#nerevarine taylor hebert

[squiddyposts]

Still thinking about post-Gold-Morning Taylor in Morrowind. Besides the obvious potential of bug control powers and Vvardenfell's giant insects (such as her nix-hound companion here), there's a LOT of interesting thematic potential in the crossover. Skitter/Weaver/Khepri reflecting aspects of Boethiah/Mephala/Azura, the Tribunal echoing the Triumvirate in their relation to the Dunmer people (and the Trio in their relation to Nerevar), the Nerevarine's quest to unite the squabbling Great Houses and Ashlander tribes in order to make sure that everyone's finally working together to fight the real threat mirroring Taylor's modus operandi, and so on. I really need to sit down and actually start hammering out the damn fic, because there's some serious potential there.

But also, have I mentioned the giant insect-based public transit system yet? Silt striders and bug control powers are a match made in heaven.

Now, if only there was some way to get a hold of String Theory's F-driver, since there's a moonlet that's gonna need to be knocked outta the sky within the next 11 years or so...

[squiddyposts]

After the events of Gold Morning, Taylor Hebert was thrown in prison on another world. Unfortunately for her, she was shipped off to the island of Vvardenfell for her parole, where she would later be tasked with killing ANOTHER god. Because being Taylor Hebert is suffering.

Shown here at the start of her journey, she already has a loyal pet nix-hound (because bug control powers and giant bugs go hand-in-hand). The local guards, however, seem suspicious. Surely it's fine, though. It's not as if Taylor has a history of trouble with law enforcement, right?

...right?

(anyways, yes, I did spend my whole weekend setting up mods for my OpenMW installation for this. starting a new playthrough of Morrowind definitely counts as doing research for the Worm/Morrowind crossover fanfic nobody asked for that I am definitely 100% going to get around to writing one of these days)

[squiddyposts]

Still have those Nerevarine Taylor Hebert brainworms. The more I think about it and trawl through UESP, the more the coincidences and thematic parallels jump out at me. Sleep-deprived ramblings and massive spoilers below the cut.

Starting off, y'know how Gold Morning wraps up on June 24th? Let's see if that date has any significance on Nirn:

Oh, okay. So, she suddenly appears in the dungeons beneath the Imperial City on Tiber's Day. Y'know, the day celebrating the Dragon Emperor. That might be relevant for the prophecy stating that the Nerevarine is "Dragon-born and far-star-marked." It also casts some iiiinteresting parallels between her and old Talos Stormcrown.

How about being born under a certain sign? Well, Taylor's birthday is canonically in June/Mid Year, which corresponds to the Steed constellation. Nothing too special there, right?

Ah. Hm. The Dwemer, who are kind of a big deal when it comes to the plot of Morrowind, represented the Steed as a scarab. As you may recall, Taylor once rode a giant scarab beetle (best boy Atlas) as a steed. And, y'know, Khepri is a scarab-headed god in Egyptian mythology. The scarab imagery also appears repeatedly in the metaphysics of The Elder Scrolls, in things like the Thirty-Six Lessons of Vivec and the Mythic Dawn Commentaries. It also appears in Kirkbride's Notes on the Psijic Endeavor and Loveletter from the Fifth Era. This bears further inquiry.

The Psijic Endeavor is "a process by which mortals are charged with transcending the gods that created them," which sounds awfully familiar to those familiar with the ending of Worm. It formed the basis of the teachings of the Prophet Veloth, who led the ancient Chimer to the land of Morrowind. Its rules were taught to him by the daedra Boethiah, Mephala, and Azura. These are the "Three Good Daedra" revered by the Dunmer of Morrowind. In the Tribunal faith, they are seen as the Anticipations of the living gods Almalexia, Vivec, and Sotha Sil. But they also can be viewed as parallels of another.

Boethiah is the Daedric Prince "whose sphere is deceit and conspiracy, and the secret plots of murder, assassination, treason, and unlawful overthrow of authority." It is not a stretch to call him the Anticipation of Skitter, the thief-turned-warlord.

Mephala is known as The Webspinner, who taught the Dunmer "meticulous plotting and how to lie, ways to lure and trap our foes, how to manage complexity and predict outcomes." They are the Anticipation of Weaver, the scheming hero.

Azura is the Prince of Dusk and Dawn, and is "associated with mystery and magic, fate and prophecy." She is the Anticipation of Khepri, champion of the prophesied Gold Morning.

At this point, it's probably worth mentioning that the Tribunal, living god-hero-kings of Morrowind, first became such and usurped the Good Daedra in Dunmeri culture by siphoning power from the heart of a god. Meanwhile, the Triumvirate, the greatest heroes of Earth Bet, got their powers from the flesh of a dead Entity. And both trios concealed the nature of their power in order to present an image of unassailable strength, even as they grew fractured and weak. What a fun parallel!

Still, we're not here to talk about the Tribunal and the Triumvirate. Who cares about them? We're here to talk about Taylor Hebert, Lorkhan, and why Taylor is OBVIOUSLY a Shezarrine.

No, seriously, bear with me. Okay, so, Lorkhan (whose severed heart is at the root of the whole plot of of Morrowind) is said to walk the world of Nirn in mortal form. This mortal incarnation, the Shezarrine, appears in times of great need, "gathering armies, conquering lands, ruling, then abandoning his kingdoms to wander again." Famous appearances of the Shezarrine include Pelinal Whitestrake, Ysmir Wulfharth, and Tiber Septim. Yes, that Tiber Septim. The one upon whose day Taylor defeated Scion with a jury-rigged jailbroken superpower. The one who jury-rigged the soul of a Shezarrine into a power source for a weapon meant only to be powered by the physical heart of Lorkhan and used it to conquer the world.

Now, it might be a bit of a stretch to say that Taylor Hebert, parahuman teenager from Earth Bet, is the mortal incarnation of the Missing God. And yeah, she probably wasn't during the events of Worm. But in the metaphysics of The Elder Scrolls, there's this thing called mantling, wherein one can assume the role of another by "walk[ing] like them until they must walk like you." Essentially, one so closely emulates another being until the two are indistinguishable to the world at large. This is arguably what the protagonist of Morrowind does during the course of the game; by deliberately setting out to satisfy the conditions of the Nerevarine prophecies, they walk like the Nerevarine until they ARE the Nerevarine. And Taylor? Well, she's already done a LOT of walking like a Shezarrine.

Remember that bit about the scarab imagery earlier? Yeah, well, Lorkhan is explicitly called "the Scarab" in The Thirty-Six Lessons of Vivec, Sermon Ten. The Psijic Endeavor? Though spread by the Daedra, its originates from Lorkhan. He saw the whole of creation from a sideways angle, and sought to teach others so that they might one day do the same and "transcend mortal boundaries set in place by immortal rulers."

Scarab-headed Khepri transcended the limits imposed on her power, saw the whole of existence by way of the Clairvoyant, and raised an army of mortal parahumans to overthrough the "god" that made them. Her work done, she abandoned her kingdom to go wander again.

Anyways, I hope this was at least somewhat coherent for something written after an all-nighter of playing a twenty-year-old video game and diving deep into the UESP wiki and The Imperial Library. There are a fair few more things I wanna talk about, like how the daedra of the Four Corners of the House of Troubles tie into Taylor's journey in Worm, or the parallels between Scion during Gold Morning and the Numidium during C0DA, but I reeeeaaally should go sleep now.

To close things out, here's a pic of Taylor learning about all this mythic prophecy bullshit from Nibani Maesa, Wise Woman of the Urshilaku Ashlanders: