Which in all honesty leaves a lot open for Bethesda to bring them back in some capacity. Between Dragon Breaks, Chim, and literal time travel there’s a lot they could do not even getting into the other metaphysics and metamagics in the setting.
For those who haven’t deep delved EUSP I shall list what the three things I listed implies.
Dragon Breaks, a dragon break is what happens when time becomes non linear the fun thing is that it can be both retroactive and postactive. The ending of Elder Scrolls 2 Daggerfall is sometimes theorized to have caused a dragon break so massive that it basically rewrote the setting with its shockwave. This is admittedly just an in universe way of explaining retcons.
Chim, basically a character in the setting achieves awareness that they are infact fictional and becomes effectively a god. Tuber Septum achieved partial Chim caused a dragon break and removed the jungles of Cyrodil from history. Also Vivec achieved Chim and Dagoth Ur fucked up the process without removing himself entirely.
Time travel, basically what it says on the tin. Fun fact Pelinal Whitestrake was from a different timeline and was basically the Terminator.
CHIM isn’t really meta like that. It is a state of enlightenment achieved after coming to terms with the fact that the Elder Scrolls setting exists within the ‘dream’ of a godhead. The godhead is a mysterious and high order entity, think Lovecraftian gods, which isn’t really sleeping and dreaming in the way we normally think of it.
Typically when one comes to understand the nature of the dream they inhabit, they vanish, becoming one with the dream in a process known as zero-summing. It essentially means coming to the conclusion that all things within the dream are one and the same, that the individual is an illusion.
CHIM is achieved by facing this fate and asserting that, though all reality is a dream, your existence as an individual with thoughts and feelings and agency within the dream matters and is valid. Some suggest this state confers great power, such as the ability to reshape the landscape or perform miracles, like when one lucid dreams. However, I find this position poorly supported. Rather, CHIM seems best viewed as one form of enlightenment, a state achieved through great wisdom and insight but which brings with it no particular power. Vivec can be slain, after all, and relies on his connection to the Heart of Lorkhan to exercise divine power.
This is unironically a great overview and simplification of CHIM within the Elder Scrolls setting. One in which I am fundamentally incapable of making because I have been utterly corrupted by Morrowind shitposts around the concept, IE a photoshop of Astolfo from Fate with Dagoth Urs head asking if that is CHIM.
Don’t get me wrong I’m no stranger to our lord and savior Fargoth, bosmer bussy, or Nords and their secret wives. The Elder Scrolls is fantastic because you can simultaneously take it so seriously and … do whatever it is we lore nerds get up to.
Fair enough. Prolly doesn’t help I was actively melting my capacity to properly articulate the utter madness that is Michael Kirkbride mainling a philosophy book and then reading Lovecraft because I was slowly gassing myself because I put a tad bit to much bleach in my water bucket while cleaning up cat piss.
Last living one we know of, at least.
Which in all honesty leaves a lot open for Bethesda to bring them back in some capacity. Between Dragon Breaks, Chim, and literal time travel there’s a lot they could do not even getting into the other metaphysics and metamagics in the setting.
For those who haven’t deep delved EUSP I shall list what the three things I listed implies.
Dragon Breaks, a dragon break is what happens when time becomes non linear the fun thing is that it can be both retroactive and postactive. The ending of Elder Scrolls 2 Daggerfall is sometimes theorized to have caused a dragon break so massive that it basically rewrote the setting with its shockwave. This is admittedly just an in universe way of explaining retcons.
Chim, basically a character in the setting achieves awareness that they are infact fictional and becomes effectively a god. Tuber Septum achieved partial Chim caused a dragon break and removed the jungles of Cyrodil from history. Also Vivec achieved Chim and Dagoth Ur fucked up the process without removing himself entirely.
Time travel, basically what it says on the tin. Fun fact Pelinal Whitestrake was from a different timeline and was basically the Terminator.
CHIM isn’t really meta like that. It is a state of enlightenment achieved after coming to terms with the fact that the Elder Scrolls setting exists within the ‘dream’ of a godhead. The godhead is a mysterious and high order entity, think Lovecraftian gods, which isn’t really sleeping and dreaming in the way we normally think of it.
Typically when one comes to understand the nature of the dream they inhabit, they vanish, becoming one with the dream in a process known as zero-summing. It essentially means coming to the conclusion that all things within the dream are one and the same, that the individual is an illusion.
CHIM is achieved by facing this fate and asserting that, though all reality is a dream, your existence as an individual with thoughts and feelings and agency within the dream matters and is valid. Some suggest this state confers great power, such as the ability to reshape the landscape or perform miracles, like when one lucid dreams. However, I find this position poorly supported. Rather, CHIM seems best viewed as one form of enlightenment, a state achieved through great wisdom and insight but which brings with it no particular power. Vivec can be slain, after all, and relies on his connection to the Heart of Lorkhan to exercise divine power.
This is unironically a great overview and simplification of CHIM within the Elder Scrolls setting. One in which I am fundamentally incapable of making because I have been utterly corrupted by Morrowind shitposts around the concept, IE a photoshop of Astolfo from Fate with Dagoth Urs head asking if that is CHIM.
Don’t get me wrong I’m no stranger to our lord and savior Fargoth, bosmer bussy, or Nords and their secret wives. The Elder Scrolls is fantastic because you can simultaneously take it so seriously and … do whatever it is we lore nerds get up to.
Fair enough. Prolly doesn’t help I was actively melting my capacity to properly articulate the utter madness that is Michael Kirkbride mainling a philosophy book and then reading Lovecraft because I was slowly gassing myself because I put a tad bit to much bleach in my water bucket while cleaning up cat piss.