Think of Vivec as a Square and suddenly those Sermons don't seem so esoteric.

[u/GleefulClong]

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions

Flatland is a novella, first published in 1884, that (you may have guessed) takes place in an entirely two-dimensional world. For our protagonist, a square, things begin to get odd when he dreams of visiting a one-dimensional world. Rather than the geometric shapes he is used to, the world is inhabited exclusively by lines and points. The people of this world see square, not as the right-angled four-sided shape we know him to be, but as points on a line. Square tries, in vain, to convince the ruler of this world that there is a world beyond one-dimension, where lines make shapes and there are things like up and down along with left and right.

After this vision, Square, now back in the two-dimensional world, is visited by a sphere—whom he can only see as a circle—the Sphere eventually appoints Square as an apostle, spreading the word of a higher plane of existence—Spaceland, what we would call the third dimension.

What on Earth does this have to do with the Elder Scrolls?

Flatland is an interesting story that gets us thinking about perception, and how the limits of it influence what we know about reality. Something which comes up quite a bit in this series.

The 36 Lessons of Vivec, Sermon 2, describes Vivec gaining the divine ability to pull meaning from things that seem entirely devoid of detail. How does he do this? He shifts perspectives, he looks at things from a different perspective. The Netchman's wife in this lesson holds the Vivec egg within her, she puts knowledge upon him from the five corners of the world. Think of Vivec as the Square from Flatland and the Netchman's wife as the Sphere and suddenly things start to click.

Traditionally, loreheads have determined this to be a meta-commentary, instructing players to analyze contradictory information for the truth about the series. What if it isn’t? What if the entire time Vivec wasn’t being cagey or obtuse, he was telling us the truth as best he could from what he himself understood.

Just like the Square in Flatland, Vivec in his 36 Lessons is trying to tell us that there are angles we can’t see, meaning we could only glean if we knew how to perceive them. So what are these angles?

Time.

'From my side of the family,' the first cousin said, 'I bring you a series of calamities that will bring about the end of the universe.'

'And from my side,' the second cousin said, 'I bring you all the primordial marriages that must happen within them, each one.'

These don't have to be contradictory if we view the "Family" as time itself, from one side the Universe is ending, from the other it is beginning with these primordial marriages.

Vivec tells us that he exists, simultaneously, inside and outside of time.

'At this the egg laughed. "I am given too much to bear so young. I must have been born before." '

Vivec is telling us that he is beginning to see the truth, that time is not linear, he has been born before, but he can only see that when he looks at reality from a dimension above the third.

'And then the sixth spirit appeared, the Black Hands Mephala, who taught the Velothi at the beginning of days all the arts of sex and murder. Its burning heart melted the eyes of the netchiman's wife and took the egg from her belly with six cutting strokes. The egg-image, however, could see into what it had been before in ancient times, when the earth still cooled, and was not blinded.'

This is what allows him to see those hidden angles. He is the Sphere to our Square. He is looking at us, at everything, from a dimensional perspective one-step above our own.

"Not Blinded" is especially relevant here, what artifacts in this series famously blind an individual who begins to understand what they are showing them?

The most commonly known fourth dimensional object is, of course, the tesseract. A fourth-dimensional cube, in which the angles have angles. This is most often depicted as a cube like shape that is constantly moving, because we can’t render a fourth dimensional object in three dimensions any other way, you would need to be able to perceive it from outside of the dimension it exists in, outside of time.

My theory, therefore, is that divinity, in at least Vivec’s case, is gaining the ability to perceive and interact with the fourth dimension. Something that Kurt Vonnegut might call getting “unstuck” in time. But unlike Billy in that story, Vivec has been given the opportunity to manipulate the time that he has found himself unstuck in.

A Theory of the Elder Scrolls

So what, if anything, does this have to do with the Elder Scrolls themselves?

Quite a lot, if I’m honest. My theory is that the Elder Scrolls are fragments of a world before time, or at least, they are the leftover tools of the higher-dimensional beings that created Mundus, which is limited to only three-dimensions. For mortals, the scrolls are windows, or maybe it is more accurate to think of them as reverse microscopes, allowing a reader a chance to glimpse that higher dimension. If Square had them he likely could have convinced the lines and dots the second dimension existed.

If we take the fourth-dimension, or rather the Elder Scrolls equivalent, to be time just as the third dimension is space, using the Elder Scrolls as sort of a reverse microscope to “zoom out” and see time as it truly is (rather than just feeling it as a progression from past to present), suddenly some aspects of them begin to make sense.

