Lore talk:Dawn Era

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Paraphrasing[edit]

I may paraphrase the monomyth for this article, replacing the inadequate anuad — Unsigned comment by 24.31.156.165 (talk) at 22:52 on 26 July 2008‎

The Anuad should also not be regarded as a historical source, so part 2 of the NOTE should be erased. It is needless complication and not a simply another theory or conflict.Temple-Zero 21:11, 26 July 2008 (EDT)

Dawn Era End?[edit]

You put on the article that convention is the end of the Dawn era, yet you continue with the founding of mortals... Should this not be NEXT era --Juz 64.35.208.9 04:04, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Probably. But the process occurs before recorded history and straddles periods of linear and non-linear time, so the distinction would be inelegant either way you look at it.132.162.76.105 03:13, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

What about the Falmer?[edit]

You failed to mention the other type of mer, the Falmer, or Snow Elves, unless I am mistaken in that they were a branch off of another type of elf later in time. 68.110.204.145 00:15, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

They dissipated because they bred with other Elves. I can check to see if the scholar in Solthshiem says when they were around.--Corevette789 00:19, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
There are no real sources saying when the Falmer were around. See Lore:Falmer--Corevette789 00:22, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Greymarch?[edit]

Well, I added a sentence about Jyggalag being cursed to become Sheogorath, but now I'm having second thoughts. The focus of this page is supposed to be on the creation of Mundus / Tamriel after all, correct? If so, I don't think this belongs, even if it is a notable historical event. (For those who really care, I calculated the Greymarch to have begun somewhere between 6,000 and 10,000 years before the beginning of the Merethic Era, based on some of SI's books...) BFG 02:58, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

What's your source, please? rpeh •TCE 09:34, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
The primary source I used was The Predecessors. In that book, the author states "[t]he ruins [of Shivering Isles] fell into distinct periods, each period separated by exactly 1,000 years from the other (although Cylarne remains the exception, being many thousands of years older than the next oldest extant ruin...)". And the Shivering Isles itself contains thirteen ruins (although three of them are pretty small). So, assuming The Predecessors is correct, ignoring the three small ruins, and assuming that Cylarne is at least 2,000 years older than the next oldest ruin, that gives us at least 11 millenia, and probably much longer, since Jyggalag was cursed. The first three Eras combined lasted about 4,250 years, so Jyggalag's curse occurred well before the beginning of the First Era. BFG 15:53, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
I'd already spotted the 1000 years thing but the rest looks like huge speculation to me. rpeh •TCE 12:29, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
Hmm...well, I do have to agree, a fair amount of this is conjecture. Even if we can assume The Predecessors is accurate, it's a guess as to how many ruin should be counted in the calculation. That said, if we can trust The Predecessors, only four of the ruins would need to have been former New Sheoths/capitols for the Curse to have taken place before the First Era. That's because Cylarne is at least 2,000 years older than the next oldest ruin, so four ruins (including Cylarne) would span more than 4,250 years. That said, I'll defer to your (and the community's!) judgement on this. BFG 04:57, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
The difficulty lies in reconciling the Predecessor's calculation that the isles are > 11-13,000 years old with Jyg's statement that "Once, I ruled this Realm, a world of perfect Order. My dominion expanded across the seas of Oblivion with each passing era. The other Princes, fearful of my power, cursed me with Madness", which implies there was a great deal of time before he was cursed. Granted, time in the Dawn Era was something of a nebulous concept, but it's still not straightforward. I'm just about in favour of having the statement about the curse on the page, but it should probably be moved away from the section about the other Princes because at the moment it implies the curse happened almost immediately. rpeh •TCE 09:22, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
Hmm, I had forgotten that statement. It is clear then that Jyggalag was allowed to rule for some time prior to the curse. I suspect that even so, the curse still had to have happened in the Dawn/Merethic era; the most conservative (i.e. latest) estimate I can come up with, based on The Predecessors, is 9,000 years--nearly 5 millennia before the conclusion of the Dawn Era. That's assuming only Cylarne and the seven other ruins as large as it were capitols at one point.
I agree with you that the current statement makes it look like the curse happened immediately. I'll modify it. — Unsigned comment by BFG (talkcontribs) at 18:35 on 15 February 2011

Revamp Notes[edit]

First, I excluded OOG from the page for a variety of reasons, the most dispositive of which was that it was easier, which appealed to my natural laziness. But still, there's a ton of OOG relevant to the page, and incorporating it would make the page very long. It also seems likely, imo, that a substantial quantity of this OOG is out-of-game for a reason (i.e., Bethesda may have actively avoided "canonizing" it), so it's prudent for us to omit that stuff here and avoid any and all potential OOG fallacies. But, of course, we don't want to do a disservice to particularly avid readers out there, so I felt an "External Links" section at the bottom was a good compromise. I think I got all the particularly relevant TIL articles, but it's possible there are other suitable links.

Second, you may notice some entries or statements which appear to be repetitive. This seemed necessary to me in order to be comprehensive while also avoiding potentially fallacious assumptions.

Third, I renewed links in every section, which I believe is the standard practice on timelines. But in this case, it may have unnecessarily "overlinked" the page, I don't know.

Fourth, some creation myths may be underrepresented at this time, notably that of the Redguards. And, of course, we know very little about Argonians (though the novels might have some info I overlooked). There may be details from Shezarr's Song or other sources which I didn't feel the need to include. I used mostly elven monikers for the sake of brevity.

