#kagrenzel is the biggest mystery to me. orbby what are you

[astronautical-v]

Dumping almost every thought i have about the dwemer in an incoherent ramble because i have too many ideas and nothing to do with them. I have only played skyrim and know some about morrowind and read up on a ton of lore so im probably way off in a lot of places

Was thinking about the "fifteen-and-one sacred tones" that the dwemer mention and im trying to think. What the hell does that even mean? Obviously its reminiscent of the "eight-and-one" divines which implies its something to do with the aedra and daedra. So its either the eight divines (since talos wasnt a thing yet) and eight of the daedric princes OR all sixteen daedric princes. Since there just so happen to sixteen of them (as of then. Ithelia wouldnt have been known by them or anyone else around that time anyway). But then that begs the question, whos the "and one"? Whos the outlier? Im guessing either sheogorath or malacath. Sheogorath bc hes the daedric prince of madness and therefore the least predictable of them all, but also because sheogorath is also jyggalag, making him different from the rest of the daedric princes, as well as the fact that a mortal can become sheogorath just as tiber septim could become a god. Malacath because he used to be trinimac, and trinimac is present in im pretty sure every elven pantheon, and the dwemer, despite not believing in the divinity of the aedra or daedra, are very much elves, and would probably have known about trinimac just because of other mer. If malacath used to be a god, then it would make sense that the dwemer would consider him to be an outlier. Supposedly even other cultures dont always see malacath as a real daedric prince either, and malacath himself has to do with those who are scorned, othered, etc.

The dwemer probably viewed the daedra and aedra as nothing more than energies, the tones that make up the world (or something like that), but focused less of the divines and more on the daedra because the daedric princes are MUCH more present and involved on mundus than the aedra tend to be. The dwemer simply did not believe they were anything worth worshipping, or even considering to be above them. They recognized the power that they had, though, which is why they were called the "sacred" tones. I guess. I dunno. Alternatively, it was the eight divines and 8 daedric princes, but i dont know which of them they would be.

And regarding the term "fifteen-and-one", i was wondering what the 16 tones could possibly have an equivalent to in real life. I also wondered how they programmed any of their machines to do what they wanted, then somewhat jokingly came to the conclusion that they used some kind of dial-up and transmitted data via sound. But then doing a bit of research i found this:

16 tones. Crazy. Wow. Felt like i hit a revelation. Unfortunately i dont understand how that stuff works so i was reading a whole lotta words and not absorbing that much of them (i am not technologically adept). But the mention of radio was also really important because theres plenty of proof that the dwemer DID in fact have radio technology. Theres an item called "dwemer coherer", and a coherer is a really really old form of radio communication that basically only really worked for morse code messages and kinda sucked at it, but it was radio. And thats huge.

Regarding the radio stuff, i do think the dwemer had actual telepathy but that they also used radio. I think maybe their telepathy just wasnt as long range and probably like using a walkie-talkie but with their minds. Idk. I think the only way that kagrenac couldve used "the calling" to affect EVERY dwemer ever is if it was some sort of direct mental connection, and if every dwemer had that ability it would explain how it worked. Maybe kagrenac just amplified it somehow bc of the heart. And it would explain why yagrum bagarn wasnt affected, because if it wasnt some sort of telepathy then whatever kagrenac did with the heart would have simply had to affect every dwemer regardless of where they were. But since yagrum wasnt in mundus at the time, the calling never reached him, so he wasnt affected, and i just think that means it had to be telepathy. Idk im not explaining this point well but i hope it makes some amount of sense.

With that all said i think if they did have telepathy i also think their ears would be pointer and more mobile. Like radio antenna. Just because its fun to think about. They can "tune in" and out of other peoples... callings? I guess? Idk. They probably used radio primarily for longer distance communication.

With all the stuff about sound, it brings me to the falmer. I dont know why the dwemer did that to the falmer and im not sure if they were already all fucked up by the time the dwemer disappeared but im pretty sure they werent. But thinking about that thing in eso that they just had a huge machine that could make people go crazy and even mind control them, as well as in skyrim on solstheim that guy who was losing his mind over some weird dwemer thing under his house that emits a really deep sound if you listenclosely and ignore the steam pump sound (though i have no idea what "fire from the deep" could possibly mean, other than dwemer lived underground and had forges. Idk), their usage of tones was really for everything. They could probably hear a wider range of frequencies than other races and observed the effects of those frequencies on other people. Consider how old structures and machines irl produce very low frequency sounds that can and do affect the mind.

The dwemer very much could have used infrasound in their own technology for various reasons, but its probably what made the falmer what they are today. And, also likely, that the lack of maintenance of machines and whatever (since all the dwemer disappeared and automatons can only do so much) caused them to go "out of tune" and probably produce more infrasound that is impossible for anyone other than a dwemer to hear, which would have greatly affected the falmer mentally. Thinking about how gelebor notes that the falmer seem to have a "rise in intelligence" recently is probably because the falmer in the forgotten vale are so far from any dwemer ruin that they arent being affected by the infrasound they produce. Im sure infrasound alone wouldnt have caused such a huge chance in a whole race but this is also fantasy magic world so im saying this all as the dwemer had some elder scrolls world equivalent of it. The falmer developing sensitive hearing was maybe a way that their bodies tried to adjust to the infrasound so as to not be driven completely insane by it, along with aiding their navigation while blind.

And since this is fantasy magic land, this all also reminds me of string theory. The theory that everything that ever exists is made up of little one-dimensional strings, closed or open, that vibrate. And well sound is a vibration and theres a connection there that i havent fully understood to think through but it would help explain why theyre so atheistic in a world where gods are very much real. They just think everything is a form of energy that they are trying to figure out how to harness. And they succeeded in a lot of ways. If everything is made of vibrating energy, or tones, then you can simply make other tones and do stuff with that. Does that make sense? I dont know how to explain exactly what i mean. They probably had tone tech that helped them with excavation and whatnot. Breaking stones with sound. Idk. You can even shatter kidney stones with sound. Its pretty cool.

Also i think the dwemer ate a lot of mushrooms as their primary cuisine. It only makes sense. Living in places that have mushrooms everywhere. Probably how they knew about the toxic mushrooms that blind you if you eat them. Also they had a mushroom farm in blackreach.

I like to imagine the dwemer singing. Thats probably not how they did tonal architecture stuff but its fun to imagine they could do that vocally anyway. Idk

Uhh i dont think i have anything else i remember thinking about tbh. Im so interested in how their tech works and what they used it all for. Worldbuilding type of stuff. I dont know what to think about the soul gems or whatever the hell is going on with kagrenzel or the lexicon in avanchnzel. But yeah