Stormcloaks Or Empire (One Of The Three Certainties Of Life)

[veti]

It wasn't "deceived", they had their economic and political heartland crushed and their armies battered beyond easy recovery. Everyone and their cat is telling you that the Empire was genuinely beaten.

"Everyone and their cat" does not cut it as a citation. Please, please point to the multiple specific in-game sources you are considering your authorities.

No. The lore literally says as a blunt fact,

Err... no. "The lore" doesn't say that, one book says that. Books are written by people, people have viewpoints and agendas.

In this case, the book we're talking about is:

https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/Great_War

Thank you! Thank you so much! At last, someone prepared to actually cite their source!

Ahem. Sorry, getting a little carried away there.

Anyways, this particular book is written by "Legate Justianus Quintius", who sounds pretty darn' Imperial to me. It paints a flattering picture of Titus Mede II - but that should be heavily discounted, because if you're in an empire - and particularly in its military - "saying less-than-nice things about the current Emperor" can be dangerous, particularly if you then write them down in a widely published book. So while I'm sure the broad historical facts are correct (because too many people would know if they weren't), the details of who decided what, and what they were thinking or planning or advised to do at the time, are frankly not much better than our own speculation. Even the part about the Dominion gambling and committing all their forces to the invasion - how would a mere Imperial legate even know that for a fact?

Taking all that into consideration, it looks to me as if Legate Quintius is sailing about as close as he dares to saying "the Empire folded unnecessarily". I think that's his true opinion.

You have an interesting definition of winning, having your armies shattered and your political and economic heartland sacked and looted. They fought hard enough to get favorable terms of surrender, but that's it.

Okay, first of all, can we stop calling it "political and economic heartland"? The Dominion had taken Leyawiin, Bravil and the Imperial City, which is barely a quarter of Cyrodiil by land area. But what we're really talking about is the Imperial City. Nobody (outside) cared about Leyawiin and Bravil, they were never among the richest parts of the province anyway.

Second, you keep talking about "favorable terms", when there was nothing of the kind.

The White-Gold Concordat ceded part of Hammerfell (resulting in the loss to the Empire of the entire province), disbanded the Blades (the Empire's best hope of rebuilding some kind of intelligence network), and banned the worship of Talos (ensuring unrest, if not worse, in Skyrim). Ulfric, in the Markarth Incident, challenged that provision, and the Empire struck a deal with him, whereupon the Thalmor said "Nuh uh" and demanded to send its own enforcers into Skyrim.

This was it. This was the crunch moment. Was the Empire still an Empire in anything but name? Was it going to accept this outrageous, disastrous demand that went far beyond the humiliations it had already endured? Was it going to respond, like a sovereign nation: "we don't tell you how to enforce your laws in your territory, you stay the f*** out of ours"?

Yeah, well, we know the answer to that. Titus Mede folded. Unconditionally. Again. Despite the fact that the Dominion's weakness was by now on display for all to see in Hammerfell.

But wait, there's more! You keep saying that the Concordat preserved "the heartland" and gave the Empire room to rebuild without disruption by covert ops. There aren't many actual first-hand accounts of this period, but lucky us, because as Dragonborn - or at least, most-badass adventurer in Skyrim - we get privileged access to some sources that are far from public knowledge:

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Cicero%27s_Journal

27th of Hearthfire, 4E 188: The situation in Bravil grows more dire. The city has erupted in violence, due to a war of control being waged by Cyrodiil's two largest skooma traffickers.
...
1st of Hearthfire, 4E 189: Cheydinhal has erupted into violence and chaos, like so many other cities before it.

This does not look to me like a picture of a province that's peacefully rebuilding. Whether or not all this violence is stoked by Thalmor agents, we have no data on (though it seems pretty darn' plausible to me), the whole "recover and rebuild strength" idea seems to be pretty well broken by the late-180s. So even this benefit, the one thing you can claim with a straight face the Empire gained from the Concordat, was not real.

[druid91]

That's actually the wiki page for the conflict as a whole. Which includes a number of references.

Spoiler: References spoilered for length.