Fifth, there's obviously a lot of detail already, especially for a timeline article. But I think this era necessitates different treatment given how convoluted it is. Minor EditsThreatsEvidence 20:35, 24 November 2013 (GMT)

Also, I just noticed this, TIL's own breakdown of the creation myths, embellished with various OOG. It's not a developer creation, but it might be worth adding to the External Links section. Minor EditsThreatsEvidence 19:40, 29 November 2013 (GMT)

Huge Timeline Inconsistency[edit]

"The True Nature of Orcs" introduces a big problem in our timeline. Since the Aldmer arrived on Summerset in the Early Merethic Era and only began exploring Tamriel in the Middle Merethic Era, it is impossible for the Velothi Dissident Movement, led by Prophet Veloth, to have launched from the Summerset Isles in the Dawn Era. While it could possibly be argued that this understanding of the setting of the Velothi Dissident Movement is wrong, what cannot be argued is that Saarthal was built by Atmoran Nedic peoples, whose oldest known settlements on Tamriel are in the Late Merethic Era, with the earliest being dated around 1000 ME per "Frontier, Conquest".

With all these huge contradictions to staple Merethic Era events (with several more contemporary and future sources backing up their claims) in mind, I think we should take what the ESO version of the book says, that this book is anti-Orc propaganda and incorrect. Mindtrait0r (talk) 01:05, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

I think it would be worth pointing out the inconsistency on the page rather than removing it. The Dawn Era by definition has no fixed timeline, so there can be a lot of hand-waving involved. —⁠Legoless (talk) 09:15, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
What Legoless recommends would be the best fix. Similar alterations could be done to indicate the dubiousness/oddness of some of the other notes on this page, and finally finish the cleanup of this article. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 11:56, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
I’m inclined to agree with Mindtraitor that this Orc/Velothi exodus stuff in the Dawn Era deserves very little to almost no weight on our articles beyond a mere note somewhere acknowledging the inconsistency. Based on almost every source we have on things relating to the Dawn Era, there was no proper common races as we know them in the modern time of the games only gods and spirits and the like and the sources that place races like Orcs, Ayleids, and Dwemer in the Dawn Era are anachronistic and wrong. Dcking20 (talk) 17:03, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
Although I do think it should be removed from this page, I'd be willing to leave it here as a compromise as long as the contradiction is noted. However, that sorta opens the door for other contradictions that are generally ruled out as mistakes and sic'd being put on other timeline pages. And the inverse applies, where the Velothi exodus on the merethic era page would also need this contradiction noted, which seems a bit one-sided. Why should the one mention of the dawn era date warrant equal representation to the several concurrent sources attesting the merethic era placement? Mindtrait0r (talk) 02:27, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
Found something. Interestingly, this contradiction is acknowledged in-universe. With this in mind, I am more willing to leave it on this page with an acknowledgement of the inconsistency. Mindtrait0r (talk) 20:52, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

() Nice find! Yeah, I plan on giving it a pass later, that'll help :) --AKB Talk Cont Mail 21:56, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

War of Manifest Metaphors[edit]

I understand the war between Auri-El and Lorkhan to be one and the same as the War of the Ehlnofey. Since the Ehlnofey are the ancestors of mortals, I see the war looking like Auri-El leading the Old Ehlnofey and Shor leading the Wandering Ehlnofey. I'm not sure if this has been discussed before elsewhere, but is there any support for grouping the Sundering of Aldmeris, Shattering of Lorkhan, War of the Ehlnofey, and parts of Convention to be under a common header of the War of Manifest Metaphors? Or has it already been decided that these events should be listed as separate? Also, just to clarify, I take the War of Manifest Metaphors to mean this war between Auri-El and Shor and as happening within the Dawn Era, but it seems like it is being used to describe Creation/the Dawn Era itself. Am I understanding the term wrong? BananaKing5 (talk) 22:13, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

I've long been against labeling the War of Manifest Metaphors and the Ehlnofey War as the same. There's no evidence for it, as no source ever states that there was only one war in the Dawn Era. This page's introduction, while eloquent, is original research in my opinion, as the War of Manifest Metaphors is referred to with terminology which leans more to it being an event rather than a conceptual law which determined non-linearity. Mindtrait0r (talk) 03:41, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
I can see your point. I'd argue it is easier to envision one huge war between the elves and men, as those against Lorkhan versus those supportive, but you're right in that there isn't really much/any evidence to confirm it enough to definitively write it here. And to even add to your point, the battles of Lorkhan and Alduin seem detached from the battles of Lorkhan and Auri-El since Lorkhaj slew Alkhan but Lorkhan was also killed in front of Auri-El, so there is precedent of multiple, unrelated conflicts taking place. The naming of different aspects of the "same" gods also confuses me, such as Akatosh apparently even being well pleased with creation in Shezarr's Song and the Ruptga/Sep conflict being utterly irrelevant to the Elf/Man conflicts. So maybe Shor being killed by "Elven giants" and Lorkhan being ripped apart by Trinimac may somehow be two separate but similar conflicts too, despite heavy implication to the contrary. I'll still probably see it as one big war, but I think you're right in that it shouldn't be written down here as fact. Adding a note could possibly work, but that is likely not worth it either. BananaKing5 (talk) 06:45, 15 March 2024 (UTC)