[Ghost of V]

I see.

PayPal will come to your home and strong-arm your mother for money.

[Fortuna]

Or maybe they'll take his homebrew as payment.

[beardo]

And when they do come to my home to strong-arm my mother for money, I will suggest they go to her house instead, because my mother doesn't live here.

[Rushy]

I see.

PayPal will come to your home and strong-arm your mother for money.

PayPal actually would do this if they could spare the resources. The only entity that scrounges for money in a more hardcore manner than PayPal is the IRS, and that's saying a lot.

[Saddam Hussein]

beerdo has now cancelled his subscription, so hopefully he won't have to deal with PayPal's money-grubbing antics.  In lore-related news, someone data-mined this new lore book, Secret Dwemer Origins, that's going to be in one of the expansions:

Gods, I have seen the visions you have given me. I have embraced it wholly. I have followed it here to the cave of Revelations! I have given it the name Zthgnthaz. It is the Dwemeris acronym for time-wizard!

They LAUGHED at me WELL NO MORE. Now I have PROOF.

It all makes perfect sense. Everything in here is brass. Brass is the color of time. It is the same way forwards and backwards. When you transpose it into Aldmeris it's spelled zathaganathaz. ZTHGNTHAZ.

THE TRUTH WILL NOT BE DENIED.

Zthgnthaz. Brass Time Wizard. I can hear the music right now. The notes spell out the mystery. The three alliance leaders are just puppets. Molag Bal was a distraction designed to divert our attention from the TRUTH.

I just need to find some crystals!

It's all here. All the proof I need. The Dwemer were time-visitors from the future. These ruins are impenetrable because they have not been built yet. They disappeared because something happened that caused them not to be born.

But I have discovered it, and I will set time on the right course again. I will bring them back!

As you can see, this clearly relates to our endless debate on the true nature of the Dwemer.  But what does it mean?  I have no idea.  The consensus on r/teslore seems to be that it's a parody of their own obsession with bizarre and convoluted metaphysical lore.

[Ghost of V]

I think the Dwemer being from the future is actually a really cool idea, and potentially explains a lot.

[Rushy]

I think the Dwemer being from the future is actually a really cool idea, and potentially explains a lot.

No, it doesn't explain jackshit. If they're from the future, why is their technology so bad? Now it doesn't even make sense! Arrgh! 

[Particle Person]

Their technology isn't so bad. They constructed automotons that we would have difficulty recreating with today's technology.

[Rushy]

Their technology isn't so bad. They constructed automotons that we would have difficulty recreating with today's technology.

We could make a lot cooler shit if soul power was a thing. I'm pretty sure Hitler would have made Jew-powered missiles or something. Given what the Dwemer have available, their technology blows. Every single one of their ruins has open-air mechanically driven steam pipes. That's awful, just awful, and it's even worse knowing they are from the future.

[Particle Person]

We certainly do not "know" that.

[Ghost of V]

Advanced civilization? Check. Robots? Check.

That matches all the criteria.

Plus, they mysteriously vanished, which could have been them going back to their own time.

Although the text sounds more like the ravings of an ancient aliens conspiracy theorist, so it could just be hearsay.

[beardo]

So, which Mer race evolved/turned into the Dwemer before they went back in time? Also, what's the actual skin colour of the dwemer? Yagrum Bagarn had grey skin, but he also had Corprus disease, so he's probably not a good example. But on the other hand, the Oghma Infinium, which is bound in the skin of all the Mer races, green for Orsimer, tan for Bosmer, light for Falmer, yellow for Altmer and darkest gray for Dunmer. But the dark scrap on the upper left is presumably the skin of a Dwemer...

[Ghost of V]

Maybe they're a mix of several Mer races.

[Saddam Hussein]

Their technology isn't so bad. They constructed automotons that we would have difficulty recreating with today's technology.

We could make a lot cooler shit if soul power was a thing. I'm pretty sure Hitler would have made Jew-powered missiles or something. Given what the Dwemer have available, their technology blows. Every single one of their ruins has open-air mechanically driven steam pipes. That's awful, just awful, and it's even worse knowing they are from the future.

Dwemer technology was built in such a way that it would almost never rust or break down, still be operational after thousands of years with literally no maintenance or oversight, and run perpetually despite there being no apparent source of energy producing the steam.  You don't think that's advanced?  And let's not forget the Numidium, an achievement so remarkable that its construction broke all the laws of physics and erased the Dwemer from the face of Nirn.  And speaking of which - I know I said I wouldn't bump old posts in this thread anymore, but this is relevant, and it needs to be addressed:

Funny, history isn't my specialty, but I can't quite recall Mesopotamians having steampunk architecture and technology.