Show

The Bear of Markarth
Dialogue with Igmund
Dialogue with Esbern
Thalmor Dossier: Esbern
The Great War
Events of The Elder Scrolls: Legends[source?]
loading screen in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Dialogue with Ondolemar
Dialogue with Delphine
Dialogue with Legates
Dialogue with Legate Rikke
Dialogue with General Tullius during "Season Unending"
Dialogue with Galmar Stone-Fist
Dialogue with Noster Eagle-Eye
Thalmor Dossier: Ulfric Stormcloak
Dialogue with Ulfric Stormcloak
Dialogue with Brunwulf Free-Winter
Dialogue with Salvianus
Dialogue with Brina Merilis
Dialogue with Jod
Dialogue with Madena
Thalmor Dossier: Delphine
Dialogue with Runil
Runil's Journal
Bolar's Writ
Dialogue with Rorik
Dialogue with Jouane Manette
Dialogue with Erik the Slayer
Dialogue with Skjor
Dialogue with Vilkas
Conversations between Gat gro-Shargakh and Pavo Attius

This is the wiki page for the book. https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki...eat_War_(Book)

And you're right, it is an interesting book in part because the author is clearly biased. I presume the broad facts of the situation are correct and he explains how he came to those conclusions,

Author's Note: Much of what is written in this book is pieced together from documents captured from the enemy during the war, interrogation of prisoners, and eyewitness accounts from surviving soldiers and Imperial officers. I myself commanded the Tenth Legion in Hammerfell and Cyrodiil until I was wounded in 175 during the assault on the Imperial City. That said, the full truth of some events may never be known. I have done my best to fill in the gaps with educated conjectures based on my experience as well as my hard-earned knowledge of the enemy.

But the part that is most interesting to me, beyond the overall summary of events is this part.

The terms were harsh, but Titus II believed that it was necessary to secure peace and give the Empire a chance to regain its strength. The two most controversial terms of the Concordat were the banning of the worship of Talos and the cession of a large section of southern Hammerfell (most of what was already occupied by Aldmeri forces). Critics have pointed out that the Concordat is almost identical to the ultimatum the Emperor rejected five years earlier. However, there is a great difference between agreeing to such terms under the mere threat of war, and agreeing to them at the end of a long and destructive war. No part of the Empire would have accepted these terms in 4E 171, dictated by the Thalmor at swords-point. Titus II would have faced civil war. By 4E 175, most of the Empire welcomed peace at almost any price.

But we know for a fact that isn't true. Hammerfell and Skyrim both did not welcome peace at almost any price. Hammerfell immediately rejected the treaty and was ejected from the Empire for it, and Skyrim was put on the path to civil war by the Markarth incident the same year the Concordat was signed and within 26 years of signing the concordat the Stormcloak rebellion begins.

[Rynjin]

Yes, the terms were survivable, but still incredibly one-sided and a momentous loss in terms of political capital and reputation. I'm not the least bit religious, but even I understand that telling people that worship of their favorite god is banned (even if people could do it sneakily before Ulfric forced the issue) is not going to go down well at all. And even to people who don't care about Talos (or Hammerfell or the Blades), accepting terms like that made the Empire, rightly or wrongly, seem incredibly weak.

Better to seem weak than be weak. Fighting to a pyrrhic victory against the Dominion would be a pretty terrible outcome even if it did work out to be a victory and not a defeat.

While the Empire controls most of the continent, people forget the Argonians are a potential existential threat to all human and mer life on the continent, and are well known for capitalizing and invading any time they scent blood in the water.

[Errorname]

Better to seem weak than be weak. Fighting to a pyrrhic victory against the Dominion would be a pretty terrible outcome even if it did work out to be a victory and not a defeat.

Our baseline is already a defeat, and a pretty bad one. In the canon timeline an empire that was already bleeding territory loses at least one, possibly two provinces as a direct result of the terms of the Concordat. A pyrrhic victory where the empire takes greater losses but holds on to Hammerfell and Skyrim is preferable to a peace that costs them the territory and plunges them into disastrous internal conflict.

