The Mundane Expanse: The Realities of Oblivion, Aetherius and the Mortal Perception

The Mundane Expanse: The Realities of Oblivion, Aetherius and the Mortal Perception

a lecture delivered by Professor Cersei Terentius gra-Korznag of the Markarth Institute at the College of Winterhold, 15th of Morning Star, 4E 203

I want you to imagine for me the existence of a small hut, barely larger than, say… a mammoth? It is, at first glance, barely large enough to house but one person. Open the door, however, and revealed is a mansion of incredible size, far larger than could possibly be held in the hut's small space.

I am here to propose a rather controversial idea, but one that must be considered if we are to take the word of the gods as literal fact (which as we all know is a very real possibility in our current reality.) What we see as the night sky – what is known as Oblivion – is merely one finite plane in a far larger cornucopia of Oblivion-based dimensions, and that each plane of Oblivion occupies a finite space in this particular dimension, but not only that, each plane of Oblivion is “bigger on the inside.”

According to many different Tamrielic mythologies, the Magne Ge, those et'Ada who refused to create Mundus and who refused the Padomaic tendencies of their brothers, the Daedra, pierced the “walls of Oblivion” and created what we see as the stars. Further more, it is stated that the night sky is actually Oblivion itself, and the spherical bodies that orbit Nirn are merely a mortal mind's way of coping with the layered infinites of the Aedric planes. In order for there to be room for anything in the Mundus, and in order for the stars to match with their divine description, infinity cannot exist. Yet experience with Oblivion shows us that infinity does exist, for there are infinite planes and many (but not all) of those planes are infinite. How can these two be reconciled?

I propose that what we see in the night sky is not an infinite Oblivion, but rather a finite dimension of Oblivion I propose shall be called the Mundane Expanse. The stars are breaches in the boundary of the Expanse that lead into Oblivion. The sixteen realms of the Daedric Princes, along with perhaps many more, float in the Expanse taking up a finite space. Upon entering this finite space, the traveller is brought into the full infinity of the realm, and thus each realm is bigger on the inside.

Since this is all theoretical, I do not know how one exits the Mundane Expanse and enters the rest of Oblivion, but I theorize that the dark boundaries of the Expanse that are not occupied by the stars to serve as a sort of wall between the Expanse and the infinity of true Oblivion.

I encourage each of you to carefully think about my theories. Perhaps I am wrong and one day, a clever person – perhaps even one of you – will find the actual truth. Still, I believe that my theory is the only one that truly encapsulates the idea of an infinite Oblivion while still accounting for the impossibilities of it.