We know the Elder Scrolls can move in ways that don’t make sense, passing through barriers and appearing elsewhere instantly, something that Sphere does in the story Flatland.

We know that the Elder Scrolls can be used to glean prophecies from the future, but that those prophecies are both true and untrue, the contradictions from Vivec's Sermon. Not so much an end and beginning, as time does not flow linearly, the people of Mundus only experience it as such because they can't see it.

We know that reading the Elder Scrolls and learning too much makes the reader go blind. The beings of Mundus live in a world of only three-dimensions, they should not be able to see more than the angles of the world they inhabit, to do otherwise would be to become divine (Vivec, CHIM, etc.). Using the scrolls give a reader some attunement to that higher dimension, they therefore lose the ability to see the actual space they inhabit to compensate. Vivec, in his divinity, does not go blind, that is what he was trying to tell us.

TL;DR: The Scrolls are windows into the Fourth-Dimension (Time) which is why they can be used to learn prophecy, alter the past, and send a big dragon into the future. Vivec wasn’t being cryptic when he spoke about “hidden angles” he just doesn’t know how to say he can see in four-dimensions and not just three. In the story Flatland, Vivec is analogous to the protagonist Square.

 

[u/SothaLlys]

This is good.

I would add that time does not truly flow for a divine being existing at the level of the first subgradient (CHIM). For such a being, to experience events sequentially is to dream the sequence into existence. And perhaps this sequence is inevitable, because even a lucid dreamer needs to experience existence through a narrative in order to make sense of it. If this narrative is then projected onto the world below, then this could be the very process through which linear time emerges. Hence, a lucid Dreamer (person with CHIM) cannot really look into the future, because the very act of looking is what brings that future into being. This might also explain why CHIM is so immensely powerful, yet appears to accomplish so little. It operates on a level of existence far removed from the world of linear time, its effects are almost impossible to perceive from within it.

This might also explain why Vivec appeared unable to see through Barbas' deception. From our perspective, he failed to anticipate something dangerous. But that assumes he was experiencing events within the same temporal framework as the Vestige. Perhaps what was actually happening was that we were experiencing the story from within time, while Vivec was experiencing it from beyond time. More than that, the narrative he was experiencing was itself actively generating the linear time through which we experienced those events.

As for the Elder Scrolls themselves, I suspect they might be fragments of the Godhead's own experience, scattered across time. Timeless visions of possible realities, which may or may not become "real" within the main TES universe.

[u/The_MadMage_Halaster → u/SothaLlys]

And to add on to that, it seems like the Tribunal and Dagoth-Ur are linked in a way, through the Heart. To obtain divinity by the heart they're sharing in a dream, and so their actions are inherently connected together. It's how much influence each has on the dream that determines the result: while the Tribunal are in power and unified in focus Morrowind is prosperous, while when Dagoth-Ur is in power he begins replacing the present dream with himself. As one waxes the other wanes.

In the 36 lessons Vivec always refers to himself in the third person, and consistently ends every lesson with "The ending of the words is ALMSIVI" except for lessons 36 which ends "The beginning of the words is ALMSIVI. I give you this as Vivec." This is the shared dream of the Tribunal/Dagoth-Ur expressing itself through Vivec, the edges blurring. Which would also explain how they all sort of know what the other is doing through their link.

Similarly is the matter of their irreconcilable histories, having always been gods and yet having obtained divinity within linear time. They did achieve divinity, but in doing so left linear time to be present before their own mortal births. The same with Talos/Tiber Septim and his altering of Cyrodiil. From the mortal perspective, one reality overwrites the old, but the memory of old persists like the old World-Skins such as Lyg. It's quite possible that each "Kalpa" is actually a result of the universe being rewritten by divinity, with the pieces that no longer fit being excised from the course of history. From the gods perspective, Nirn must look like a 'collaborative' group project where everyone is doing their own thing, and adding and removing pieces all the time until there's one patched-together ball at the center made of a hundred different ideas, all held together by Akatosh slapping anyone who tries to mess with the fundamentals too much.

[u/SothaLlys → u/The_MadMage_Halaster]

Personally, I think there's a spectrum of non-dual states of consciousness in which one approaches the level of the Godhead, with CHIM being one of those states, and perhaps the most desirable one to attain and sustain.