While the Empire controls most of the continent, people forget the Argonians are a potential existential threat to all human and mer life on the continent, and are well known for capitalizing and invading any time they scent blood in the water.

I'd say that "potential" is doing a lot of lifting there, they certainly are not an imminent existential threat in the way the Thalmor are.

Also don't know if the characterization of them as invading any time they sense weakness is fair, they invaded Morrowind after the Oblivion Crisis, for reasons that are pretty self-evident and don't apply to other provinces.

[veti]

I'd say that "potential" is doing a lot of lifting there, they certainly are not an imminent existential threat in the way the Thalmor are.

Also don't know if the characterization of them as invading any time they sense weakness is fair, they invaded Morrowind after the Oblivion Crisis, for reasons that are pretty self-evident and don't apply to other provinces.

Also also, I'm not persuaded by this idea that Black Marsh alone could somehow whup every other military force on the continent, even if the latter are divided. That seems to be projecting a great deal of power that's not evidenced by anything that's happened so far.

Black Marsh punishing an already-crippled Morrowind for centuries of wrongs? Yep, entirely plausible. But even there, they haven't occupied the whole province. From that to "beating the Legion and the Thalmor and every independent militia and force in Tamriel" seems like more than a stretch. If they had that kind of potential, why didn't they kick Morrowind's backside long before the Red Year?

[druid91]

Argonians are weird. They are potentially very dangerous, and are frankly just completely alien. Who knows why they do what they do?

[Rynjin]

Also also, I'm not persuaded by this idea that Black Marsh alone could somehow whup every other military force on the continent, even if the latter are divided. That seems to be projecting a great deal of power that's not evidenced by anything that's happened so far.

Black Marsh punishing an already-crippled Morrowind for centuries of wrongs? Yep, entirely plausible. But even there, they haven't occupied the whole province. From that to "beating the Legion and the Thalmor and every independent militia and force in Tamriel" seems like more than a stretch. If they had that kind of potential, why didn't they kick Morrowind's backside long before the Red Year?

Based on random lore snippets, the Hist seem divided on what to do, as a "rogue" Hist is the main antagonist of a novel. It, apparently, had the capability to summon an entire floating city which fed on the souls of those its followers killed, which adds another random feat to the checkbox of "weird **** the Hist is capable of". Notably it hated everything not of Black Marsh, including "assimilated" Argonians, and was interested in conquering the rest of Tamriel. This thing was steered by one of the major political factions of Black Marsh, though not a majority one to my understanding.

As far as Black Marsh's military might, we don't know MUCH, but what little we do know, however, is that their military might is seemingly pretty ludicrous. Every effort (and there have been several) to actually invade Black Marsh itself has ended in abject failure. So their military might, at least when combined with homefield advantage, is more than a match for the Empire's core military.

It was also, apparently, more than a match for DAGON'S military as an Oblivion gate opened in Black Marsh, and then was promptly closed by the daedra themselves because of how vicious and effective the defenders were.

The Argonians have a history of capturing territory and then those they've taken it from finding it largely impossible to take it BACK.

As an expansionist presence the Argonians seem largely interested in taking small amounts of territory at a time off the fringes of the Empire and then fiercely holding onto it.

On the offense they seem to be less successful, but have an essentially unassailable powerbase in their holdings in Black Marsh itself. That's a worrying thing to think about for a weakened military force, because if the Argonians take any land historically it is largely impossible to wrest it back from them.

This is all conjecture, but IMO it seems like the Hist are mostly concerned with the long game. Expand bit by bit, hold until people let their guard down, then expand again.

Not an immediate threat, but one that should always be lurking in the back of the mind of those in charge of neighboring territories.

[Cikomyr2]

We know from the Thalmor Dossier that they were at least trying to influence Ulfric and considered him an asset. The extent of their influence isn't clear, I would assume it was covert and subtle, prodding him towards doing things he wanted to do anyways, but they were keeping an eye on things and looking for people who could be influenced to the benefit of the Dominion.

