group of Ansei affiliated with Hira’s empire after his death. Are these the so-called “lefthanders?”
What’s really interesting is when you bring the Maormer into this, because they do have ties.
>Diagna (Orichalc God of the Sideways Blade): Hoary thuggish cult of the Redguards. Originated in Yokuda during the Twenty Seven Snake Folk Slaughter. Diagna was an avatar of the HoonDing (the Yokudan God of Make Way, see below) that achieved permanence. He was instrumental to the defeat of the Lefthanded Elves, as he brought orichalc weapons to the Yokudan people to win the fight. [Varieties of Faith]
Diagna brought orichalc weapons to the Yokudans so they could slaughter the Lefthanders during an event known as “The Twenty Seven Snake Folk Slaughter.” And that’s not even the best part:
>The Maormer ruler is King Orgnum, a deathless wizard who is said to be the Serpent God of the Satakal (see Hammerfell). [PGE1]
Who ended the last Kalpa? Satakal. How did he end the Kalpa? By pulling Yokuda beneath the waves. What caused the sinking of Yokuda? The Hiradirge performing Pankratosword to sink the continent. Are you connecting the dots yet?
We also have at least one source that claims the Moarmer are in fact the true Aldmer, although this could easily be propaganda. But just assume it is true for the moment.
>Many still believe that the Maormer race of Pyandonea diverged from the racial line of the Altmer when they were exiled from Summerset Isle as criminals. This is the great, traitorous lie of the Altmer!
>Translations of tapestries in the Crystal Tower reveal that the great Maormer race is directly descended from the purest strain of our Aldmeri ancestors. We certainly did not come from Summerset, but originated in our ancestral homeland of Aldmeris.
>The Altmer themselves are a mongrel race. They are the abomination that drove our great leader Orgnum to lead our people through the impenetrable mists to our haven of Pyandonea. [Chosen People of Aldmeris]
So the Maormer are possibly the original Aldmer, and at the same time the Lefthanded “Elves” from Yokuda. What does this mean for the Mer as a whole?
> IF THE FAR SHORES IS WHERE THE RAGAS GO AND ALDMERIS IS WHERE THE ELVES COME FROM
>-insert raptor wonder-
>THEN WHY IS IT ANY WONDER THAT ONE OF THESE ISN'T REAL?
>...and the awful fighting began again... [MK]
So what if… just what if… the Aldmer that every Elven race descended from were once the Maormer, who were not actually Maormer during the time of Yokuda but in fact another group of Yokudan men who caused (or fabricated) the destruction of Yokuda?