They also didn't become part of the golden skin of a giant robot or create animunculi. As I said, the connection is superficial, but it's more significant than the connection to Dorfs.

Outside of Kirkbride's vicarious Vivec (Vivecarious?) fanfics, the idea that the Dwemer were literally transformed into Numidium's skin is probably his weakest OOG addition to lore.  It's far too superficial, too mundane, too physical a solution to a mystery that's supposed to be steeped in the strange metaphysics of the universe.  I don't think the mystery of exactly what happened to the Dwemer will ever be properly answered in the games, nor do I think it ever should be, but that theory is just too dumb to merit serious consideration.

It looks like we can play TESO without a sub now.  It seems to be a little early, but whatever.

[Rushy]

Dwemer technology was built in such a way that it would almost never rust or break down, still be operational after thousands of years with literally no maintenance or overseeing, and run perpetually despite their being no apparent source of energy producing the steam.  You don't think that's advanced?  And let's not forget the Numidium, an achievement so remarkable that its construction broke all the laws of physics and erased the Dwemer from the face of Nirn.  And speaking of which - I know

But Saddam, TES doesn't actually have any laws of physics. In a world where a Jungle can turn into a Forest from pure willpower, the idea that the nonexistent laws of physics reprimanded an entire race is nonsense.

[Saddam Hussein]

Holy shit, I'm hovering at about 75 fps while on the high graphics settings.  Feels good to be master race.

But Saddam, TES doesn't actually have any laws of physics. In a world where a Jungle can turn into a Forest from pure willpower, the idea that the nonexistent laws of physics reprimanded an entire race is nonsense.

Of course it has its own natural laws.  They're different from ours, certainly, but they're still there.  Although what I said wasn't quite accurate - it wasn't the Dwemer's construction of the Numidium that wrecked metaphysical shit up and broke the dragon, but their attempt to tap into the Heart of Lorkhan.  The Dwemer were masters of Tonal Architecture, but something must have gone terribly wrong during their experimentation.  Or maybe it all went right.  Who knows what they expected to happen?

[Rushy]

Of course it has its own natural laws.  They're different from ours, certainly, but they're still there.

Don't kid yourself, sadman, any 'laws' in that universe are made up on the spot and changed at will to suit a specific narrative. In most cases when these "mysterious events" occur in fiction, the writer leaves it as a mystery because the writer has no clue what happened anyway and never intends on creating a proper explanation. It's why you found Kirkbride's explanation to be utter garbage, because there isn't a good one. He made the question before he made the answer.

[Ghost Spaghetti]

I just want them to do a Discworld and acknowledge that the laws of physics are subservient to the laws of narrative (and with so many gods, that's easy to write.)

Though mainly that's because I want to craft a Narratavium armour that protects you from all but minor scratches against the mooks but can get reduced to one hit-point for the final battle with the Big Bad.

[Ghost of V]

I just want them to do a Discworld and acknowledge that the laws of physics are subservient to the laws of narrative (and with so many gods, that's easy to write.)

Though mainly that's because I want to craft a Narratavium armour that protects you from all but minor scratches against the mooks but can get reduced to one hit-point for the final battle with the Big Bad.

Plot armor has more resistances.

[Saddam Hussein]

Don't kid yourself, sadman, any 'laws' in that universe are made up on the spot and changed at will to suit a specific narrative. In most cases when these "mysterious events" occur in fiction, the writer leaves it as a mystery because the writer has no clue what happened anyway and never intends on creating a proper explanation. It's why you found Kirkbride's explanation to be utter garbage, because there isn't a good one. He made the question before he made the answer.

That's not correct.  It's true that the question itself has never been given a definitive "Word of God" answer (despite Kirkbride's attempts), but that doesn't mean that it was created out of laziness and/or ignorance of lore on the part of the writers.  Ambiguity isn't the same thing as vagueness.  There are several theories on what happened to the Dwemer that certain characters in Morrowind propose, and not only are all of them better from a writing standpoint than "they literally became skin," they all have at least some backing in the metaphysical lore of the series.  So why did Kirkbride suggest his dopey new idea years after the game came out?  I don't know.  Maybe he felt he hadn't been weird enough lately.