Also, the influence/cooperation of Ulfric stopped after the Markath incident. So its not like he has been a long standing asset of the Thalmor.

[Errorname]

This thing was steered by one of the major political factions of Black Marsh, though not a majority one to my understanding.

My understanding is that this backfired badly on the An-Xileel and cost them a lot of political support.

As far as Black Marsh's military might, we don't know MUCH, but what little we do know, however, is that their military might is seemingly pretty ludicrous. Every effort (and there have been several) to actually invade Black Marsh itself has ended in abject failure. So their military might, at least when combined with homefield advantage, is more than a match for the Empire's core military.

Yeah, historically conquering a wild and largely untamed swamp is a challenging feat. Black Marsh is insanely defensible, even without the Argonians it would be challenging for the Empire to settle.

It was also, apparently, more than a match for DAGON'S military as an Oblivion gate opened in Black Marsh, and then was promptly closed by the daedra themselves because of how vicious and effective the defenders were.

The Argonians had advance warning and knew an attack was coming. They performed impressively but I'm not convinced they would have held out long once they lost the element of surprise

The Argonians have a history of capturing territory and then those they've taken it from finding it largely impossible to take it BACK.

This is mostly Morrowind, and I would interpret this as a sign of Dunmer weakness post-Red Mountain rather than Argonian strength.

Don't get me wrong, the Lizards are good fighters, they're very good, but they are not unstoppable and not so far beyond their peers that they alone represent an existential threat to the rest of the continent

Also, the influence/cooperation of Ulfric stopped after the Markath incident. So its not like he has been a long standing asset of the Thalmor.

Yeah, most likely they had covert agents close enough to give Ulfric bad counsel to push him towards a general direction, but it probably wasn't anything approaching precise or reliable control

[Batcathat]

Better to seem weak than be weak. Fighting to a pyrrhic victory against the Dominion would be a pretty terrible outcome even if it did work out to be a victory and not a defeat.

Sure, and if the only options were to accept the Concordat as it is or to keep fighting, the former is possibly the better option. But considering the Dominion didn't exactly seem in tip top shape to continue fighting either (even if the respective strength of the Dominion and the Empire is debatable, as this thread proves) accepting terms that were so incredibly one-sided (and very likely to blow up in the Empire's face) seems like rather poor diplomacy, at best.

[Cikomyr2]

Better to seem weak than be weak. Fighting to a pyrrhic victory against the Dominion would be a pretty terrible outcome even if it did work out to be a victory and not a defeat.

I just plain disagree with you there. Any Empire that appears weak is no Empire.

And the costs of a phyrric victory was already suffered. So instead of trying to go for a phyrric victory the emperor settled for an ignominious defeat. What an improvement.

[GloatingSwine]

Also also, I'm not persuaded by this idea that Black Marsh alone could somehow whup every other military force on the continent, even if the latter are divided. That seems to be projecting a great deal of power that's not evidenced by anything that's happened so far.

Black Marsh punishing an already-crippled Morrowind for centuries of wrongs? Yep, entirely plausible. But even there, they haven't occupied the whole province. From that to "beating the Legion and the Thalmor and every independent militia and force in Tamriel" seems like more than a stretch. If they had that kind of potential, why didn't they kick Morrowind's backside long before the Red Year?

Black Marsh has a near infinite capacity for resistance to invasion because the central swamps and marshes bear such prolific and varied diseases and pathogens that no man or mer has ever survived going there.

Beyond that though you need to understand that there are two modes of operation for Argonians. Most of the time they’re independent individuals going around experiencing Tamriel and accumulating memories their souls carry back to the Hist when they die. When there’s a serious threat to the Hist though they flip and basically go into 100% commitment to defeating that threat. The first time was when they abandoned the Xanmeer civilisation model (every single one of them overnight) it happensd at the end of the war with the second empire (every Argonian simply stopped fighting and went back to what they had been doing as if the war had never happened) and it happened again in the Oblivion Crisis.