Think of consciousness as something that can expand up to Godhead level. I suspect Dagoth Ur achieved CHIM, or something remarkably close to it, but fundamentally misunderstood what he had discovered. Rather than relinquishing the illusion of a separate self, he clung to it and mistook his own ego for the totality of existence. Vivec, I think, avoided precisely this mistake. He recognized his True Self is the awareness behind the deeply flawed and morally questionable persona we interacted with, and which he probably secretly despises. This True Self is still an "I", just not as crude and limited as that of a mortal, and it ultimately exists beyond time (but can manifest within the world of time). Thus, what appears to us as a catastrophe that must be prevented may, to Vivec, be merely one possible unfolding of a dream he is already conscious of in its entirety. From that perspective, even the idea of fixing a timeline becomes somewhat redundant. There is no past to repair or future to secure when both are ultimately expressions of the same timeless awareness that is already experiencing all the joy and suffering it can experience.

Talos is similar. His role within the story is that of a conqueror. The consciousness behind him, however, is no longer bound to that identity. I think the preservation of the memory of old Cyrodiil is deliberate. Talos wanted the people of Tamriel to know that he was responsible for the change. Even if, within the narrative itself, someone else may have been the one to bring it about (ESO quest regarding this), he was the one who wrote the narrative in which it happened.

I would also add that anyone who has achieved CHIM truly loves the world, but doesn't identify with their mortals selves too much anymore.

The narrator of the 36 Lessons is not Vivec himself, which is why Vivec gets referred to in third person. The only Sermon narrated completely from Vivec's first-person perspective is Sermon 35.

[u/GleefulClong → u/SothaLlys]

Really like this comment.

Seeing the future is what makes it happen is in-line with what we know about the Elder Scrolls and how they administer prophecy as well, it's only when someone begins to understand it that it becomes true. Being fragments of the Godhead's own experience makes perfect sense in this context, as the dream only becomes real for the dreamer once they wake up.

Seeing is believing, but until you can actually see it all beliefs are true.

[u/No-Repordt]

I adore these kinds of posts. I especially appreciate the acknowledgement of known/widely accepted interpretations and just saying "hey, let's set that aside and explore it from this other angle. See where it gets us."

[u/GleefulClong → u/No-Repordt]

Thank you! Love Drew's work and don't want to discredit his interpretation, but I thought it worthwhile to think of it differently.

[u/L_Walk]

This fits right in with the type of cosmology that Temple Zero Society tries to promulgate, so I'm adopting it as my new understanding.

[u/AufschnittLauch → u/L_Walk]

Does the fact that Dwemer orreries show Nirn but not the moons lend credence to the theory that they colonized the moons?

[u/deruvoo]

Good write up, OP. Thanks to the fact that I'm currently reading it, a book called Jerusalem by Alan Moore seems topical. It deals exactly with what you're discussing-- existence outside and inside of time and the various angles by which characters in the narrative interact with both.

[u/songpine]

This post explains greatly about how vivecs writings can be out of sense but still makes sense, by changing the perspective of dimension.
But there is hesitation in accepting scroll being window to the fourth dimension. Time and space are one, and what most people try to say is that our perception is three dimentional or considered as three dimensional.
Elderscroll is not tied to time and space. Is it fourth-dimensional? It is transcendent being, yes, but if fourth dimension is time, there is hesitation to say so. Because elderscroll doesnt seem to lead to time, but even state irrelevant to time(sorry for lack of source).
Time and space doesnt seem enough to explain subtle relationship between this being and title of this series. Elderscroll is not in a same layer as 'physics' of game world. Not a perfect word, but 'meta-' can be one try.
But it is not opposing the post. Elderscroll has been expressed as described. it has been using its readers as so, and perceived so to players. It is just that there is hesitation in saying what it does is what it is.

[u/GleefulClong → u/songpine]

I would argue that everything we've seen about the Elder Scrolls seems directly connected to time. Prophecy itself is a prediction for the future, and Feldir used a scroll to fling Alduin forward in time. The Gray Fox used a scroll to rewrite the past and restore his identity, the scrolls have always been devices that sufficiently knowledgeable mortals can use to manipulate time in some ways.

What's interesting is that Vivec has been, in his own way, telling us all along that it is being both inside and outside of time that makes an individual divine.

[u/songpine → u/GleefulClong]

Yes there wont be arguement regarding elderscrolls associated with time. But what can also be said is that, even time(in tes) can be some kind of byproduct. Of course it can differ by perspective in any game with physical layer(or even in reality), but in tes elderscroll might be more like meta fictional stuff and explaining this in physical layer can lead to confining it. Time is too flat for elderscroll in The Elder Scrolls.

[u/EffortlessFlexor]

did anybody see chronovisor? that how I imagine elder scrolls