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roboloops · 4 years

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Okay. Uh. Been doing some thinking. Some theorycrafting. About shared enlightenment mechanics between our universe and the goddamn Elder Scrolls universe. Mostly because I’ve been locked up reading The Elder Scrolls deeplore for a few days, and started to Realize Things. Buckle up, cuz I need somewhere to dump this absolutely shit-tier garbage thinking. Also, uh, if you aren’t, like, ultra-super wasted? Everything below this is going to be a massive cognitohazard and might fuck you up real bad if you read it. Fair warning.

Alright, strap in.

Okay so in The Elder Scrolls deeplore there is a series of concepts called the Godhead, the Dream, and CHIM. Basically, all of existence in TES -- every individual person, every plane of reality, all of the cosmos, literally everything -- are not "real." Everything that IS is actually a Dream of some unknowable being called the Godhead. The Godhead happens to also the shared existence of two other sleeping primordial gods, but that aint important here. So all of the world in TES is part of the Dream, so everything in the Dream is actually the Godhead. Nothing exists; everything IS NOT. In-game, nobody realizes this, save for a tiny handful of legendary figures in history. It's difficult to reach this realization, this enlightenment, because knowing that the world is a dream isn't exactly the same as understanding what that means, understanding that all that IS actually IS NOT. To an individual who fully comes to understand the implications of the structure of the universe, there are two possible reactions:

1.) Say I AM NOT. In realizing you are part of the Dream, and in turn an aspect of the Godhead, you assert that you don't actually exist. If you are not an individual, you are not real. This type of enlightenment is called Zero-Summing, and people who Zero-Sum immediately write themselves out of existence past, present, and future. The Dream essentially just deletes you. 2.) Say I AM. Despite the mounting evidence that you are not real, you assert that you are. You assert individuality in the face of the all-encompassing oneness of the Dream. The truly enlightened realize not only that I AM, but also, and I quote the lore here, I ARE ALL WE. This a grammatically weird way of saying that you realize if you are part of the Dream and thus you are the Godhead, then everyone else is part of the Godhead, so then everyone is one. This realization and this state of being is CHIM. Those who hit CHIM can, essentially, control the Dream.

I AM AND I ARE ALL WE and CHIM are not super 1:1 with Gnosis, but I'm gonna draw the comparison. CHIMsters are in theory able to alter reality to their whims, but it's incredibly difficult. One of the best examples of it in deeplore is the Conqueror-Emperor Tiber Septim changing the climate and landscape of an entire continent to better fit his armies during an invasion. The abilities that come with CHIM and the nature of reaching it are similar to Gnosis and wasting: characters in the Sim hit Gnosis by realizing that their world is a simulation -- i.e. "a Dream" -- and can use waste powers to alter the fabric of their reality. The difference is that CHIM entails surrounding individuality, and Gnosis doesn't quite include that. So it's not super 1:1, but the groundwork is there. So let's make it interesting.

Gnosis is essentially the I AM of SburbSim, not quite the I AM AND I ARE ALL WE. To borrow non-SburbSim Sburb mechanics, the Ultimate Self is a little closer to full-on CHIM; instead of surrendering your individuality the the complete oneness of the universe, you surrender it to the complete oneness of your self transcending time and circumstance. TES lore doesn't exactly have alt-timeline stuff, so we can't make that exact parallel between CHIM and Ult-Self, but the play the same role as the highest form of enlightenment. To use grammatically weird CHIM language, you might say the Ult-Self is I AM ALL OF I, or maybe I AM ALL I CAN BE. So, two questions: can we get a full I AM AND I ARE ALL WE with Farragoverse mechanics, or an I AM NOT?

We'll start with the later: I AM NOT a la Farragoverse. This isn't a thing we've seen, exactly? It's not a Sim mechanic, and no one's extended personal lore seems to have it, afaik. But I think we can theorize a pretty easy hypothetical 1:1. Imagine a wasted player who understands something about the nature of a simulated universe that others might not, or taking it way more nihilistically: "I am not real, and there's nothing to do about it." Then, poof! They're gone. The use waste powers to delete their data, write themselves out. They're beyond dead. They cannot possibly assert any individuality, because they're fake, so they stop "existing."

But can we hit I AM AND I ARE ALL WE? I don't think we've ever seen a player so, so embroiled in their understanding of world-as-simulation that they reach an even deeper level of wastedom. "If am part of a simulation, and everyone else is part of the simulation, then I am everyone else and everyone else is also me." The oneness of all creation. I have no fucking clue what that kind of nirvana means in the context of Farragoverse. It's a selfless sacrifice of individuality; in TES, CHIM is characterized by an unending love for all existence sourced in a pure self-love that extends to the rest of reality in realizing that you are everyone and everyone is you, and so thus CHIMsters often are totally benevolent non-actors. They just sort of vibe. Godhead Pickle Inspector from Problem Sleuth is a good comparison; one PI ascends, he's no longer to respond to any commands besides ">GPI: Fondly Regard Creation." Which makes this a long, long fucking reacharound to make a comparison between Farragoverse and Problem Sleuth, I guess.

It's like, what if we extended the Ultimate Self beyond an individual’s own selfhood? "If I exist in the simulation, as does everyone else, then we are all one." Apply the concept of the Ultimate Self to that realization, and... well, fuck. Suddenly you encompass the selfhood of every version of every player across Paradox Space? And that probably just fucking fries you dead or turns you into a vegetable.

Or, if you have someone who encompasses every self in Paradox Space, maybe you get someone who creates a recursive version of reality inside their own being. A Dream. Reality-inside-reality. In TES lore, someone who creates their own dream inside the Dream is called a Dreamer or the Amaranth, and that recursive dream is also called an Amaranth, because everything has to be confusing for some reason. So maybe this kind of Beyond-Ultimate-Selfhood is how we get the Farragoverse corollary for a Dreamer and an Amaranth. Or like, one way we get it.

Now, in TES fan theory, there's something called Anti-CHIM. Basically, Anti-CHIM is a person attempting Amaranth while still being apart of the Godhead’s Dream. They want to be the Dreamer while still being the one being Dreamed, and thus believe everyone else is apart of them while they themselves are not apart of anything. It's fundamentally contradictory. It's asserting that you are everything and everything is you but you are also still a distinct individual, in direct contradiction with the Dream... Wait, is that just Gnosis 4?

No, it can't be. The hyper-contradictory of an anti-CHIM is, like, you learn the biggest and most incredible secret in the entire universe pertaining to yourself and every single being in the past, present and future and you decide that you don't give a shit. You like you. It's... rejection. "Despite all the evidence supporting the fact that I am not real, that I am not an individual, I have decided that actually I am real and I am individual." You recognize that the universe has made a decision, but have decided that it is a stupid-ass decision and have elected to ignore it. You reject the tenets of reality and decide to live your own. Rejection. Hope.

Anyway, uh. Yeah. In like 1300 words, that’s what I’ve been thinking about for two days. For some fucking reason. I don’t have any conclusions? Just a bunch of what-ifs and potential types of wastedom baste on similar mechanics in Elder Scrolls lore. Thanks for letting me waste your time.

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