And their connection to the Hist can also drive physiological changes. On the low end they can commune with a Hist tree to change sex at will, but on the high end they can change into things like the Behemoths (sacrificing most thought for the size and strength of a Daedroth). In the Oblivion Crisis that happened. The entire race simply changed into a form more suitable for war and all of them at once started fighting and invaded the Deadlands. (This is the lore explanation for their new fast heal racial in Skyrim).

The portals in Black Marsh weren’t just closed because the resistance there was strong, they were closed because that was the only way to cut off a tide of angry lizardmen who wanted to speak to the manager.

[Grim Portent]

The general way the Argonians work is as physical bodies for the Hist hive-mind. Argonian souls come from and return to the Hist, provided they are born and die in Black Marsh, the two are extensions of one another, but also seperate. Like pools left behind when a river changes course, only to rejoin when it changes once more. The Hist likewise are all connected, but not all the same. Each Hist has different ideas on the proper way for things to be and shapes their tribe of Argonians to that purpose, and is in turn shaped by the experiences of the Argonians buried in the roots. A friendly tree makes friendly Argonians, who make the tree friendlier still when they die, unless they become hardened by hostility and make the tree a little harsher in turn, a warlike tree does the opposite but may learn to be more friendly if the tribe makes lasting bonds outside of their own.

Most of the time the Hist just kind of... exist. They don't bother with any kind of unified decision making because they are all content to just be alive, barring the odd mad or evil one like the one that created the Ghost People tribe, or the mad Hist of Mazzatun, so they just kind of go with the flow, care for and are cared for by their tribe and let the other Hist do whatever it is they do. They're barely aware of what happens in the mortal world, with only a minimal ability to tell mortals apart most of the time and a very long view of time.

When something major happens, like the Oblivion crisis, but also the fall of the pre-Duskfall period of Argonians, the Hist come together more or less unanimously and direct the Argonians towards surviving and changing as necessary, including juicing them up if they need to fight. For the Oblivion crisis that took the form of stirring up cultural unity and turning more or the Argonian population into war based forms and societies, for the Stone-Nests transition it was about embracing impernanence and mortality, and the spread of a new religion.

Some Hist are outliers, renegades from the general consensus, but the Hist don't seem to actually try to enforce their decisions on dissenters unless they threaten the other Hist. They talk, they decide, they do as they wish. Hist also can't survive well outside of Black Marsh, the land isn't right. It might be something they could change, it's implied that Black Marsh was made by them in the first place, but the natural borders of Black Marsh as is end about halfway into Morrowind to the North and most of the way into Leyawiin and part of Bravil to the West, going past that would be a hard sell for the race of immobile trees who need a particular climate to be healthy. One or two megalomaniacal Hist are going to struggle to persuade the others to wage a war of outright conquest outside the swamps. Reclaim old lands? Yeah sure, there's probably a few who would like Blackwood back, but pushing up to the Imperial Isle or into Elsweyr would just be pointless for them.

[Cikomyr2]

The general way the Argonians work is as physical bodies for the Hist hive-mind. Argonian souls come from and return to the Hist, provided they are born and die in Black Marsh, the two are extensions of one another, but also seperate. Like pools left behind when a river changes course, only to rejoin when it changes once more. The Hist likewise are all connected, but not all the same. Each Hist has different ideas on the proper way for things to be and shapes their tribe of Argonians to that purpose, and is in turn shaped by the experiences of the Argonians buried in the roots. A friendly tree makes friendly Argonians, who make the tree friendlier still when they die, unless they become hardened by hostility and make the tree a little harsher in turn, a warlike tree does the opposite but may learn to be more friendly if the tribe makes lasting bonds outside of their own.

Most of the time the Hist just kind of... exist. They don't bother with any kind of unified decision making because they are all content to just be alive, barring the odd mad or evil one like the one that created the Ghost People tribe, or the mad Hist of Mazzatun, so they just kind of go with the flow, care for and are cared for by their tribe and let the other Hist do whatever it is they do. They're barely aware of what happens in the mortal world, with only a minimal ability to tell mortals apart most of the time and a very long view of time.

When something major happens, like the Oblivion crisis, but also the fall of the pre-Duskfall period of Argonians, the Hist come together more or less unanimously and direct the Argonians towards surviving and changing as necessary, including juicing them up if they need to fight. For the Oblivion crisis that took the form of stirring up cultural unity and turning more or the Argonian population into war based forms and societies, for the Stone-Nests transition it was about embracing impernanence and mortality, and the spread of a new religion.

Some Hist are outliers, renegades from the general consensus, but the Hist don't seem to actually try to enforce their decisions on dissenters unless they threaten the other Hist. They talk, they decide, they do as they wish. Hist also can't survive well outside of Black Marsh, the land isn't right. It might be something they could change, it's implied that Black Marsh was made by them in the first place, but the natural borders of Black Marsh as is end about halfway into Morrowind to the North and most of the way into Leyawiin and part of Bravil to the West, going past that would be a hard sell for the race of immobile trees who need a particular climate to be healthy. One or two megalomaniacal Hist are going to struggle to persuade the others to wage a war of outright conquest outside the swamps. Reclaim old lands? Yeah sure, there's probably a few who would like Blackwood back, but pushing up to the Imperial Isle or into Elsweyr would just be pointless for them.

Oh man that is so cool. I love this kind of weird and alien lore of the Elder Scroll. Do you know if some non-argonian people manage to live in harmony with some Hists?

The only part of ES lore i find unnacceptable is CHIM.

[Grim Portent]

Oh man that is so cool. I love this kind of weird and alien lore of the Elder Scroll. Do you know if some non-argonian people manage to live in harmony with some Hists?

The only part of ES lore i find unnacceptable is CHIM.

The short answer is no.


The Hist of friendlier tribes don't seem to mind non-Argonians, there's even a few instances of Argonians and non-Argonians getting married and living with a tribe, but the connection between Hist and Argonian seems to be unique. Some Argonians seem to entertain the idea that a Hist could embrace a non-Argonian into the same sort of symbiosis if they both wanted it, but it's never happened. Hist can adopt Argonians from other tribes, taking in their soul on death and reincarnating them later on like they do with the rest of the tribe, so maybe they could do something like that to a human or elf, but so far it's never happened.

There are other races in Black Marsh though, but there's no information about how they interacted with the Hist other than the Ayleids, and that relationship was bad.

There's the Lilmothiit, a presumed extinct race of fox-folk that some scholars speculate to be related to Khajiit. They used to live in Southern Black Marsh on the coast, but they gradually dwindled, retreated inland and are presumed to have died from the Knahaten Flu. They have no established relationship with the Hist

There's a few Nedic (Tamrielic native) human tribes, but the only one I know much about is the Kothringi. They worshipped the Nedic gods, which are basically just the Divines. Any relationship with the Hist is unstated, but I would guess it was one of mere coexistence rather than cooperation. The Nedes would have been cavemen when the Argonians were at their peak, and probably got sacrificed to Sithis a lot, but after Duskfall the Argonians and them probably settled into more conventional competition for land and resources, up until the humans died out from the Knahaten Flu.

And there were the Ayleids. When Daedra worship became widespread in the old Ayleid empire they had a civil war between the Daedric cultists and the worshippers of the Aedra. The Aedra worshippers lost and were driven out to the East, taking refuge in Black Marsh. Now just because these were Aedra worshippers doesn't mean they were nice, by this point in time the Ayleids were more or less entirely evil as a civilisation, barring a few city states that resisted the decline into sadistic hedonism over the centuries, even the ones who followed Divines often had hobbies like slavery and turning people into furniture and considered non-High Elves to not be real people. Their relationship with the Hist and Argonians was purely adversarial, enslaving Argonians, trying to steal the magic from their pre-Duskfall society and use the magical properties of the Hist for their own uses. These Ayleids eventually died out one way or another.

[GloatingSwine]

Also the Hist aren't even the only sentient trees. There are other completely different ones in Valenwood. Though they're rare and not connected in the same way.

[Grim Portent]

ESO implies that all plants are sentient to some extent, it's just that being able to communicate with them is an extremely rare talent. Animals too. There's a Bosmer who can talk to random plants who decided to go meet a Hist because he was curious about them, and he's the sort of odd that you expect from a guy who can have a conversation with a hedge. Hist are unusual in that they can communicate with mortals in various abstract forms, like dreams, visions from tasting sap, the wind in their branches, and some of the trees in Valenwood can just straight up speak because Valenwood is a weird place.

But then I think everything is meant to be an Et'Ada incarnated into a piece of Mundus, but things do get a bit muddled when it comes to the creation of the world. The Bosmer Wild Hunt is meant to harken back to before spirits settled on being plants or animals or people though, so that part feels pretty solid to me.

[Cikomyr2]

Since we have abandoned the debate, let me indulge..

So i learned the Hist may be related to Sithis, the.. antigod? The god of death? The god of nonexistence? Is there anything official in the lore about that?

Also, is there a relationship between the Psijick order and the Psssss sound people associate to Sithis "true name"?

[GloatingSwine]

Since we have abandoned the debate, let me indulge..

So i learned the Hist may be related to Sithis, the.. antigod? The god of death? The god of nonexistence? Is there anything official in the lore about that?

Also, is there a relationship between the Psijick order and the Psssss sound people associate to Sithis "true name"?

It's in the in-game book "The Monomyth".

Anu/Anu-el/Ahnurr is order and permanence, Sithis/Padomay/Fadomai is chaos and change.

Most Tamrielic religions credit Anu and Nirn with the creation and Sithis with corrupting it, the Khajiit credit it to Ahnurr and Fadomai (including the creation of Nirni). I have a suspicion that if you want sublime and ultimate truths the ones with the most drugs are probably the ones to ask, and the Khajiit are probably onto something.

In the current time, Argonians only really venerate Sithis. They abandoned permanence and live in the present. (Jel has neither past or future cases, only present).

The Psijic Endeavour is the ultimate change, transcendence of mortality into godhood.

[Grim Portent]

Since we have abandoned the debate, let me indulge..

So i learned the Hist may be related to Sithis, the.. antigod? The god of death? The god of nonexistence? Is there anything official in the lore about that?

Also, is there a relationship between the Psijick order and the Psssss sound people associate to Sithis "true name"?

There is no direct link between Sithis and the Hist to my knowledge, at least not in official material. Both are part of the Argonian religion, but they don't seem to be connected beyond the Hist teaching the Argonians to lose their fear of Sithis-as-Death by embracing Sithis-as-Change. Among Argonians the Hist are represented by the Treeminders, essentially priests who interpret the will of their specific Hist on behalf of their tribe, Sithis is represented by the Nisswo or Nothing-Speakers, who wander between tribes teaching their specific variation of Sithis worship, which varies from priest to priest. You could think of Hist as representing the ever present Now in Argonian faith, with Sithis representing the Change of one form of the present to the next.

Sithis is most accurately thought of as a god of primordial chaos in the creation story for Nirn. He's the god of the Void, of Chaos, Change, Rebirth, Death and Darkness. Different religions view him differently and emphasise different parts of his domain. He's strongly associated with snakes. He might be the precursor of Lorkhan, depending on what stories about Lorkhan you consider correct. He's sometimes interchangeable with Padomay.


In official material there is no link between the Psijics and Sithis that I am aware of, except that the Psijics study the higher planes of reality and the gods. Per the Pocket Guide to the Empire Psijic is just the name for a splinter group of Ancestor Worshippers who broke off from the rest of Aldmeri society when the nascent Altmer began to stratify and worship the Ancestors as gods, with the Psijics keeping to the old ways that had been brought over from Aldmeris and using their powerful magic to isolate themselves from the corrupted mainstream society of their fellow elves.

Some non-canon stuff by Kirkbride links Sithis and the Psijics to the word PSJJJJ, which I think is the 'true' name of Padomay in his expanded universe, but Kirkbride has written a lot of stuff, and while some of it is implicitly canonical by having supporting stuff in the actual games/novels and being written while he was working for Bethesda, a lot it has no connection to anything Bethesda has actually published.